Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Iscah]

I seem to recall one such quote, but I can't seem to find it now. Do you have it around? It doesn't seem to be in Anamnesis.
As for your 1, not necessarily. Beings of similar aether density already exist in the world, namely the multitude of familiars.

I don't recall any indication that standard familiars have thin aether. Wasn't there a sidequest where researchers were concerned we were so aetherially thin and needed more aether?

Meteion proves that it's possible to build familiars differently, but that doesn't mean it's standard.

Well, we could still be that Azem - it just might not have happened yet (;

Regardless of if that wild theory comes to pass, we aren't Azem now, even if future-us could be.

Hyth has a rare aetheric talent for identifying souls that nobody other than Emet has. You would expect that his other qualities as an individual, least of which include his intellect, knowledge of tactics, and diplomacy would make him recognize his own value as a potential Convocation member. His inferiority complex is absolutely a reflection of his society's value system.

He acknowledges that he is the stronger in aetherial sight, but weaker in other fields. We simply haven't seen enough to confirm whether this is self-deprecation or an honest judgement of his abilities – which in any case are being applied well in a different role.

I don't get the impression that he "feels inferior", rather that he knows his limits and is comfortable in acknowledging them.

So... after Venat used almost all of Krile's corporeal aether...

I didn't get a sense that was the case. Teleporting put some strain on Krile, but my impression was that Hydaelyn used her power to relocate Krile.

At very least, using "almost all of her corporeal aether" doesn't sound like a phrase they used within the game, and doesn't sound particularly healthy given that the body itself it made of aether. So if anything, Hydaelyn drained whatever excess aether Krile normally has for spellcasting, but not "all of her aether".

I don't recall her being all that concerned at Raha collapsing after his spellcasting at Zot either. From memory, it's more "empty battery" than "brink of death".

[EaraGrace]

I seem to recall one such quote, but I can't seem to find it now. Do you have it around? It doesn't seem to be in Anamnesis.
As for your 1, not necessarily. Beings of similar aether density already exist in the world, namely the multitude of familiars.
We weren't efficient against Meteion because we had torebuild civilization multiple times and had incredibly foreign motivations compared to Ancients. In fact, out outlook on life is quite similar to Venat's, and I suppose Azem's as well.

Lyth posted one source. Another comes from Tales from the Shadows:

This was soon after Zodiark became the will of the star, and our Final Days were averted. The people were divided, unable to decide what to do with the future that now stretched out before them. Many wished to trade the new life which had sprung forth to reclaim those lost in sacrifice to Zodiark. No small number, however, insisted that the fate of our world should be entrusted to those selfsame freshly minted souls. All were at our wits' end.

So no, I argue to integrate them into society as full fledged ancients who made a sacrifice in order to fix the Meteion problem, and they may choose to be rejoined after their purpose is over or continue as mortals in that society.

A single generation isn’t enough to develop new methods of manipulating magic, nor philosophies and perspectives on life that incorporate an understanding of inevitable death. And then once one generation passes to the next, and these new beings grow up alongside the immortal ancients ruling over paradise, so how long does it take before they start demanding ways back? One of the points of mortality was to get people to face despair, to go to the breaking point and still move forward, but if they knew they could hit the eject button why wouldn’t they? And if they couldn’t, how long until bitterness and envy set in?

Even if they were to create a society, I doubt Emet-Selch and the other Ascians would have much issue with how things are done in Sharlayan. A civilization guided by Ancients wouldn't necessarily end in tragedy.
And then, if mortals tried to go full Ancientsong way, how would it end? Rejoin, and become Ancients? Well, one experiment failed, 12000 years of experiment to go!

They wouldn’t have 12,000 years though. They’d need time for these societies to develop, to grow and flourish in ways the Ancients never had to learn. And the Ancients wouldn’t have any problem with Sharlayan until it started messing with their “perfect” world. Species driven to extinction, forests and ecosystems cut down en masse, barring the Ancients completely abandoning their current purpose I do not believe they would accept that.

Even in the liveletter, when Yoshi-P breaches the subject, he says it's something Venat believes, not that there wasn't any other way. She sees Zodiark being summoned, and comes to the conclusion that they'll just go toward their end, envisionning them ending in a similar way as the Plenty. So she decided to sunder everything.
Yoshi-P even mentions that Alphinaud was right when he contested Emet-Selch's right to judge mankind, and that the same applied to Venat.

