Let's play a game: Save the Ancients!

[LilimoLimomo]

Well, we do know that the researchers of Elpis come running to him to subdue any creations that are running rampant and he quickly puts them down when needed.

I think you may be misremembering. A researcher does come running to him when the lykaons (muscle-wolves) become violent, but not to ask for his aid, but rather just to let their superior know about the situation; this same researcher lets Hermes know that their colleague will unmake the creatures:

I had just fed them myself, and the okyupetes were keeping a wide berth. It is the nature of the lykaon that is to blame. Their innate viciousness.
Temperament aside, it is an outstanding creation, perfect in form and function.
Though it may not be suited for release, I've no doubt that the bureau will accept its concept for preservation.
In any case, there's no point in postponing the inevitable. Doros will revert them all once the paperwork is in order.

Unsolicited, Hermes interjects himself into the situation because of his distressed feelings about the deaths of these creatures.

Source: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Aether_to_Aether

In addition, he fought WoL (who would go on to defeat the Keywarders of Pandaemonium, who are all immensely powerful mages recognized by Lahabrea himself), Emet-Selch (Hythlodaeus knows of no mage more powerful despite regularly bumping into the best and brightest of Amaurot), and Venat (a former Azem who once stopped a cataclysmic meteor and more or less laughs off her successor fighting a volcanic eruption turned into a creation). Yes, the security measures of Ktisis Hyperboreia weakened his opponents, but Hermes is not to be trifled with.

If I'm trying to be objective, I don't think this provides us with enough information to move the needle one way or the other. As you mentioned, Ktisis Hyperboreia weakens his opponents, and since we don't know by how much we can't learn much about Hermes' strength from that.

To put it in mathematical terms, what we learn is the inequality:

(EMET + WOL + VENAT)/HYPERBOREIA > HERMES

Since HYPERBOREIA could be any value between 1 and infinity, it doesn't get us any closer to understanding the value of HERMES.

[Dikatis]

Since HYPERBOREIA could be any value between 1 and infinity, it doesn't get us any closer to understanding the value of HERMES.

Hermes repeatedly casts Meteor, referred to by the researchers and WoL as an "apex magic" for an apex predator like a behemoth, throughout the fight. Not to mention other high-level spells like Tornado (a wind spell superior to Aeroga/Aero III) and Double/Quadruple (an ability used by Emet-Selch while staking his life in the Dying Gasp).

There's no reason to believe that Hermes is somehow a weak and inept mage when all signs point to the fact that he's a brilliant mage and creator, hence why he was trained to become the Chief Overseer of Elpis in the first place.

[Iscah]

Double/Quadruple (an ability used by Emet-Selch while staking his life in the Dying Gasp)

That could be key, because he likewise is staking everything on the outcome of this fight.

As for power levels in Ktisis, I suspect it might not be "a fraction of their usual power" but "reduce to a fixed level" (an arbitrary 87, to be exact). Consider that Hythlodaeus – apparently normally far weaker than his companions – is by game mechanics now of similar strength to them. Either the others have been brought close to his natural level, or all four have been weakened even further.

But this conversation is far outside the scope of "can you see a way to save the Ancients?" and is on its way to turning back into the same old argument.

[Iscah]

All that, I think, is why all the serious attempts to grapple with the question of this thread either go so far back as to essentially redefine Amaurot, or just throw their hands up and say 'you don't'; Amaurot is designed to fall to its own flaws, and give us the world we live in. That is the story of Amaurot, so saving the Ancients requires rewriting that story from the ground up.

I just want to object to that generalisation, because my own "serious attempt" has no judgement on the nature of the civilisation (besides that its doom is set in stone from present-day Etheirys's perspective) and everything to do with the cost to those doing the saving. It could be attempted by someone who wanted to live in that world so much that they don't care if the original timeline might be destroyed in the process.

That said, your observation makes sense in part, but I think a lot of the story issues with Amaurot come from the writers wanting to have it both ways. They want a mysterious precursor civilisation of all-powerful god-men and a cast of lovable individuals. They want a world where suffering is inevitable and nobody in the universe is immune and a world where Pandora had to open the box to artificially make it so. They can't even seem to decide whether they want to contrast Elpis and Labyrinthos or go for a "researchers are the same everywhere" vibe.

[LilimoLimomo]

Hermes repeatedly casts Meteor, referred to by the researchers and WoL as an "apex magic" for an apex predator like a behemoth, throughout the fight.

I don't think that's an unreasonable interpretation, but my personal reading is that this statement is made in the context of what abilities to give to an animal. The behemoth wasn't created with the intent that it combat Ancients, who have capabilities far superior to it.

There's no reason to believe that Hermes is somehow a weak and inept mage

Oh 100%, I agree that there's no reason to believe that he's weak or inept. But at the same time I haven't seen anything that would lead me to think he's above average from a power standpoint.

when all signs point to the fact that he's a brilliant mage and creator, hence why he was trained to become the Chief Overseer of Elpis in the first place.

Again, Hythlodaeus oversees Hermes, which is strong evidence that magical prowess is unrelated to rank. Hermes is shown to be both knowledgeable and invested in his field of study and its related work, and those are the aspects of him that others hold in high regard during our adventure in Elpis; they do not comment on his power.

[Cleretic]

That said, your observation makes sense in part, but I think a lot of the story issues with Amaurot come from the writers wanting to have it both ways. They want a mysterious precursor civilisation of all-powerful god-men and a cast of lovable individuals. They want a world where suffering is inevitable and nobody in the universe is immune and a world where Pandora had to open the box to artificially make it so. They can't even seem to decide whether they want to contrast Elpis and Labyrinthos or go for a "researchers are the same everywhere" vibe.

