Endwalker story doubt: spoiler alert

[Kozh]

Okay, three things here:

A: You're assuming Meteion even knows about the moon enough to keep track of it. It wasn't there when she left as far as we know, and her despair waves weren't getting anywhere near it.

B: You're also assuming Meteion cares enough to look, or even know if people would've left, and I genuinely don't think she does; I don't even get the idea she's keeping tabs on Etheirys now. Not only that, but recalibrating her aim to follow the moon actually goes against what her goal is anyway: to test Etheirys itself against the inevitability of death.

Meteion's what I call a 'broken robot' character, even if she isn't that in a literal sense; she's got an outlook and plan that's rigid, completely logical and internally consistent, that happens to be utterly broken when looking at it externally. Therefore, if her goal was simply to aim and fire at Etheirys to prove it can't stand her oblivion, it doesn't really matter to her if people escape, nor to keep track of the people that do; the notion of escapees just aren't part of her logical series of parameters, nor are they relevant enough to her goal to factor in anyway.

And C: Of course, we should also remember that Hydaelyn's Moon Escape Plan was ultimately a very visible and obvious (to the people on the Source; again, Meteion didn't see it) Plan B or C masquerading as the Plan A. Her goal was always to get us to follow Meteion and try to stop her, the moon was just a fallback that also existed to provide plenty of hope for the future and competent space-travelers. So the escape plan having some holes makes sense; if it was surefire and foolproof, it wouldn't be the backup plan.

She did focus her beam towards etheirys, but that’s to break the barrier. And you know she notice the instant it broke/zodiark died. Her song of oblivion, which to hasten heat death of the universe, as the name implies, affect the whole universe. There’s no escaping that. Now you might say “well that’s different than FD”, yes but it shows that her attacks could (and did) affect everywhere. The moon plan will only buy them little time, since it no longer have zodiark in it.

Second, idk where tou get the idea of her focusing to destroy the planet only. Ever since ktisis, up to UT, she repeatedly said that her action is a gift for mankind. Her focus is “saving mankind from suffering” by ending them.

[Cleretic]

She did focus her beam towards etheirys, but that’s to break the barrier. And you know she notice the instant it broke/zodiark died. Her song of oblivion, which to hasten heat death of the universe, as the name implies, affect the whole universe. There’s no escaping that. Now you might say “well that’s different than FD”, yes but it shows that her attacks could (and did) affect everywhere. The moon plan will only buy them little time, since it no longer have zodiark in it.

Second, idk where tou get the idea of her focusing to destroy the planet only. Ever since ktisis, up to UT, she repeatedly said that her action is a gift for mankind. Her focus is “saving mankind from suffering” by ending them.

We don't know she noticed, there's no evidence of that. If you're about to bring up the line spoken while we're looking at the planet, that one, weirdly, changes by language; in Japanese that one's instead spoken by Hydaelyn. I have literally no idea what to make of that change or what the intention was, but there you go: in the original Japanese, Meteion definitely didn't react to Zodiark's fall.

As to your second point... we're hitting a communication issue here. When I say 'test Etheirys' I mean that she's testing the planet and everything living on it, the same way one would describe a 'global threat'. And while yes, obviously Meteion was directing her test/gift/whatever you want to describe it as towards mankind, she's always going to aim it at 'the rock the humans are on' because that's just logic.

And again, we know she was aiming at the planet, because Mare Lamentorum was completely fine. Reasonably speaking, if it was in trouble it would've gotten the level of full-bore despairpocalypse that Thavnair got because it's completely outside the atmosphere. We know 'beastmen' like the Loporrits are vulnerable to such a thing, and we know that some of them were also handling some emotional problems at the time; they wouldn't be immune, and yet they never turned, so it stands to reason they were never being hit.

Ergo: Meteion was aiming squarely at the planet. The rest of the universe was doing worse as well, but they're not exploding into Blasphemies, so anywhere else was better than there. It's still not ideal, or else it wouldn't be the Plan B, but it's there.


...but also, an additional point: consider what Venat knew in the first place. Venat was not omniscient, she and her group were working from a limited amount of knowledge. She didn't actually know how the rest of the universe would handle against Meteion's collateral damage, so exactly how badly they're doing doesn't really enter the discussion. However, what she did know was what Meteion reported back to them in Ktisis: that there were, in fact, other civilizations out there. They all died, sure, but that proves that other planets A: exist, and B: are habitable. No matter how suboptimal they are, that's better than a planet that's gonna get depression'd into oblivion.

