Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[VoidsentStatus]

To expound-- human beings are way more than their memories. What adds up to your behavior and your personality is infinitely more complex. The way XIV handles it is totally unrealistic. Theoretically, Endless should be unique acting people who happen to have those memories.

I'd ask where you got this assumption from. Memories are exactly what define behavior and personality in itself. Biological instincts/evolution are memory passed down from previous generations. Before you even have your own consciousness, there's a form of memory already implanted inside of you that controls your behavior/actions baseline.

(small pre-concept)
Even regarding free will debates, there are arguments for predestination as arguments for having freedom of choice are different than arguments from freedom of manifestation. As humans, we do not manifest things in a random manner at all and what is the importance of "free will" if nothing manifests from it. Even something as simple as picking a random number has various micro thoughts inside of it such as "is this number too small", "is this number too common", "let me avoid numbers like this". It is the same process for computers when they generate randomness, they have a set of guidelines to mimic RNG that isn't actually RNG.

(main concept)
When you get into discussing the micro mechanics of how your thought works in itself, memory is the baseline of that. Memory determines what you find important, what you like, what you are afraid of, what you value, etc. You cannot like something you never experienced, you cannot value something you do not even know exists, you cannot think in a way that hasn't been shown to you directly or indirectly. We look for patterns and consistency in our existence baseline. That is why all human behavior is incredibly predictable with enough information and when someone loses enough of their memory, they cease to act in the same capacity and exhibit a different personality entirely from what they had before. A "person" that has no memory nor capacity for future memory cannot function in the world and is merely a husk that will eventually die because it won't even remember where or how to get basic elements of survival, it can't perform basic maintenance on itself, let alone to form goals or a purpose of life.

The idea that someone can be implanted with memories and behave "uniquely" than said memories' influence is a failure to understand the core of a thought process. I am not going to have memories of walking into a swamp and being attacked by snakes, and say "well, it's only a memory, let me walk into a swamp anyway, surely I won't be attacked by snakes." Memories that we consider real and not dreams, are not naturally ignored. That is how we make predictions and do experiements, to find variations from those baseline observations and assumptions that we create.

[EchoingPulse]

People aren't trying to argue that the "right" thing to do would be to allow the Endless to persist by allowing Sphene's plan to succeed.

They're more annoyed by how utterly hands-off the whole matter is and how basically all discussion on the morality/necessity of deleting them is exhausted within the opening moments of the zone.

I was already disappointed when I reached Living Memory; the entire MSQ up to that point did nothing but annoy and frustrate me with terrible writing and pacing. And the story around the Endless is no different.
To me, it didn't matter if they were copies or fakes.(Cause I just wanted the MSQ to end) All that matters is their existence is parasitic and unsustainable as much as Solution Nine is morally bankrupt.
It had to be shut down.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I was already disappointed when I reached Living Memory; the entire MSQ up to that point did nothing but annoy and frustrate me with terrible writing and pacing. And the story around the Endless is no different.
To me, it didn't matter if they were copies or fakes.(Cause I just wanted the MSQ to end) All that matters is their existence is parasitic and unsustainable as much as Solution Nine is morally bankrupt.
It had to be shut down.

Hypothetical question. What if the moment Sphene went to reformat G'raha said, "I have an idea for how to switch them over to being powered by electrope so all of them can exist at once with no harm to anyone," do you go with his idea or do you continue with Cahcuia's request?

[EchoingPulse]

Hypothetical question. What if the moment Sphene went to reformat, G'raha said, "I have an idea for how to switch them over to being powered by electrope so all of them can exist at once with no harm to anyone," do you go with his idea or do you continue with Cahcuia's request?

I'd smack G'raha for not mentioning it sooner and more, especially to Sphere.
Believe it or not, I had thought that at some point, Raha or someone would speak up about the Crystal Tower and do something with it since it passively harnesses Solar energy.

Onto your question, I'd go with G'raha's idea because, at least then, alternatives are being explored. If it succeeds? Hazzha for everyone. If it fails, and every other plan fails? At least then, when the fight happens, it becomes about 'Survival' or 'Might to exist.'

[CVXIV]

How would G'raha Tia know any more about how electrope works than say Sphene or any of the researchers? We just recently learned about it even existing.

Not only that, but isn't there a shortage of the material to begin with? The whole war between Lindblum and Alexandria?

Is it because of the method using white auracite and his blood, which was done by Beq Lugg on the first?

I don't really understand the line of questioning, given the events that transpired during the story. Changing that one part doesn't change everything else that happens, from the already existing shortage of both souls to create new endless and of electrope. On top of that, Sphene outwardly refusing to cooperate and double down on her goal to slaughter everyone.

It's an artificial aetherial sea and we returned the people who died back to the real one so they can be reborn. Souls in ff14 are weird, and we don't fully understand how they work.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

Thank you for answering my question. You and I are actually in the same place when it comes to "plan of action." I just feel like the story skips over step 1: Attempt to resolve the issue peacefully due to a stated disgust factor. They are twisted and unnatural and I take issue with that. It wasn't that we tried for a peaceful solution and failed, we didn't bother with a peaceful solution because we deemed them an inferior form of life, not worth the trouble. And I found that messed up.

*snip*

My question wasn't because I believed that was something that could happen or should happen, my question was to see if she was okay with killing them due to self-defense or the disgust factor the game actually gives as our reason for ending them. After all, I don't usually stop for ice cream when acting in self-defense. Our attack on the populace was preemptive in order to destabilize their leadership. After all, deleting the Endless in no way changed what happened next. Sphene was still talking to them as she fought us which means she didn't even notice they were gone.

