Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[CKNovel]

The whole memory wipe thing doesn't make sense in general and is probably just something the writers came up with to make the whole thing seem more evil and contrast it more clearly with the whole "you live on in our memories" message of the previous zones. I don't think it has anything to do with how Living Memory itself works (as proven by the two Otis) nor with the question whether the Endless (intelligent and self-aware as they are) should be considered alive/sentient or not.

It's just one of many instances this expansion where the weak writing lets you see the hand of the writer way too clearly.

Finally, my "Akschually" moment.
It's a FF IX reference, "To be forgotten is worse than death", but also because Alexandria wanted a happy going kingdom that knows no sadness or grief.
By wiping the memory of an individual, they made them forget the loss and they don't have to go through the well known steps of grief. But if you're forgotten, does it means you truly lived?

It's not "evil" it's just classic "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

[Alchemii]

The whole memory wipe thing doesn't make sense in general and is probably just something the writers came up with to make the whole thing seem more evil and contrast it more clearly with the whole "you live on in our memories" message of the previous zones. I don't think it has anything to do with how Living Memory itself works (as proven by the two Otis) nor with the question whether the Endless (intelligent and self-aware as they are) should be considered alive/sentient or not.

It's just one of many instances this expansion where the weak writing lets you see the hand of the writer way too clearly.

Yea, but it's a complete moral and psychological contradiction. Like everything we've been told and seen of the Alexandrians makes the memory erasing not make sense. So long as there is no explanation for why, then it not only serves no purpose, it goes in direct contradiction to the moral ideology of Sphene and the Alexandrians.

[Turtledeluxe]

There is no question that it had to be done because the plot contrived itself to make it necessary.

It's more the lack of actual contemplation about that matter that came across as awkward to me because everyone is just totally on-board with it following Cahciua's insistence that there's no value to their existence (Which should be highly subjective depending on whether or not someone considers a soul or memories more integral to defining someone's existence.). You can't just say "These people are fake and don't matter", then do absolutely nothing to further convince the viewer of that, especially when it's stressed earlier in the MSQ that people do not truly die as long as they're remembered...which largely cannot happen for those in Living Memory due to the regulators, so we're effectively rendering them deader then dead in that respect.

They could have chosen to avoid that by not having them all be deleted permanently (And perhaps they could still end up doing that in the post-MSQ), but it all came across as rather tone-deaf...though it wouldn't be the first time considering my feelings on EW which similarly aimed to moralize and stir up emotions in a manner that was seemingly oblivious to various uncomfortable implications made in the process...

The idea that being remembered qualifies as being alive is pushed by a minority of characters in MSQ and has no bearing on reality.

We also don't really know what happens to the memory aether as far as I know. Maybe it rejoins the original soul in the aetherial sea? We don't know really know. I mean is anyone in XIV dead? The souls of the dead are also alive in all "perceivable ways". If just being perceivably the same as something that's alive makes you alive, then no one in XIV is actually dead and the use of word in general is meaningless.

[Carolingian]

I mean is anyone in XIV dead? The souls of the dead are also alive in all "perceivable ways".

The souls of the dead aren't even self-aware as far as we know. So they're obviously not alive in all "perceivable ways".

Though it would have been great if the story decided to explore that a bit more. Clearly on the Source most people consider the Soul as the most important part of being alive. When someone dies the Soul goes back to the aetherial sea, gets cleansed/stripped of its memories, and then eventually reincarnates and thus doesn't need memories to "live on". Yet on Alexandria's world they believe Memories are the core part of being alive and that they don't necessarily need the Soul part to live on.

In Shadowbringers a big part of the story was about how maybe people on the Source were wrong (or at least missing some important information) about the way we look at Astral and Umbral compared to people on the First. Could the same be true here?

That question isn't even entertained, we just instantly go to "no, they're wrong so it's fine to destroy it all". It's all so frustratingly shallow.

[SDaemon]

The souls of the dead aren't even self-aware as far as we know. So they're obviously not alive in all "perceivable ways".

We make contact and have conversations with Amon's and Asahi's souls in the Aetherial Sea.

[Turtledeluxe]

The souls of the dead aren't even self-aware as far as we know. So they're obviously not alive in all "perceivable ways".

