Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[EaraGrace]

My bad for replying to stuff in two different posts, but I don't think this follows. Not being immortal doesn't somehow make you immune to inevitably coming to an end, if just means it'll happen well before the fate that terrified the Ea came about. Escaping the consequences of immortality isn't escaping the consequences of being alive at all.

Sure I totally agree, but the point is that true immortality leads to Dead Ends as a certainty. Mortality does not necessarily lead to a Dead End, but opens the door for more kinds of Dead Ends. Thus the only way to avoid a Dead End is to be mortal.

Mortal civilisation will die just as certainly as (some of) the Ea or the plenty did, there's just a much wider variety of things that could do it. Even if you were super lenient and did allow a society to continue existing for as long as the Ea, how are they supposed to get around the heat death of the universe? The plenty had issues others could dodge, the Ea did not.

My interpretation of the moral of Endwalker is not “we have to make sure life goes on otherwise it’s pointless,” it’s “we should fight for every day we can, even if suffering and death is unavoidable.” If all will die to Heat Death then thats that, but it’s still good to fight for an extra day of living.

Do you truly think out of an entire civilization of ancient people who thrived on research only one would be capable of understanding dynamis? They had at the very least, after zodiark, 12k years. Even before that though Venat at least knows a bit about Dynamis, if she tells everyone that it’s the key, i don’t see why they couldn’t research it together. This whole thing of Hermes was the only one only works if you headcanon the ancients as stupid, which is the opposite of what we’re shown in Elpis.

And they would discover they can’t manipulate Dynamis and would either have to sunder themselves or create a being that could manipulate Dynamis and give it whatever it would need to defeat Meteion. That would mean control of Etheirys and the end of their “stewardship” as well as not sacrificing a bunch of them to get their family back.

[AwesomeJr44]

Sure I totally agree, but the point is that true immortality leads to Dead Ends as a certainty. Mortality does not necessarily lead to a Dead End, but opens the door for more kinds of Dead Ends. Thus the only way to avoid a Dead End is to be mortal.

Uh, no. The Plenty didn't seem to have a death system like the Ancients did. On the plenty, you lived forever whether they wanted to or not. They literally had to invent a way to die en mass. The Ancients had a system set up where once you were done with living, you could choose to die whenever you wanted. This meant that if you didn't want to live, you had control over that. And the system worked. When the former Fandaniel finished his work, he returned to the star. When Venat quit, she choose not to, but if she ever changed her mind, the option is there. Because death is a choice on our star, there wouldn't ever be a full generation to completely self-delete all at once. Not to mention, the only reason that the people of the Plenty all wanted to die at once is because they got hit with a wave of negative Dynamis from Meteion, and they didn't have the thick aether the Ancients did. When Meteion attacked the Ancients with the same method, they didn't want to die.

The idea that the Plenty and the Ancients are the same is stupid. The writers claim that's where the Ancients would have ended, but the story screams the exact opposite. You can say that your story says whatever you like, doesn't mean it actually does.

And they would discover they can’t manipulate Dynamis and would either have to sunder themselves or create a being that could manipulate Dynamis and give it whatever it would need to defeat Meteion. That would mean control of Etheirys and the end of their “stewardship” as well as not sacrificing a bunch of them to get their family back.

And this isn't a valid strategy because? Even if the Ancients couldn't practice to control Dynamis inside areas like Ktisis that suppresses aether, why can't they just make a Meteion with a very strong sense of hope and positive dynamis? And how would this hand over 'stewardship' of the star? That makes literally zero sense! If the ancients send their new Meteion after the original, how are they handing stewardship to this new Meteion. They are trusting that their creation will defeat the enemy, but they aren't handing control over to anything. They could also encode a kill switch into their new Meteion and keep a copy back on the star. If their new Meteion goes rogue, kill it. Not to mention, once the OG Meteion is gone, they can have Zodiark return the souls to them. The souls are clearly intact as we see on the moon. They don't need Zodiark to protect them anymore, so Zodiark dying shouldn't be a concern.

Would you like to explain any of your logic here? It sounds like you're combining your personal headcanons with fanfictions you wrote/read and thinking that's official lore.

