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

[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.

[Nayukhuut]

I will respond to the numbered posts, because well, I like structure.

~

1. She never gave the Convocation the facts. She went up and expected them to side with her, but never told them why things were happening the way they were.

2. Zodiark was not a genocide. The life sacrificed to him by the time he was sundered was willing. It was a sacrifice, yes, but a willing one. The best plan they could come up with since they had none of the facts.

3. They went along with it originally because they wanted to save their planet, and Zodiark was the last ditch best plan they had since they had no idea what was causing the problems. If your house burnt down wouldn't you want to rebuild?

4. Zodiark had brought the land back. That was done. He had given them the time they needed to breathe and allow the world to start healing and growing again. If they had gotten together and defeated Meteion, he wouldn't have been needed anymore

5. Emet's idea towards us was not the same as the Ancient's towards life. He considered us such directly because of the Sundering. Also, the life they wanted to let flourish to sacrifice towards Zodiark was never stated to be sentient or non sentient. It was just called new life. This could have been a combination of animals, plants, etc for all we knew. It might have been no different than the way we harvest crops and animals for sustenance, but on a much larger scale.

And the Ancients had great respect for life. Hermes just couldn't get out of his sad bubble to see it. Elpis was a lab where new subjects were tested. We do the same now with experiments we create. It was a control to make sure that new flora and fauna they literally brought to life would not hurt the greater world. The sidequests in Elpis absolutely showed they cared though. They honoured the dead, and took steps to exhaust every avenue before they had to put something down.

6. Yeh, she talked to them... and when the greater part of the population choose to ignore her she decided for an entire people what she was going to do.

7. Not everything. A portion of new life so that the people trapped inside Zodiark could be returned to the Star and allowed to die.

8. The Nibirun people were not beyond saving, the Tribal quest proved that. Beyond that, how are the Sundered any better. They could meet any of the fates the other people from Dead Ends saw too. If they had dealt with Meteion, the Song of Despair would have been moot.

9. They could refuse all they want. The Echo exists. They could have been shown. She put a tracker on Meteion. She had evidence.

10. I get that. I still think she was wrong. Or at the very least the story should stop propping her up as the loving hero and acknowledge the sheer amount of blood on her hands. Not in a passive way where she says she did bad but we all pat her on the back and make her feel better, but in an actual way that acknowledges the horrors she committed and paints her in the same light as any other villain we faced.

~

Oh, and one more thing... even if she didn't straight up destroy and reform the life, what she did still resulted in memory and identity death of an entire civilisation. Are you honestly telling me that if someone came along in the story now and said that they were going to wipe away everything we were, everything we loved, and everything we accomplished, that we wouldn't fight that tooth and nail? Because Venat did that, but we are expected to praise her for it.

[Volgia]

I feel like I need to play the 6.1 - 6.5 patches through and through without all this waiting to see how it feels. 5 months cliffhangers makes the story feel kind of slow, to the point I kind of forget what I liked or didn't like from the early patch 5 months ago.

[jameseoakes]

I will respond to the numbered posts, because Well, I like structure.

~

1. She never gave the Convocation the facts. She went up and expected them to side with her, but never told them why things were happening the way they were.

2. Zodiark was not a genocide. The life sacrificed to him by the time he was sundered was willing. It was a sacrifice, yes, but a willing one. The best plan they could come up with since they had none of the facts.

3. They went along with it originally because they wanted to save their planet, and Zodiark was the last ditch best plan they had since they had no idea what was causing the problems. If your house burnt down wouldn't you want to rebuild?

4. Zodiark had brought the land back. That was done. He had given them the time they needed to breathe and allow the world to start healing and growing again. If they had gotten together and defeated Meteion, he wouldn't have been needed anymore

I'm going to follow up on the first 4 points,

As far as we can tell Venat did nothing during the final days itself and did little to try and help and as far as the game shows had no plan to forestall the disaster itself, if I remember she even says she can't do anything to the sociopath that orgastrates it as he's needed as orginally he figures out the stuff about it hitting the areas with weaker atherial currents first. So there seems to have been no attempt by Venat to either mitagate the end of days or have a plan other than the Zodiark plan.