Though it would have been great if the story decided to explore that a bit more. Clearly on the Source most people consider the Soul as the most important part of being alive. When someone dies the Soul goes back to the aetherial sea, gets cleansed/stripped of its memories, and then eventually reincarnates and thus doesn't need memories to "live on". Yet on Alexandria's world they believe Memories are the core part of being alive and that they don't necessarily need the Soul part to live on.

In Shadowbringers a big part of the story was about how maybe people on the Source were wrong (or at least missing some important information) about the way we look at Astral and Umbral compared to people on the First. Could the same be true here?

That question isn't even entertained, we just instantly go to "no, they're wrong so it's fine to destroy it all". It's all so frustratingly shallow.

I guess you didn't play SHB or EW.

It's interesting to me that you're so passionate about an ethical debate but you won't acknowledge we have interacted with several characters who are dead yet perceivably alive.

When we talk about things being alive, that indicates there's biological processes going on perpetuating that organism. As far as recreating a person, you'd need way more than just memories to do that. This is why I think the arguments around XIV are silly in nature. Maybe you all aren't aware of this, but humans can't be recreated from just memories.

What's happening in XIV is all magic and doesn't really apply anything outside a purely theoretical discussion for funsies.

And what we are left with given that, is were the protagonists, who are not real, contextually ethical in the fiction? When the Endless themselves are distinguishing from their state vs the living and several of them giving reasons to turn off the terminals (it's not just Cachiua), the limited time and resources considering the threat of Sphene, it can be argued that they did the best they could with the time, resources, and info they had. And if you're really not satisfied by that, you'd still have to admit the real villain is Cachiua. Not the the protagonists and certainly not players.

[Carolingian]

stuff

Being alive, or sentient, isn't limited to just "biological processes". At least not in a fantasy or sci-fi setting. And that's what we're talking about, we're obviously not talking about real life. It's one of the main philosophical questions and debates in most science fiction. One Dawntrail doesn't seem interested in approaching in any kind of interesting way, even though FFXIV did manage to do that before with the likes of Alpha/Omega, Gigi, and Ultima Thule. That is my main problem.

I agree that some dead people have still been shown to be sentient, mostly while they were still in the aetherial sea before their soul was fully cleansed and reincarnated. But the game has pretty much always treated messing with said aetherial sea, or at the very least the souls within it, as abhorrent because those souls are what people on the Source consider "life". It's why what happened during The Final Days is seen as extra awful because those souls aren't returned to the Aetherial Sea. Neither is Venat's for instance because her aether is completely used up. They are considered truly dead dead.

That's why I find it extra disappointing that the game doesn't treat Alexandria's belief that it is memories, not merely the soul, that makes one alive with the same kind of consideration. It would have made for an actual interesting story and philosophical question. But Dawntrail insists on remaining really shallow and just handwaving it all away (just as it did with previous big problems and ethical questions like in Mamook), making the whole section extra frustrating because we're forced to just swallow the lacklustre explanation that Cachiua (and thus the writers) give us.

And yes, if we were to consider the Endless sentient then it could easily be argued that Cachiua is a villain and the WoL is an accessory to genocide. Especially when her request to erase all Endless doesn't even make much sense when she later explains that shutting off Sphene's terminal would shut off all other terminals anyway. So why even make the request when it's seemingly inevitable when stopping Sphene?

But I'm pretty sure that's just another sign of the weak and unsubtle writing of this writing team. A particularly heavy-handed way to force in extra stakes and sacrifices without it necessarily making much sense (same reason why we can't just shut down the terminals without erasing the data). It's not unlike how the ending of Mass Effect 3 forced you to also kill all Geth and EDI if you wanted to kill the Reapers.

So it's obviously not the players who are unethical for doing what the video game tells us to do. It's the video game characters doing arguably unethical things in-universe that are waved away by weak excuses thanks to weak and shallow writing. Like the OP said: the writers wanted a certain result and they didn't really put much care or thought in how they were going to reach that result.

[Turtledeluxe]

.

That's why I find it extra disappointing that the game doesn't treat Alexandria's belief that it is memories, not merely the soul, that makes one alive with the same kind of consideration. It would have made for an actual interesting story and philosophical question. But Dawntrail insists on remaining really shallow and just handwaving it all away (just as it did with previous big problems and ethical questions like in Mamook), making the whole section extra frustrating because we're forced to just swallow the lacklustre explanation that Cachiua (and thus the writers) give us.

