[6.0 - 6.4 Spoilers] An interesting video detailing Venat's polarizing reception

[Magikazam]

Venat had a very good and immediately understandable reason not to tell the Convocation, despite that being what she'd do in any other situation by her own admission: because she knows what their standard procedure is going to be to finding out this unknown, and that it's not going to help. (We also know this, because Emet does exactly their 'standard procedure' with Hermes and Meteion and only makes things worse.)

On the other hand, you might remember that there's a certain pretty big step between 'Zodiark dying' and 'coming back from the moon'! A step that proved that, while there's hardly a 'highest authority' on the Source, there is one that's a few steps ahead of the Scions on this particular subject, for which this whole subject is very much a known situation, and should probably be the first point of contact on getting back down there. Said authority is hardly an inherently trustworthy power, and proved that extremely clearly just a bit earlier in Endwalker, but given the scenario put in front of the Scions, were a clear first point of call.

Far from being parallel situations that should or could be handled in parallel ways, these are actually exact mirrors that require opposite approaches: Venat was faced with a situation that gave her clear evidence on who she couldn't contact, while the Scions were faced with a situation that gave them only one option as to who to contact. I don't find seeing the differences here especially complicated, and I'm sure you don't, either.

NGL with you. the only reason the standard procedure didn't work the first time is cause a clearly battle-fatigued Hermes pulled out a mind-erasing clock that we need to assume can't be destroyed or stopped by any magic at all. I would say that the device is so convenient rather than the ancient procedure being an issue there.

[Cleretic]

NGL with you. the only reason the standard procedure didn't work the first time is cause a clearly battle-fatigued Hermes pulled out a mind-erasing clock that we need to assume can't be destroyed or stopped by any magic at all. I would say that the device is so convenient rather than the ancient procedure being an issue there.

Actually, Kairos is the main reason this entire situation is salvageable in the first place. Let's run through the same events we saw play out, except Kairos isn't there. I think that's a bit of an oversimplification since I think a lot of Hermes' actions are predicated on Kairos' existence.

The events in Ktisis play out as we see, but nobody's mind is wiped of them. We can set Hythlodaeus aside since he's not in any position of power.

We can safely assume that Emet keeps to his word and makes sure Hermes is out of contest to become Fandaniel. In terms of searching for applicants, they're back to square one; it doesn't seem like they had other options. We don't know how much time happened between the events of Elpis and the End of Days, but I think it's fairly plausible that in this scenario, there is no Fandaniel by the time the skies ignite. Being generous and assuming there is, we don't get much better: the main thing Hermes brought to the table wasn't being a Fandaniel, but already having an intimate understanding of dynamis, a field so esoteric that it seems he's the only person in Elpis to do so. That's gonna lead to this Fandaniel playing catchup when the End of Days hit, at a time when any time lost is crucial. I think the chances of Zodiark happening in this scenario are slim-to-none, and with higher chance of failures.

Hermes, meanwhile, hits a big unknown in that while he'd definitely be subject to whatever passes for the Amaurotian justice system. We don't know what that is, but let's again take the generous assumption and say he's in some kind of prison. In the actual game, though, remember that he subjects himself to Kairos because he knows that it's basically the only way he'll be able to commit wholeheartedly to what the world needs in defense. At best, without Kairos, he's dead weight; he's not gonna help even if they ask. At worst, we're looking at a potential saboteur: if he slips the confines they put him in (or if they don't have any in the first place), then he's perfectly suited to ruin whatever they come up with.

Venat's technically not in a different position since her memory was never wiped in the first place, but there's suddenly a lot more on her shoulders in the long term. As I quoted on the second page, she does commit to building both defenses and escape plans; but unlike in the actual game where Zodiark was a functional defense, this time it's all on whatever she can rustle up. And judging by the fact we never saw what she could rustle up, it's probably not good. Technically she's in a good position to scout out a non-Hermes dynamis expert to weigh in on the Zodiark situation, but nothing she says indicates she knows anyone that fits the bill, and the issue she mentions of having to select allies carefully for emotional stability reasons is still true here: she can't just scout, even if she had the time for it. Frankly, I don't know what Venat does here, because her capacity to do anything here is pretty meager.

Basically, without Kairos the entire situation gets way messier, and chances of success drop perilously close to 0%.

[Magikazam]

Actually, Kairos is the main reason this entire situation is salvageable in the first place. Let's run through the same events we saw play out, except Kairos isn't there. I think that's a bit of an oversimplification since I think a lot of Hermes' actions are predicated on Kairos' existence.

If the mind erasure doesn't take place, The trio don't forget our story and the fact we already determined Dynamis is the key to the whole issue here. Meiteon doesn't get to escape and they properly study her. Considering Venat could guess we come from the future simply by the fact we had her spell on her despite never meeting her, I think it fair to assume the Ancient, with all key to the problem in hand in this situation, would figure it out. It just create a situation where the Ancient has the same tool and information the Scion had. The only thing the mind erasure clock does is help the whole scenario deal with the usual time travel issue. It just turns it so the WoL going back to the past only affects the present by creating a time loop.

