Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Theodric]

...Emet-Selch is racist. He thinks people 'stood only to gain' from the Rejoining because he literally thinks that the Sundered people are lesser beings. He doesn't care about the people of the Source as they are, it's not a kindness.

I'd say it's a bit more complicated than him being a 'racist'. He is shown to be very conflicted by what he had been forced to do in order to bear the burden of trying to prevent the complete and utter extinction of his race and the eradication of all knowledge of his civilisation, loved ones and their many accomplishments.

Assuming you have any, I imagine you'd be at least a little torn up if you woke up one day and the equivalent of Venat had decided to forcibly devolve not only your loved ones but everybody you knew, stripping them of all memory and seeking to eradicate all knowledge of their existence.

Which again, circles back to how messed up the entire situation is - and how Emet's actions are simply a consequence of the horrific corner that he was pushed into.

[Cleretic]

I'd say it's a bit more complicated than him being a 'racist'. He is shown to be very conflicted by what he had been forced to do in order to bear the burden of trying to prevent the complete and utter extinction of his race and the eradication of all knowledge of his civilisation, loved ones and their many accomplishments.

See, the thing is that person wasn't saying 'Emet-Selch was right to stand by Plan Zodiark and his people' like you are. That's something that you could argue with decent moral grounding, and even though I disagree it's not one with less moral grounding than my own stance.

That person was saying that the sundered people of the Source should be grateful for a plan that will always end in the Ascians killing them, because the people who would go on to live afterwards would be superior.

[Cleretic]

He deemed us unworthy and lesser beings because we failed his test at the end of Shadowbringers—a test that prior to the sundering he vehemently disagreed with, unlike Hermes and Venat—the dialogue I referenced took place before this, when he still had hope that we could meet his expectations for mankind and find another way as allies without bloodshed.

The fact you ignored the rest of my post speaking about the third set of sacrifices, the same ones that everybody who defends Venat's genocide harps on about baselessly as 'confirmed totally being human sacrifices', and instead simply honed in on your classic tedious comeback that "Emet is a racist tho!!!11!!" says it all.

His test was unreasonable, and about seven apocalypses late for my liking. I never got the feeling that test was genuine; rather, he was setting outrageous conditions of success so he could claim himself right when we fell short of them. If he actually wanted to stop the Calamity he had plenty of chances to.

And you've completely failed to understand that the third sacrifice, for the story to make any sense at all, has to be substantial to a level of moral ambiguity; it has to be something that would be objectionable. If the third sacrifice isn't a huge and dubious alternative of some kind, then the Convocation look stupid for not doing it earlier, and Venat's crew look stupid for objecting to the ethical alternative. Since I assume you don't think the Convocation are stupid, then the third sacrifice must be something substantial.

My view on that is 'if that requires sentient beings to be the ones being sacrificed, then that's what it is for you to consider the problem'. We don't know the contents, but we do know the stakes and responses; substitute whatever works for you in that context as the contents.

[KariTheFox]

He deemed us unworthy and lesser beings because we failed his test at the end of Shadowbringers—a test that prior to the sundering he vehemently disagreed with, unlike Hermes and Venat—the dialogue I referenced took place before this, when he still had hope that we could meet his expectations for mankind and find another way as allies without bloodshed.

The fact you ignored the rest of my post speaking about the third set of sacrifices, the same ones that everybody who defends Venat's genocide harps on about baselessly as 'confirmed totally being human sacrifices', and instead simply honed in on your classic tedious comeback that "Emet is a racist tho!!!11!!" says it all.

When exactly did Emet-Selch propose we work together to restore his people without bloodshed? I'm pretty sure what he said was something along the lines of "Hey, WoL, it would be super neat if you succumbed to Sin-Eater corruption, lost your sense of self and identity, and went on a killing spree in order to prepare this world for a rejoining."

Emet-Selch didn't want allies to avoid bloodshed, he wanted to explain his point of view to us, and for us to accept it and allow him to continue his plan of rejoining the shards - no matter how many people died in the process.

[Rulakir]

My current running theory is if the "new life" was ensouled, as is implied in the short story, and the Amaurotines knew souls would be trapped within Zodiark that could've been the cause of the conflict of the 3rd sacrifice. Even if they weren't humanoid souls, they might've objected to souls in general being used. Like Brinne was saying, they probably could've worked out a solution with a slower transfer. Sacrifice a portion of non-souled life and release a few Amaurotines at a time. Maybe another part of the conflict was that some people were in a rush to retrieve those who'd sacrificed themselves to the extent that they were considering sacrificing souled entities in the first place.

[Lauront]

Zodiark's initial summoning: Human Sacrifice.
Second Sacrifice: Human Sacrifice.
Third Sacrifice: "oh it could be anything. It could just be a big pile of chickens or something. There's no way of knowing."
Emet-Selch's intended plan for the inhabitants of the source after reversing the sundering: Human Sacrifice.

I don't think it's ambigious at all. I think the writers want us to engage the parts of our brains that do pattern recognition.

Unfortunately for you, the sources do introduce ambiguity, because the third stage has materially different conditions to stages 1 and 2, as well as the world post-Sundering. Emet-Selch's intended plan is for the fragmented remnants of those very ancients who Venat sundered to supposedly "avoid temptation", i.e. the ones which were contemplating this stage of sacrifice. I realise for your own attempts to try demonise the ancients, you very much want it to be ancient babies or some such nonsense, but the sources leave it much less clear than that. So you can continue pointing at it, stamping your feet, insisting it meant human sacrifice, and we'll continue saying "sorry, no cigar". It's just a song and dance at this point.

