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

[Supersnow845]

No dude. They were ai. They were programed to think and act the way there past self did. But they're about as much people as chat gpt is

For someone who hates debating with me you searched quite a few pages to find that quote

Regardless I don’t think any of the 5 important endless (cauchia, kriles parents, Otis and namikka) acted anything like programmed AI, especially cauchia who specifically wanted to use that drone to affect events outside of living memory

When the story actually gave focus and time to an endless they were revealed to be far more than just memories acting on a system

[Arzalis]

The "endless" are just AI recreations of people based on what a computer thinks was their happiest moment after analyzing their memory data. They are already dead, they are not people, everything they experience is artificial, fake, programmed by a computer, and you are blatantly told they have no souls. Even Sphene (if you listen to what you are being told and pay attention) is just a AI copy of a dead person who has had her "prime directive" hard coded into her. Even she has no choice in anything she does, her programming forces her to prioritize keeping the endless online.

You didn't "genocide" anyone, you turned off a server.

This is what the game wants us to believe and we're told, yes. People here are paying attention. The way everything is written and what you actually do in the final zone presents the opposite of what we're being told, though. That's ultimately the issue.

I do understand what the writers intended, but they failed at actually, well... writing it that way. Ex: If the writers tell us the sky is red and I look up and see blue, something has clearly gone wrong somewhere. The same way they write a character to say the Endless aren't really people, then spend an entire zone showing they are, in fact, people and are very much sentient/alive.

I agree with what's been said about it just being very very poor writing. It's just crazy to me that they basically gloss over this despite beating you over the head with what they want you to think for most of the expansion before this.

[Tethan]

I don't understand people calling them AI or chatbots, what makes you use that term? Living Memory is a real, physical space you can walk into with your own two legs, it's not the matrix. The last area where we fight the final boss appears to be more of a digital space, but everything outside of that is "real". The Endless are memories (a real physical thing you can see with your own two eyes in this world) given shape using aether. They are not really different from how the Scions appeared on the First, just missing a soul, but what is a soul? If the Alexandrians are to be believed, souls are just energy that is completely interchangeable and there is nothing distinguishing one soul from another, once clean. They are not programs, except for maybe Sphene, who appeared to be partially a program, becoming one completely after the erasure.

Again, I think everything about this is incredibly stupid so I don't liking wasting time with semantics, but I wonder why these terms are being thrown around.

[Sephi_Ravour]

The problem with these zones is not what we did, but how it is written and presented to us. There are several questions that the writers needed to adress in that zones, but failed to do so.

The main one being, "When does someone become alive?" According to Emet-Selch, the current inhabitants of Etheirys are not, though he might have come around on that topic after Endwalker.

What does being alive mean, is a very complex question that doesn't have a clear answer, especially when it comes to artifcial life. Many Sci-fi stories tackle with that problem, but most come to the conclusion that being self-aware means you are alive. The Endless as presented in the game are clearly self-aware, ergo they should be alive. Yet XIV has another criteria: You need to have a soul. Things without one aren't alive in this setting. That's why familiars can be summoned and dismissed at a whim. But this part isn't explained in the MSQ at all and only implied in previous expansions. If the writers spent some time exploring that topic, most players would be more understanding of the choice to erase them.

As it stands in the game, there was no reason to erase the Endless before fighting Sphene. Their energy gathering facility was on the source and the connection was severed. They weren't actively leeching any energy from anyone or anything. Another reason to erase the endless was that Sphene would have no reason to go through with the fusion, if there we no more endless, but this never gets mentioned when we talk to her after the fact. We could have easily kept them running, had some more conversation with our comrades after the fight, where we conclude that nothing can be done and shut them down afterwards.

In the end, everything wrong with this zone boils down to poor writing and presentation.

