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

[Arzalis]

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?

[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]

People here think that "AI" is the same thing as an object, a reminder that we are all machines, our brains literally run on electricity, we produce said electricity by "burning" up fuel in our biological engine, you are not special, we are all just machines, they only "special" thing about us is that we are able to have thoughts, individuality, memories and agency, just like the endless.

I dont think it's genocide, people like to overuse that word nowadays, as a most of alexandriens survived in solution 9, but it is definitely a mass murder.
The WOL is a mass murder now.

[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.

[Eyrilona]

People here think that "AI" is the same thing as an object, a reminder that we are all machines, our brains literally run on electricity, we produce said electricity by "burning" up fuel in our biological engine, you are not special, we are all just machines, they only "special" thing about us is that we are able to have thoughts, individuality, memories and agency, just like the endless.

I dont think it's genocide, people like to overuse that word nowadays, as a most of alexandriens survived in solution 9, but it is definitely a mass murder.
The WOL is a mass murder now.

I don't mean to waste much time arguing semantics, but prior to our erasing them, the Endless existed in numbers equaling several generations of an entire civilization. Now, there are none left in the entire universe as far as we are aware. That does sound rather like the definition of what genocide means -- the wholesale destruction or murder (-cide) of an entire kind (geno, from genus) of beings.

[Supersnow845]

I think the point the game was trying to get across is basically putting sphene in the same situation as emet selch

Sacrificing the living to maintain the dead is wrong.

The endless are created from the memories uploaded into the cloud of the everkeep so they were beings that were at one time alive. But they required those truly alive to maintain them

The problem with “sphene=emet selch” is the fact that the game didn’t do enough in 2 areas

1) they didn’t do enough to make Sphene look for alternative solutions to power the endless because they gave her the cookie cutter objective of “protect the endless at all costs”
2) they didn’t do enough to sell the idea that the endless were not truly alive and therefore not worthy to save. In emet selch’s case the ancients were gone, he wanted to bring back a society that was already extinct. But the endless are still here (were still here), they are “living” in living memory and they have sapience

I get what the game is going for but they seriously fumbled it and make it look like we were killing off innocent people because we unilaterally decided they weren’t people. The endless being powered by living souls was wrong, but they desperately needed to at least attempt to find an alternative solution before they jumped to “just turn living memory off”

[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.

[DaveFishnomer]

I don't mean to waste much time arguing semantics, but prior to our erasing them, the Endless existed in numbers equaling several generations of an entire civilization. Now, there are none left in the entire universe as far as we are aware. That does sound rather like the definition of what genocide means -- the wholesale destruction or murder (-cide) of an entire kind (geno, from genus) of beings.

I see your point, yes, by that categorization a genocide did occur, I categorized them all as Alexandrians, which in that case they still exist (seems like a lot of them by the amount of buildings in solution 9)

[DaveFishnomer]

They really aren't alive & that's the thing..

Also, an issue happens in both endwalker & alexandria where the writers try to personalize NPC's; and thus, make you sympathize with FLAWED civilizations.

Like you can see why each one failed, you don't need to say "they could have done this, they could have done that".
I actually thought this expansion was .... acceptable despite testing food in solution 9 and other filler parts of the msq. I wish wuk stayed in her city to be an authority figure like Aymeric did in ishgard.
I digress, I really hope writers move on from the flawed civilizations trope. It's been 4 years.
I don't think this was what everyone wanted from dawntrail, but it's what we got.

But that is the point, they are alive, they drive that point multiple times throughout the last zone, they show they have memories, feelings, thoughts and agency, one of them even "ran away" out of that zone back to solution 9, saying that they are just a dumb procedure and thus not a live would be saying that you and I are not alive either, the only difference is that you run on calories and they run on ether.

[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