I agree broadly, but I think the 'have it both ways' comes from a weird situation where they want to write a creation myth, and also an actual zone that we interact with people in. By nature, a creation myth is full of characters that don't really need to be very deep or heavily explored; Adam and Eve don't exactly have rich, detailed characterization. Amaurot, though, kinda does, not just because we go there and interact with people, but also because there's a couple survivors that live to the present day. So they have to walk the weird tightrope between 'a world whose flaws are going to be their downfall' and 'a place full of people that you hopefully at least kinda like'.

And I think more than anything the result hurts Hermes' general story; he's supposed to be broadly right in his criticisms, to have a point about how his world treats those 'beneath' them... but not only do you have to have Venat there as a sympathetic exception to that (and you also have Hythlodaeus, but I would argue you didn't have to have him), you have to make the entire zone generally friendly to us anyway, both to hammer in the tragedy of their fall and to not make the zone itself utterly unbearable to play through. And that leads to the whole zone suddenly feeling like they don't have that problem, because we're told the Ancients are callous to their creations, but they think we're a creation and they treat us just fine. Hard to feel like you're in something of an underclass when everyone treats you like a friend.

Elpis is like if the story of Lot had all the same plot beats, but there was an extended sequence set in Sodom and/or Gomorrah where everyone was just generally pretty friendly. Kinda makes the story harder to swallow!

[Mostly_Raxus]

haven't they just been reincarnating? just go wake up baby emit when he is born again

[LilimoLimomo]

Dang, you really just said Hythlodaeus=0

LOL it's true I did, but only because I feel that's how my beloved boy would have chosen to represent himself XD

[Lunaxia]

One of them did, though.

He almost did. And the argument was that most could. Hermes was a mad scientist trifling with a force he oughtn't have messed with at best, and in the context of the game that's not even an Ancient-specific phenomenon.

Even if you think Hermes has some kind of elite status that makes him uniquely capable that few shared (which I don't)

Actually, we are given explicit proof that...

...what? Multiple NPCs comment on the extent of Hermes' ability. He's actively called a genius at points, his knowledge and talent are remarked upon by his compeers as being unmatched, and he's considered the foremost expert and leading authority within his field. He is the only Ancient thus far to not only be able to make use of Dynamis, a form of energy supposedly beyond their powers to manipulate, but to actively utilise it in developing the first functional entelechy, and one possessing of free will and intelligence at that. Moreover, he's said to be more or less the only one with the know-how required to properly identify and halt the phenomena directly behind the Final Days. He might be crazy, but he's absolutely a prodigy even by Ancient standards and you have to give him credit where it's due. Likewise, the Convocation are referred to as being the most formidable and talented figures in their respective domains by NPCs on several occasions and are recruited for that very reason. We've already effectively lost to three of them purely on our own merit, and trying to prop up the notion that simply anyone can be elected purely because Hythlodaeus is ridiculously self-deprecating is hilariously off-base and smacks more than a little of bad faith. This is literally why I will never take any of you seriously when you purport to come here in the guise of neutrality or objectivity, because your supposed knowledge and interest in basic lore manages to drop off a cliff the moment it steps beyond the boundaries of takes or opinions you're comfortable with.

And their 'superiors' only solved it by sacrificing half the planet, which I would at best call a pyrrhic victory.

And yet it was a victory nonetheless. Were it a war with a litany of casualties, what would you say then? Were it... dare I say, a form of pandemic created by a malevolent entity, what would you say then? The Ancients have Ancient-specific crises, for sure, but again I'm still seeing no argument that justifies why they're inherently more dangerous or at risk than mortals, who are more far more vulnerable and lack the same resources they had to address problems facing the planet in the case of a mass emergency.

ETA: After having time to glance through the thread, I will say I do agree with the point that the portrayal of the Ancients suffers for the writers attempting to show them both as a distant, biblical fall-from-grace allegory and a bunch of extremely powerful albeit fundamentally human characters scarcely any different from Bill from Accounting that we should be sympathising and feeling for. And that feeling of dissonance is, ironically, where the bulk of the game's criticism comes from. The story tries to tell you one thing but then shows another, all while handholding you towards the "correct" perspective the writers intended you to take away from all of this. And while some people are perfectly content to go along with that and take things as they find them, for those accustomed to forming their own opinion and FFXIV *usually* managing to follow through on putting together a coherent and nuanced narrative that allows you to do so, it made the whole experience... well, jarring, to say the least.

[Cleretic]

And yet it was a victory nonetheless. Were it a war with a litany of casualties, what would you say then? Were it... dare I say, a form of pandemic created by a malevolent entity, what would you say then?

I would call ANY situation where victory requires sacrificing half your population, on top of the people who died anyway, pyrrhic at best, no matter what you were going up against. I think that's especially true of Zodiark; both what we saw and heard about in the aftermath shows that it was an absolutely miserable victory. They won, but at terrible cost. (Also, I feel like you're trying to imply something without saying it with your examples, so maybe you should try saying what you mean.)

And again, to bring back the original point: all of this was caused, by one man, by accident, while trying to answer a pretty worthwhile question. I don't think Hermes being some unparalleled genius actually matters here, because he didn't even mean to do it. If you want to get an idea a similar situation is in the sundered world, I can immediately think of three people who 'caused problems by accident':
-Alphinaud with the Crystal Braves... which was a vastly different situation and still had almost all of its consequences mitigated with little cost (RIP Minfilia and Raubahn's arm),
-Ga Bu, who created an overly emotional Titan... in a context where Titan was going to be summoned anyway
-And Gilgamesh, who created a primal so minor that a lot of people forget that it actually was one

While those are hardly nothing, they are microscopic compared to the impact of Hermes' whoopsie. So yes, I think it's an absolutely fair argument to say that most of the Ancients were stupidly, absurdly powerful.