Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[tokinokanatae]

That doesn’t make sense to even ask. The level that we, as players, balk at is obvious, it’s the sacrifice of 75% of our own number from the very beginning. We would gladly nuke all pigs, dolphin, crows, and apes (or any other animal with unusual intelligence closer to our own) before even considering that level of sacrifice of our own.

You can’t compare, it’s fundamentally different.

[Cleretic]

That doesn’t make sense to even ask. The level that we, as players, balk at is obvious, it’s the sacrifice of 75% of our own number from the very beginning. We would gladly nuke all pigs, dolphin, crows, and apes (or any other animal with unusual intelligence closer to our own) before even considering that level of sacrifice of our own.

You can’t compare, it’s fundamentally different.

I don't think that's obvious at all. I would not be on board with that level of mass death of animals by any means, especially because those animals wouldn't really be consenting, unlike those first two sacrifices, and that a world that's without all those animals probably will not function as well. Especially when remembering that the third sacrifice isn't to save mankind; at that point both mankind and the planet is doing fine; you are ONLY acting to bring back the voluntary sacrifices.

The way you two are talking, no sacrifice is too big for that; you are willing to sacrifice the baseline functionality of the planet's ecosystem to bring these people back. After that point, you're bringing people back to a world that likely can't sustain. Is that okay to you? Is even that level of sacrifice so 'nothing' that you can't imagine people objecting to it?

It's hard not to read that line of thought as amounting to, essentially:

"So what do you think was the third sacrifice?"
"Whatever makes Venat justified."

Not quite. Again: for the story to work, all the third sacrifice needs to be is 'objectionably big', and I'm trying to get across that that is possible even if the sacrifices are not sentient lives. All the third sacrifice needs to be is substantial enough that educated people would believably object to it.

Apparently we've hit the theoretical maximum quite quickly; is the baseline sustainability of the ecosystem still a minor price to pay?

[Brinne]

Not quite. Again: for the story to work, all the third sacrifice needs to be is 'objectionably big', and I'm trying to get across that that is possible even if the sacrifices are not sentient lives.

Apparently we've hit the theoretical maximum quite quickly; is the baseline sustainability of the ecosystem still a minor price to pay?

It is not needed for the story to work, because the fundamental problem Venat had was not with the nature or 'size' of the sacrifices. Again, she was not acting to protect or defend the sacrifices. The Sundering killed all of them too. From her perspective, she was acting to protect the Ancients, from "causing their own doom." She is shooting someone pre-emptively before they can, in her view, "stain themselves" and "condemn themselves" to a worse end because she thinks their path will lead them to destroying themselves in a uniquely terrible way.

The crux of Venat's actions and Endwalker thematically is "how do we, and should we, accept suffering," not the question of "what level of ecosystem do we sacrifice to protect humans, and their comparative value." Completely different questions and completely different ballgame.