Quote Originally Posted by Brinne View Post
Overall, this is what I would say/speculate/interpret: I think the most likely situation for the Ancients is, again, the contents of the third sacrifice is forever unknowable because the plan didn't proceed far enough for them to even come into existence. The Ancients were not able to "nurture the planet until it was bursting with vitality" to be able to evaluate what that vitality looked like and refine their plans from there.
But we are not historians, trying to piece together the truth of what really happened based on the evidence in front of us. If we were, this level of skepticism would be justified. We are analyzing a piece of literature, and when presented with a factual ambiguity like that, it's important to look at the story from a thematic and metaphorical level too.

Two of the big themes of FFXIV has always been, one, that it is understandable, but wrong to value your own kind over others, and two, it is important to place faith and hope in the future, and not cling to the ways of the past.

The choice between the third sacrifice and the sundering represents the ultimate expression of that conflict, with Venat being the ultimate expression of the "light" aspect. 'I value people outside my own ingroup that will sacrifice my own people for thier sake, I trust and value the future so much that I am willing to erase the past for the sake of the future.'

Many of the characters involved talk about the targets of the third sacrifice being capable of inheriting the will of the star, becoming stewards like the ancients were, or just being allowed to decide thier own future. Rhetoric that resonates if they are indeed people, will the potential to have a future. Which is why on a thematic level, it makes the most sense for them to be some form of people.

If the targets of the third sacrifice were instead trees and livestock, what would that mean on a thematic level? Suddenly one of the central conflicts is stripped of any weight, and Venat looks like a rabid enviromentalist - which would be fine, if the theme of nature versus technology has ever been a central plank of the conflict between Zodiark and Hydaelyn, but that really is not the case.