Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Turtledeluxe]

I've never disputed that, in the context of the (poorly written) story, the Endless had to die. We (the player character and company) are under no obligation to become the cows on the dinnerplates of Endless. Even so, us having a big ol' laugh party and sing-along as we leave the city we've just scoured of life is absurdly out of character.

Cahciua being Erenville's mom doesn't suddenly make her immune to analysis of her character. From the moment we meet her, she holds back crucial information that informs us about the grand designs at play. In the end, that serves her agenda perfectly, while denying the Scions to try and find true compromise between the people of Alexandria and the rest of the world.



We did turn off the Meso terminals because we have an agenda to destroy the Endless. It's an agenda given to us by Cahciua, who withheld information from us the entire time we were with her. In fact, Cahciua's plan is explicitly stated to target the Endless in order to deprive Sphene of a reason to fight. We're destroying her people so that she no longer has a cause; to what end? Do we think she'll just forgive us for that? Then Hiroi, to his credit, goes on to say that doing this will make Sphene speed up dimensional fusion, which weakens the defenses of the Terminal. Alright, sure—processing faster requires more processing power. But in what other situations would the Scions choose the option that causes the villain's plan to actualize faster, rather than trying to find another solution? It doesn't even happen in this expansion. We wait for Bakool to try and attack us again after he takes Wuk's keystones. We wait for Zoraal to attack Tuliyollal again (still full of countless civilians) after the first time, electing instead to take a stroll around Sphene's farm. The only time we decide to be proactive is when it means the rapid and complete extermination of a new form of life we've just encountered (ignoring that they're not actually new, given the events of Ultima Thule).

What you are pointing out are writing flaws. The rest of it is you contradicting yourself in your first few sentences. You say

"We have an agenda to destroy the Endless...
Given to us by Cachiua...(not our agenda then)...
...to target the Endless to deprive Sphene of a reason to fight (i.e. this is the motive, we are not destroying the Endless because we have an issue with their identity or something against the Endless)

There's something going on where players like you just can't get beyond the "targeting them because" part. But the because matters. Because the ethics of it are literally decided by the intent behind it. Are we turning off the Meso Terminals because we hate them or because of their identity? No? Then it's not cruelty. Turning them off to stop a villain or to save other souls are both sufficient reasons that disqualify the act as anything cruel.

And yes, the aspect of the intention regarding demotivating Spene is ineffective. But that doesn't make it cruel. It means the writers just forgot about it because they literally did.