[LordGiggles]

Yes, they only get one chance. Metetion isn't on the planet, she's at the edge of the universe. It took 12k years worth of aether to have enough fuel to make it and it took half that time just to make the technology to do so. Before you say we can just send them using dyanims, there is only one living being that has made this type of journey, and these beings would no doubt have to go much longer as we don't know how far the dragon star was away from our planet. They'd have to make that voyage unbroken and then it's a toss up on if they turn into monsters or not. You're working with the 12k timetable but there's also no indication that Meteion couldn't just turn up the volume of her song and overwhelm Zodiark and it's the final days all over again. Though that wont make for a good narrative. They might not have had 12k years.

I don't think there's much reason to think the mothercrystal was the only way to fuel space based travel, especially when the topic was a creation designed to counter her, but regardless there's zero reason to believe meteion could just try a bit harder and shatter the barrier. They never show the ability to do anything like that, and there's no reason why they wouldn't have done so already if it was possible.

Obviously it's not a guarantee other methods of combating meteion would succeed, but it wasn't a guarantee we would either. I don't think you explain well why they only get one chance either, like they make a plan, it doesn't work, and then they all just die? Zodiark wasn't struggling after all that time, I don't get why it would just randomly stop working?

I apologize but I don’t quite understand this argument. Yes your civilization will end regardless. But that certainty doesn’t change the fact that you should extend that existence for as long as you can. That it’s a good thing to live, even with suffering. The point is that a being that can accept suffering and retain the desire to live will continue to for longer than one that did not. Whether the ultimate end is inevitable is inconsequential to the question of “should we change in order to survive and flourish?”

But it's not inconsequential, because we are given the Ea as an example of a "failed" civilisation. They fought to thrive as a civilisation and had a strong drive to continue existing, but despite doing everything right here, they still ran into a fate they could do nothing about. If they stay mortal they're leaving themselves susceptible to a heap of different ends, but if they become immortal they are still unable to escape the eventual fate of the universe.

The issue with the themes here is that the Ea are an absolute best case scenario, with the only real options being to either choose death, or live to drift aimlessly forever in an endless void. The only difference between them and the sundered is that the latter are much, much worse at solving their problems.

It doesn't work very well thematically when the inevitable outcome of successfully chasing that desire to live longer is held up as a failure.

[EaraGrace]

But it's not inconsequential, because we are given the Ea as an example of a "failed" civilisation. They fought to thrive as a civilisation and had a strong drive to continue existing, but despite doing everything right here, they still ran into a fate they could do nothing about. If they stay mortal they're leaving themselves susceptible to a heap of different ends, but if they become immortal they are still unable to escape the eventual fate of the universe.

The issue with the Ea is not actually about the heat death of the universe, it’s about how their discovery made them feel as if life was pointless. They gave up, long before the heat death would occur, believing that it meant nothing if it isn’t indefinite. That’s the issue.

The issue with the themes here is that the Ea are an absolute best case scenario, with the only real options being to either choose death, or live to drift aimlessly forever in an endless void. The only difference between them and the sundered is that the latter are much, much worse at solving their problems.

Hard disagree. The Sundered may have to face more struggle, but they in turn have happier, more fulfilling lives. The Ea either kill themselves or become moral with new flesh bodies and then kill themselves. Their lives in their eyes are not worth living, meanwhile the Sundered still find joy and meaning in their existence. There’s a clear benefit.

It doesn't work very well thematically when the inevitable outcome of successfully chasing that desire to live longer is held up as a failure.

Welcome to our own existence is all I can say. Atm we have the exact same circumstance bearing down on us.

[LordGiggles]

The issue with the Ea is not actually about the heat death of the universe, it’s about how their discovery made them feel as if life was pointless. They gave up, long before the heat death would occur, believing that it meant nothing if it isn’t indefinite. That’s the issue.

Yes, but this is specifically because of the heat death of the universe. It is an inevitable end to everything they care about, that would leave them drifting eternally due to their effectively immortal nature. They gave up because they realised their ultimate fate is either suicide or something much worse, with this understanding coming as a result of the fight that gave them purpose. No other encountered race in the setting has faced anything near that, and the only way to avoid it is to die before it's relevant.

