Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Ath192]

I would kill Wuk Lamat and would have helped Sphene find a solution. Sphene was a better leader anyways.

[AlysCamoa]

Actually, the counter-point to my argument is Sphene. Not Cahciua.
But Sphene is an anomaly in comparison, as to genuinely be able to enact under these new memories (recent ones), she had to erase past memories to get rid of her inhibition to perform her primary directive.
Any new memory an Endless receives is stored inside themselves, compiled, and still performed as the person would based on the data received out of them. That is what we say, not the other way around, those people do not develop as living ones.
We did not have enough exposition on Cahciua to argue she changed, for all principles, she didn't. As Erenville even argued in his hurtful rant how she was deciding things for everyone.
That was already a trait of her personality that complied with the memories, and since we are talking with Ghosts, it is important to keep in mind they live in the past and only by what they know.
And after new experiences quieted past grievances or any left out unfinished business, they feel at peace and capable of departing.

Except Sphene isn't an Endless. She's an amalgamation artificially made by Preservation. This was stated quite explicitly. She is not the memories extracted from a soul and stored for later use.
Anyway, if your litmus test for 'change' is 'acting like a completely different person', then by that metric Wuk Lamat never changes. Should I then consider Wuk Lamat to not be alive, given that Ultima Thule has established a soul is not necessary for life?

[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.

[OMGJesuis66]

Except Sphene isn't an Endless. She's an amalgamation artificially made by Preservation. This was stated quite explicitly. She is not the memories extracted from a soul and stored for later use.
Anyway, if your litmus test for 'change' is 'acting like a completely different person', then by that metric Wuk Lamat never changes. Should I then consider Wuk Lamat to not be alive, given that Ultima Thule has established a soul is not necessary for life?

Sphene is an Endless. They extracted her memories and soul to be able to make such an amalgamation.
That is explicitly spoken and even has NPC dialogue in her own erased memories talking about how they were capable of preserving her Soul.
Your second rhetoric is not a point of conversation, it would lead us to a very silly tangent about Wuk Lamat that I have no interest in jumping on. But to properly explain what I meant, is that newfound memories for those beings do not have an impact on themselves. They are data, they get new data, store it, and respond accordingly to present and past data, much like an AI.
They aren't doing actual introspection or personal growth as a living being, they are just adapting to their surroundings.

[Galvuu]

What you describe, with details clashing diegetically, is inevitable (and to be fair, the potential discrepancy here isn't congruent to the over-exaggerated "what if" scenario). It's in almost every story you can pick up, every world ever imagined: nothing is perfectly consistent, there is always an inconsistency somewhere. It is what it is, and for all I know, the Ultima Thule shades have something different at their core, but I don't need to really care if that is true or not true to understand what the Living Memory story is trying to communicate.

I mean, sure, inconsistencies will show up with sufficient scrutiny on most- if not all- media. But there are degrees to this, and degrees to what you might tolerate on a work.
I would not be able to accept a LotR sequel where anyone could bribe your way, with influence and money, to the Undying Lands and it actually works, because such a retcon uproots so much of the themes and fundamental lore of that world that it's irreconcilable with the past work. It can exist, people can love it, but I feel it would aggressively undermine the established framework. If you require this to communicate your narrative, then it's either unsuited for that world and should be released in a different world, or you should preserve the message while abiding by the existing lore.
XIV requires more malleability because it's not designed with an ending in mind- and I feel this makes it even more critical to have some pillars that cannot be shaken, a solid foundation that cannot be undermined.
To me, personally, it starts being progressively hard to be invested in a world where, essentially, anything goes. No rule is sacred, anything can be randomly twisted or undone. If we don't abide by some core principles, nothing prevents a patch 9.0 where we suddenly decide that some of the dragons aren't really alive and we go fight them ignoring all the previous history of making peace with them, or anything to that effect.

