Finished the MSQ - Feels bad, pushed to do evil [Spoilers inside]

[Kaecilius]

The system of the Endless gave each individual not only their memories but agency to act as they desired (as evidenced by Cahciua). They could learn and had sapience, understanding their existence as Endless instead of actual living beings.

It's telling that we are giving more thought to the situation than the Scions did in the story. The story just doesn't want you to think about the consequences of what we're doing. We quickly rush to Sphene planning to escalate an invasion without ever even discussing the possibility of alternatives, despite having the combined knowledge of two shards, the Source and even alien races like the Ea and the Omicrons in Ultima Thule.

Was the system of the Endless sustainable? Definitely not. But we don't even wrestle with the morality of the problem, we don't try to find solutions. We just shut it down because from our point of view they are not alive.

[Musashidon]

We just shut it down because from our point of view they are not alive.

no we shut them down cause them living was killing all life in the world soon to be universe and multiverse. it had nothing to do with them being alive or not the game makes you want to feel sad for them and think about them, but the reality most people aren't sad because its double not real. one they are AI second this is a video game so there is no real attachment to anything that happens to begin with.

[DiaDeem]

"Pushed to do evil"

You spent the last decade murdering Garlean conscripts that were forced to fight for the empire against their will but now you've had your moral awakening?

Alright.

[Eyrilona]

I feel like the really painful point still missing in this discussion, is that we happen to know some guys who are really good at putting minds stored as data into functioning bodies, which work without any need to leech life force. Compared to the Omicrons, Sphene is an absolute amateur who stumbled upon an extremely inefficient way of preserving the living memories of her people. If we wanted to be the good guys here, we'd have pointed out the Omicron tech and used it to end the Endless' dependence on other people's souls, aether, and those excessive amounts of energy they're using. Give them a permanent fully VR realm to exist in or something. But we didn't even think to bring it up, just as how we keep silent that our world has already found a way to cure the aetheric unbalance sickness afflicting the living Alexandrians.

We had every option to not let it end this way.

[Loggos]

If the Endless don't have souls then what is a soul? Cahciua seemed like she had emotions and thoughts, and was able to react and interact with everyone around her. Krile's parents were able to recognize Krile and enjoyed being with her and made new memories hanging out with her. Even if they "do not have souls" what does this mean?

Strictly speaking no they don't have a soul because in FF14 "soul" and "self" seem to be two different things even though for us in the real world it's often understood to be synonymous.
(I agree that the endless are "selves" btw.)

As far as I understand a soul is an actual "magic-physical" "object" (or entity) that is subjected to certain laws of (magical) nature.
It's a collection of special aether (life force or something else, but it's "something" - very helpful I know) that holds the "core identity" of a person. It also serves as an actual "magic-physical" core for the aether that composes your current reincarnation (your flesh, your memories, your powers etc.)
If I understand it correctly if your soul returns to the aetherial sea the aether that comprises your memories (since you've already left behind the aether of your corporal form) slowly washes away but the core remains.
To my knowledge the core itself can't dissipate. Then after some time this core attracts enough new aether so that you reincarnate as a new person in a different corporal shape. You don't retain your memories and your personality might be different in some aspects but a certain "true core identity" will be constant across all of your reincarnations (e.g., Fandaniel/Amos being a genius etc.).

So according to that logic it is probably possible to be a self without a soul in FF14, e.g. by extracting memories and infusing them with external life force to give them enough/the right power to reinstate their consciousness.


Now what confuses me is that

the soul and their life force seem to be two different components as well. Because on the one hand Alexandrians consume the life force of purified souls but Erenville also believes he'll see his mother in the aetherial sea (and I believe he was a mouthpiece of the writers in that moment because that scene was there to give us closure/a happy ending). So despite her soul's life force being consumed (and her memories being extracted) Cahciua's soul (the core that holds her true self) is still intact and inside the aetherial sea. (Technically this means that if Erenville's soul finds Cahciua's soul in the aetherial sea he can't tell her of all his travels because her memories had already been removed in S9 and she doesn't remember her old self and life. She isn't the reincarnation that was Cahciua anymore...)
Either way, perhaps if your life force is depleted, your "energy-less" soul with your core self remains and recharges in the aetherial sea, in addition to attracting new aether for reincarnation.
(But I'm really not sure. Feel free to correct me if you understand wth is actually going on here.)

