Did I skip something in the MSQ? This part doesn't make any sense to me

[Maltrea]

I'm sorry, but you're supposed to just cry, say about how the MSQ changed your life for the 1000th time and not think about it deeply at all, otherwise you're insulting the great Yoshi-P and the brilliant company that is Square Enix. Now eat up your slop that came out of SE's bum, peasant.

Jokes and hyperbole aside, though, yes, it's as the other comments in the thread already mentioned. The story is just poorly thought-out and written. They shoved in way too many things into this one expansion's X.0 story, because they couldn't decide on what to focus on (Or rather, they were afraid of making a slower/lower stakes expansion like what we see in the first half, so they decided to throw in the whole Alexandria storyline as well), plus add the new writers' inexperience and incompetence into the pot, and we end up getting this shoddily written and rushed mess of a MSQ that reeks of insecurity and cowardice.

There are some good things in the story, but all of it is wasted potential because indie company is too scared to make a mistake, so in the process of trying to appease everyone, they made an even bigger one.

[kaynide]

Not a fan of the MSQ either, lots of “wtf are they talking about?” Or “why did they set it up like that?”

It all works if you just accept this: the new writer probably didn’t play through the core game, and wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do to connect major story beats, or didn’t really utilize his writers’ room/round table discussions.

Sure, if you really wanna bend over backwards and force things to make sense, sure, fine, go for it. But to me, the entire 2nd half was bleh.

I mean, I would have found it better if more endless existed outside of Living Memory, functioning in the way Sphene does (hologram’s robot pawn)…but eh.


/rant rant rant on

The entire setup was awful with the big tagline being what would happen if the scions were put on opposing sides. That was supposed to be a major plot point. We had, what.. one moment in a dungeon where Thancred blocked our path? That was the big climax of our rivalry?

They couldn’t write what should have been a fun Indiana Jones-esque adventure with hinjinks between friends?

An overly affectionate father wouldn’t notice something is up with his boy? You’re telling me Daddy Galool never praised his son? Or that he wouldn’t be all over his son trying to make sure he’s ok? I struggle to find how Zoraal could possibly grow up to be as brooding, ignorant and full of misguided ambition.

What even is the point of waging a war to exhaust the people from ever waging war again? And against who are you gonna wage war on? You’ve got no air force, no navy, barely an army. Their best infrastructure is probably their Amazon Delivery Network Pelupelu Alpacas. Is he saying he will jack up the mail delivery? Poke holes in the drums?

/rant rant rant off

TL;dr, we got Disney sequel writing this expac…is what it is.

[Carolingian]

It's not an "unrecognized form of life"; it's literally straight-up explained as an AI simulation of what a person once was, only it requires actual aether to power it...aether that the Alexandrians' world had run out of, so now they're going around killing actual life to power the AI's. It's not a question of how we "see them" - it's literally killing real life to power AI simulations.

It's not an "AI simulation". Origenics literally shows that it's the memories and conscious of the very same person that gets sent to Living Memory. It's only the body that then gets "simulated", but the part that matters is still the same person.

It's pretty similar to the Omicrons who also used to be organic beings but who then uploaded their memories and conscious into robots. That doesn't suddenly make them not "real life", it's just a different kind of life than we're used to.

[Gaddes]

I know folks are comparing the beings in the Last Dregs / Ultima Thule with the Living Memory people, but just putting a devil's advocate argument out there that at the beings in Ultima Thule are dynamis-powered, not aether-powered, and also most importantly are self-sustaining, whereas the Living Memory people will require a constant, unsustainable supply of aether in perpetuity. So when it comes down to it, there's no problem really with the Ultima Thule beings existing and milling about (whether they're real or not), while the Living Memories will continue to threaten aetheric lives.
The debate of whether they're real or not kinda doesn't matter when the aspect of guaranteed murder to acquire more aether trumps that.

... now of course there are the correct counter-arguments that we really should've been able to have time to come up with a solution to the Living Memory aether needs (the Scions have solved much harder topics), but in the absence of being allowed that option, we're pushed into a corner where we have to stop Sphene (which eliminates the memories) or real, breathing people will die.

[Jeeqbit]

I think it's essentially that if you try to preserve everyone in Living Memory, each possessed of a soul from the aetherial sea, then eventually there will be no souls remaining for the actual living and everyone will merely be in Living Memory. But worse, this was headed to come at the expense of the souls of other shards.

Ultima Thule differs because they aren't being endlessly created. Those that exist now, exist. They may have off-spring, but there is no guarantee that their parents can't pass on. The Omicron are also unlikely to have more of themselves created. It's limited overall by the supply of Dynamis there, which isn't infinite, so something would eventually give. Which is probably why when you finish the tribal quests, it's not as complete as you'd perhaps want.

[Naoki34]

Yes, I've skipped all the tribal quests with pointless stories at random: Moogle, Pixie for the most part (only the quest to conclude a reputation stage is worth it sometimes, or simply trashed).

In MSQ, when it starts to bore me or any other game, it's deserved. I never skip the whole thing, but I click to skip the dialogues.

It's like when you're dealing with a goblin or something and some character's talking too much without interest.

I did this a lot in Dawntrail, especially in the last zone. What do I care about your story, you're going to die, I'm going to obliterate you and you're already dead... And the MSQ who want me to believe that they have a tender heart underneath their selfishness and don't want to die. Ah yes, the MSQ in a Shaloani atmosphere, it's the epitome of filler quests and sabisu (fan service) that in the end ends up on a BGM that doesn't match the subject, Great !

I'm going to re-run the NG+ Endwalker part 2 to walk around Elpis to remind myself that it was too good, Bye ! A date with the “Best Friend” and “Best Antagonist” and “Momy” !!!!