As for how could a person with connections to people with knowledge of Allag, Sharlayan, Omicron and future technology possibly solve a problem the Alexandrians couldn't solve? Well, the Alexandrians were idiots. They got conquered by a lizard with a pointy stick. And if you try to argue that no, she made an alliance with the lizard with pointy stick. Well, she gave him complete and sole control of her military, so...still an idiot. It's actually less tragic if he'd simply managed to conquer them. We also defeated their super advanced military in like an afternoon...

They created a Living Memory so no one would ever have to experience loss again, but instead of letting people visit their dead loved ones, they instead kept them completely separate and just deleted the memory of the dead loved ones. Even if you're as a fragile as an empty egg and can't handle the slightest bit off loss, these two systems are redundant. Either keep everyone alive OR make everyone forget their dead. But they do both, because they are dumb.

Alexandrians have the ability to put souls and memories in machines. They have a way to keeping a soul and memory with the machine in the case of the machine's destruction with regulators. They have a way of projecting a person's appearance over them machine. And given what she says about older models not having regulators that means they've already installed regulators on newer models. And they came up with that FIRST. Which means they had a way of preserving people that didn't require life force and allowed complete freedom of movement instead of being stuck in one location, and they went with a dumber plan that would eventually end all life in the universe instead.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

They also have VR, which living people can enter, like we did to fight Sphene and I'm assuming their VR can run on electric and doesn't need to run on human souls, so even allowing the Endless to exist in VR given 90% of them are stuck on servers anyway due to the aether shortage would have been a better idea than murdering everyone until the universe runs out of people.

So yes, I do think the combined knowledge of all the people who owe the WoL a favor could have solved Sphene's problem, because Alexandrians are the dumbest scifi civilization I've ever seen. They don't even password protect the terminals which anyone can walk up to and wipe out a swath of their populace and there was a time when the living were in Living Memory, what if some kid walked up and accidentally took out the Aero terminal? The ziplines had more security than the terminals keeping everyone up and about.

Even Sphene admits that we possess new knowledge that might be able to solve her problem in a less stupid way. It's just that Zoraal Ja offed a bunch of her people and so she had an influx of dead coming in and needed life force NOW. But even if we could just shut down the programmed imperatives controlling her, I think even that would have given us the time to solve Preservation being the worst programmers and dumbest designers in history.

And if it didn't and it did come down to a fight to the death which in turn caused all the servers to go down, at least we tried. Because that's what heroes do. They at least TRY not to wipe out entire civilian populations.

[Arzalis]

I couldn't agree with that last paragraph more.

We didn't even try to look into other alternatives or dig deeper into what was going on. We destroyed an entire civilization because we decided they were lesser than us and couldn't be bothered to do anything else. That's just not how heroes act.

Sphene had to be stopped, but there was actually nothing preventing us from stopping her and then taking the time to look into the situation. The game is pretty explicit that the deletion wasn't actually necessary in any way. We did it because we had nothing else to do while we waited to access Sphene. If that led to the Endless being wiped out, then it's a matter of survival and an understandable tragedy. But we actually took the most callous, uncaring approach to it all.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Hypothetical question. What if the moment Sphene went to reformat G'raha said, "I have an idea for how to switch them over to being powered by electrope so all of them can exist at once with no harm to anyone," do you go with his idea or do you continue with Cahcuia's request?

Here we have some common ground… I do think that should have at least been explored. It makes me wonder if that will be something that we’ll revisit in the patches, or if this is really where we leave LM for good. Seems a waste of such a nice zone! But I guess you could argue that letting go of things and people we lost was the whole thematic point of the zone, so a “solution” would go against that. If they go back after this and find a way to power it back up with some other energy method, I don’t think that would feel satisfying at all, beyond getting the pretty amusement park back. They kind of have to leave it as it is, otherwise everyone would go “what was the point of that?!”

I did feel the last part of the story should have gotten way more screen time… it felt rushed, and you barely had any time to interact with the zone before shutting it down. And this was the part of the MSQ I was most interested in. There should have been way more time devoted to Krile/parents, Erenville/Cahcuia, and yes, like you said, our brilliant Scions, Students and other associates trying to find an alternative solution that doesn’t involve murdering living people to steal their souls to use as batteries.

In the end though, it is implied that once Sphene completes her transformation, she’ll go into mass murder mode, with the last of her “conscience” gone. Effectively giving priority to the “save our people at all costs” directive, over the “act as this person would based on their memories” directive that she shares with the other Endless. And if the only way to keep the Endless alive, again essentially AI bots created from the memories of the deceased, is to murder people who are actually alive now, then that’s not a choice. You protect the living and shut down the computer simulation.

[EchoingPulse]

I couldn't agree with that last paragraph more.

We didn't even try to look into other alternatives or dig deeper into what was going on. We destroyed an entire civilization because we decided they were lesser than us and couldn't be bothered to do anything else. That's just not how heroes act.

Sphene had to be stopped, but there was actually nothing preventing us from stopping her and then taking the time to look into the situation. The game is pretty explicit that the deletion wasn't actually necessary in any way. We did it because we had nothing else to do while we waited to access Sphene. If that led to the Endless being wiped out, then it's a matter of survival and an understandable tragedy. But we actually took the most callous, uncaring approach to it all.

It's not that we didn't try to find alternatives. The writers didn't want us to look for other options; they gave us only one side of the story and nothing else, even if you ignore everything Cahcuia says. The story is very explicit in that the Endless NEED living aether to sustain the Endless. When we go there, we are told that the reason so few are around is because the aether levels are low.

Remember what the Watcher said in Endwalker.
"Whatever fate befalls the Source. Her reflections will share." If the Source blows up, every reflection, including Living memory blows up. Something absolutely needed to be done before they drained the Source of all its aether.