The quest where you read epitaphs from some of them highlights this pretty well I think, there's one that talks about how they fought to leave their planet, how they fought to travel between dimensions, and how they fought for nothing. These are people that will live so incredibly long that the current age of the universe would be a tiny blip to them, they will live to see everything they have ever loved or cared for die, and they have absolutely no way to avert this fate. They give up when encountered with the incontrovertible fact that there is no actual hope for them to change this, no matter how hard they tried.

Hard disagree. The Sundered may have to face more struggle, but they in turn have happier, more fulfilling lives. The Ea either kill themselves or become moral with new flesh bodies and then kill themselves. Their lives in their eyes are not worth living, meanwhile the Sundered still find joy and meaning in their existence. There’s a clear benefit.

I'm not aware we're given any information that suggests the Ea were somehow unhappy before they reached this state? The fact that the sundered are not as competent at achieving their goals as the Ea were is why they don't struggle with this same issue, they simply have not advanced to a stage where it's even worth thinking about. The responses we do see from them regarding the topic suggest they're just entirely unequipped to even try tacking the problem at all, outside just refusing to acknowledge it.

I don't think the setting as provided allows for a happy ending in the extremely long term, outside maybe some exceptionally low maintenance immortals just living in giant time travel loops, I guess. Or as some weird suffering obsessed culture that refuses to fix many problems and views their inevitable death as a good thing, maybe, but that's just cenobites crossed with the ancients.

Meteion was wrong because she was (they were?) attempting to take away any autonomy from people or civilisations regarding how they would meet their end, but they were correct about the fate of all life. I don't believe denial of that is a virtue, and I do hope that if there's more quests like these omega ones they might touch more on the Ea, as they're fairly unique in this context.

Welcome to our own existence is all I can say. Atm we have the exact same circumstance bearing down on us.

Personally I imagine I'll die somewhere in my early 80s, or maybe my 90s if I'm unlucky enough, but if you're planning on living past 10,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000 years old I can understand why you might have a different take to me on this stuff.

[EaraGrace]

Yes, but this is specifically because of the heat death of the universe. It is an inevitable end to everything they care about, that would leave them drifting eternally due to their effectively immortal nature. They gave up because they realised their ultimate fate is either suicide or something much worse, with this understanding coming as a result of the fight that gave them purpose. No other encountered race in the setting has faced anything near that, and the only way to avoid it is to die before it's relevant.

So in your eyes the Ea made the right choice in self-terminating? Lets imagine the Ancients also discover the heat death of the universe, having already succeeded at "perfecting" Etheirys and completing their purpose. Would you say its only logical that they also self-terminate?

The quest where you read epitaphs from some of them highlights this pretty well I think, there's one that talks about how they fought to leave their planet, how they fought to travel between dimensions, and how they fought for nothing. These are people that will live so incredibly long that the current age of the universe would be a tiny blip to them, they will live to see everything they have ever loved or cared for die, and they have absolutely no way to avert this fate. They give up when encountered with the incontrovertible fact that there is no actual hope for them to change this, no matter how hard they tried.

And Endwalker is all about what we do when faced with ends that cannot be forestalled.

As fragmented, imperfect beings. Yours is a neverending quest. A quest to find your purpose knowing your end is assured.

I'm not aware we're given any information that suggests the Ea were somehow unhappy before they reached this state? The fact that the sundered are not as competent at achieving their goals as the Ea were is why they don't struggle with this same issue, they simply have not advanced to a stage where it's even worth thinking about. The responses we do see from them regarding the topic suggest they're just entirely unequipped to even try tacking the problem at all, outside just refusing to acknowledge it.

So the question stands is it preferable to be the Ea and feel that the only option is oblivion, or the Sundered and perhaps through ignorance (and perhaps through something else) live to flourish and have fulfilling lives?

I don't think the setting as provided allows for a happy ending in the extremely long term, outside maybe some exceptionally low maintenance immortals just living in giant time travel loops, I guess. Or as some weird suffering obsessed culture that refuses to fix many problems and views their inevitable death as a good thing, maybe, but that's just cenobites crossed with the ancients.

By this logic we can say nothing is lost in the destruction of the universe then, as all are doomed to unhappy endings anyway. This is of course Fandaniels position.

