Rewritten MSQ - Garlemald and EW

[Jojoya]

Venat had a good option and a bad option. She chose the bad one, all because she was more enamored with the idea of mankind than the actual individuals that made it up, and because she took Meteion's report to heart in the end.

What was the good option?

What was the guarantee that going with that option was going to create a better result?

[redheadturk]

I doubt my comment will sway the tide, but genuinely don't get this mentality.

The Sundering is a morally murky activity, fine. I doubt many people would contest that. Yoshi-P and the writers don't contest that. But I don't get the point of acting like Hydaelyn is a supervillain who only cares about herself and nothing else. For goodness' sake, Primals made from the Ascian's machinations (including Ramuh) talk about her as if she's a good person. Midgardsormr vouches for her acts of kidness. She saves the Warrior of Light from death at least twice in the opening arc of the game. And that's with the expectation that one day they are going to kill her for the sake of a better world once they're strong enough.

It's fine to not like her, especially for the Sundering, but at least dislike her as presented in the game, not based on some caricature that resulted from twisting the lore to fit fanfiction.

Sundering was more than "morally murky". It was straight up genocide, there is no murky about that, it's immoral.

[redheadturk]

What was the good option?

What was the guarantee that going with that option was going to create a better result?

Tellin Emet wtf was going on so he could, ya know, create a better solution that addressed the Meteion problem?

[Jojoya]

Sundering was more than "morally murky". It was straight up genocide, there is no murky about that, it's immoral.

Except we know not everyone died.

How is it genocide when there are survivors?

How would allowing the Ancients proceed to performing the third sacrifice not be equally reprehensible if not more so? They weren't going to just exterminate one new life form - they were intent on exterminating them all for the sake of people who were already dead and unable to return to life if what Sri Lakshmi said in Stormblood is true.

Tellin Emet wtf was going on so he could, ya know, create a better solution that addressed the Meteion problem?

What makes you think Emet would have had a better solution when he admitted that the methods the Ancients used could not have defeated Meteion?

[Lauront]

One survivor and two accidental ones mean it's not a genocide? What are you even smoking?

Furthermore, not once do the writers allude to the 3rd sacrifice as even registering on her radar as a motive. Not once does she do so, except when discussing them as the instrumental means to return to how things were, and there it is because she wants them to accept the 'necessity' of suffering. She does not even question the Convocation on the morality of this whole affair and states they sought to safeguard the best possible future for the star. Her concerns are solely presented as dynamis manipulation and their fate resembling the Plenty. If you want to bring in the supposed immorality of the very sketchy third round of sacrifices, which her people were already divided on, I am going to ask for sources - good luck, because I know these sources, and I can tell you, you and others are headcanoning this in to being her primary motive as well as liberally filling in details as to what they were, to try make it seem far more nefarious than we're told.

How would allowing the Ancients proceed to performing the third sacrifice not be equally reprehensible if not more so? They weren't going to just exterminate one new life form - they were intent on exterminating them all for the sake of people who were already dead and unable to return to life if what Sri Lakshmi said in Stormblood is true.

Their souls quite literally persist whole in Zodiark, and were cut off from the Underworld (return to which they valued as a species) as a result of the desperate measure they had to undertake to protect their star. So irrespective of what some amateurish, third-rate primal said, which has zero bearing on what Zodiark and his creators could do, they would still need to be freed from within him at some point to be released from that purgatory.

If one is gonna make a villain do something you give a reasoning for why they did it, thats simple story writing. Couldn't care less if it wasn't putting venat in a good light or not since this is a AU situation. Zenos does what he does because he wanted to feel something, Hades and the unsundered do what they do to bring back their lost civilization, Meteion does what she does because of all the sadness she absorbed from the countless lost stars they visited and the twisted answer she got from it.

If Zenos and Hermes are the minimum threshold here, we should be good.

[redheadturk]

Except we know not everyone died.

How is it genocide when there are survivors?