[Kozh]

And again, we know she was aiming at the planet, because Mare Lamentorum was completely fine.

The lopporits despair (if you even called it that), only start to be noticeable after they are no longer useful after meteion died. And throughout the millenia, they spend a lot of time in hibernation. And it might have be that zodiark barrier also big enough to encompasses the moon.
*Lopporits aren't even the same beastmen as ones in the planet.

The rest of the universe was doing worse as well, but they're not exploding into Blasphemies, so anywhere else was better than there

Each planet has different manifestation of despair. Simply because others might not result in blasphemies, we can't really say it's better. In the end, they all experience the same, which is the planet dying. We saw what happen with Dragon star, and it's the same as etheirys during it's first FD. Where the star couldn't sustain new lives, the wind stop blowing, etc.

but also, an additional point: consider what Venat knew in the first place. Venat was not omniscient, she and her group were working from a limited amount of knowledge. She didn't actually know how the rest of the universe would handle against Meteion's collateral damage, so exactly how badly they're doing doesn't really enter the discussion.

Okay, and?

[Cleretic]

Okay, and?

And that means that this is ultimately an argument about minutia for shallow point-scoring, because arguing that the escape plan couldn't have worked according to evidence that she did not have completely misses the actual story around the escape plan in the first place, and basically only serves to create artificial points against her. And personally, I'm not interested.

Ignore all of my points about Meteion, because they don't truly matter. There are three reasons why the moon escape plan is the way it is, flaws and all:

A: Because it's a backup plan if the main plan fails. I have mentioned this before: if the escape plan was flawless, it wouldn't be a backup plan.

B: Because Venat was working from only what she knew. Remember, all of the evidence being put forward as to why this wouldn't work is information we learned after that point, and hindsight is of course 20/20. Venat didn't have that information, what she had was Meteion's confirmation that there were civilizations living on other planets; even if they fell, that's confirmation that other planets are habitable, which is a hell of a lot better than Etheirys is gonna be if Meteion has her way with it.

And perhaps the most important, C: Because the plan didn't happen anyway, so it doesn't matter if it would've worked. It's in the same basket as the Ascians' Zodiark plan: you can poke dozens of holes into the Rejoining plan as put forward by Emet in Shadowbringers, both logistical and moral... but none of those matter, mostly because the Zodiark plan was torn to shreds far before the issues were ever in any way relevant. The moon escape plan is the same way, although thankfully with less moral concerns; neither plan left the realm of the theoretical, and so whether or not they would've worked doesn't actually matter.

[Kozh]

And that means that this is ultimately an argument about minutia for shallow point-scoring, because arguing that the escape plan couldn't have worked according to evidence that she did not have completely misses the actual story around the escape plan in the first place, and basically only serves to create artificial points against her. And personally, I'm not interested.

I'm freaking sorry?? But you're the one who brings up Venat in the first place. Even OP in their post only ask the "how can people on moon survive if...".

And then on my first reply, I 100% focus on your questionable takes on meteion's nature, as shown here:

Okay, three things here:

A: You're assuming Meteion even knows about the moon enough to keep track of it. It wasn't there when she left as far as we know, and her despair waves weren't getting anywhere near it.

B: You're also assuming Meteion cares enough to look, or even know if people would've left, and I genuinely don't think she does; I don't even get the idea she's keeping tabs on Etheirys now. Not only that, but recalibrating her aim to follow the moon actually goes against what her goal is anyway: to test Etheirys itself against the inevitability of death.

Meteion's what I call a 'broken robot' character, even if she isn't that in a literal sense; she's got an outlook and plan that's rigid, completely logical and internally consistent, that happens to be utterly broken when looking at it externally. Therefore, if her goal was simply to aim and fire at Etheirys to prove it can't stand her oblivion, it doesn't really matter to her if people escape, nor to keep track of the people that do; the notion of escapees just aren't part of her logical series of parameters, nor are they relevant enough to her goal to factor in anyway.

And C: Of course, we should also remember that Hydaelyn's Moon Escape Plan was ultimately a very visible and obvious (to the people on the Source; again, Meteion didn't see it) Plan B or C masquerading as the Plan A. Her goal was always to get us to follow Meteion and try to stop her, the moon was just a fallback that also existed to provide plenty of hope for the future and competent space-travelers. So the escape plan having some holes makes sense; if it was surefire and foolproof, it wouldn't be the backup plan.

