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

[AmorfaVex]

Not only is the ending a retread of Shadowbringers for the most part, they made it so we're essentially Emet Selch and then don't even bother to look at what we're doing. I do understand that a few of the Endless asked to be turned off, but it's not like we asked all of them. I'm sure you could've found a few people on the first who would've supported the rejoining too. What authority do a few casually picked "representatives" have to make that choice for everyone? This is also proof in and of itself they are sentient. They aren't just memories because they are cognizant of and can make existential choices.

Also, the argument of "they aren't alive, so it's fine" is literally the same argument Emet made towards us. It's obviously wrong there and there's a strong argument for it being wrong here too.

It is kind of bothersome that the game completely glossed over the fact that what we're doing could be morally dubious. I do get how they were trying to handwave it, but I just wasn't convinced. How many ancient civilizations does the WOL personally have to end before it's a problem with them?

You're glossing over the fact that they kill living beings and harvest their souls to sustain themselves.

It is evil, plain and simple.

[DaveFishnomer]

You're glossing over the fact that they kill living beings and harvest their souls to sustain themselves.

It is evil, plain and simple.

Sorry to be that guy byt, Actually, that is incorrect, they require ether, not souls, souls are made of ether which is why it is so convenient.
Additionally, the endless themselves are not harvesting anything, even if it is evil (which it is) that evil act is not their fault, you are killing people who had nothing to do with the crime.

Even furthermore, we need to remmber that THIS IS A STORY, the writers COULD have written anything else, we are pretending the writers had not choice, they decided they wanted to go in the path of mass murder, they could have written literally anything else.
Want an easy solution out of my rear-end? move all of the endless into robots just like Otis was, let them be there and die "naturally" when they do, Otis was in an old model from 2000 years ago, I'm sure we could have figured it out.

The writers COULD have done anything else, stop pretending this was the only natural choice that made sense.

[Granyala]

Sorry to be that guy byt, Actually, that is incorrect, they require ether, not souls, souls are made of ether which is why it is so convenient.

They require LIFE FORCE. A special kind of aether, if you so will. It was also stated that other forms of energy have been tested and do not work.

So yes: they will KILL everything and everyone on the source and all other shard worlds to keep their machinery running. Sphene stated that VERY EXPLICITLY.

We're not mass murderers. These people already HAD their life and are now artificially sustained as a shadow of their former selves (their memories are HEAVILY censored, lest they would be unhappy being trapped in the system). That is the very big difference to Emet Selch who would kill the living before they even had a chance at a life.

Also: We're simply acting in self defense. It's a "them or us" situation here. With "us" not just being "us" on the source but potentially all inhabited worlds in the cosmos, as it would only be a matter of time until the remaining reflections and the source have been used up and Sphene turns to other inhabited worlds.

The problem is how many plot holes surround sphene. Take the part of tural that got absorbed by the barrier, why does sphene welcome them and make them into alexandrian citizens creating more endless for herself when she could have forcibly harvested them to power the endless like she planned for the rest of tural

Because that would accomplish the same thing, in the end. They can kill and harvest you RIGHT NOW. Or they can make you a citizen and harvest you when you die of old age. That's why she asked us "Do you want to become Alexandrian citizens?" with hopeful eyes when we ask her what help she'd need.

Also, I reckon, the hard programming took over more and more the more dire the situation got.

[Supersnow845]

They require LIFE FORCE. A special kind of aether, if you so will. It was also stated that other forms of energy have been tested and do not work.

So yes: they will KILL everything and everyone on the source and all other shard worlds to keep their machinery running. Sphene stated that VERY EXPLICITLY.

We're not mass murderers. These people already HAD their life and are now artificially sustained as a shadow of their former selves (their memories are HEAVILY censored, lest they would be unhappy being trapped in the system). That is the very big difference to Emet Selch who would kill the living before they even had a chance at a life.

Also: We're simply acting in self defense. It's a "them or us" situation here. With "us" not just being "us" on the source but potentially all inhabited worlds in the cosmos, as it would only be a matter of time until the remaining reflections and the source have been used up and Sphene turns to other inhabited worlds.



