Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[AnotherPerson]

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

There was plenty of instances where we were not even given the ability to explain and talk about problems. The lightning-aspected soul sickness for instance... we have a cure for that and we discovered it in The First against light-aspected souls and bring it back to equilibrium. We brought it in the Source to cure the tempering of various races, may it be due to other primal influences like Ifrit, Titan, Leviathan, etc. We have a solution. We never got to explaining it. Plot just jumps ahead and skips it. Why?

Time restrictive setting... it feels more like just poor writing in general.

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.

We have our own set of morals against people who wants to cause destruction and harm, but not all ghosts and spirits deserve to end up getting killed simply due to their racial distinctions. That includes the vast majority of the Endless, who are pretty much harmless civilians other than not knowing their existence runs on Life Aether provided by their original selves. Find a solution for their energy source replacement so the original souls can reincarnate, and suddenly the problems with Sphene needing to kill millions of lives will be solved because there will no longer be a geocidal dilemma. If we just let them be and run out of aether naturally... how much aether was left remaining? Unknown, just pressed for time. How much aether did the lives in Deadwalk Strayborough have the moment they disconnected from Living Memory? Long enough for them to sustain themselves and affect dynamis in such a state where ghostly apparitions transform the entire amusement park. I wouldn't say that's a small amount of time.

The Endless are clearly not a continuation of the original because they lack the soul of the original, but they can exist as an entity who thinks and acts on their own - which is essentially a clone of the original. To kill them means you also see allagan clones also not alive because they are also not the originals. We define our worth in the time we spend living in those moments. Not by the circumstances of our creation. Hence, it does fall more in-line with genocide. To kill or be killed kind of thing.

Sphene may not have figured out an alternative, but that's because she didn't experience what we had to collaborate on one. We have far more experience in esoteric concepts like dynamis and the transfer of souls. Cahciua is aware some lingering Endless who stay in Living Memory even after being cut off from their energy source. They only know it's due to strong lingering emotions -- but that has no explanation to how the lingering emotions make them sustain themselves without access to Life Aether. We couldn't even share the cure to the lightning sickness that plagues Alexandrians. We were not given an chance.

I'm just irked because I would've accepted the result if we could not solve the issue of energy storage after giving our best collaboration at preserving the Endless, but we weren't even attempting to do that. We just ignored the entire situation because the narrative implied clones don't have a right to existence as if we never met clones in the past. To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom—it is indolence.

[Carin-Eri]

Sphene may not have figured out an alternative, but that's because she didn't experience what we had to collaborate on one. We have far more experience in esoteric concepts like dynamis and the transfer of souls. Cahciua is aware some lingering Endless who stay in Living Memory even after being cut off from their energy source. They only know it's due to strong lingering emotions -- but that has no explanation to how the lingering emotions make them sustain themselves without access to Life Aether. We couldn't even share the cure to the lightning sickness that plagues Alexandrians. We were not given an chance.

Perhaps Dynamis?

[Turtledeluxe]

There was plenty of instances where we were not even given the ability to explain and talk about problems. The lightning-aspected soul sickness for instance... we have a cure for that and we discovered it in The First against light-aspected souls and bring it back to equilibrium. We brought it in the Source to cure the tempering of various races, may it be due to other primal influences like Ifrit, Titan, Leviathan, etc. We have a solution. We never got to explaining it. Plot just jumps ahead and skips it. Why?

Time restrictive setting... it feels more like just poor writing in general.

Correct. The writers didn't really do their homework as far as previous expansions. But also.. you can't tell the writers knew certain players were going to make threads like this? It's poorly written, but their rationale is all in the script. A lot of the timetable stuff, alternatives fuel sources, etc are addressed by Sphene and Cachiua, a couple of times. You have to move to theories like "well those characters don't know what they're talking about and we do becuase umm, the Crystal Tower". I mean that's fine if you want to theorycraft. But I think the story is written in a way that protects itself from being deemed genocide, just with VERY convenient and on the nose dialogue.

And Endwalker did the very same thing to address the awkwardness of events going exactly the same despite the Elpis meddling.

That's why I don't think these are necessarily worth ethical analysis when they're just problems borne of writing, not ideological problems.

And ultimately we do agree on one thing. The writers are hovering around complex and interest theoretical concepts but treating with them with kid gloves for easy access emotional payoff. That sums up 7.0 in its entirety. It's all payoff with no buildup.