How would allowing the Ancients proceed to performing the third sacrifice not be equally reprehensible if not more so? They weren't going to just exterminate one new life form - they were intent on exterminating them all for the sake of people who were already dead and unable to return to life if what Sri Lakshmi said in Stormblood is true.


What makes you think Emet would have had a better solution when he admitted that the methods the Ancients used could not have defeated Meteion?

English version was quite vague, the French and German versions are much clearer in that he meant that they could not have gotten to Ultima Thule in and of itself through their methods, which was true. Because they didn't, ya know, know what the true cause was, because Venat withheld that information from them which she should not have done.

As to the rest of your spew, 3 survivors does not make it "not a genocide" when the remainder of their culture was gone with no way to revive it with mankind as they were. That is the very definition of a genocide.

[TimotheusReed]

I feel some people are forgetting the whole "time aspect" when judging Venats actions. Because of our time traveling we basically created a time paradox.

The reason for us, the WoL, to appear at this moment was all because stuff happened exactly the way it was supposed to happen.
Also even Venat and WoL escaping from the memory wipe was all because of everything that happened before and led us to Elpis.
We don't know what would have happened if we weren't there. Meteion would have propably escaped and without our help the memory of all of them would have been wiped.
Maybe Venat wouldn't even have joined the group. The reason we appeared at this moment was BECAUSE all that terrible stuff after this happened.

This means that Venat HAD to ensure that everything has to happen the same way, so we end up in Elpis again.
Regarding to time travel, everything up to the moment where we travel back in time was already set in stone. Otherwise we wouldn't have got to Elpis in the first place.
Anything else might have led to a situation which changes the timelines in a way that we might not even appear in Elpis, which in the end would have led to a situation where Venats memory would have also been wiped for example.

I mean if I were in a situation where some time traveller warns me about terrible things happening in the past I propably would also ensure that everything happens the way it is supposed to happen.

But I also kind of understand why people might not like her reasoning.

@OP: You put a lot of effort into the story. I like it. On the other hand I am also not in favor of characterizing Venat as the villain. And there are some plot points I don't agree with.
But one can see how much effort you put into this.

[redheadturk]

I feel some people are forgetting the whole "time aspect" when judging Venats actions. Because of our time traveling we basically created a time paradox.

The reason for us, the WoL, to appear at this moment was all because stuff happened exactly the way it was supposed to happen.
Also even Venat and WoL escaping from the memory wipe was all because of everything that happened before and led us to Elpis.

This means that Venat HAD to ensure that everything will happen the same way, so we end up in Elpis again.
Anything else might have led to a situation which changes the timelines in a way that we might not even appear in Elpis, which in the end would have led to a situation where Venats memory would have also been wiped for example.

I mean if I were in a situation where some time traveller warns me about terrible things happening in the past I propably would also ensure that everything happens the way it is supposed to happen.

But I also kind of understand why people might not like her reasoning.

@OP: You put a lot of effort into the story. I like it. On the other hand I am also not in favor of characterizing Venat as the villain.

I say bring on the split timeline, tbh. No, I do not care if it creates a paradox, it's already been shown that paradoxes lead to timeline splits in XIV, and that is what I want. A timeline in which the sundering never happens.

[Lustre]

Can someone replace the writers with just OP please. That was a surprisingly captivating read, and also a sorta depressing one knowing we're left with actual endwalker. This is a fan script and the in game plot somehow has less depth lol

[EgilTheStressedMage]

EW was written to justify the game’s existence more than anything else. If Venat had told the Convocation and they were able to stop Meteion, we would have no game. There’d be no Source, no First, no Varis, no WoL. They wrote themselves into an inescapable corner when they made the Ancients and allowed us to visit them instead of showing us a lengthy memory flashback. If they wanted Venat to still be any sort of decent, they could have had her split between Hydaelyn and herself where the former has all the ego of “suffer good” while the latter laments in solitude at how hard she screwed up. This separation would happen during the Sundering where Venat would be forced out and Hydaelyn would be in control. At this point I don’t care if I’m pulling from other games because other games did this so much better.