What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Boblawblah]

Speaking of adult things, you know someone really got to you if you're creating a signature just for them.

[BRVV]

Speaking of adult things, you know someone really got to you if you're creating a signature just for them.

The "adult thing" according to most of this forum will probably be to ignore everyone labeled as "trolls" which would very likely include Ren. Avoiding confrontation to stay in your comfort zone is just that, avoidance. I decided to engage yet again and tried to get "lessons learned" out of it. Tried to formulate what Ren does wrong in his posts.

Added: Maybe i shouldn't get too into all of this. Questioning why i bother anyway. How did i get 865 posts on here? Can't remember much information i got from all of those posts. Removed the rules because they were in deed a bit cringe.

[Renathras]

And that post makes him ragequit. Shows how annoying his style of posts is.

Added: all 8 points are things Ren never does. If anything he is a great bad example.

This is known is bait.

It's really odd to me you consider me toxic when I'm trying to be mature and polite by not engaging in tit for tat with you.

But as I told you in yet another thread you're harassing me in: I want to discuss the topic, you want to discuss me. If you can't see the problem with that, I can't help you.

But in general, when a situation gets heated and someone says "Look, this is just a bad situation, I'm going to back out", heckling them and insulting them as they back away is you being the rude and toxic one. It reminds me of that Monty Python skit about "I'm here for an argument".

"Oh I've had enough of this!"
"No you haven't."
"Shut up!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLlv_aZjHXc
"Argument Clinic"

...but you're a good baiter considering I keep replying despite myself. Hm. Guess I should stop.

Speaking of adult things, you know someone really got to you if you're creating a signature just for them.

The weird thing to me is I wasn't even talking to that person. I wasn't talking to anyone in the thread at all in my initial reply, and then was talking to some other people. Then this one comes in and spends the next 2-3 days even going to the healing forum to try to countermand me more there as well, even despite an other discussion going on, derailing that thread. It's...weird.

The latest tactic is to call me a troll over and over again, though not exclusively to that person, despite the fact I've never shown such behavior, try to re-rail the topics that they derail, and actually put thought into my posts instead of just insults, bait to drive engagement, and then more bait to draw people in who are trying to disengage, including insults as they depart. Weird how the people calling me troll are being more trollish...perhaps that's their intent. Wouldn't be the first time, considering Titan went and made an entire impersonation alt.

I honestly don't even know what I do to get so under their skins to live rent free in their heads. It's just weird at this point.

But I'm sticking this all in HB, time to get the thread back on track.

Anyway, in light of that:

I'm seeing a lot more people saying that 6.5 they liked, but collectively, everyone seems to agree that 6.3 and 6.4 were complete lackluster stumbling about.

I hope in the future, they can learn a lesson from this with their patch storytelling and do less of it. Too little development of the villains, too quick resolution, too many "come back in 4 months" "cliffhangers", too much time spent on new emotes in lieu of it, and too little referencing of characters that would make sense for the story (e.g. Unu and Gaia).

[BRVV]

Not taikin' the bait anymore. Sorry guys, you'll have to find a new punching bag. I'm done with that stupidity. I should have wised up to your collective gaslighting far sooner. Shame on me for not doing so. But now that I have, your bait is inert.
(I'd also suggestion you look at 3, 4, 5, and 6 in your signature, BRVV. They're good points you should actually follow yourself, as you aren't in your replies to me here, especially 6.)

This isn't "Look, this is just a bad situation, I'm going to back out". You have now claimed to have said something before that you didn't. It's like you misremember what you wrote. You know i can read older posts of you?

What it is is insulting me and others. Throwing stuff like this out is not reasonably leaving the debate. It's throwing a fit and trying to have the last word without contribution to the discussion. I would also describe this as bait. If you really believe you are innocent and not an aggressor than i honestly have a hard time believing you have friends you can have longer conversations with unless they aggree with you on everything or ignore you.

The HBars and the "sticking to the topic" does not make you better than me. At this point i genuinly just want you to keep insults out of your posts. Otherwise i fear you will get ignored by a growing number of forum users.

[Silverquick]

There's all kinds of things that just... well cringe on it.

Even the latest one, they're going around to the crystal tower in the world of light, trying to "convince" people its ok. When they should have just said from the beginning... we're actually draining some of the light from this world to send it to the world of darkness and hopefully balance both worlds. I don't thing anyone there in the 1st was going to say no to sending all that excess light somewhere else... but no instead its "but but the Warrior of Darkness needs it".

A lot of cheezy and stupid stuff like that, which makes no sense in the context of what's happening or their world.

