Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Rowde]

I feel like this was already said in one of the prior topics, but...


One of the major issues is that the story we as the players were presented with actively contradicts itself. Through Cahcuia it tells us one thing, then shows us another through the MSQ and Side Quests across the zone. If the "people" in the zone are merely facsimiles, AI constructs, then why are we encouraged to engage with or "help" them at all? They shouldn't matter at that point. A lot of the naysayers like to present the scenario of turning off an electronic device, well... let me ask you this: Before you turn off your electronic devices do you first make sure they were happy with the tasks they completed today? Do you try to make sure your electronic devices are comfortable before you shut them down for the evening? Do you lay them down gently on a pillow?

While I'm sure there is a small percentage of the human population that take their electronic devices to bed for a cuddle, I would wager that most people do not. Most of us just click the shutdown icon and don't afford it anymore thought until we need to use it again. Yet the MSQ and Side Quests have us go through the zone and treat these "constructs" with dignity and respect to "help" them what? Turn off easier? Why? None of that should matter if they're not people... we never should have engaged with any of them and just merely walked straight to the terminal we needed to interact with to shut the system down.


Second, Cahcuia is an unreliable narrator at best, and if we do accept her explanation of the Endless at face value, then it renders most of the story characters' experiences in Living Memory meaningless and actively wastes our time as the players because all the heartfelt moments ultimately don't matter.

We, as the players, are expected to have an emotional reaction to Krile and Erenville having sendoffs with their respective parents... but did they though? Again, if we merely accept Cahcuia's explanation, that these were AI facsimiles merely presenting the "best" versions of the Endless, then nothing that they say can be trusted because they're just telling us what's needed to be said to be "happy." They're just drugs. I mean Krile is even worse if we go down that line of thinking, did she truly even "meet her parents" at all if they were fake AI constructs presenting their best selves and nothing they told us was reliable information? At least Erenville did know his mother outside the machine first, so he presumably has his own memories of her to gauge against the AI.


It's kinda funny, but this conversation/debate we're having here on the forums right now is literally the argument that 9S and 2B have about the Automatons, and by extension the Androids, in Neir: Automata. A game with a story that actively questions what is consciousness? What is life? What is existence? And ultimately arrives at the viewpoint that over time, maybe all these AI constructs have managed to evolve into something more. And while sure, normally I wouldn't think it wholly relevant to point at a different story and be like... look how they arrived at a different answer... conveniently Neir: Automata has a crossover with the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV expansion Shadowbringers, where we got to see the continuing adventures of the androids 9S and 2B as they continue to fight for their right to exist...

I don't know, I have my own thoughts/fanfic about how they could have better presented the MSQ and side quests to actually convince me that the people of Living Memory were merely AI constructs caught in an endless loop of nonexistence... but even then my issue would still probably be that they've shown us different results multiple times in the the same story. There were perhaps alternative solutions to the Endless, the problem is that many of those solutions are gated behind the Side Content of FFXIV, and much like how the battle system of this game seemingly has to be designed for the lowest common denominator... so too must the story, and that LCD seems to be the person that only does the MSQ and never engages with Side Content at all. Could we have talked to the Ea or Omicron in Ultima Thule? Maybe... but the relevant content where we affirmed their existence is gated behind having level 80 Gathering Jobs... which they can't guarantee that every player going through the MSQ will have.

Like Ryne... a lot of people loved the wholesome friendship between her and Gaia through the Eden Raid Series... but since that was technically side content that meant every time we went back to talk to Ryne on the First it was a massive bummer because it's assumed that she was still alone there with no friends except maybe Lyna to talk to as a caretaker... cause Gaia doesn't exist outside of Eden. Until they threw us all a bone and showed that Gaia at least exists in the MSQ now, regardless of the individual players status on Eden completion. And I think going forward that more of the side content should be considered canon and they should just do the comic book thing with an asterisk saying "if you'd like to know more please go play _______ content" so they can come up with more interesting solutions to problems that can incorporate and pull from all the other lore they've established over the years instead of just making up plot contrivances as to "why we can't do that doh!"

[OMGJesuis66]

One of the major issues is that the story we as the players were presented with actively contradicts itself. Through Cahcuia it tells us one thing, then shows us another through the MSQ and Side Quests across the zone. If the "people" in the zone are merely facsimiles, AI constructs, then why are we encouraged to engage with or "help" them at all? They shouldn't matter at that point. A lot of the naysayers like to present the scenario of turning off an electronic device, well... let me ask you this: Before you turn off your electronic devices do you first make sure they were happy with the tasks they completed today? Do you try to make sure your electronic devices are comfortable before you shut them down for the evening? Do you lay them down gently on a pillow?

Kindness, I guess. Regardless of them still being simple constructs, they were still constructs of someone's else soul. And not being allowed to rest until their unresolved business is settled.
It is not really different than a wandering spirit if we are to use many different media portraying ghosts around the world.
Adding to that, Deadwalk is a perfect example of what could happen if unresolved business and lack of Aether is also left unattended. Everything we fight there were Endless and turned into monsters because they were Ghosts.

Also, regarding possible solutions tied to sidequests? You are not wrong. MSQ always avoids trying to bring sidequests into it, which is a massive shame.
Want a good example of why this was obnoxious, in the Endwalker patches? The being of primordial Light, Eden, could be transported with the assistance of Ryne and Gaia to the 13th when we were to face Zeromus.
Use the being of Primordial Light against the Primordial Darkness and by that clash allow the 13th to start to restore itself.
And that without mentioning the two former Warriors of Light from the 13th that now reside in the First, one being part of the Trial Quests of Heavensward and has a complicated name to type, and the other being the Waitress Elezen.
None of them were mentioned or even brought over a topic that genuinely would've mattered to them because all of it is side-content and they cannot force players to do side-content unless they make it obligatory.

[MikkoAkure]

One of the major issues is that the story we as the players were presented with actively contradicts itself. Through Cahcuia it tells us one thing, then shows us another through the MSQ and Side Quests across the zone. If the "people" in the zone are merely facsimiles, AI constructs, then why are we encouraged to engage with or "help" them at all? They shouldn't matter at that point. A lot of the naysayers like to present the scenario of turning off an electronic device, well... let me ask you this: Before you turn off your electronic devices do you first make sure they were happy with the tasks they completed today? Do you try to make sure your electronic devices are comfortable before you shut them down for the evening? Do you lay them down gently on a pillow?

In-game, we were attempting to connect with them and remember them because their own people have had their memories wiped of them. One of the themes of the expansion's story was that someone isn't truly dead until no one remembers them.

Out-of-game, we needed padding for the final zone and lore dumps and this is what they gave us.


The philosophical debate is meaningless because we were told in no uncertain terms that what the Alexandrians were doing was wrong multiple times starting as soon as we met them in Heritage Found.

What the Alexandrians were doing with the Endless is no different from what Edda and Nybeth Obdilord were doing. It has nothing to do with "what is consciousness?", "what is alive?", or anything to do with NieR: Automata and everything to do with people raising the spirits of the dead. The only differences are that the Endless were produced in a factory and have a semblance of free will instead of being souls brought into shambling corpses.

I'd be more willing to take your side if the Endless weren't taken from actual spiritual parts of dead people in order to pursue an endless undeath. If they were life spawned in a digital machine like Tron Legacy, that would be something entirely different but we're talking about actual people who had lives and then died and instead of returning to the natural cycle of death and rebirth that has been a part of the world since before the Ancients, they cast that aside and have the components of their whole aether artificially ripped apart and deposited into a machine to dream a happy "life" for eternity and live off the souls of others.