[KisaiTenshi]

That said, how on Earth did anyone at Square think it's even remotely plausible for the characters to just go out and pull the plug on the life support of an entire race of people? This level of genocide is simply disgusting. And why? Because 2 or 3 Endless wanted to die? Setting aside the moral debate of assisted euthanasia, the vast majority of Endless never agreed to this, or even knew it was happening.

"We don't think the Endless are alive, so we aren't guilty of murder." That was Emet-Selch's entire argument for commuting mass genocide. Just two expansions ago, we vehemently opposed this line of thinking and condemned it.

I think you might have got the wrong interpretation of what the Endless are. The Endless do not exist. There is no soul. No Body. They are just a simulacrum from memories. This has been explored before in fiction
- The Matrix
- .Hack//Sign
- Sword Art Online
- Black Mirror - San Junipero (also White Christmas, and Be Right Back)

Now if you read between the lines, the Endless are in the exact same situation as the characters in San Junipero, where they basically are an "endless existance" ln in the computer. Until someone pulls the plug on that computer, they still exist, even if they've "had enough", they can't self-terminate. If someone has no quality of life in reality, and are put in the computer, but can't end their existence, that's actually worse than death. That's the lesson we should have picked up from Endwalker.

If you read too hard into it however, it does look like the the endless are asking to be euthanized. Despite already being dead, the memories are simply a copy. They are not the being that was. This is made pretty clear from

Otis, not recognizing events that took place after becoming Endless, because his soul and memories were in the machine. The "endless" version of him was just his memories from an earlier time period.

. Those two existing at the same time, tells you exactly what the Endless are.

The second half is written better than the first half, if only by virtue there are no stakes for the Warrior of Light until the invasion from the dome happens. The final area however feels a bit disappointing because it's even emptier than the previous 5 areas. Like there was at most two quests in each of the 4 paths.

However it does feel like narratively-speaking, Krile basically got pushed to the backseat when we were given the impression that Krile was important to THIS part of the story from the last part of the post-endwalker expansion.

[Gullis]

I feel everything after 2nd trial felt rush. I gave 0 f's about discount Meteion

[Kaecilius]

They are not the being that was.

I think most of us will agree with this. The argument is that they are an entirely new being based off the memories, able to undergo new experiences and display sentience, and that does not make them any less valid for being a machine intelligence.

The main Endless we interact with is all too happy to euthanize the entire thing, *she* wants it to be done. But she does not necessarily speak for every single one of them.

[MikkoAkure]

I don't understand people calling them AI or chatbots, what makes you use that term? Living Memory is a real, physical space you can walk into with your own two legs, it's not the matrix.

While it's a real place, all of the Endless can teleport around Living Memory willy nilly. They also can change their appearance and we see that at least twice. Also, 90% of them are stored in the servers at any one time because of aether shortages so people are randomly thrown back into the servers and recreated over and over. One NPC has had that happen 3 times. They also digitize when their terminal is turned off.

They may be made of their original memory aether combined with someone else's soul aether (which may have been taken against the subject's will) and they may exist in the real world (sometimes) but it's not a real existence and they're dependent on the computer terminals handling their data.


This whole thing is gross because it's the Alexandrians not being able to be without Sphene and then Sphene not being able to be without her Alexandrians that caused all this. No one can accept death and Sphene created a culture where they just forget about those who died and they cannot function as a rational adult unless they have someone else's soul as a back-up. I would have shut off the system even if it didn't use living souls to operate and I'm really struggling to see the other side of this and why people think that keeping up a population of the dead that requires so much energy to keep sticking around as "alive" and worthy to protect.

I think the people who are upset about this are just being way overly sensitive because I was of the understanding that most people would see this and agree with it because of how wrong it is.

I think most of us will agree with this. The argument is that they are an entirely new being based off the memories, able to undergo new experiences and display sentience, and that does not make them any less valid for being a machine intelligence.

The main Endless we interact with is all too happy to euthanize the entire thing, *she* wants it to be done. But she does not necessarily speak for every single one of them.