[Vahlnir]

I don't thing anyone there in the 1st was going to say no to sending all that excess light somewhere else... but no instead its "but but the Warrior of Darkness needs it".

A lot of cheezy and stupid stuff like that, which makes no sense in the context of what's happening or their world.

Yeah. I mean, they've always dealt with the political and moral aspects of certain things, even if it was just running around to get the a-okay from local residents and leaders. But this situation specifically was just needless trekking around for the sake of it. They really wouldn't have cared. lol


Leader A, B, and C:"The Warrior of Darkness needs-"

The citizens: "Cool. Enjoy."

It really was that simple. We didn't even have to be there. Could have sent a messenger and waited a couple hours in our quarters in the Crystarium. Probably eating an also needlessly high res sandwich.

[Nayukhuut]

Didn't she make an attempt....

That cutscene wasn't one for one. It was meant to be a stylised thing. Even then, her forcing her will on them was still wrong since it has been said, even in canon, that her faction was the minority. Imagine nowadays if some fringe group basically said we are doing this, wiped out the entire population, and then set up people that schooled whatever remained in how they should act. That was basically what Venat did. It drives me nuts that the story treats it as okay because the Ancients were apparently beyond saving (because we are constantly told no one is without hope). They had just gone through serious trauma, of course they were not exactly doing well at the time. Venat had no right to decide for an entire population what they should do. Even worse than that, she decided, and then killed everyone.

As for Ancient creations not reaching Meteion... Are we forgetting that Meteion herself was an Ancient creation? I am sure that if the best minds of the time were actually allowed to study the problem they could have come up with something. Sunder themselves purposefully, or make more creations for the purpose of going and fighting her. I dunno. They were never given that choice though. They were never told what was going to happen. Venat just sort of decided her people were not worth saving and genocided he lot of them to make way for new planets full of people she found more palatable led by gods she put there instead of one she apparently didn't like as much.

I would also like to point out that her Sundered worlds also require constant maintenance too. If we do not pray to the Twelve, the stabalising mechanism put in place will fail. So really, saying she is better than Zodiark rings hollow.

Also sorry, I would have quoted you in full but the forum text limits are draconian.

[Theodric]

Also sorry, I would have quoted you in full but the forum text limits are draconian.

On that note, you can get around the text limit if you edit a post after submitting. So you could write up a lengthy post, cut it in half, post the first part and then edit in the rest.

[Nayukhuut]

On that note, you can get around the text limit if you edit a post after submitting. So you could write up a lengthy post, cut it in half, post the first part and then edit in the rest.

Oh, thank you. I wasn't even aware. Usually it is not too much of an issue, and I don't intend on writing novels by any means, but it seems that the default text limit is just set rather low.

Thank you kindly for the tip.

[Renathras]

This isn't...

Yes, it is, and we're well past the point of having a cordial conversation about it due to your posts. So I'm not engaging further.

If you're damned and determined to do so, you can, but that's you being the troll and trying to derail the topic and keep it talking about one person, not me.

Yeah. I mean...

I wonder if this is just a personal taste thing, but...I liked that part. Better than the eating random foods emote sessions.

What I liked about it was seeing that the First hasn't been frozen in time since we left. We see that the political situation has continued to develop and people have continued to do things. In an MMO, it's easy for zones to get "timelocked" where they have their main story concluded and are never touched again. So while in "the real world", you'd expect things to progress, in the game, they don't. That one NPC is still yelling in the background "We must SAVE my FAMILY!!", everyone's in the same spots they have been, and there's no clear advance of time on the maps or in any quests.

I think stuff like this is useful for showing progress, and personally, any time I go back to Crystarium for quests I get a bit nostalgic, so I kinda like that. But it's nice to hear from the NPCs in dialogue and stuff thta things have proceeded. Sure, it's mostly minor stuff to be expected, but that's still nice to see. The Chais are doing good, and it's always pleasant checking in with Lady Chai anyways. The Nights' Blessed part was neat because we actually got to see more of their philosophy regarding the Light and the Dark, and that it's much more an ideology of balance which recognizes too extreme in either direction is dangerous rather than mere worship of the dark. It was nice hearing that the political situation is continuing to evolve with the survivors on Norvant, even if things are still somewhat tense, and that the people haven't forgotten us or G'Raha, as well as checking in with Lyne again. I also generally like checking in with Beg Luk, the Matoya of the First imo.

I dunno, quests like that I actually do enjoy because they flesh out some lore and they move the time clock forward, and it was nice just walking around Crystarium and listening to the music again.

I didn't realize there were a lot of people that outright didn't like that sort of thing.

EDIT:

Also sorry, I would have quoted you in full but the forum text limits are draconian.

