Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[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.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

There are two arguments made in Living Memory and when people take issue with the first, people bring up the second while never addressing the first.

1. The Endless are unnatural, inferior beings and therefore it's fine to eradicate them.
2. Sphene will be forced by her programming to destroy all life in the universe to maintain the Endless.

Here's the thing, if someone suggested we kill every single Garlean so Varis would have no reason to conquer the Source, not only would we refuse to do it, we'd think that person was a monster. However, with the Endless, the characters pout a little, grumble about it being hard, but they still wipe out an entire people between boat rides and ice cream and the reason for that is because they are deemed an inferior form of life.

"I do not consider you truly alive, ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you."

And every argument anyone might try to make as to why the Endless do not meet the standards of personhood are undercut by the narrative itself. Why am I dressing up as a bunny to give happy memories to an AI I am about to shut down? Because the story attempted to have it's cake and eat it too, we're TOLD that these are not people and we shouldn't feel guilty about deleting them, but we're SHOWN that in every way that matters they were people. And whether we had to kill them or not to save ourselves, killing them should have been treated with more gravity.

We have a guy tell us that he was PROUD that he took the same job in death that he had in life and that he STAYED TRUE TO HIMSELF. Why is this AI that I've already shut down saying this? Because he wasn't a program, he a person, a person whose existence I just ended and ending his existence even if I did it to save all life in the universe should have been treated with more respect.

[MikkoAkure]

Here's the thing, if someone suggested we kill every single Garlean so Varis would have no reason to conquer the Source, not only would we refuse to do it, we'd think that person was a monster. However, with the Endless, the characters pout a little, grumble about it being hard, but they still wipe out an entire people between boat rides and ice cream and the reason for that is because they are deemed an inferior form of life.

You're comparing apples to oranges and the scenarios are completely different.

The Garleans are normal, mundane people comparatively with just one life to live. The Endless have already lived and died and are then brought back into an artificial afterlife after the incorporeal parts of their being are processed in a factory and then require the souls of others to keep going. But the civilization the Endless came from still exists. Alexandria is right there, no one on the Source is threatening their existence, and they are free to continue on. Turning off the terminals to save the world doesn't endanger the country they came from, no one at all is affected by their loss, and none of them even die in the traditional sense since they have already died before and have been on borrowed time.

The living Alexandrians don't even remember the Endless, they just know that when you die you go to the cloud but they have no memories of the individuals. That was the whole point of us interacting with them instead of just going straight to the terminals (also to pad out the zone). Their own families and loved ones won't remember them when they're gone and they don't remember them now, but at least we can if no one else will. They had no interactions with the living world at all except for one Turali expat who remote-controlled a robot.

The situation sucks and tough situations make writing more compelling, but this is not at all like killing a whole civilization of living people because not only is the rest of their civilization carrying on just fine without caring about them at all, they were already dead to begin with.

[AnotherPerson]

4. If it is based on emotions, how come people die on the Source (or any Shard for that matter) if they believe hard enough (especially after the events of Endwalker)? How are they not able to live in perpetuity because "I REFUSE TO DIE". The only strong case for this would be the Warrior of Light but...we're basically a demi-god with plot armour that exceeds the limits and constraints of the world building in may ways. The WoL is not a good benchmark to define what is possible of others in the world building. You then turn Dynamis into a belief system and...there goes any sense of tension in the story because you just render any death as "Hauchefaunt died because he didn't believe he could live (hard enough)" or any other such nonsense when a character is dying or has died. (I mean, Guloul Ja Ja died, surely he wanted to live hard enough to protect his people? No? That's not how that works? Okay.)

I would argue that using Dynamis to create bodies and maintain the lives of the Endless would be incredibly boring and would be more of a determent to the overall quality of the world building because, not only has Dynamis been used to destroy the literal embodiment of Despair, saving the "people" of Living Memory with it would only posit the answer to almost EVERY conflict as "why didn't we use Dynamis to resolve this" or "why didn't we save them with Dynamis"? (Granted, the writers in Endwalker sufficiently shot themselves in both feet and an arm for introducing this concept in the first place, but I digress.)

1 to 4. Dynamis is drowned by Aether because aether is denser in the same amount. That's why the ancients have a hard time discovering this energy source, because they're mostly unaffected by the sparse amounts of Dynamis. However, in large quantities, aether can be drowned out by dynamis as well. The story explained Zodiark was the one who covered the Etheriys in a shroud of aether as a cover from the Dynamis being sent onto Etheriys, which we later learn is only stops the symptoms but not the cause. That's what the Final Days were about. The source is many times rejoined and the original place where all the aether from the shards go. We have the Aetherial Sea in the source. It stands to reason the Source is the largest source of aether at the moment. Living Memory (and by extension Alexandria) is not in one of the shards. Far from it, they're a broken remnant at this point, with most of the aether and souls already returned to the source from the rejoining. Not to mention, the souls of the citizens in the Source is far denser than the souls of the shard. The main thing most people neglect is that -- the Endless doesn't have an aetheric soul. So they're not even 1/14 dense. It makes sense that they can maintain their existence through Dynamis because they don't even have a shred of aether left. The only main thing they have to worry about is Dynamis being drowned by the sparse amounts of aether that they might encounter (except they don't even know of the concept of dynamis so they wouldn't be particularly worried in the first place). Moving to Ultima Thule is more like a guarantee they won't encounter a large aetheric fluctuation that could drown their form away.

Dynamis is not the blanket answer to everything because you need huge amounts to be able to do anything with it, but in this case it makes perfect sense since the Endless of Alexandria are far less aetheric and have shown they have full capability to influence and use it to sustain their existence without the source of Life Aether after their terminals are deactivated.

I think the worst part is that ... We have an Interdimensional key (the Sun symbol which is also on Azem Crystal) that confuses people for eons on how it functions, but for some magical reason, it responds fine to prayers of desperate people trying to save themselves in a disaster to flee the Fifth Umbral Calamity (Milalla). Preservation completed their research into interdimensional fusion by augmenting their electrope with the key as the focus to gain access to interdimensional hopping & fusion.

By that note, I'm quite certain the Interdimensional key itself uses dynamis. A plot point that could have easily solved moving the Endless over if we had just taken the damn key and used it at Ultima Thule to open a portal directly to Living Memory.

You're comparing apples to oranges and the scenarios are completely different.

The Garleans are normal, mundane people comparatively with just one life to live. The Endless have already lived and died and are then brought back into an artificial afterlife after the incorporeal parts of their being are processed in a factory and then require the souls of others to keep going.

The living Alexandrians don't even remember the Endless, they just know that when you die you go to the cloud but they have no memories of the individuals. That was the whole point of us interacting with them instead of just going straight to the terminals (also to pad out the zone). Their own families and loved ones won't remember them when they're gone and they don't remember them now, but at least we can if no one else will. They had no interactions with the living world at all except for one Turali expat who remote-controlled a robot.

Do note: The Endless are effectively a term for the beings who have their own Aetherial Sea reincarnation system. They do get a memory reset after their time is up. It's not that different from the Aetherial Sea as portions of their memory gets blanked out afterwards, but the only difference is that it's not a full memory reset and randomized body reset. The process is different, but the ending result where they experience life and death with different people and different environment is ultimately the same.

Alexandrians not remembering the Endless and only waiting until they become dead to meet the Endless bothers me too -- but because it makes no sense narratively when the Endless did interact with living people in the past. It seems they just needed an excuse with the regulators. It's just poor writing at that point. :/ I think a large portion of the reason why Endless no longer seemed like people is because there's no 'living' citizens to interact with them, even though there's always new dead people becoming an Endless for them to talk to.