All of these people have previously died. They already lived full lives. There is literally no point in bringing them back "alive" or keeping them that way. The whole thing perverts the cycle of life, death, and rebirth by throwing the dead into a crumbling Disneyland full of fiends where they might get reembodied once every couple of decades or centuries.

Cacihua is not the only one who wants it to be done. Krile's parents do too, and all of the Endless NPCs in the sidequests know it's the end and they all accept it and one even shows disgust at the idea of maintaining his existence at the cost of living souls. Random non-quest NPCs you can talk to even mention the aether shortage and don't care whether or not Sphene's plan works. The whole place is stale and while the system tries to reembody those with connections after analyzing their memory data, there's only so much to do there with the infinite amount of time they have and one kid has seen that play already 70 times and just doesn't care anymore.

The only ones who can't accept this are Sphene and some players.

[KisaiTenshi]

I think most of us will agree with this. The argument is that they are an entirely new being based off the memories, able to undergo new experiences and display sentience, and that does not make them any less valid for being a machine intelligence.

The main Endless we interact with is all too happy to euthanize the entire thing, *she* wants it to be done. But she does not necessarily speak for every single one of them.

I do find the argument "they are AI's" is probably accurate to an extent. They are not sentient, nor "alive" in any way that would make someone challenge their core beliefs of what murder or genocide is. They are just "software" that can only maintain a tangible existence powered by aether.

The game kind of muddies up the distinction between "Soul" and "Aether", considering how it was explained to us in the 13th and in the 1st. If the 13th is "endless" because the laws of physics in that reflection do not let a soul return to the aetherial sea because none exist (they can only thus "die" if they actually come from the 13th to the source. Being summoned just returns them to the 13th once the summoned vessel "dies" in the source.

Again it is somewhat muddled. If I'm getting the intent correctly, the idea is that the "endless" are not unlike the voidsent. Where the voidsent need a physical vessel in the source to exist, the endless need an aetherial vessel to exist, even in the reflection they are in. Sphene's ability to just take over a robot at will, the entire final zone being one giant facade that fades when the aether power is turned off, mirrors all of that.

Where I think the developers/writers may have screwed up the intent is the emphasis on "what" the endless are. Are they powered by Aether? Are they powered by Souls (note the writing shift to just saying "Aether" and not "Souls" after the Meso terminal activates.) Too late now.

Maybe post-DT Cid will come along and go "hey we can power Living Memory back up", and everyone will be like "but we already euthanized the endless, won't that be like raising them back from the Aetherial sea against their wishes?"

Which again, the developers muddled up. Terminating the Living Memory wouldn't do any of this. Those memories aren't returning to the Aetherial sea. The souls are also long gone. There is nothing "to return". For all intents Living Memory is nothing more than an Aether-powered Holodeck.

[Kaecilius]

All of these people have previously died. They already lived full lives. There is literally no point in bringing them back "alive" or keeping them that way. The whole thing perverts the cycle of life, death, and rebirth by throwing the dead into a crumbling Disneyland full of fiends where they might get reembodied once every couple of decades or centuries.

They lived "full lives" stuck in an eternal storm within the dome in a dead reflection. Current Solution Nine citizens seem to have it pretty good, but they were robbed of their world due to Ascian meddling. This goes doubly-so for the citizens of Yyasulani that basically got a dome-bomb dropped on them and were then severed from the outside world as they rapidly aged from the Source's point of view. The framing of the game goes out of its way to let you know they were all happy, but the situation is horrifying.

Maybe post-DT Cid will come along and go "hey we can power Living Memory back up", and everyone will be like "but we already euthanized the endless, won't that be like raising them back from the Aetherial sea against their wishes?"

I do think it's too late to try something like this because it goes strongly against the theme of letting things go. It's possible that we will end up giving them "a new dawn" by helping them be reborn in the source (grab the memories, give them new actual bodies using Garlean cloning or something like that, so they can have one honest shot at an actual life), but since the game was stating that we were erasing them... I doubt it.