Yoshi P also mentions that the developers viewed the Plenty as the natural end for the Ancients. Based on what we see in Elpis and beyond, I do think that is where they end up as well.

[Lyth]

...

I think you'd probably be much more inclined to see Hythlodaeus as having an inferiority complex after running a Ktisis Hyperboreia trust, and having him repeat 'I'm not entirely useless!' for the better part of twenty minutes.

[Alleo]

Yoshi P also mentions that the developers viewed the Plenty as the natural end for the Ancients. Based on what we see in Elpis and beyond, I do think that is where they end up as well.

Which is something I already thought about when I reached this part of the dungeon. They are bascially looking a lot like the ancients, just in white.

And its hinted at in Elpis too. With Hermes asking the question on what happens if we are all satisfied. If the Ancients reached their goal of making the planet perfect enough in their eyes. If they then all die. He also cant wrap his head around the fact that his mentor bascially wants to kill himself since he saw his role as finished while Hermes thought that he could still do so much good.

We then have the side quest where the Ancients praise us for our ideas and one admits that their creativitiy has gone stale. So they are seemingly already at a point where they have problems with that. The shark later is also an indication. Hythlos is seemingly starting to get annoyed at so many shark concepts which often even makes no sense and I asked myself what these would bring to the planet?

Venat is also asked when she will return to the star...bascially asking her when she will kill herself...

So yes them becoming another Plenty makes sense. After all they will reach a point where the planet is filled enough with creatures that they bascially have nothing else to do. Thus they die.

I also wonder how they would react if they learned about the heath death of the universe. Would they not care or would they be like the Ea, asking themselves what it was all for if their paradise will one day be destroyed.

[Iscah]

I think you'd probably be much more inclined to see Hythlodaeus as having an inferiority complex after running a Ktisis Hyperboreia trust, and having him repeat 'I'm not entirely useless!' for the better part of twenty minutes.

I did play that. It comes across as self-deprecating humour to me.

[Kuroka]

They always could look for new planets, and dying to start over is not that different from our "gathering small pieces of happiness only to loose em again and start over"... And the sharks... id rather get that as an joke of something gets trendy and ppl suddenly flood him with it. Thats something very human to do lol...

Venat broke with an tradition, sure they ask her when she wanna go, but theyre not "do it soon or we do it!" so i dont really see the problem there - consider they dont seem to have a natural death and we have 0 Idea how old she actually was.

[LordGiggles]

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?

If the ancients live as long as the Ea will, with no other way to die except suicide, yes. it is a perfectly logical choice to make, being alive is a choice, not a virtue.

Really, what else are they supposed to do? The best option they have, by far, is death. Whether it happens now or eventually doesn't really matter when we have no idea how old they are already.

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 think you're missing my point here. The sundered are not on an alternate path, they are just much much less advanced than the Ea. The Ea did not fail somehow, they weren't conquered, they had a strong drive to fight for scientific progress and a better understanding of the universe, and their reward was a guarantee that their lives would eventually become nightmarish if they allowed themselves to live on.

The horror of their fate is that they did everything right. the only way to avoid a similar fate is to refuse fixing much about your life, and to not care about understanding the universe. Their dead end is a near inevitability.

It's not really comparable to death, they're already showing that many of them were willing to die. Even less comparable to death considering reincarnation is somewhat of a thing in this universe, we don't really have to fear what comes after. It's more similar to someone seeing everything they love die or be destroyed, and then being locked in a sensory isolation tank for the rest of their lives, with no hope to change this (though at least they'll die eventually).

The omega stuff allowing us to say that none of the three ancients were justified in their actions is the closest we're going to get to a realistic take on the topic.

I did have more typed up in reply for this, but I completely forgot to send it, so just gonna post this part.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Krile is basically just Minfilia 2.0, or Mini-filia. :P It's why I don't like her. The end of ShB they're supposed to be questioning Hydaelyn's motivations after discovering she's a primal only for Krile to find her so irresistibly charming she gives her body to her.