[Bunyon]

"Pushed to do evil"

You spent the last decade murdering Garlean conscripts that were force to fight for the empire against their will but now you've had your moral awakening?

Alright.

And after that we also spent the last decade slowly understanding myriad cultures across Eorzea and trying to find unity across them so they can co-exist.

[pedromvilar]

no we shut them down cause them living was killing all life in the world soon to be universe and multiverse.

Questioning whether that's true in the first place is one of the things that we should have done and really didn't. We just accepted that the Endless were consuming all life, because Queen Sphene said so—but we are more powerful and resourceful than she could ever be, trapped in her little bubble! We have access to the stars! We defeated the Endsinger! If it is in fact the case that the Endless will keep consuming and killing forever, then yeah, it's necessary, but not a single character goes, "Wait, hold on, is that true? Why would that be true? What makes it be true? Can we change it? Can we reengineer it?" Not a single character suggests that this might be a solvable problem, even though we've already solved time travel and a lot of dimensional travel and we killed the personification of the concept of entropy. We have solved a lot of impossible problems before, and I'm not saying this one is also solvable, but someone should have at least suggested that it might have been, rather than just blindly accept Queen Sphene's and Cahciua's gospels that it definitely isn't without any further elaboration or detail or context.

Furthermore, even if it is the case that it's unsolvable, we should at least feel guilty and sad about it! "You needn't feel guilty" shouldn't absolve us of moral responsibility and of the weight of what we're doing. The characters don't grapple at all with the sorrow of killing so many innocents who through no fault of their own were consuming resources in a way that killed others.

Plus, the fact that the Endless consume that much energy in the first place was a choice that the writers made to justify the story they wanted to tell and then they wanted us to not look for the man behind the wizard, they wanted us to just accept that this cost was inevitable and not give us the option to look into it. This was a writing choice, and it was clumsy and made the story poorer. Just nod along and believe everything and do everything you're told and don't try to look for outside-the-box solution or feel any sorrow for the thousands you've consigned to oblivion.

"Pushed to do evil"

You spent the last decade murdering Garlean conscripts that were force to fight for the empire against their will but now you've had your moral awakening?

And that theme is explored in detail, actually! The story goes to great pains to humanise the Garleans and make us empathise with them and try to help them and to feel sorrow when we have to kill them anyway! The characters felt worse about the suffering of the nation that brought strife and ruin to their homelands than they felt about the innocents we were killing "in self-defence" through an accident of how reality is set up.

[Kaecilius]

no we shut them down cause them living was killing all life in the world soon to be universe and multiverse. it had nothing to do with them being alive or not the game makes you want to feel sad for them and think about them, but the reality most people aren't sad because its double not real. one they are AI second this is a video game so there is no real attachment to anything that happens to begin with.

Except it wasn't? They had been stuck in their shard for Hydaelyn knows how long. Their body count as far as we're aware are the 50 casualties in Tuliyollal. When the people of Yyasulani got stuck in the dome, Sphene didn't butcher them for souls, she welcomed them as citizens.

Yeah, things were about to get really bad, and that's why we had to stop Sphene, but we didn't even *try* to help her solve the energy problem or find a different medium/hardware to download the memories.

[Dikatis]

Yeah I completely agree with you, I no longer see my character as the Warrior of Light, those people seemed happy and fulfilled, what the difference between the Warrior of Light killing them with a bomb committing mass murder or turning off their life?[/B]

I feel like you missed the part that they're facsimiles of the originals who lack souls or even much of their physical substance. Unlike the living beings made of dynamis at Ultima Thule, the Endless can't ever leave Living Memory and are sustained by the blood of innocents as Sphene is compelled to murder entire worlds to obtain the life force needed to sustain them? The Endless are highly accurate facsimiles, but at the same time they know they exist thanks to the untold deaths of others. That's why Cahciua asks you to shut the terminals down to help end this. To paraphrase her, "I don't want to exist because of the suffering of others."

[Ilenya]

We weren't really given the chance to think of alternatives. Granted, it's spelled out later that

they need life energy, not just aether, to exist, so finding a solution in a decent timeframe for a hard-pressed Sphene might not have happened. It's hard to tell, since Sphene kinda pushed the issue.