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I think it's essentially that if you try to preserve everyone in Living Memory, each possessed of a soul from the aetherial sea, then eventually there will be no souls remaining for the actual living and everyone will merely be in Living Memory. But worse, this was headed to come at the expense of the souls of other shards.

Ultima Thule differs because they aren't being endlessly created. Those that exist now, exist. They may have off-spring, but there is no guarantee that their parents can't pass on. The Omicron are also unlikely to have more of themselves created. It's limited overall by the supply of Dynamis there, which isn't infinite, so something would eventually give. Which is probably why when you finish the tribal quests, it's not as complete as you'd perhaps want.

Living Memory doesn't run off souls. There are no souls in living memory besides those of the player character and our party. The Endless are made of memory aether and corporal aether (life force) making them more akin to digital vampires. Souls are eternal, had they been left with their souls and simply kept out of the aetherial sea then they would be ghosts with no need to take anything from anyone. And if we killed them under those conditions, then we'd be the ones attempting to take their aether, so it's pretty clear why they didn't use the easy obvious method to achieve their goals that harms no one. They needed a contrived reason for conflict.

While the residents of Ultima Thule can pass on, several of the species they are modeled after are immortal and given when one decided to end his existence after fulfilling his purpose, we told him, "No, wait, don't, just find a new purpose." So...are we gonna go back and be like, "Our bad, based on new data, you should just off yourself after you've completed your function."

Also, not only is dynamis the most abundant energy in the universe, the universe someday ends. We convinced all those people to keep living life knowing that someday the whole server's getting shut down. We'd look crazy going back like, "Actually, nevermind, you should just stop existing now, even though we endured 12k years of torture to teach you how to live through any hardship you may face. Our bad. Big misunderstanding. Upon further thought, not enough energy in the universe to go around, so maybe you should consider packing it up."

I'm pretty confident the heat death of the universe will reach us before the residents of Ultima Thule breed us out of existence.

[kaynide]

Endless~!

Just to add, it's probably better to think of the Endless as digital copies a la the game "Soma".

That is to say, Otis, the original, died. Dead-dead. When he died, his entire memory was able to be copied digitally, which resulted in both the robotic doll and at a later time, the Otis we meet in Living Memory.

Neither of these are the actual Otis as he lived. It just happens that one requires additional life force to keep it running.

The big problem in the writing is, it's never really clear EXACTLY what it is this "life force" is, aside from maaaybe it being Dynamis...because otherwise they had the tech to convert Aether A into Aether B as much as they liked.

It's weird "science" and doesn't really make sense given the established lore we have in that, as far as we know, Aether is kinda like matter/energy in that is can't be created or destroyed but rather converted into something else. So, really really not clear what the "Corporeal Aether" (as you said) is, unless it's actually Dynamis..which has a lot of question marks.

[All_Nonsense]

It's not an "unrecognized form of life"; it's literally straight-up explained as an AI simulation of what a person once was, only it requires actual aether to power it...aether that the Alexandrians' world had run out of, so now they're going around killing actual life to power the AI's. It's not a question of how we "see them" - it's literally killing real life to power AI simulations.

G'raha and Krile both exclaimed that the Alexandrians were performing the same exact process with souls that the planet itself does with the aetherial sea. If that was the case, why didn't the Alexandrians just tap into their own aetherial sea and just keep cycling souls like the planet already does? Nothing is actually being expended, just cycled. But I guess we overlook massive lore contradictions and plot holes like that

[Jojoya]

I don't know if I misunderstood what you meant, but there was the couple during the gondola quest. The Elezen man tells us even though he died and the woman he loved forgot who he was, she never married anyone else, and felt a sense of loss. It's implied that she remembers him now, and we see them happy after he proposes to her on the bridge.

Correct. We met him and he died before she did. We never met her but he acknowledges that she had no memory of him after his death during her life. The computer running Living Memory would have had to restore her memories of him for their meeting there (the memories the living have of the newly departed presumably being uploaded into the "cloud" when the other person died), and Cahciua even tells us that the computer was know to manipulate what memories the Endless have access to.

Again, there's some really bad writing going on and some of it is at odds with things that were explained in prior expansions. Trying to nitpick philosophical points is rather useless when it's a fictional story and the writers are the ones that control what is going on.

The writers created the Endless as computer facsimiles of dead people based on the memories stripped from their souls and so that's all they are. The intended moral appears to be "it is wrong to kill the living for the sake of those already dead", which does more or less align with one of the morals at the core of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story.

It doesn't matter how much players wants to convince themselves the Endless are living beings. The writers have told us that they are not and it is the writers that have created the Endless.

G'raha and Krile both exclaimed that the Alexandrians were performing the same exact process with souls that the planet itself does with the aetherial sea. If that was the case, why didn't the Alexandrians just tap into their own aetherial sea and just keep cycling souls like the planet already does? Nothing is actually being expended, just cycled. But I guess we overlook massive lore contradictions and plot holes like that

Except the Aetherial Sea uses the "recycled" soul to create a new person. We also know that there's a process that can create new souls though we have no idea how that happens or if the Aetherial Sea is involved.

The Alexandrians use it to either revive a dead person or or preserve someone's memory. There definitely are souls expended when there is no new life created. We get no explanation for what happens to the portion of the soul expended for either of those purposes.

This reminds me of another question I had doing MSQ. Why are resonators are only to revive those who die in accidents and not those who die of illness/old age? How do the bodies of those revived apparently get instantly healed of all wounds? Their bodies should be in the same state as they were at time of death, causing them to die again almost instantly since it is only the soul being restored, not the body replaced.

More bad writing unless it eventually gets revealed that no one in Alexandria is alive and they're all dead facsimiles whether they know it or not.