Endwalker story doubt: spoiler alert

[Alleluia]

Agreed - a backup plan necessitated by the possibility of the Warrior of Light not actually being alive to confront Meteion. And, in fact, we know there is at least one timeline where the Warrior of Light didn't survive to do so.

This brings up a good point. 8th umbral timeline: screwed or no? I mean the WoL is dead, but the rejoining is proceeding apace, and a new WoL can be reborn later. I think. Unless black rose prevents that? Either way they at least won’t be alive to kill Zodiark at this point. Or weren’t since that timeline is continuing 200 years in the future. And the unsundered are still around presumably to keep Fandaniel in check.

Can’t imagine Venat’s freak out when the 8th umbral killed the WoL that she met in Elpis.

[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.

[Iscah]

This brings up a good point. 8th umbral timeline: screwed or no? I mean the WoL is dead, but the rejoining is proceeding apace, and a new WoL can be reborn later. I think. Unless black rose prevents that? Either way they at least won’t be alive to kill Zodiark at this point. Or weren’t since that timeline is continuing 200 years in the future. And the unsundered are still around presumably to keep Fandaniel in check.

Can’t imagine Venat’s freak out when the 8th umbral killed the WoL that she met in Elpis.

The other timeline is on a completely different set of concerns.

Emet and Elidibus didn't die fighting us, but went on to rejoin the First.

Assuming we didn't kill them some other way in this scenario*, they are still likely in control of the Ascian agenda and Fandaniel remains a miserable underling for now.

Hydaelyn likely remembers us telling her the story about how we averted the bad timeline and deduces that she has ended up in it. She may also reason that this is still just a necessary middle step in the saving of the good timeline. (Though these terms are eventually muddied by the writers' decision to have the bad timeline's situation come good after all.)

It's also possible that the abundance of Light from this particular rejoining might have given Hydaelyn more strength to last another few centuries and communicate with the newly reborn WoL – more openly this time as she is not bound by the need to only tell us certain things or risk corrupting the time loop.

Or maybe she dies and the Rejoining continues unobstructed.

Maybe Zodiark is never destroyed in this timeline at all.

There are lots of variables and they can be anywhere from safe to doomed, as the writers wish.


*I like to think that defeating Elidibus-as-Zenos at Ghimlyt was the other timeline's turning point, demoralising the Garlean troops and causing them to feel increasingly threatened by the enemy capable of defeating Zenos.

[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.

[Cleretic]

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.

First of all: it is entirely possible that Venat actually did have plans for this if the escape plan were to go through, we were told very little about the plan because, again, it never actually reached a point of 'reality' where it had to exist as more than a vague one-sentence brief. We can't really say if she did or didn't, and it's entirely possible we never will and we just have to live with that. Granted, in a little over a week we'll have a chance to learn what the shards have a moon for, so that part might be covered. But let's first accept the possibility that she did have a contingency plan for this before discussing the currently-assumed situation that she didn't.

When you're figuring out an emergency escape plan, there's a significant element of 'you take what you can get'. Yeah, it sucks that the Lifestream will be lost and the shards can't be saved (providing, again, that is in fact the case), but far worse would be to not have an escape for anyone at all. If the best you can do is an escape pod for specifically the living on the Source, then that's what we have, and we hope they do the best they can with it.

Now, did they do the best they could? A little hard to tell, but I would say the failure point if they didn't is actually more on Sharlayan. They probably could've stood to hustle a little faster, get more than two nations partially evacuated. Granted, to be as fair to them as I'm requesting you be fair to Venat, they didn't know how much time they had, but they also should've either worked to study how to judge that (which we know was possible to track at least at one point) or gone with a worst-case scenario assumption that they'd be hit early, neither of which they seemed to do. Isolationism was definitely the wrong response for them to have; Sevestre likely caused more damage than any other single person to the chances of that plan saving everyone it could've.

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.

Yeah, I am extremely conscious that this argument of 'the escape plan was actually bad' feels an awful lot like it's just being used as a new angle to say 'Venat Bad' right now, which is a ridiculously tedious argument around here.

Of course the escape plan wasn't perfect; hell, the fact it had flaws was a notable plot beat, the realization that it doesn't cover other shards was kinda the main flag that they need something better. I'd hesitate to call it a 'bad plan' because the nature of something like this kinda has to be judged in relation to other options, and in this case there kind of aren't any; the escape plan is, literally, better than nothing, and 'nothing' is all the other evacuation options available.

