Quote Originally Posted by EaraGrace View Post
And what did he have to say after the truth sunk in?
The truth of it didn't begin to sink in until the worst of it was over. I have not the words to describe how I felt then. The sorrow, the overwhelming sense of helplessness...
In other words, if the Final Days had just lasted a little longer he would have turned.

One other little line that is important in this discussion I think needs to be brought up.
The greater context of that line, and the conclusions Omega reaches, are more relevant than the line in isolation. Omega asks why Djinabaha didn't turn and Khalzahl did, given they were both in the same circumstances, to which Djinabaha responds that it may have just been his focus on protecting their workshops that stopped him from spinning into a panic, but then he says that Khalzahl likely had the same motivation and this very thing may have been what drove him to his transformation. Omega postulates from this a difference in their strength of spirit, but when meeting Nashvan it's revealed that it wasn't really a strength of spirit which allowed him to escape turning, but rather his blindness to the reality of what was happening. Later when he realized what had occurred, he nearly died of the sorrow of his own accord, and only didn't because he chose to hold on to that grief so the people he loved would be remembered. Ultimately, Omega is forced to conclude that it wasn't some factor of anyone's "strength of spirit" which allowed for their survival, but that there was no pattern and their resistance to turning was primarily up to chance.

Quote Originally Posted by Cleretic View Post
G'raha orphaned his timeline, he can't go back.
He never tried to go back.

This doesn't mean you have a chance to save both timelines; it means that the present day dies in darkness, waiting for you to come back with crucial information that never comes; they can never find Meteion because they never know she's there. This is not speculation: this is STATED, by Elidibus.

It is not possible to save both worlds. I was going to compare this scenario to a trolley problem, but in truth, it's worse; the trolley problem presumes that if you act, less will die but those who do will be on your hands. In the scenario you've invented, to stay on the course is to save more lives; diverting is the cruelest possible choice, by all metrics.
Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
If we did it the exact way G'raha did it, we would be stuck. We would create a new course of time while we are in it, and be carried along into a different future to the one we travelled from – leaving all our friends and our entire world to die without the precious information we learned. (And whatever you may personally think of the Scions, they are clearly the generic-WoL's dear friends, and I would doubt that the WoL is the sort of person who would leave them to their fate.)

It's possible that Elidibus's portal would work differently and create a bridge across the two branches, but perhaps we didn't want to risk it, or didn't think of it, or the writers didn't think of it.

Ultimately, the ancients ARE doomed to go through the suffering of the Final Days in at least one timeline, and creating a second better one won't actually fix it for the first lot. And we do need to get back to our own timeline.
An excellent point - If not for the fact that the portal is still open, and WoL is still going back, even after having saved this timeline. In other words, the timeline could still be split and all those people spared. And not just the Ancients, but literally infinite worlds and peoples throughout the cosmos that were murdered through Meteion's song of oblivion being blasted on loop for 12,000 years. And not just them, but 7(9) worlds which would never have been created just to be obliterated for the sake of the Source's future.

And currently, because we've already defeated the Endsinger and ended the universal apocalypse, the only thing stopping WoL from doing this and creating a universe without such unimaginable death and destruction is... The possibility that they'll be stuck there, unable to see their friends again?