Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Fenral]

I thought "perfection is impossible so why bother?" was Meteion's schtick, not Venat's. Like, that's Nihilism 101. The point isn't to not try at all, but to carry on even if cosmic oblivion in some form is always the eventual outcome.

I know it's been a few months, but have we really forgotten Y'shtola's response to the Ea? Or are we just ignoring it because it doesn't fit the narrative we want to push about the narrative being pushed?

To anyone still lost as to Venat's specific idealogy, here, have some Cicero: (emphasis mine)

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of reprobating pleasure and extolling pain arose. To do so, I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

It's really basic stuff, but apparently also not.

[Cilia]

I thought "perfection is impossible so why bother?" was Meteion's schtick, not Venat's. Like, that's Nihilism 101. The point isn't to not try at all, but to carry on even if cosmic oblivion in some form is always the eventual outcome.

I know it's been a few months, but have we really forgotten Y'shtola's response to the Ea? Or are we just ignoring it because it doesn't fit the narrative we want to push about the narrative being pushed?

To anyone still lost as to Venat's specific idealogy, here, have some Cicero: (emphasis mine)
It's really basic stuff, but apparently also not.

I'll see your Cicero... and raise you some Nietzsche.

If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.

All the terrible things that happened throughout the universe's history were needed to produce just one moment - one single moment - when you were happy. Is your own happiness not worth fighting for because your existence is predicated on your forebears staining their hands with blood and sin?

Raise ya Camus as well:

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Sisyphus was a man from Greek myth cursed to try rolling a boulder up a hill for all eternity for cheating death twice, but Camus reimagined him as being happy because he never stopped trying. The world is cruel, unfair, and will devour you whole - so all you can do is find happiness and pride in the little things you can control. You can always start over, even if you fall. (But the Ancients did not want to start over; they wanted to go back to the way things were, even though nothing could turn back the clock and no amount of sacrifices could return everyone to life. In essence, they gave up the forging ahead, taking risks, and sought only security and comfort in Zodiark's arms. What future could such a civilization possibly create?)

And as bonus, it may not be from an existentialist philosopher but Bleach's Mayuri Kurotsuchi gives a pretty scathing condemnation on the concept of perfection that I like to think is relevant given Emet-Selch's touting Amaurotine civilization as "perfect:"

The 'perfect being' you said...? Well... I have to tell you the honest truth as I see it. In this world nothing perfect exists. It may be a cliché after all, but it's the way things are. That's precisely why ordinary men pursue to concept of perfection, it's infatuation... But ultimately I have to ask myself "What is the true meaning of being perfect?" And the answer I came up with was: nothing. Not one thing. The truth of the matter is I despise perfection. If something is truly perfect, that's it. The bottom line becomes there is no room for imagination, no space for intelligence or ability or improvement. Do you understand? To men of science like us perfection is a dead end, a condition of hopelessness. Always strive to be better than anything that came before you, but not perfect. Scientists agonize over the attempt to achieve perfection. That's the kind of creatures we are. We take joy in trying to exceed our grasp, in trying to reach for something that in the end we have to admit may in fact be unreachable. In other words, you may think the we operate on the same level, but you're wrong. The moment you started talking about perfection you embraced an impossible concept and you already lost to me. That is of course if you are indeed a scientist at all.

Once you set something as a perfect ideal, if you reach it you will have nothing to work toward even though there is always room for improvement. (Why couldn't Lahabrea have made his phoenixes smarter, or something?) Amaurotine civilization's focus on duty and conformity led to someone who pondered whether there was more life had to offer than fulfilling his duty and then dying as nothing more than a cog in the system; for all of Emet-Selch's posturing Amaurot was far from perfect, but most of its people believed it to be so and were unwilling or unable to see and improve upon those flaws thanks to their easy lives (which, incidentally, is exactly why they had little to no resilience in the face of tragedy and decided abandoning their guiding principles as stewards of the star to turn it into an aether farm for their selfish wants was the better path).

---

Meh... you know, uhh, "If my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome?"; no amount of argument or reasoning will convince folk what think the Sundering was unjustified and unnecessary to the contrary, so I'm just going to bow out at this juncture. Not every storyline is gonna gel with every player, an' that's ok.

[Fenral]

That's ultimately the problem here. On its own, the philosophy of "we can never get to perfection but we should keep striving for the best outcome we can" is fine, and it's what the story has been running on up to this point.

The problem here is when they also try to have this story element of "look at these people who kept striving until they did reach what they believe to be perfection! It invariably turned out to be their undoing and their whole society collapsed!"

So where is the dividing line? Where should we keep trying, and where should we stop because our idea of creating a good world for people might actually be just as flawed and lead to similar disaster?

I think you're forgetting that, in context, the Scions are fighting for the right to continue to that inevitable doomed end, and the one presenting those scenarios is Meteion, with the intent of proving the futility of all life.

We also only actually got one society that failed to achieve perfection in the Dead Ends. The first one we encounter was pretty alright until a completely random, widespread tragedy wiped them out. (Well, technically it left them in despair and Meteion decided it would be ethical finish the job). The second failed to reconcile the differences between themselves, ultimately splitting into two factions and ending their world in war. (Again, not entirely, Meteion simply decided to finish the job.) Only the last one achieved "perfection," and even then, you can pan the camera down and see that their world was destroyed getting to that point. (The problem here was actually that they had decided they had reached a stopping point, not that a true stopping point actually existed. Again again, Meteion took that desire for oblivion as consensus and wiped out the planet.)

Meiteion's premise was that continuing to live would inevitably mean encountering some wall that could not be overcome, therefore life itself was meaningless. The Scions' answer was simply, "We know." Everything Venat did was done to get a group of people in front of Meteion to deliver that incredibly simple answer.

So... Nihilism 101.

Nietzsche, Camus, Kubo.

I approve of this combination.

Meh... you know, uhh, "If my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome?"; no amount of argument or reasoning will convince folk what think the Sundering was unjustified and unnecessary to the contrary, so I'm just going to bow out at this juncture. Not every storyline is gonna gel with every player, an' that's ok.

/wave

This was fun. We should do it again when the story gives us a new existential crisis to chew on.