The Scions have always been zealous towards Hydaelyn, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when it comes to her all logic and conviction go straight out the window. The fact that they never had an issue with her telling Minfilia to kill herself or abandoning her until she let Hydaelyn use her body as a vessel is hand waved as Minfilia "following her heart" and somehow "free will" (despite Minfilia initially yelling "No!"). Thancred, the one Scion who should have anger issues towards her due to his obsession with Minfilia, refuses to even think about it (literally, he says as much after Qitana Ravel). Minfilia is Trashcan Man from The Stand, "My life for you!" and Thancred just goes along with it.

I still maintain that EW would make a lot more sense if Hydaelyn tempered and it's laughable to me that she is seemingly the only primal in existence with no negative side effects. Hell, Emet essentially describes Venat as a Mary Sue in Elpis. The whole thing is just ridiculous to me. I've never seen a narrative so contorted to try to force people to love a character as much as EW is.

At least Ardbert was based.

The particularly egregious part is that they're still doing it. In the revised Porta Decumana that was originally a part of the Praetorium, she talks the usual spiel of "I haven't the strength to shield thee again"..... but apparently her and our "hope" (dear Gods every time I hear the words hope or despair I just cringe now, like I'm suffering PTSD) still yet possesses the power to fully fill our LB3 bar to full and fully resurrect us when Lahabrea kills us. In the Myths of the Realms they're connecting old quotes and plot points to Hydaelyn and the Endwalker's plot points when they had nothing to do with each other before. So yeah, for a saga that's apparently over and done with after 6.0, the patches content has an awful lot of moral wankitude and backwards retcons going on to prop up a dead woman yet further.

[Iscah]

I think you're missing my point here. The sundered are not on an alternate path, they are just much much less advanced than the Ea. The Ea did not fail somehow, they weren't conquered, they had a strong drive to fight for scientific progress and a better understanding of the universe, and their reward was a guarantee that their lives would eventually become nightmarish if they allowed themselves to live on.

My understanding is that the Ea effectively did fail themselves by seeking to become immortal and consequently discovered that "forever" is an unpleasantly long time and will involve watching the universe become a lightless void. The failure is not seeking better lives in general, but the idea that living beyond a natural lifespan is inherently better.

[Lyth]

...

The 'heat death' of the universe that's being referenced here as a 'popular science concept' is not a cataclysmic event. The first law of thermodynamics tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed. You can draw an equivalence between mass and energy if you want to be strict about this, but barring something 'external' to the universe inputting in energy, the starting total energy that we can work with is finite. As you perform energy conversions, some of that energy gets converted to heat, which then diffuses out and causes the average molecular kinetic energy to rise (i.e. temperature), which causes the degree of disorder or 'entropy' of the system to rise.

In practice, this is not a reversible process (you can theoretically have an reversible adiabatic process where the net change in entropy is zero, but you cannot even theoretically decrease entropy over time). As a result of the second law of thermodynamics, the total usable energy of a closed system decreases over time. In the limit as time approaches infinity, the total energy gets converted into heat, which then diffuses out over infinite space, and then the temperature goes to absolute zero.

You'll note that I said 'in the limit'. Diffusion equations take an infinite amount of time to completely average out. That means that you never actually reach this time point, although you'll get progressively closer to this zero usable energy state over time (albeit progressively more slowly). It also assumes that the universe is a closed system, which we really have no way of knowing. There could be an army of small duracell rabbits dumping fresh energy in from the outside.

This is also the reasoning behind why perpetual motion machines do not exist.

Philosophically, you can interpret this to mean that all things are transient and fleeting, which fits in with our own experience of life as humans. And the real question being asked is philosophical, not literal: Why live, when all things surely perish? Why learn, when all knowledge is eventually lost? And the resolution to this conflict is in Y'shtola's response. It's about the journey. Even if we're all eventually destined to 'lose', that doesn't stop us from having a ton of fun along the way. Nihilism is not a sustainable philosophical stance. It's just a temporary place, a bus stop for lost souls.

If you really want to be critical, it's worth noting that most of the 'failed' civilizations in Endwalker are built entirely around a singular viewpoint that encapsulates the entirety of society. In particular, the Ea, the Plenty, the Omicrons, and even the Amaurotians have progressed towards some form of 'collective' hivemind viewpoint that deemphasizes individuality and personal expression. In practice with human society, one person could be having a philosophical meltdown over the inevitable end of all things, while another could be having the absolute time of their life. In a way, dissention and diversity makes society robust, and is why we're able to get past all these little hiccups.