Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Lauront]

The sundered races had to evolve back to the point of sapience by all accounts, and even then they're still not the same thing as the ancients, and they resemble child-like beings in their eyes. Why are we assuming that their beast man creations, which themselves may have had to evolve in the world post-Sundering to the point that they eventually would grow sapient enough to form some form of society, would be seen as even remotely belonging as to the same kind of species as them back then? I mean one can say they regard certain life forms as less significant to their own, much like we humans or the sundered do (consider how humans view apes, for example, and then take this up a notch for a nigh immortal species with all the traits of the ancients), but to try transmute this into some form of "racial supremacy" is frankly just clownish and an attempt to turn this into something it wasn't and never has been hinted as for the sake of really forced, contorted comparisons to real world events, coupled with bizarre accusations that Rulakir is a cutscene skipper. As Iscah said, all we have are very vague details, so to develop the argument in this direction would require far more specificity than exists; right now, the claims in question just read as really bizarre headcanon, that the writers do not even allude to in discussing Venat's motivations...

[Lyth]

The connotation of words are often more important than their denotation. This is especially true when you invoke a word that carries both an emotional and a historical impact for a lot of people.

It's difficult to correlate anything that the Amaurotians do to human experience because they're functionally gods. They make and unmake entire species out of thin air on a daily basis. If you want to apply an ethical framework to evaluate their actions, it has to be consistent with their culture's value and belief system, and you need to apply it equally to all of the Amaurotians in question.

[Lauront]

Yeah, so do we. Look into genetic engineering of species rather than trotting out the same tired arguments day in day out that don't even stack up with their characterisation in the Elpis side quests. The ancients are in many ways like humans, in spite of their transcendent traits, so the implication that they'd welcome their own erasure because of this is frankly just nonsensical, and forced. There is nothing in their culture or value system that would even remotely imply they'd condone being unmade as a people through the duplicitous actions of one of their own - equally, they don't need to be gods for it to be understood why they won't necessarily relate to beings such as the beast men, or for that matter, the sundered, as being the same thing as them, when there are so many fundamental differences. This isn't hard to understand for anyone willing to use a few brain cells.

[Renathras]

...

In the Tales short story about the Phoenix, it mentions the concept of a Soul, and that Souls CAN interact with Creation Magic constructs ( https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_04 ). Further, we learned in Elpis that the various experiments created were actually living beings, and many get souls. I don't remember the exact quote, but one of the times Hermies is complaining about the stuff they do, Hades mentions that they discard the experiments that don't turn out well. Hermes asks "And what about the ones with the souls?", and if I recall correctly, Emet is entirely dismissive, basically saying that the created beings AND THE SOULS were basically theirs to do with as they pleased. There's even an island that is basically "evolution island" (one of the ones in the south/southwest of the map, I believe) where you can talk to an NPC that says that facility is specifically for letting things breed naturally (instead of making exact copies) because sometimes this results in interesting outcomes that an Ancient would not necessarily have ever come up with on their own. In other words, these are very clearly living beings capable of reproduction and evolution that they're using as lab experiments and terminating - sometimes terminating entire species (e.g. genocide) if they don't like the results of their tests on them.

And while Sundered fractions were not a thing in the time of the Ancients, there are NPCs in Amaraut that talk about how other cities have been damaged or destroyed by (what we learn is the early part of the Final Days), and their response is largely a dismissive "Sucks to be them". There's an entire story about Azem saving a population from a volcano while the Convocation was perfectly content to let them all die. While the Sundered "I don't see you as alive, ergo it is not murder if I kill you" argument doesn't apply, they were equally as dismissive in that era to non-Ancient beings. And potentially even Ancients who were not part of Amaurot (as someone else said, we know nothing of the other cities or civilizations beside Amaurot, but know there WERE other cities and likely some variety of civilizations)


Even if you discount "modern sundered humans to use as sacrifices", they're still very much engineering entire species of flora and fauna with the express intent to sacrifice them. And we have no evidence they WEREN'T creating sentient ones. In Elpis, the WoL is mistaken as a familiar, and Metion was also clearly a sentient and intelligent being. So the Ancients WERE capable of creating such - or at least capable enough that the WoL being seen as a familiar seemed entirely plausible to them (and many of them talking about how they hope Azem shares your designs so they can have their own familiar like you to experiment on) - collectively indicating it was not beyond them, nor would they have balked at using such if they felt it was good for sacrifice.

