Omicrons and The Endless (Do Endless Dream of Electric Sheep?)

[Tsumdere]

Basically it all boils down to the writing is bad. The longer you think about Living Memory the more holes you can poke in their flimsy story. They don't explain what they mean and they disregard previous examples of dubiously alive beings that we treated with respect such as the citizens of Ultima Thule, Omega, Alpha, and Meteion.

It doesn't matter if we had to shut down the Endless in the end. The writers simply, clearly failed to convey their moral of Living Memory and WHY we took Cahcuia at face value instead of remembering our previous experiences. It's as if the writers were unfamiliar with their own lore and how it can muddle the waters without proper explanation. Perhaps Living Memory could have been about thinking through the problem (and failing) and not eating popcorn and ice cream with things that the game told us were fake and not alive.

They want us to not feel guilt about turning them off because they are not real, but then go out of their way to give them every single quality of a living being. For what? Which is it?

I wish that I could shut my brain off, never think about it past surface level and go on the writers' lazy writing train.

[VoidsentStatus]

clearly failed to convey their moral of Living Memory

Agreed. When I was going back and researching things, different characters perceive/describe the Endless in different ways.

Erenville the first time you go to Living Memory: "memories of the departed abided", "alive in all perceivable ways but knowing no loss" <- Considers Endless departed

Constancy, initial guide in Living Memory: "we have been recreated from the memories of those who have exhausted their souls - the departed, in other words" <- Only considers someone dead after they no longer have soul aether available.
"great effort is taken to ensure the integrity of your memories, so it will feel no different from when you were flesh and blood" <- Considering he believes us to be Endless as well, he is speaking as if memories have some sort of conscious.

Gra'ha: "All men eventually die. If you make Endless of everyone, you will never have enough aether to sustain them. You but prolong the inevitable." <- Speaking as if Endless are not dead or AI since he's using the word prolong.

Cahciua: "Being alive, you're the only one's who can do this." <- Contradicts Gra'ha's notion seemingly considering Endless to be dead.
"Can't bear to exist because someone died." <- Implies Cahciua believes Endless are only alive when they have soul aether.
"No matter how lifelike we may seem, we Endless are but facsmilies crafted from memories." <- Weird statement considering facsmilies are copies by definition. There's no "cloning" of the memory aether that got extracted and stored. It would seem as if facsmilies crafted is moreso a reference to their physical state being recreated based on memories since the original corporeal aether is not available and not the Endless as a concept as a whole.
"She is powerless to resist her purpose." <- Referencing Sphene. Adds the idea that different Endless have different levels of control considering Cahciua is going against the system. If every Endless was "programmed", Cahciua wouldn't exist.
"Harnessing the love the living Sphene bore for her people, they brought forth an eternal queen" <- This is odd language. Harnessing love is not in the process of creating an Endless traditionally. Origenics is not harnessing love or other emotions. Something different/specific has happened with Sphene. Almost giving me primal vibes.

And if we go back to Otis:
"She lives yet she does not. Tis admittedly a difficult distinction to make." <- Goes on to describe Sphene being made used extracted memory aether, and considers someone alive just because of that sake, regardless of the soul aether requirement.

It rides off of who you want to believe the most xDD I chose to go off Otis and Gra'ha because Otis is an explanation dump section of the MSQ & Gra'ha is a knowledgeable figure in general, although I would've preferred if we had Y'shtola in Living Memory.

[Nitelancer]

...
And if we go back to Otis:
"She lives yet she does not. Tis admittedly a difficult distinction to make." <- Goes on to describe Sphene being made used extracted memory aether, and considers someone alive just because of that sake, regardless of the soul aether requirement.

It rides off of who you want to believe the most xDD I chose to go off Otis and Gra'ha because Otis is an explanation dump section of the MSQ & Gra'ha is a knowledgeable figure in general, although I would've preferred if we had Y'shtola in Living Memory.

Even if we came to conclusion that they were alive, their existence posed an imminent threat to our existence. Their survival depended on our extinction. Faced with such a threat, whether they were alive or not becomes irrelevant, and the right thing to do was to shut them down because it ensures our survival, assuming there was no other solution.

[VoidsentStatus]

assuming there was no other solution

2 things:

1) I don't think we'd want to commit multi-shard genocide to the level of Ascians each time one of them comes to threaten us for resources.

2) This was the biggest puzzle I was trying to solve myself when I was looking at the lore encyclopedias.
- The Ea are stated to be biological immortality. They are stated to consume pure aether have no mention of sustain problems. They actually said the universe would freeze over before they had that problem if ever, and then killed themselves.

- The Nibirun are stated as also obtaining immortality and later having also created their definition of a perfect world. With nothing left to do in their existence, they chose to off themselves as well. Another instance of not having supply shortages.

We know that in the world of Final Fantasy that immortality without any negative future limitation does for a fact exist since we have 2 races that achieved it. So the question is where does infinite soul aether come from?

