Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Turtledeluxe]

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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