She did focus her beam towards etheirys, but that’s to break the barrier. And you know she notice the instant it broke/zodiark died. Her song of oblivion, which to hasten heat death of the universe, as the name implies, affect the whole universe. There’s no escaping that. Now you might say “well that’s different than FD”, yes but it shows that her attacks could (and did) affect everywhere. The moon plan will only buy them little time, since it no longer have zodiark in it.

Second, idk where tou get the idea of her focusing to destroy the planet only. Ever since ktisis, up to UT, she repeatedly said that her action is a gift for mankind. Her focus is “saving mankind from suffering” by ending them.

Only for you to once again goes on a tangent about how Venat doesn't know the future etc., when nobody talks about her.
Like you said, it doesn't matter to the discussion because that's not what OP asked.

Ignore all of my points about Meteion, because they don't truly matter.

So we should ignore your points about Meteion, but also you're not interested in talking about Venat's decision... /hmmmmm

The moon escape plan is the same way, although thankfully with less moral concerns

You want to play this game? Sure.

Let's ignore that the plan resulted in: A) the star died and those souls in lifestream gets eaten by meteion, and B) the remaining shards are left behind.

[Lunaxia]

And that means that this is ultimately an argument about minutia for shallow point-scoring, because arguing that the escape plan couldn't have worked according to evidence that she did not have completely misses the actual story around the escape plan in the first place, and basically only serves to create artificial points against her. And personally, I'm not interested.

One that you started.

You were so quick to rush to Venat's defence you've shot yourself in the foot and basically wound up asserting OP's original point that it's not a good plan, but justify it with "it's a back-up plan and it's better than nothing."

Which is highly, highly subjective, but not the point of this thread.

The world will not collapse by admitting your favourite characters (or the writing behind them) are imperfect, you know.

[RyuDragnier]

People are surprised Venat was brought up in a talk about a plan set up by Venat? I'm sure I'm misreading things because of the fact that I'm tired and need to sleep, but somebody please tell me that I'm reading that wrong.

[Lunaxia]

People are surprised Venat was brought up in a talk about a plan set up by Venat? I'm sure I'm misreading things because of the fact that I'm tired and need to sleep, but somebody please tell me that I'm reading that wrong.

I think they may be taking issue with focusing on the defence of Venat herself rather than the logic of her actions and the parameters involved...? Which the other poster likely did as a pre-emptive measure against a "why Venat was wrong" discussion, which has the tendency to go down various rabbit holes on its own.

[Lunaxia]

We don't know she noticed...

I'm too tired to try and make sense of the rest, but the Loporrits are not normal beastmen. They are Venat's creation, which means a) it's more than likely she would have made them impervious to the effects of dynamis, b) they are composed of aether anyway, which drowns it out regardless and c) Zodiark, the source of whatever the story mentions was repelling Meteion's song, was on the moon itself, so it's safe to say it likely would have been afforded some form of protection. The reason it appeared to suffer no ill effects past the Zodiark trial was because there are no living creatures on it, and that in all likelihood Zodiark's... essence (?) was and is visibly present there to some degree. It's so close to the planet, and the range of her song would have to be of a considerable size to reach and envelop the entirety of it that it's pretty hard to imagine it would somehow be "missed" even if she did barely pay attention to it.

I don't think "the universe not exploding into blasphemies" is exactly a fair barometer for gauging the effects and scope of Meteion's song either, when it had already been specified the majority of life on the other stars were long since dead prior to her creation and the few civilisations (or their remnants) that remained soon perished under her influence due to their collapsed nature. We don't have any other stars comparable to ours to be able to make an adequate judgement on that.

Your original post just sort of... makes enormous assumptions about what Meteion is and isn't aware of in terms of mankind that don't really have a basis in anything other than your own suppositions. And they're pretty strange ones, since what prompted Meteion to sing the doom song was her original purpose of observing and interacting with living beings to come up with an answer to the meaning of life based on the answers they provided, and the fallout from what she heard and how she interpreted it. Her fixation is with the inhabitants of these stars, not the stars themselves. It makes more sense that she very much would notice and at least attempt to pursue them, which makes the moon escape plan pretty much a forestalling of the inevitable. I guess you could argue it would give the humans more time to... come up with a different solution or something, if you were feeling charitable, but then it starts calling into question the logic of the sundering and the entire premise of the whole plan becomes tenuous again anyway.