Did Zodiark ever do anything wrong?

[Listrella]

not really, he was just chilling on the moon for thousands of years, before fandaniel rudely woke up up and hyjacked his body before we killed him, feel kinda sorry for him really.

[thegreatonemal]

Yeah, I get that's the message they were trying to get across, but I fundamentally dislike them also trying to push the argument of "It's okay to cause the end of the world and humanity as we know it because you think it's doomed anyways."

It runs contrary to the story's more persistent message of never losing hope when it treated the Ancient world as an absolute failstate instead of something that was simply lost due to a misunderstanding or something else less...calculated.

There wasn't any think about it. She knew the threat was coming and she knew the threat was still out there even after Zodiark did it's whole barrier thing. She tried and failed to convince them so this was the only way.

[semnork]

You forgot the MAJOR part where the sundered are more capable of surviving the cataclysms the other civilizations suffered, particularly Utopias like the Ea or the masked people that committed mass suicide due to ennui.

The storyline of Elpis directly shows they were heading straight into this, or killing themselves with how cavalier they were with creating dangerous lifeforms (and this technically still happened since Meteion was the catalyst for their downfall). Hydalin tried to inoculate us against this danger.

The story is not really clear if what she did will work or if it was the best solution, but going back to Amaraut would definitely be a death sentence.

I think this is definitely Venat's motivation for it, but presumably she didn't reveal the fact that she had been informed about the sundering and the future of Etheirys by a time traveler, so what I'm really curious about is the other people who helped to summon Hydaelyn. Of course Venat knew with absolute certainty that this would prevent the star from dying and make its inhabitants more capably of surviving the final days, but did her supporters know what the sundering entailed? Did they know that Venat knew Aumarot wasn't going to survive? Did they know it would work? I'd love to know if there was a story she told to people to justify Hydaelyn's summoning, or if she essentially just asked them to trust her.

[Cilia]

I think this is definitely Venat's motivation for it, but presumably she didn't reveal the fact that she had been informed about the sundering and the future of Etheirys by a time traveler, so what I'm really curious about is the other people who helped to summon Hydaelyn. Of course Venat knew with absolute certainty that this would prevent the star from dying and make its inhabitants more capably of surviving the final days, but did her supporters know what the sundering entailed? Did they know that Venat knew Aumarot wasn't going to survive? Did they know it would work? I'd love to know if there was a story she told to people to justify Hydaelyn's summoning, or if she essentially just asked them to trust her.

It's heavily implied if not outright stated in Tales from the Dawn that Venat did not tell her cohort the true scope of the crisis, her plan, or what the consequences could be.

It's worth remembering that prior to our departure from Elpis she tells us that she's not going to take our word as set in stone fact; she is going to strive to create a future different from the one we foretold. In any reality we can observe she of course failed, but the point is that she didn't want her cohort to take our foretold future as absolute fact or refuse to follow their hearts as it pertained to restraining Zodiark. She didn't want knowledge of Meteion or the possibility of the Sundering clouding their judgment.

[Cleretic]

I think this is definitely Venat's motivation for it, but presumably she didn't reveal the fact that she had been informed about the sundering and the future of Etheirys by a time traveler, so what I'm really curious about is the other people who helped to summon Hydaelyn. Of course Venat knew with absolute certainty that this would prevent the star from dying and make its inhabitants more capably of surviving the final days, but did her supporters know what the sundering entailed? Did they know that Venat knew Aumarot wasn't going to survive? Did they know it would work? I'd love to know if there was a story she told to people to justify Hydaelyn's summoning, or if she essentially just asked them to trust her.

We've gotten the response to Venat's decision from the person who'd become the Watcher three times now, between Anamnesis, the Omega quest, and the short story. Each time from slightly different views; present-day impartial view in Anamnesis, from the Watcher in the present day in Omega, and internal retrospective in the short story. Every single time is entirely consistent, with no indication of hidden or twisted facts beyond scope. The sign that people thought was one--that the Anamnesis scene has him say that people will miss her, which seems odd if people knew she'd be destroying so much of the world--was confirmed in the later accounts to instead be broader and more spiritual; that the world she's going to leave behind will be worse for her not being able to walk it.

Surely, by the third account of the same event with no suggestion of shadowy machinations going on beneath the surface, we can assume that there's nothing like that going on, right? The writers wouldn't leave that canvas unused if there was something to hint at. (And frankly I kind of wish there was, because damn was I annoyed at realizing we were getting a short story about the exact same scene a third time.)

[Eisi]

Well Zodiark was the evil one. So it doesn't really matter if he did anything wrong does it? He was the evil one, Hydaelyn was the good one.

There wasn't any think about it. She knew the threat was coming and she knew the threat was still out there even after Zodiark did it's whole barrier thing. She tried and failed to convince them so this was the only way.

True! She told everyone what was going on with Meteion and Dynamis and the truth of the final days. She wanted the ancients to succeed. Still people decided not to listen because they were incapable because of how inferior they were to us... she had to judge them by erasing their bodies and identities and instead replacing them with better stock. Sometimes that's the only way to save the world, no matter how tragic.

On the other hand wait wasn't Venat an ancient as well? So she must have already been kinda sundered I guess for her to be able to understand that something other than Zodiark could be done? For her to actually care I mean. I don't really know tho.

[KageTokage]

She didn't tell anybody.

The Watcher explicitly states that neither he nor the rest of her followers knew her true intentions, but they simply chose to put their faith in her regardless. The Convocation are also utterly clueless about the actual cause of the Final Days as per Elidibus' testimony.

There's also nothing intrinsically "better" about the sundered, otherwise they wouldn't have been turning in droves the instant the Final Days returned. The "strength to overcome despair" was described as being something impossible to quantify with any rhyme or reason in the Omega quests, and if the Ancients were truly incapable of that strength, they would've all simply lost control of their magicks and died off before they summoned Zodiark.

[Eisi]

She didn't tell anybody.

The Watcher explicitly states that neither he nor the rest of her followers knew her true intentions, but they simply chose to put their faith in her regardless. The Convocation are also utterly clueless about the actual cause of the Final Days as per Elidibus' testimony.

There's also nothing intrinsically "better" about the sundered, otherwise they wouldn't have been turning in droves the instant the Final Days returned. The "strength to overcome despair" was described as being something impossible to quantify with any rhyme or reason in the Omega quests, and if the Ancients were truly incapable of that strength, they would've all simply lost control of their magicks and died off before they summoned Zodiark.

I know, I know. Venat just did her thing and she was pretty much just 100% wrong let's face it. She's a cutie though. The convocation also was pretty incompetent, including Emet who didn't even care about the memory erasure incident. And nobody ever found out that it had to do anything with Dynamis, including Fandaniel who knew that it was a thing. The storyline is just really well written.

[KageTokage]

It's kind of troubling that I genuinely can't tell what's bait or not anymore because I've seen people say those same things and be completely serious about it.

[Cilia]

It's kind of troubling that I genuinely can't tell what's bait or not anymore because I've seen people say those same things and be completely serious about it.

If you think it's bait, best to err on the side of caution.