Because that would accomplish the same thing, in the end. They can kill and harvest you RIGHT NOW. Or they can make you a citizen and harvest you when you die of old age. That's why she asked us "Do you want to become Alexandrian citizens?" with hopeful eyes when we ask her what help she'd need.

Also, I reckon, the hard programming took over more and more the more dire the situation got.

That option doesn’t work because if her line of thinking for the tural citizens under the dome was “citizens now fuel for the endless later” then she could have offered that as an alternative solution when Wuk Lamar was trying to come up with a compromise “hey maybe we can get people to move to Alexandria to bolster our population”

It wouldn’t have actually fixed the problem but it would have delayed it

Sphene opening Alexandria to those people stands in direct opposition to “there is no other way, the endless come first”

[Granyala]

That option doesn’t work because if her line of thinking for the tural citizens under the dome was “citizens now fuel for the endless later” then she could have offered that as an alternative solution when Wuk Lamar was trying to come up with a compromise “hey maybe we can get people to move to Alexandria to bolster our population”

Sphene DID offer just that. Wuk Lamat refused instantly.

Granted, that offer was before we knew about the endless but in hindsight we now understand why she asked us to become Citizens with hopeful eyes. Because that would be the only alternative she could think of.

Whether she would even make every ex Turali citizen an endless is debatable.
Using a regulator is a choice. So everyone that dies w/o one would end up as raw fuel w/o their memories being preserved.

Correct me if I’m wrong but we saw with Old namikka that when the endless get low on aether, they lose memories and go into a vegetative state.

Namikka was old. She was not an endless just yet. She died of natural causes and THEN was made into an endless we later meet again.

[Granyala]

It would’ve actually made more sense if we met her dead but with no recollection of memories, since then culling the alexandrians would be like putting your pet down for mercy. There’s a lot of ways they could’ve wrote that arc better

I have no clue what you want to say but what the writers did here actually makes sense:

We see Namikka dying of old age (natural cause) and taken away.

Later we learn that the souls of people that die that way get extracted and processed to become fuel for the technology,
while their memories end up in a databank (cloud).

Then we visit the holodeck where said memory imprints continue to "live" as interactive programs.

[MarianneviBrittania]

You're glossing over the fact that they kill living beings and harvest their souls to sustain themselves.

It is evil, plain and simple.

So why didn't we offer a less evil alternative solution to Sphene and the Endless' dilemma, instead of jumping straight to murder? Golbez' plan was arguably quite sinister and immoral indeed, and yet we did not hasten to stick a sword in his gullet for it. No, instead we offered him a 'third way' that proved to be quite anime indeed. I've still yet to hear a reason why this story that so much resembles other tales we've witnessed prior (the Void Arc, the Ultima Thule Allies quests, Shadowbringers itself) is so devoid of the WoL's prior displayed empathy. Dawntrail's ending honestly made me feel like my WoL was a psychopath.

[Supersnow845]

So why didn't we offer a less evil alternative solution to Sphene and the Endless' dilemma, instead of jumping straight to murder? Golbez' plan was arguably quite sinister and immoral indeed, and yet we did not hasten to stick a sword in his gullet for it. No, instead we offered him a 'third way' that proved to be quite anime indeed. I've still yet to hear a reason why this story that so much resembles other tales we've witnessed prior (the Void Arc, the Ultima Thule Allies quests, Shadowbringers itself) is so devoid of the WoL's prior displayed empathy. Dawntrail's ending honestly made me feel like my WoL was a psychopath.

The problem is how many plot holes surround sphene. Take the part of tural that got absorbed by the barrier, why does sphene welcome them and make them into alexandrian citizens creating more endless for herself when she could have forcibly harvested them to power the endless like she planned for the rest of tural

The lack of “looking for an alternative solutions” is built on sphenes lack of agency given her programming, but then they aren’t even consistent with it

[Roda]

why does sphene welcome them and make them into alexandrian citizens creating more endless for herself when she could have forcibly harvested them to power the endless like she planned for the rest of tural

It's 'cause her main goal wasn't to "protect the alexandrians" it was to "avoid immediate sadness at all costs" and she's too soft to do the harvesting part. (that's what Zoraal ja was for!)