Summoning Zodiark had nothing to do with getting there old lives back, by the time he was summoned it was to prevent the complete annihilation of life on Etheris, by the time they do it the world is functionally already dead as the atherial currents that allowed life to propagate were dead, hence the second sacrifice which was needed to allow any kind of life on the planet

[Nayukhuut]

Yeh. Though the timeline of events we were given was fuzzy, it sounds like she let them summon Zodiark and then started lobbying her point. Zodiark was necessary for her plan too, after all. I always really did hate her logic of why she never told the Convocation what was up. She knew as much as Hermes what was happening. Hermes only knew more about Dynamis because no one else really cared. If she had gone up to the Convocation and told them what was up, perhaps they could have used that information to actually find a solution to the problem rather than just the stop gap they came up with. If they put their best minds on studying Dynamis, they prolly could have made quite a bit of progress.

Sadly we will never know.

[Xirean]

Yeh. Though the timeline of events we were given was fuzzy, it sounds like she let them summon Zodiark and then started lobbying her point. Zodiark was necessary for her plan too, after all. I always really did hate her logic of why she never told the Convocation what was up. She knew as much as Hermes what was happening. Hermes only knew more about Dynamis because no one else really cared. If she had gone up to the Convocation and told them what was up, perhaps they could have used that information to actually find a solution to the problem rather than just the stop gap they came up with. If they put their best minds on studying Dynamis, they prolly could have made quite a bit of progress.

Sadly we will never know.

I'm going to play devils advocate for a bit on this. (Note I still disagree with her) Perhaps her thoughts were that she needed Zodiark to be constructed without her interference because if she got involved it could influence the end result and make it less helpful. The WoL told her how long Zodiark had been around so that's a timeline of Zodiark working and working in pieces, but the WoL has no idea how Zodiark is actually constructed. By getting involved and changing the plan then her thoughts could be "maybe I could make things better, but I know this idea worked so I shouldn't risk that plan not working".

Still convoluted and idk if I'm even doing that logic train justice.

[Lunaxia]

As a random aside, am I crazy or did the writers at some point say that the concept of dynamis didn't actually exist when Shadowbringers was released and we first heard about the Final Days?

I swear they did, but I can't find the source anywhere.

[Theodric]

As a random aside, am I crazy or did the writers at some point say that the concept of dynamis didn't actually exist when Shadowbringers was released and we first heard about the Final Days?

I swear they did, but I can't find the source anywhere.

You're correct - here's the source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...alkers_2_week/

'They hadn’t come up with Dynamis as a concept yet when ShB was released.'

[Lunaxia]

You're correct - here's the source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...alkers_2_week/

'They hadn’t come up with Dynamis as a concept yet when ShB was released.'

Thanks! I was sure it was A Thing, but Google was letting me down.

It's still kind of crazy to me how adamant some people are that Endwalker wasn't at all rushed or affected by the decision to turn it into one expansion instead of two, or that any other rendition of the story existed prior to Shadowbringers being released when statements like that from the devs are right there.

[Theodric]

Thanks! I was sure it was A Thing, but Google was letting me down.

It's still kind of crazy to me how adamant some people are that Endwalker wasn't at all rushed or affected by the decision to turn it into one expansion instead of two, or that any other rendition of the story existed prior to Shadowbringers being released when statements like that from the devs are right there.

Yeah, it's really bizarre. I do hope some more snippets about what exactly went on behind the scenes come to light someday because the tonal whiplash from ShB to EW is honestly one of the most brazen and jarring things I've ever seen in a video game. Unfortunately it's also why I can't really bring myself to be excited about what comes next - because anything I do end up liking could very well find itself receiving similar treatment and just be hastily discarded and/or retconned on a whim.