Tales from the Dawn #3: "A Question of Life" (Hermes)

[Brinne]

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.

Just a quick reply, because Dipping Energy Levels again: this is speaking back to the old misperception that Venat was acting "on behalf" of the sacrifices, in order to protect them in some way, when she never was. This is not actually a matter of "my kind versus another's kind" to her. That never comes up in her motivations after she is introduced properly as a character, is never named as a motivation versus other things, is undermined by the fact that everything was destroyed in the Sundering, and her speech just before the Sundering makes clear that from her perspective, she was cutting down her people for the sake of her people, according to her values. She is keeping them from walking down the wrong path, pre-emptively, in her eyes. She is a person who is taking the step of putting down a beloved family member (in tears) because she is convinced they will go on to lead a destructive lifestyle where they can't be happy.

Venat is not a crazy environmentalist acting on behalf of trees and livestock. To Venat, it is simply irrelevant whether or not the sacrifices were people, or trees or livestock, because her primary concern is her people becoming "stagnant" and "not growing" through any possible means of "clinging to the past." Because what she is afraid of is the future of the Plenty.

Going back to the logistical side of things - and ideas that are more actively speculative on my part - Hythlodaeus's speech suggests to me that the initial life that reappeared after the second sacrifice was, on some level, kind of primordial. "Tiny lives sprouting." Ancients generally have no control over souls and what becomes recognized as authentic life, but the Ancients do have the capacity to shape and guide life force into vehicles that may be more likely to gain those things, based on patterns and research - do you use your creation magicks to form an elemental sprite, or a goobbue, or something like Meteion?

In that sense, even without there being already-existing people, the debate over "do we use the new life to restore our brethren, or to pave the path to a future potentially without us" still makes sense. The second sacrifice provided the star back with the spark and energy for life, and now the Ancients are in the position of deciding how they will raise that life - on a path to evolve to basically livestock, or a path to become sapient beings. Because once again, Venat is a character whose motivations are rooted in ideology, not materialism. She would be arguing for a future where saving their people trapped in Zodiark is sub-optimal versus preparing and nurturing the form of a future generation that could inherit the star from them altogether, because she values the process of "passing on one's legacy to the future" as a self-justifying and morally correct principle.

That ended up less truncated than I intended. Oops.