[redheadturk]

His test was unreasonable, and about seven apocalypses late for my liking. I never got the feeling that test was genuine; rather, he was setting outrageous conditions of success so he could claim himself right when we fell short of them. If he actually wanted to stop the Calamity he had plenty of chances to.

And you've completely failed to understand that the third sacrifice, for the story to make any sense at all, has to be substantial to a level of moral ambiguity; it has to be something that would be objectionable. If the third sacrifice isn't a huge and dubious alternative of some kind, then the Convocation look stupid for not doing it earlier, and Venat's crew look stupid for objecting to the ethical alternative. Since I assume you don't think the Convocation are stupid, then the third sacrifice must be something substantial.

My view on that is 'if that requires sentient beings to be the ones being sacrificed, then that's what it is for you to consider the problem'. We don't know the contents, but we do know the stakes and responses; substitute whatever works for you in that context as the contents.

Problem is, it wouldn't have mattered if the sacrifices were grass and trees. Venat just wanted to have a moral leg to stand on for the Sundering.

[EaraGrace]

You know, at this point, rather than going line by line, I think it's probably going to be more productive to suggest taking a step back so as to cool our jets enough to not strip all context out of the ongoing conversation so we can keep yelling "human sacrifice!" "justifying human sacrifice!" and "grinding humans into paste!" whenever possible when nobody ever said that, ever, including, you know, the game itself.

Why was Emet screaming about doing just that then?

The original point of this conversation was indicating it is completely understandable - and to me, yes, moral - to see it as an imperative to save the souls trapped within Zodiark instead of just abandoning them to their fates, and if the third sacrifices (that we don't know any of the specifics of) aren't okay, then rather than killing everyone who still wanted to save their loved ones, the reasonable thing to do is to lend your talents and intelligence to finding a better alternative. Maybe it would be hard, but to quote a certain character, surely, "nothing is impossible." It is flat out not reasonable to me to say that it's okay to expect people to just leave their loved ones in there.

And if the only solution was to either leave them in there or replace them with other sentient souls? What is moral then? Because the game never even entertained an alternative option and I see no reason to believe there was any.

If the response is to: aggressively shoot down the idea that any possible alternatives

Where did she shoot down possible alternatives. Where. Not where did she shoot down the third sacrifice, where did she shoot down alternatives. The Convocation decided to sacrifice lives to get them back, not her.

could have possibly existed beyond demanding "just give up on your loved ones and let them be trapped in purgatory forever", put forth something like "lol why didn't they just make Zodiark out of destroyed buildings," argue "they probably didn't have it so bad in purgatory they were fine, ignore the ones explicitly tagged as being in anguish and lashing out blindly in grief and torment," and to attempt to cynically tie the suggestion that "no, abandoning the people in there is not an okay thing to do or ask others to accept" with "JUSTIFYING HUMAN SACRIFICE! HUMAN PASTE!" then there's not much point in me continuing to attempt to engage, sorry. The immediate response to floating "maybe they could have compromised and found perhaps a slower or less efficient, but more humane way to help those people?"

I am literally arguing they should have done that if that were an option. You are saying they couldn’t for the First sacrifice, chose not to for the Third, and are actively deciding out of spite not to try for the Ardor.

Also my comparison is suddenly unacceptable when you’re talking about how I’m basically saying diabetics should just get over it? Really? You really think that slight doesn’t bother me too? You asked me to forgive your comparison, I don’t. I have health conditions that require medications I’ll be on for the rest of my life. Yet once again it’s ok for you to say that and not me pointing out the untold slaughter the Ascians were aiming to enact isn’t acceptable.

being as such tells me that the point of contention here is not exploring empathy for those suffering, nor a good faith desire to understand the situation, actions and feelings of those involved, or the desire for thinking of a way less people would have had to suffer, but rather - a fundamental aim to justify certain characters' ultimate choices to force people to do nothing, to flat out just not help them, and then violently punish those who refused to go along with it.

And that is not a conversation I have the time or energy to have or pretend is worth having.

I think asserting that the first hot conflict in Ancient history was over chickens is an even greater indicator this convo is not worth having.

Problem is, it wouldn't have mattered if the sacrifices were grass and trees. Venat just wanted to have a moral leg to stand on for the Sundering.

Yes people usually have reasons for doing things. Moral one’s even.

[Cleretic]

Problem is, it wouldn't have mattered if the sacrifices were grass and trees. Venat just wanted to have a moral leg to stand on for the Sundering.

Your straw-Venat seems very impressive, but unfortunately the real Venat is a few feet to your left. Surrounded by just short of a dozen academics who had genuine reason to agree with her without the 'oh she's just surrendering all agency to time travel' excuse you're using to demean her agency, and who believed entirely in the cause.

So, let's perhaps revise the argument's direction for you: the third sacrifice isn't 'substantial enough for Venat to object to'. It's 'substantial enough for at least eleven environmentally-conscious academics to object to'. Essentially; what level of sacrifice do you think would have been enough to set off a room full of people like the Watcher?

[Rulakir]

And that is not a conversation I have the time or energy to have or pretend is worth having.

This is something everyone here had to learn the hard way, unfortunately. I enjoyed your posts though and hope it hasn't deterred you from engaging further.

Your straw-Venat seems very impressive, but unfortunately the real Venat is a few feet to your left. Surrounded by just short of a dozen academics who had genuine reason to agree with her without the 'oh she's just surrendering all agency to time travel' excuse you're using to demean her agency, and who believed entirely in the cause.

So, let's perhaps revise the argument's direction for you: the third sacrifice isn't 'substantial enough for Venat to object to'. It's 'substantial enough for at least eleven environmentally-conscious academics to object to'. Essentially; what level of sacrifice do you think would have been enough to set off a room full of people like the Watcher?

Presenting more headcanon as fact, I see.