Dawntrail's Final Zones destroy everything the story has built.

[LittleArrow]

Also, in response to the defense argument and they use living souls blah blah blah - Yes of course we have to defend ourselves, no one is arguing against that.

What the argument, at least for me personally, is that the WoL didn't try ANYTHING else. No Linkpearl to Cid, no communication to Jammingway, no message to Yshtola. 2 lines of dialogue that just gets shutdown.

We had time for gondola rides, we had time to eat fake food, we time to walk around - and beyond that time is arbitrary in the story as it is. It only took a day to fully outfit a train, we were in a rush to stop Zoraal Ja from invading again yet had time to take a tour of the city - the story can make the time if it wanted too.

Imo, there was no need to delete those people. Instead of deletion the story could've said we're simply turning off the machines that give them form - which is what takes up the Aether. The memories will remain stored and not require life essence aether to materialize, but instead will be put in a slumber. Of course that causes issues that could be addressed, but I wouldn't even blame them to go the Ultima Thule route. My goodness, if you wanted your cake and eat it too, say that those that are already materialized will be lost and give others the option to be stored, you could still have your sad goodbyes and know that those that wanted to wait weren't deleted.

It's an unncessary mess imo, and even if it wasn't unnecessary, it the story contradicting itself and left very mixed messages when taking previous story bits into account.

[Ozmandis]

We were told exactly why it wasn't possible. As more Endless are created, you require more and more energy. Energy isn't infinite, there is only so much that can go around.

Now, I use the word energy here for a good reason. The system might have started out using souls to power it, we might have changed it to require Aether or Dynamis, maybe both. It doesn't matter, at some point, it will end.

We also have not met a technological civilisation that wanted to keep all their dead alive for all eternity, so no, we haven't met a civilisation that could do it no problems.

We also don't know whether they have been erased from existence or just put back on the 'hard drive'. Their memories might still be there they just aren't consuming Aether anymore. Which is a much better situation than draining vast amounts of Aether to make arcane entities which act human.

Indeed but why not keep those are already there and simply stop creating new ones ? You may not remember but in the english version at least, we're very much told by deactivating the terminal that they are erased. Maybe it's a misstranslation idk.

Also, in response to the defense argument and they use living souls blah blah blah - Yes of course we have to defend ourselves, no one is arguing against that.

What the argument, at least for me personally, is that the WoL didn't try ANYTHING else. No Linkpearl to Cid, no communication to Jammingway, no message to Yshtola. 2 lines of dialogue that just gets shutdown.

You nailed the core of the problem IMO : we have like a 30s conversation about what we have to do and we have to accept it. That's what I'm trying to communicate, why do the WoL juste take every word for it. There's no reflexion, no planning, we just shrug it off and go "yeah let's do that".

[Chasingstars]

To me it seemed strange that Sphene didn't just "delete" some of her citizens. As its even told to us that this place reached the energy limit with what happened at Heritage Found. As surely within that mess of logistics of Sphene's Ai, there has to be programming that would let Sphene know that there is a finite amount of life energy to keep her city alive in the way she is doing it and that it takes longer to create.

So wouldn't animal life energy work? And if animal life energy would work, can't she just have large herds of cattle and chickens that are raised, died, the meat used to feed the citizens, and then that life energy of those animals used to fuel her city. As while it is dark to consider, slaughtering so many animals per day, wouldn't that be a more peaceful option to coexist on Tural? It also makes me wonder how much energy her digital city even uses per day.

[MikkoAkure]

Imo, there was no need to delete those people.

The people are dead.

I don't think it's morally right to go through the effort and divert resources from other things that could improve the lives of the living to make immortal robot bodies for thousands upon thousands of dead people and then to continue to do so for existing and future residents of Alexandria.

Unless you want to tell both those in Solution Nine and the deceased that no more robots will be made and the Endless will watch generation of their decedents grow and then wither away while they stay the same.

[LittleArrow]

To me it seemed strange that Sphene didn't just "delete" some of her citizens. As its even told to us that this place reached the energy limit with what happened at Heritage Found. As surely within that mess of logistics of Sphene's Ai, there has to be programming that would let Sphene know that there is a finite amount of energy to keep her city alive and that human soul batteries take longer to create.

So wouldn't animal souls work? And if animal life energy would work, can't she just have large herds of cattle and chickens that are raised, died, the meat used to feed the citizens, and then that life energy of those animals used to fuel her city. As while it is dark to consider it wouldn't that be a more peaceful option? It also makes me wonder how much energy her digital city even uses per day.