Meteion was wrong because she was (they were?) attempting to take away any autonomy from people or civilisations regarding how they would meet their end, but they were correct about the fate of all life. I don't believe denial of that is a virtue, and I do hope that if there's more quests like these omega ones they might touch more on the Ea, as they're fairly unique in this context.

One doesn't have to deny entropy in order to believe fighting for tomorrow is worth it. One can accept its inevitably, and much like death to mortal beings, make use of the time we have to its fullest extent. The journey, not the destination, so to speak.

Personally I imagine I'll die somewhere in my early 80s, or maybe my 90s if I'm unlucky enough, but if you're planning on living past 10,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000,​000 years old I can understand why you might have a different take to me on this stuff.

I don't plan on living that long either. But I do concern myself with those future lives because I also believe they should be fulfilling and good as possible. Which is why I would hope to ensure those lives don’t feel as if self termination before they need to is the better option.

Sorry if I thought you did, "manifest as dynamis" sounded a lot like you implied it to my non-native speaker ears!

I don't think the sundering would be a bad solution if Venat gave a choice to people. Not "bad" in the sense that it doesn't work, but because she literally killed her whole race but 3 people in all but names. Their souls are still recycled and other life grows from it, but her solution wasn't any better on a life-cost point of view than Hermes' or Emet-Selch.

That could be sundered heroes along entelechy creations and supported from afar by ancients, for all I know.

We do have her factions quote asking for the Ancients to relinquish stewardship to those new beings. Given what we know about her goals, and her actions that followed that suggestion, I think it logical to conclude that this was a possibility for her. However, two major issues need to be resolved before this is a solution.

1. The Ancients would have to agree to let those beings live their own lives free of interference or control. In order for them to strike against Meteion they would need to develop their own outlooks, reasons and motivations for existing as mortals. Interfering would compromise this.

2. Efforts would have to be taken to separate mortals and the Ancients in order to prevent conflict. The Ancients held sway over the star for millenia. Watching mortals make mistakes and ruin things would be excruciating and given the Unsundereds reasons for hating the Sundered conflict is almost inevitable. Likewise, should mortals come to know the Ancients and their power, they may try to do the same thing they did to the dragons. I'm imagining Thordan 2.0.

I'm not blaming the writers really, it only shows that Venat is very much an Ancient and takes the same kind of drastic measures, just like the others. Hers are based on her love of humanity, Emet on his love of the Ancient society, and Hermes on life itself.
I just don't think saying "there was NO way the Ancients could have done anything, even if they knew what was happening" rests on any solid ground.

I wouldn't be so quick to presume the writers aren't addressing this chance. This expansions Tales and the Myths of the Realm are still incomplete.

[redheadturk]

I don't think there's much reason to think the mothercrystal was the only way to fuel space based travel, especially when the topic was a creation designed to counter her, but regardless there's zero reason to believe meteion could just try a bit harder and shatter the barrier. They never show the ability to do anything like that, and there's no reason why they wouldn't have done so already if it was possible.

Obviously it's not a guarantee other methods of combating meteion would succeed, but it wasn't a guarantee we would either. I don't think you explain well why they only get one chance either, like they make a plan, it doesn't work, and then they all just die? Zodiark wasn't struggling after all that time, I don't get why it would just randomly stop working?



But it's not inconsequential, because we are given the Ea as an example of a "failed" civilisation. They fought to thrive as a civilisation and had a strong drive to continue existing, but despite doing everything right here, they still ran into a fate they could do nothing about. If they stay mortal they're leaving themselves susceptible to a heap of different ends, but if they become immortal they are still unable to escape the eventual fate of the universe.

The issue with the themes here is that the Ea are an absolute best case scenario, with the only real options being to either choose death, or live to drift aimlessly forever in an endless void. The only difference between them and the sundered is that the latter are much, much worse at solving their problems.

It doesn't work very well thematically when the inevitable outcome of successfully chasing that desire to live longer is held up as a failure.

This. I mean, have we forgotten the very moment in the MSQ where Fandaniel finishes off Zodiark of her saying "At last!", which is a pretty dang good indicator of her not being able to strengthen the song to simply overcome the barrier. It had to be let down in order for her to shove it through.