[Cleretic]

What’s funny to me is that it wasn’t that many years ago that you were calling out 90% of what Emet-Selch said as flawed and lies, yet he says an out of character statement that you agree with and all of a sudden he’s right 100% clear cut. Disregarding that though, the fact of the matter is the story doesn’t treat her with such grey morality. She is quite literally referred to as a primal of peace in the codex and a hero in her minion description. You very well know if we got an Emet-Selch minion in ShB depicting him as a hero, you would be seething.

Yeah, I grew as a person between then and now, realized that I was digesting the story in a way that both wasn't intended and wasn't very healthy for me or anyone. There's a lot of things I regret saying in a lot of times in my life, and I apologize if any of it hurt you, but I think the best I can do with all of those is just to do better in the present. And so, I am. Yeah, I probably wouldn't have liked getting that hypothetical minion at the point when I completed Shadowbringers, but today is not the day I completed Shadowbringers.

(Also, you might not know because by your own admission you weren't subscribed at the time, but we do have an Emet-Selch minion depicting him as a hero; my reservations on this are mostly in-universe.)

If the mind erasure doesn't take place, The trio don't forget our story and the fact we already determined Dynamis is the key to the whole issue here. Meiteon doesn't get to escape and they properly study her. Considering Venat could guess we come from the future simply by the fact we had her spell on her despite never meeting her, I think it fair to assume the Ancient, with all key to the problem in hand in this situation, would figure it out. It just create a situation where the Ancient has the same tool and information the Scion had. The only thing the mind erasure clock does is help the whole scenario deal with the usual time travel issue. It just turns it so the WoL going back to the past only affects the present by creating a time loop.

Why would Meteion not escape, given the only changed factor in this hypothetical is the lack of Kairos? Hermes can still lock down Emet and Hyth, and Meteion can still outrun Argos; I think her escape is a foregone conclusion in this hypothetical unless we want to add in more factors, and I personally don't.

I think our main disagreement here is on the notion that, if you let Hermes take himself out of the picture, whether or not there's dynamis expertise. Everyone else in that group know of dynamis far more than they know dynamis. The three of them trying to figure out making Zodiark by themselves would be akin to the two of us trying to make a spaceship: regardless of how much we think we know, unless one of us is an expert on aerodynamics, it's just not gonna fly. So then, it comes to the question of 'are there any other dynamis experts they could ask without Hermes there', and no evidence suggests to me that there is.

[Magikazam]

Why would Meteion not escape, given the only changed factor in this hypothetical is the lack of Kairos? Hermes can still lock down Emet and Hyth, and Meteion can still outrun Argos; I think her escape is a foregone conclusion in this hypothetical unless we want to add in more factors, and I personally don't.

Meteion barely escaped when the group was focused on creating an exit path for the WOL. The only thing stopping them is an already battle-fatigued Hermes, Remember he basically limps around after the dungeon fight and he has to be carried out by Emet after the whole Kairos thing happens. We can also assume the group got tools to catch her like spells. Also while Hermes got knowledge on dynamis, he not the only one that know this much about it. He even tell you the reason they lack knowledge about it is that since they are being with lots of Aether, it hard to create practical things out of dynamis and it why the Ancient don't study it that much since they can't make use of it easily. It not that it a hard to understand and study it, they just don't bother because they can't use it in daily QOL stuff.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Sad to see the post calling out the bad faith posters in this thread got taken down but it is what it is, hopefully a lot of people saw it and know now to avoid engaging with them.

[SannaR]

If the mind erasure doesn't take place, The trio don't forget our story and the fact we already determined Dynamis is the key to the whole issue here. Meiteon doesn't get to escape and they properly study her. Considering Venat could guess we come from the future simply by the fact we had her spell on her despite never meeting her, I think it fair to assume the Ancient, with all key to the problem in hand in this situation, would figure it out. It just create a situation where the Ancient has the same tool and information the Scion had. The only thing the mind erasure clock does is help the whole scenario deal with the usual time travel issue. It just turns it so the WoL going back to the past only affects the present by creating a time loop.

I'll try to make this my last post to this thread. Meteion's escape already is a thing though even without the mind wipe. Hermes told her to flee and had kicked in a faster speed. Unless you mean that the only reason Venat didn't follow her into actual space is due to the ticking clock of Kiros. Which we don't have enough evidence for. We don't know if Argos has a higher speed than what was already shown. That and Endsinger was already a thing as all the other off planet Meteia had already gone bad and were out there. We were just trying to stop the on planet one from trying to join the others.

[Magikazam]

I'll try to make this my last post to this thread. Meteion's escape already is a thing though even without the mind wipe. Hermes told her to flee and had kicked in a faster speed. Unless you mean that the only reason Venat didn't follow her into actual space is due to the ticking clock of Kiros. Which we don't have enough evidence for. We don't know if Argos has a higher speed than what was already shown. That and Endsinger was already a thing as all the other off planet Meteia had already gone bad and were out there. We were just trying to stop the on planet one from trying to join the others.

They were trying to stop Meteion from escaping so they could study her. Emet clearly state this at the start of the cinematic. My point here is that if they catch her (and that easier if 3/4 member of the party ain't focused on creating an escape path for the WOL) they can study the effect of dynamis in a easier way since she got a low ammount of Aether