And the kicker on all this: I don't really like Venat that much. This isn't me 'defending my favorite', Venat is in competition as my least favorite new major character in Endwalker (to figure that out we need to answer questions like 'does Erenville count as major' and 'does Real Hythlodaeus count as new'). I'm 'defending' her here because the moon escape plan is her plan, so we kinda have to factor in her perspective, goals, and constraints and realize that any evidence she couldn't have had aren't really valid stones to throw.

[Lunaxia]

Yeah, I am extremely conscious that this argument...

My bad, then. I was vaguely recollecting posts I've seen from you before where you seemed quite a vocal supporter of hers.

And I mean, I can sympathise with that. I do get a bit annoyed when it feels as if people are bending over backwards to avoid calling a spade a spade because it involves characters/ plot elements they're fond of, no matter who or what it is, but at the same time it is a rocky road with regards to discussing Venat since it's hard to discuss any one of her actions in a vacuum. How you perceive anything she does is inevitably tied to your overall view on the story (and yes, the sundering), and that really is a discussion that's been done to death. I am inclined to counter she has sufficient enough evidence to be aware of Meteion's intentions, though, and by escaping those that remain are more or less being condemned to a life of pursual and survival, as is any planet they encounter - and that maybe the only way to justify that is "what else can be done?" Overall, I think it's fair to say that it's a pretty tragic plan, given what was originally sacrificed and what more it means would be lost for it to come to fruition.

(Also, do I sense someone else who wasn't satisfied with Real Hythlodaeus...? Do they exist?)

[Cleretic]

My bad, then. I was vaguely recollecting posts I've seen from you before where you seemed quite a vocal supporter of hers.

I would overall say that in those situations I wasn't defending Venat so much as I was defending 'the story as it was given to us'; my view on a lot of critique and analysis is essentially that while I don't have any issue with how you feel about a story, we should discuss it on the story's terms, and not misrepresent it. And without wanting to revive, relitigate or psychoanalyze that argument, I feel like there was a lot of people who were grossly misrepresenting the argument solely to make Venat look bad, because they either disagreed with her or disliked Endwalker, and wanted to declare their stance to be objectively right instead of merely opinion. I know the feeling and I've fallen into it myself, but discussion doesn't get anywhere by letting that sort of misrepresentation stand.

My view on Venat is that she and the Convocation were faced with a difficult situation with no right answers with the End of Days, and both took the side and actions that they personally believed in; while I think Venat made the choice I morally agree with, I understand and sympathize with the Convocation making their own decision, even if I would not do the same. And that, of course, the entire conversation has an odd shadow of 'it happened in the distant past' over it; in the time after that point, the Convocation became the Ascians and became very much morally reprehensible, while Venat ultimately proved to have been factually right in what had to be done to both create, and defend, the world within the game that I'm actually attached to.

...but that despite all of that, I don't really like Venat because I don't find her very interesting as a character. The events set into motion by and occurring around her are very interesting, but when she's actually the focus of scenes I just don't find her particularly compelling. That's partly because all those scenes take place in the Ancient world I also don't find that interesting, but... I mean hey, Hermes, Lahabrea and so far Athena all found ways to make me interested in them despite their surroundings.


And yeah, while it's largley unrelated, I don't like Real Hythlodaeus. He's sort of a personification of everything I don't like about how Endwalker depicted the Ancient world: Amaurot in Shadowbringers laid a groundwork of weird, unknowable but still in some way friendly and personable godlike beings living in a world that was at the same time very welcoming but too foreign to truly feel at home in, and while I had a lot of issues with how Shadowbringers handled it that meant I didn't really enjoy it then, that's a conceptual seed that I could've been into if fleshed out. But then Endwalker came along and just went 'oh no the Ancients are all pretty humans living in a world with no stakes', and suddenly I was so off-board with them that I could never get back on board. And Fake Hyth vs. Real Hyth was the same; Fake Hyth was definitely friendly but completely inscrutible, it was impossible to get an idea of his actual tone or feelings, nor to get an idea of what sort of person he was, and how much of that is influenced by him being a figment of Emet's memory. ...But then Real Hyth turns up and oh no, he's just a completely bland, no-sharp-edges Hot Guy with no opinions who only exists to make you go 'he seems nice, Elpis is nice'. He's so noncommittally bland as a character that I actually kinda get mad about him; like, they could've made this character interesting, and deliberately chose not to.