Well, one interesting side question I had was: If dynamis is another energy source like aether, do soul dynamis, memory dynamis, and corporeal dynamis exist in the same split as aether does? It's stated that a being with less aether is able to use dynamis. Well, we, in our nerfed state are able to use dynamis (Thancred using his will to physically manifest in Ulthima Thule). The issue is that we're technically aether, 100%. Which means that aether with a conscious/emotion is able to use dynamis. And, we know that memory aether is only a fraction of what we are. Endless do not have soul aether, but are memory aether, which we know carry emotion. Does that possibly mean they would be able to more strongly use dynamis than what we are?

If you check the description of creation magicks and concepts in the lore encyclopedia, they sound extremely close to the idea of Ancients actually creating soul aether types (basic instincts, physical manifestation details, etc. because keep in mind, corporeal aether is just elements by itself, it doesn't take on a living type behavior by default), but, would be lacking in memory aether as a means for having a full "soul".

If the creation of a soul aether type is actually a thing, a soul dynamis should be able to be created as well. Could a memory aether, be attached to/control a soul dynamis and corporeal dynamis? This would be something not even fathomable to Alexandrians, but if possible, dynamis dwarfs aether in volume and you would have a vast amount available. Not to mention, as a dynamis being, similar to Meteion, they should be able to fly wherever they wanted in the universe to get a new aether/dynamis source.

Few different ways things could go especially with other mysteries such as the origin/creation of memory aether since only soul aether and corporeal aether are recycled, as well as how much soul aether is pending use in the lifestream already.

[LuciferMournstar]

Snip

Glad someone else made the Dynamis connection. We could have literally told Sphene about Ultima Thule, taking The Endless there, and finding a way for Endless to use Dynamis. Though NOPE, couldn't do that. Just went with the "Sphene bad, don't even mention Dynamis, just take them out." Lazy writing at best.

[Mikey_R]

Gra'ha: "All men eventually die. If you make Endless of everyone, you will never have enough aether to sustain them. You but prolong the inevitable." <- Speaking as if Endless are not dead or AI since he's using the word prolong.

I have a bit of an issue with your assessment of G'raha's statement here as I interpreted it differently.

You seem to assume the word 'prolong' implies it is related to life, however, that isn't the case. You can prolong anything as it's definition is 'extend the duration of'.

So, from the start, 'All Men die.' Easy to see what he means there. 'If you make Endless of everyone, you will never have enough Aether to sustain them.' This then goes into killing the natural cycle of life and death. We are taking Aether out of the cycle and storing it unnaturally. Do note that G'Raha is neither saying they are alive, but he is also not explicitly stating they are dead. It is a neutral statement on the topic of alive or dead.

The last thing, 'You but prolong the inevitable', is talking about the fact that the Endless are every growing and will need an ever growing supply of Aether, one that eventually, no matter how much you try, is going to have a requirement greater than what you can supply, leading to it being shut down. The prolonging of the inevitable here is the fact, at some point, whether it is us or just nature, Sphene's hopes and dreams for her people are going to fall apart. Her idealistic vision is not going to work, no matter what.

All G'Raha has done is look at the facts and said the plan is unsustainable, that is all. There is no precedent set for whether the Endless are alive or not.

[VoidsentStatus]

I have a bit of an issue with your assessment of G'raha's statement here as I interpreted it differently.

You seem to assume the word 'prolong' implies it is related to life, however, that isn't the case. You can prolong anything as it's definition is 'extend the duration of'.

So, from the start, 'All Men die.' Easy to see what he means there. 'If you make Endless of everyone, you will never have enough Aether to sustain them.' This then goes into killing the natural cycle of life and death. We are taking Aether out of the cycle and storing it unnaturally. Do note that G'Raha is neither saying they are alive, but he is also not explicitly stating they are dead. It is a neutral statement on the topic of alive or dead.

The last thing, 'You but prolong the inevitable', is talking about the fact that the Endless are every growing and will need an ever growing supply of Aether, one that eventually, no matter how much you try, is going to have a requirement greater than what you can supply, leading to it being shut down. The prolonging of the inevitable here is the fact, at some point, whether it is us or just nature, Sphene's hopes and dreams for her people are going to fall apart. Her idealistic vision is not going to work, no matter what.

All G'Raha has done is look at the facts and said the plan is unsustainable, that is all. There is no precedent set for whether the Endless are alive or not.

I think you're confusing your grammar as "the inevitable" is the shut down. That is death/dying which is stated at the beginning. There is no point in "the inevitable" referring to the aether shortage problem because the grammar format is supposed to link back to All men die. not All men have limited resources. or All men multiply. As for prolong, he states what is being prolonged, literally, the inevitable. Which is death. Your response does not define an alternative to what is being prolonged that would also fall under inevitable without it being death. If I was to take it that prolong is a reference to "needing endless resources", that would imply doing something to work in the opposite effect of that. Ex: Eating healthy to prolong death. The death is being prolonged by eating. Endless are not created as a means to avoid/prolong needing endless resources. They are not motive related. You also stated "taking aether out of the cycle" as if someone would go from life to some other arbitary wording that is not death. We have things that are living and things that are not living. Things that are not living do not have emotion, cognitive functionality, etc. That is what it what it means to be immortal by definition, is to be in a life only situation. Not to mention that they still die after a set point, so they haven't actuallly been removed from the cycle, they've simply hit the pause and reset button.