I think the funniest part is that I don't even care that much for the Endless in a vacuum. I didn't feel particularly bad about shutting them down (I didn't feel anything for most of DT), especially with the context of their incompatibility with life on the Source, but I definitely think that many issues surrounding their existence, such as the question if they were alive in some capacity, warrant discussion and are just ignored or quickly glossed over. My problem is that I feel what's presented to me might conflict with was presented before.
(And I may be wrong, but aren't the Endless powered by aether when they re-manifest anyway? It's all very murky)

[Eyrilona]

They are data, they get new data, store it, and respond accordingly to present and past data, much like an AI. They aren't doing actual introspection or personal growth as a living being, they are just adapting to their surroundings.

Much like an AI you say? Defined so broadly, that also sounds like how all life on Earth goes about things, us humans included. And how can you say they are not doing introspection when they clearly integrate new experiences with their existing body of experience? Moreover, they literally reflect on the nature of their own existence! Even if the story only lets them do it to have them reassure us they are fine with being turned off, that sure sounds like introspection to me.

[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.

[Galvuu]

Much like an AI you say? Defined so broadly, that also sounds like how all life on Earth goes about things, us humans included. And how can you say they are not doing introspection when they clearly integrate new experiences with their existing body of experience? Moreover, they literally reflect on the nature of their own existence! Even if the story only lets them do it to have them reassure us they are fine with being turned off, that sure sounds like introspection to me.

I mean, as far as modern science knows, our consciousness seems to be an emergent phenomena that primarily arises from the pattern recognition our brains do... while I, personally, feel we're centuries away from creating any real artificial consciousness, regarding what happens in fiction, the parallel can certainly be drawn with a lot of merit.

[OMGJesuis66]

I explained it in the same sentence. Data being compiled.

[AlysCamoa]

Sphene is an Endless. They extracted her memories and soul to be able to make such an amalgamation.
That is explicitly spoken and even has NPC dialogue in her own erased memories talking about how they were capable of preserving her Soul.
Your second rhetoric is not a point of conversation, it would lead us to a very silly tangent about Wuk Lamat that I have no interest in jumping on. But to properly explain what I meant, is that newfound memories for those beings do not have an impact on themselves. They are data, they get new data, store it, and respond accordingly to present and past data, much like an AI.
They aren't doing actual introspection or personal growth as a living being, they are just adapting to their surroundings.

I get new data that you claim the Endless don't develop based off of new data, and am now forced to evaluate it: do I accept this new data as true, or false? I weigh the evidence in favor of your claim: you have furnished none, so there is none. I now reject your data as false. I continue on in the manner I did prior. Under your framework, I have undergone no change, and therefore am merely a LLM incapable of new experience, only base replication of prior experience. This further weights my decision to reject your claim, as following your logic to its conclusion proves how illogical it is. So, I reject your claim again; now I'm an AI twice over. Neat, isn't it?

Again, I'll ask you to cite your claim that Sphene fits under the Endless framework. Here, I'll demonstrate what that means: in quest #91, 'Those Who Live Forever', Cahciua states that the Sphene we meet is an ideal brought to life by Preservation, utilizing the memories of Sphene's love for her people. Wuk then mentions an original Sphene, and Cahciua calls the current Sphene created. Despite Cahciua being previously established by the story to be an unreliable source of information, this claim can be evaluated against other statements: Otis mentions in quest #81, 'Memories of a Knight', that the Queen's soul was stored for a considerable amount of time before extraction technology was working, and Sphene herself treats her living memories as an 'other'. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that Sphene- as we know her- is a facsimile purpose-made by Preservation to provide the personality and face for their system. Sphene is not like the other Endless, much like the Otis we meet in Living Memory is not like the other Endless; so to call them Endless confuses the definition when discussing the monolithic group of Endless her were made by extracting the original memories in whole from the soul, and placing those original memories on new aether. Whether Living Memory Otis and Sphene are alive is a topic best discusses separately from whether the Endless are alive, because the context of their existence is different.