I may not be remembering THIS right, but as I understand it, not everything that lives has souls. I think it was in Elpis, again, where they talked about how some of the created things did have souls and some did not. Hermes felt that the ones that did were not theirs to do with as they will, while Hades pointed out that's not how their society sees it, and was outright dismissive of Hermes feeling there was a distinction. I don't remember the exact line, but I think, of souls, Emet said "And these, too, we will return from whence they came" or something to that general effect (the "too" referencing him saying the physical form of the construct they just undo the magic that formed it to cause it to revert to aether)

We also don't know that modern races were born from the Ancients. The closest we have to canonicity on that was Zenos' father (the scene where he meets with the Eorzian Alliance) talking about how Man was broken up and his goal was to reunify them. Though it's hard to say if he knew the truth of it at all, and his own father WAS Emet, not to mention Ascian dealings with Garlemald were extensive, and if I remember right, he did say he gleaned that information from his Ascian accomplices. For all we know, our races came from the various species the Ancients were going to sacrifice. It's also possible modern species are a combination of both Sundered Ancients AND "new life", as noted that this "new life" had souls and there might have been some cross breeding in there. We also have no idea if the Wind-Up Mithra/etc (FF11 races) has any truth in FFXIV's world - that is, if there were proto-races of them.

What we do know is that SOME of our various races have Ancient Sundered shards of souls in them. But beyond that, it's not 100% clear either way.

.

But none of this really counters what I said before about them being genocidal, racial (and even cultural) supremacist, extremist religious zealots.

As that other guy said, people have this idyllic vision of Amaurot/the Ancients' society as being a utopia, but it very clearly was NOT.

[Renathras]

but to try transmute this into some form of "racial supremacy" is frankly just clownish and an attempt to turn this into something it wasn't and never has been hinted as for the sake of really forced, contorted comparisons to real world events,

Wow, talk about reaching!

No, it was not an attempt, much less a "frankly just clownish" one. Every story we have of Amauratians dealing with non-Amauratians has the former seeing themselves as better than the latter - no matter who the latter are. There is no case that they DIDN'T consider themselves better than whoever they were comparing themselves against.

And regarding your comment on apes - Emet can easily converse with our characters. Imagine if you could sit down with an ape and have a conversation about politics over a game of chess, and then told them that you still considered them a lesser being that wasn't alive and that killing them was no issue in your mind? While it is true that some primates can learn sign language and the like, Emet outright has plain language conversations with you about complex and abstract topics, only to tell you you still aren't even a living being in his eyes.

There's a BIT of a step up there. I know I, for one, wouldn't be dismissive of an ape able to speak perfect English and talk to me about general relativity as some "lesser" being that I could kill on a whim. Would you?

[EDIT: Though I wonder if you don't like this comparison NOT because it's faulty, but because it's a bit TOO on the nose and you don't like siding with the <race> supremacists... eh, who can say...]

coupled with bizarre accusations that Rulakir is a cutscene skipper.

Perhaps you missed where this person said they couldn't understand how I even thought what I did and it must be some headcanon of mine when I'm referencing specific events that happened in the MSQ. And you think my COUNTER accusation to that dismissive accusation, that they might not have watched the cutscenes where this was discussed outright in the game, are the bizarre ones?

As Iscah said, all we have are very vague details, so to develop the argument in this direction would require far more specificity than exists;

Which is ALSO TRUE of Venat's actions. Yet the "Venat is the villain of the story" faction seems to have no qualms in doing so. I am (now) merely addressing the other side to bring balance to the discussion. My initial post was just me laying out why I didn't see that as correct and explaining, in detail, my reasoning for it. And none of my reasoning was based on "headcanon", but rather based on actual canon.

right now, the claims in question just read as really bizarre headcanon, that the writers do not even allude to in discussing Venat's motivations...

And yet, everything I've mentioned is either from the game's MSQ itself, the conversation branches you can have with Emet, or the Tales from the Shadows, which is also official canon lore.