Somewhere in the story it's stated that to keep the citizens materialized (correct me on that specific if I'm wrong pls) it HAS to be specifically life essence aether - not animal aether.

There are lots of ways around the problems in Living Memory that a two second look at Endwalker post patch as well as Stormblood could've fixed. There were plenty of loopholes to keep the sad goodbyes in. However, that takes good writing to do.

[LittleArrow]

The people are dead.

I don't think it's morally right to go through the effort and divert resources from other things that could improve the lives of the living to make immortal robot bodies for thousands upon thousands of dead people and then to continue to do so for existing and future residents of Alexandria.

Unless you want to tell both those in Solution Nine and the deceased that no more robots will be made and the Endless will watch generation of their decedents grow and then wither away while they stay the same.

The people in Ultima Thule are dead. Like... super dead. I'm guessing you didn't do the beast tribe in Ultima Thule. I STRONGLY suggest you check it out, it's honestly the best writing in all of Endwalker imo.

[Aurumis]

To me it seemed strange that Sphene didn't just "delete" some of her citizens. As its even told to us that this place reached the energy limit with what happened at Heritage Found. As surely within that mess of logistics of Sphene's Ai, there has to be programming that would let Sphene know that there is a finite amount of life energy to keep her city alive in the way she is doing it and that it takes longer to create.

So wouldn't animal life energy work? And if animal life energy would work, can't she just have large herds of cattle and chickens that are raised, died, the meat used to feed the citizens, and then that life energy of those animals used to fuel her city. As while it is dark to consider, slaughtering so many animals per day, wouldn't that be a more peaceful option to coexist on Tural? It also makes me wonder how much energy her digital city even uses per day.

No, the way the use souls, as it is explain, is the same as voidsends, the souls can't reach the planet current, so they can't reincarnate or be born again, they are using souls as fuel, it's not a cycle, they literally had to be unplugged, as they are data, they aren't souls anymore, the only soul was Otis.

[MikkoAkure]

The people in Ultima Thule are dead. Like... super dead. I'm guessing you didn't do the beast tribe in Ultima Thule. I STRONGLY suggest you check it out, it's honestly the best writing in all of Endwalker imo.

I did the beast tribe to the very end, and I also don't like the idea of Ultima Thule being a weird refuge for the dead of different worlds. It was certainly pretty though.

But as others explained, it just exists and it's on the edge of the universe far away from everything and will never interact with anything in our lives again. It also doesn't require upkeep or the souls of the living to maintain.

Maintaining a necropolis made up of the memories of the dead as if they were living and placing them in Disney World forever is morbid and grotesque and I couldn't shut it down fast enough. The zone needed padding though so we got to interact with them before we turned off the lights and it also makes us feel bad about our decision, but it was a decision that needed to be done anyway.

[Colt47]

The people in Ultima Thule are dead. Like... super dead. I'm guessing you didn't do the beast tribe in Ultima Thule. I STRONGLY suggest you check it out, it's honestly the best writing in all of Endwalker imo.

Ultima Thule was one of the biggest things that had me wanting to chuck my monitor out a window during the MSQ. They kept putting pressure on the WoL as if there was really no other way, despite there being "another way". My own character would be screaming at this crazy woman that we have way more options in this world that she is so convinced she needs to cannibalize, yet the writers are now stuck in a corner and are going to have to write all the weirdest lore points just to make this invalid. Probably messing up or contradicting lore that already exists.

The first half of the game was fine. It was annoying, but it was okay. The second half was like everyone in the boardroom was like "we need some big event that threatens all life on the planet to justify the expansion" except for two guys, and those two guys tried saying "Or we could just have this be the WoL vacation arc and carefully seed some items for the next expansion, then gradually hint something is coming up..." but the rest of the people already left the room.

[Chasingstars]

Somewhere in the story it's stated that to keep the citizens materialized (correct me on that specific if I'm wrong pls) it HAS to be specifically life essence aether - not animal aether.

There are lots of ways around the problems in Living Memory that a two second look at Endwalker post patch as well as Stormblood could've fixed. There were plenty of loopholes to keep the sad goodbyes in. However, that takes good writing to do.

No, the way the use souls, as it is explain, is the same as voidsends, the souls can't reach the planet current, so they can't reincarnate or be born again, they are using souls as fuel, it's not a cycle, they literally had to be unplugged, as they are data, they aren't souls anymore, the only soul was Otis.

I guess that makes some amount of sense if the Ai can only use life energy from humans but not the life energy from animals. Still seems like a weird matter.