And yes, if we were to consider the Endless sentient then it could easily be argued that Cachiua is a villain and the WoL is an accessory to genocide. Especially when her request to erase all Endless doesn't even make much sense when she later explains that shutting off Sphene's terminal would shut off all other terminals anyway. So why even make the request when it's seemingly inevitable when stopping Sphene?

But I'm pretty sure that's just another sign of the weak and unsubtle writing of this writing team. A particularly heavy-handed way to force in extra stakes and sacrifices without it necessarily making much sense (same reason why we can't just shut down the terminals without erasing the data). It's not unlike how the ending of Mass Effect 3 forced you to also kill all Geth and EDI if you wanted to kill the Reapers.

So it's obviously not the players who are unethical for doing what the video game tells us to do. It's the video game characters doing arguably unethical things in-universe that are waved away by weak excuses thanks to weak and shallow writing. Like the OP said: the writers wanted a certain result and they didn't really put much care or thought in how they were going to reach that result.

I agree that the story in general is poorly written and shallow. I'm just not sure applying player based philosophy to Cachiua is very fair. If the Endless themselves don't consider themselves as real or alive, why should she and why should the cast? The idea that being remembered makes you living is exclusive to Sphene and one culture in Tuliyollal. I think it is explored insofar as we do hear Sphene's perspective...several times. And again the cast are all acting in what they perceive as an existential decision in a time restrictive setting with minimal resources.

Additionally that means maybe there's time in the patches for them to to discuss the consequences of the Endless and what happens to their memory ether when the cast aren't under these extreme conditions

[MikkoAkure]

And yes, if we were to consider the Endless sentient then it could easily be argued that Cachiua is a villain and the WoL is an accessory to genocide.

Can't commit genocide against things that already died before. Are we committing genocide by defeating Edda, Nybeth Obdilord, and the zombies and spirits they command just because forum goers could argue that they count as "life"?

The LIVING Alexandrians are still there, still carrying on their culture, and don't even remember the Endless. The only one who remembers are the WoL and the people who came with them to Living Memory, which was half the point of going around turning things off one at a time and learning about the people and remembering them before we turned out the lights.

The continued existence of the Endless put lives on the Source at stake and we were invaded by Sphene for their sake. Sphene couldn't figure out an alternative to the aether problem after hundreds of years and with far greater technology and experience with soul storage than anyone else on the Source so we weren't about to solve the problem in an afternoon. And if we just let them be and run out of aether naturally, they'll end up turning into monsters just like on the Deadwalk.

Ending the Endless was a mercy and restored the order their existence perverted. Everyone is meant to die and return to the Lifestream, no exceptions. The writing may be wonky, but a lot of the players are way too soft or don't see the bigger picture and get too hung up on the game making them feel bad.

[KylePearlsand]

Something that bothers me most about Living Memory is how many forum goers seem to like to label the Warrior of Light as a hypocrite for turning off Living Memory while quoting Emet Selch. Let's look at the WoL's actions in both instances.

Emet Selch sought to revive the past at the expense of the present and future through the rejoinings. The Warrior of Light fought back to protect the present and future.

Sphene sought to revive the past at the expense of the present and future through Living Memory. The Warrior of Light turned off living memory in order to protect the present and future.

Nothing about the Warrior of Light's actions in Dawntrail is hypocritical as they still pursued the same goal.

I'll be first to admit that I strongly dislike Dawntrail's MSQ, but this part of the WoL's character was in character. Sphene admitted more than once that she can not coexist with the rest of the shard. She needs to commit genocide against not just the source but other shards in order to fuel Living Memory. Sure, we can bring in Cid and this should have been at least able to consult him via linkpearl. But given we're dealing with a material that until just a few days prior in game didn't even exist on the source, it's questionable he would have been able to do anything to help. Stayborough proves that this isn't something that can be sustained. We know there were other areas like it that also disappeared with Endless that will never be seen again. Even if there were souls to fuel Living Memory, the remaining four areas will eventually fall into the same fate as Deadwalk and areas like it.