Yeah, understand. That's why I have to edit posts so much. Also the daily limits.

As to the topic:

I THINK what the story was saying was that they would have (or outright did) refuse her when she brought it up. Though things are a bit vague there, so it could go either way.

The way I took the story was it was telling us the majority had decided on Zodiark and "Plan: Genocide". Then enacted it. Leading up to that time, she argued against the Zodiark/Genocide strategy and was rebuffed. After the Zodiark plan went into motion, she then went to the people again, having seen the loss of 75% of their population, and asked them to turn from that path. But even then, they weren't interested and would have refused.

The cutscene was stylized to be sure - I was making that point as well, hence the one-to-one thing (e.g. the crowd there was supposed to represent all Ancients, not just a dozen or so, so we agree on that) - but I took it as her having made several attempts and them either not believing her or thinking the Zodiark/Genocide plan was the better choice for them, and that they were extremely selfish to the point of being okay with mass genocide if it would get their old life back, at which point they would have ended up like the Ra'La people, which has been stated by the writers as what WOULD - not might or could, WOULD - have happened to them if they followed that path.

In other words, they were not only committing genocide themselves, but even doing so, they would end up having mass-suicided themselves in the end anyway.

It's also not expressly said in FFXIV that they all died when Sundered. At least, I've never found any lore reference saying so. I think some people took that from a game with a crossover, but there's no concrete lore from FFXIV itself that suggests it.

.

So taken together, what the story seemed to be saying as far as I can tell was:

1) Venat went to the Convocation and talked to them, but they either didn't believe her or didn't agree with her plan.
2) The Convocation developed plan Zodiark/Genocide.
3) The majority went along with it due to promises of getting their old lives back.
4) 50% of their population was sacrificed to summon Zodiark. 25% more (50% of the remainder) again to have him restore life and stability to the land. A stability that would not be permanent as it would require Zodiark to be continually fueled.
5) The next stage of the plan was to raise lesser lives, including sentient or semi-sentient ones, and then genocide THEM for the sake of the Ancients. Remember, at this point in time, the Ancients did not consider non-Ancient life, no matter how sentient, to be actually alive. Emet's statement of believing we were not alive, argo killing us was not murder, was the norm. We see this in Elpis where they kill things and play god with no one other than Hermes having an issue with it.
6) Venat went to the people again at this point to try to talk them out of the Genocide part of the plan.
7) The people were gung-ho cult following on plan Genocide and refused to turn from that path. They were 100% going to Genocide everything else on the planet.
8) We also know that, despite all of this, EVENTUALLY, they would have fallen, either to self-destruction like the Ra'La people, or to Zodiark's barrier eventually failing and the Song of Despair consuming the universe anyway.
9) It is VERY LIKELY they still would have refused to believe the story about Meteon, and would not have helped. And we have nothing in the story suggesting they would have succeeded had they tried. And even had they done so, we still end up at the Genocide + Suicide by Ra'La fate, meaning they'd already be the bad guys at this point owing to the mass genocide they would have, by that point, perpetrated on all life on the planet other than their own.
10) It is at this point that Venat believes there is no hope in convincing them otherwise, and that the only way to actually deal with Meteon is through the Sundering process.

The problem is, we don't know some key points.

We don't know what she talked with the Convocation about, how much she told them, and how much she did not.

We also don't know, though we have reason to suspect, the post-Zodiark survivors had no interest in dealing with Meteon, because at that point they still considered themselves gods and that Zodiark could protect them from anything, which is likely not true regarding the Song of Despair. So even had she outright said so to them, it's unlikely a people that closed minded as they were at that point would have moved on it, since they would likely have considered it "not my problem".

And, it all hinges on whether she is right about what the Convocation would do, how it would react, how Hermes would react, and how the masses would react (though she was right about that one as we can see from the Final Days related dungeons).

The problem to me is, those are...really key points that we don't know the answer to. Yet they're essential to determine whether or not she was right.

BUT, one thing is certain: The people she Sundered WERE planning on, and would have carried out, actual genocide, and genocide against innocent people were Venat has at least the dubious "moral justification" of the people she Sundered being the genociders, not merely genocidees. We also saw this with the Ascians later, and again Emet's quote. Is it morally right to murder a murderer is where that question leads to, but it doesn't change the fact the person murdered WAS a murderer - the surviving Ancients, in this case, being genocidal.

But it does seem she made attempts. Would the result have been different had she been fully forthcoming with information? We have no reason to believe that it would, and we've been told that the end result would have been worse. I'm not sure that justifies what Venat did, but it does show that the people she did it to were every bit as bad and were not saints or heroes or innocents themselves.