And you join the other poster in this bizarre insistence I'm engaging in headcanon when I'm referencing actual canon events.

Have YOU skipped cutscenes, my dude? Maybe you should be a little less quick to accuse people of headcanon when they're referencing the actual story.

Also, you seem overly fond of calling anything you disagree with bizarre. Note that the definition of bizarre is not "something Lauront disagrees with".

.

EDIT2: For reference, the cutscene point was not meant as some kind of insult or slight. It was more me saying "I'm not sure how you DON'T see what I'm saying, since it was actually expressed in the story events and you'd have to have skipped those to not have seen it..." after the person accused me of using headcanon instead of actual canon.

...the very thing you then did as well...interesting...

But note my response would have been different had the person said "Huh, well, I see your perspective, but this is mine <explains perspective>". Instead it was a dismissive "<dismissive laugh> Oh you and your silly headcanon!"

That isn't how you have a respectful discussion.

[Necrotica]

Q: If you look at the Source and its Reflections today, they are inhabited by various races such as Miqo’te, Au Ra, and Lalafells, and the like. However, all the Ancients seemed to be of a Hyur-like race. Is there lore regarding how mankind came to have such varied appearances?

A: When the Sundering occurred, all lifeforms became “incomplete.” But that very incompleteness allowed for strengths and weaknesses, which over generations became distinct racial traits.

Source: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/456921

I thought of it like the first Jurassic park. Holes in a beings aetheric DNA were filled in with traits that were most needed in whatever environment they found themselves in.

Sea elezen when?

[SentioftheHoukai]

I'm not sure what this means, but if I guess correctly, I think it's a pretty grave insult you should take back...

No. No, I should not and WILL NOT take this back. You're out of line.

snip snippy snip snip

Aaaaaaaand, now we have officially devolved into literally justifying the genocide of cultures we don't agree with the moral values of. How have you not been banned yet?

snip this SHHHHHHHHIIIIEEEEET

I quite literally don't know what to say to or about you, besides yelling at you and calling you labels that frankly aren't permitted here. You need to do some rather strenuous introspection, if you believe half the things you spout this is an issue.

[Rulakir]

Oh, I'm so close on my bingo card. (Not created by me, but hilarious nonetheless.)

I'm just going to leave this here.



There's not much else for me to say since I vehemently disagree that Venat didn't have options, so going back and forth as to whether or not she had no choice is not going to be a productive use of my time. I think if you feel the only feasible answer is genocide then you're probably not the right person to be addressing the issue.

[SannaR]

So tell me where does speculation and hypothesis end and headcannon begins? Also I know both sides have accused each other of leaning into headcannon, but how does it come off as those who don't agree with what Venat did only gets to have their speculation and hypothesis taken as that and the other side is the one wading in the headcannon pool? I guess the story and this quest line did its job then if people aren't able to agree on if what one or more people did was justifiable or not depending on their perspective. I chose all three were in their own right as from certain points of view one could see how each of them ended up at their decisions. I also thought about choosing none of them since they were all horrible decisions. All three lead to some form of genocide and suffering. What the problem is at least to me is how at least one side is incapable of understanding how the other is able to reach conclusions based on evidence that the story has given as having a high chance of possibility of those conclusions being probable. That are then labeled as headcannon.

[KageTokage]

I don't mind people having differing opinions, but I find that those who are pro-Venat/Sundering are rather prone to misinterpreting information (Not so much here, but in broader social groups).

IE, I've lost track of how many have claimed Zodiark had to go because he was some kind of blood god that demanded constant sacrifices to continue existing when it's stated multiple times the Convocation intended to stop after the third had restored things to some semblance of normalcy with the souls within freed from their state of limbo and also made clear that him and Hydaelyn were not flawed like modern day primals and could subsist entirely on the sacrifices that summoned them.

snip

I'd agree that the fact that Emet and the others seemed to just immediately dismiss their former brethren as sub-human abominations soured my opinion of them.

Though both him and Elidibus seemed to eventually harbor at least some level of quiet admiration for them at times as much as they wanted to convince themselves there was no merit to their existence.