Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[KageTokage]

At the cost of innumerable souls that had no agency or choice? How many people would need to be sacrificed to bring them back?

I'm not sure why I keep seeing claims that sentient lives would be involved with the third round of sacrifices when there's nothing to indicate such aside from a desire to "entrust the future of the star" to them on the part of Venat's faction.

I was expecting to get more context behind that situation, but instead they focused on the ideology behind the action, not the morality.

[KariTheFox]

I'm not sure why I keep seeing claims that sentient lives would be involved with the third round of sacrifices when there's nothing to indicate such aside from a desire to "entrust the future of the star" to them on the part of Venat's faction.

I mean, isn't that pretty hard evidence? Why would there be a debate about entrusting the future of the star to plants and wildlife?

Furthermore, why didn't Emet-Selch mention it, if the original plan was to sacrifice plants and animals? He spent all of Shadowbringers trying to convince the WoL to come over to his side, but never deployed that incredibly powerful argument? Why wouldn't he, if that was the case?

Also - if non-sentient life was fine before, why do the inhabitants of the source have to be sacrificed later? Why wouldn't Emet-Selch say, "after we restore the world and your souls to your unsundered state, and bring Zodiark back, we will begin demanding tributes of farm animals in order to collect enough aether to bring our bretheren back, and then resume our place as benevolent stewards of the star"? He'd probably get way more people to cooperate with him with that.

[Cleretic]

I mean, isn't that pretty hard evidence? Why would there be a debate about entrusting the future of the star to plants and wildlife?

Furthermore, why didn't Emet-Selch mention it, if the original plan was to sacrifice plants and animals? He spent all of Shadowbringers trying to convince the WoL to come over to his side, but never deployed that incredibly powerful argument? Why wouldn't he, if that was the case?

Also - if non-sentient life was fine before, why do the inhabitants of the source have to be sacrificed later? Why wouldn't Emet-Selch say, "after we restore the world and your souls to your unsundered state, and bring Zodiark back, we will begin demanding tributes of farm animals in order to collect enough aether to bring our bretheren back, and then resume our place as benevolent stewards of the star"? He'd probably get way more people to cooperate with him with that.

Yeah, this is very much the thing. For the third sacrifice to be a point too far, that third one needs to be severe either in what they're sacrificing or how much they're sacrificing. If that means 'sentient lives' to you then that's what it means to you, but it could also mean 'sacrifice all non-sentient plants and animals in South America' and that would still be an objectionably huge sacrifice. There's reasons we care about the Amazon rainforest after all, and it's not because the Amazon is sentient.

If the third sacrifice was something on the level of 'let's sacrifice a bunch of cows and that'll do it', then that makes both sides look like fools; it makes Venat and her group look crazy for being mad about what's clearly a much lesser sacrifice, and it makes the Convocation look stupid for not doing that in the first place.

The actual content of the third sacrifice is not important, but what matters is that it's a call worth going 'WHOA HEY HOLD UP HERE'.

[Alleo]

I'm not sure why I keep seeing claims that sentient lives would be involved with the third round of sacrifices when there's nothing to indicate such aside from a desire to "entrust the future of the star" to them on the part of Venat's faction.

I was expecting to get more context behind that situation, but instead they focused on the ideology behind the action, not the morality.

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

[Cleretic]

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

And this is mostly unrelated, but I want to point out that I just realized that this thought of 'shoving mindless beasts into Zodiark might just make him a mindless beast' isn't unfamiliar to the series--you've just come from a different direction and essentially reinvented Exdeath from FFV. (Which I can't knock, I love Exdeath.)

[KageTokage]

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

The Final Days spared no one, least of all the creations of the Ancients who presumably would've been susceptible to the influence of dynamis, with the "keening" described as triggering a change in all life by an Amaurotine.

There may not have even been enough wildlife left to fuel such a monumentally powerful act of creation at that point.

As far as the later sacrifices go, who knows how that might've played out, though I think it would've been nice for them to have offered more solid reasoning for it being "ill-fated" according to the codex. I was honestly expecting the Sundering happened because there was concrete evidence discovered by Venat's faction that something might or would've gone horribly wrong immediately if they had gone through with their plan to offer more sacrifices to Zodiark, mostly due to that 5.2 scene with them having expressed that efforts to turn the Convocation away from making that decision fell on deaf ears.