[SPOILERS] Dawntrail should get an ARR-style retcon in the post-MSQ

[OMGJesuis66]

But okay, let me do a proper post here.

Living Memory, by its standards, is an artificial Aetherial Sea. Denizens inside are not alive, their behavior, dreams, aspirations and sentience comes from their memories of when they were once alive.

The accurate statement that each individual there is, is that the are Ghosts. We are familiar in FFXIV that Ghosts hold memories and wants from when they were alive, and most of them builds rancor towards the living for being capable to do the things they desire to do, but are unable to. Thus, turning into monsters.

An addendum to that, is that on Deadwalk, we are in a portion of Living Memory where the fault of Aether made the place unstable and shatter, the memories in the terminal there turned into their own sorrows and became what? Monsters. In particular, Ghosts.

If by any means you want to argue that what we did in Living Memory was a genocide, you also need to consider all the Ashkins killed by us in the past and consider every Ashkin as an actual living being. From Palace of the Dead, to Sirensong Sea, etc, etc.

The formula to create both Ashkins and the Endless is the same. Incorporeal Aether (Souls), Life Force and Memories. Therefore, no. None of them are alive, none of them are real beyond what their memories made of them, and they are unable to make new ones.

Living Memory passed a beautiful message to understand, respect and carry on the legacy of those who fell before you, while you allow them to rest and finally sleep as the deserve so you can keep moving forward and carry their burdens with you and with respect.

But to resume that to "genocide" is of such dishonesty and a disservice to the place that's stunning af.

[Raven2014]

The endless are 100% implied to have sapience because an AI program created to eternally preserve a persons memories would be unable to take steps towards ending its own existence. Cauchia is definitive proof the endless have a degree of agency

No it's not. Otherwise you may as well call the current AI tech we have as Sapience. And I'm not talking about generative AI. There are a lot of stream/chat AI that can seemingly give reaction/opinion based on their assigned personality. I can link you a few video if you want.

You're talking about self-preservation code/program which for the most part is a Hollywood invention. Remember that even though most human has strong self-preservation instinct, we're still capably of making sacrifice. Since Cauchia is a big picture person, it's not strange for a program that simulate her to come to the same conclusion. In fact, you argument would make more sense if the program makes a decision that show a divergent from its original template.

Yep, Cahciua calls the Endless a facsimile. A facsimile is an exact copy of the original. It's equivalent to a clone and in this case, the clone is fully sentient.

No it does not, and I'll give you one word: Otis.

The sentient argument only makes sense if all Endless are like the mechanical Otis. Meaning they are a unique existence.

There is a saying: there is only one existence to a life.

And it's heavily implied that mechanical Otis inherit the original soul, than what the hell is the Z6 Otis if not just a fake copy? And if Z6 Otis is a fake copy, than by proxy all the Z6 Endless are as well.

[OMGJesuis66]

It also feels especially bad because I don't know how anyone could argue that Wuk Lamat doesn't colonize these people. We killed Alexandria's leader and installed a new king.

Please explain to me how keeping the known Son of the King who has reigned Solution 9 for 30 years alongside Sphene, and the rightful succession heir, in his rightful position bestowed by the King, is colonizing.

[sylphlands]

Take your own advice, and actually read what's being written. Everyone who criticizes the last zone already fully understands this fact about the endless. The issue is not about whether or not erasing them was the solution, the issue is that the writer thought they could get away with glazing over the gravity of what's being done with a "lighthearted" tone. The endless are real or not real at the whims of whatever tone the writer wanted for a given scene.

Why didn't we spend longer on the question of whether they are truly living? Why did none of them want to stop us, especially the ones who only found happiness after death? Why was there no conflict whatsoever besides remarks of "this is kind of sad huh, oh well!" from our companions, relegated to optional dialogue as passive quest npcs. Why were we deliberately shown that the endless are thinking, emotional beings, capable of learning new information and growing, showing again and again that they are functional indistinguishable from living people?

Why were the Endless, who all came from a society that was practically built around the fear of death, suddenly just fine with being relegated to complete oblivion when we come to kill them in the afterlife they were promised? The answer is because the author wanted to have his cake and eat it too. "Oh [player], aren't you so sad because you have to erase these people and make Erenville and Krile have tearful goodbyes with their parents ? Don't worry, they aren't really that broken up about it, because I didn't want you to feel TOO bad "

Yes, it was necessary to erase the endless, because the author chose to write them that way. And yes, what we did was horrendous despite its apparent necessity. The tone and proceedings of Living Memory should have been informed by this, and instead it was a happy-go-lucky romp through disneyland, putting on plays and taking history quizzes, having a great time committing genocide. Oh and Erenville seems depressed, better completely ignore him and his suffering until the end of the zone so he can have his big moment with his mom.

The writing of the Endless is atrocious no matter what way you look at it. That is what people take issue with. You think we're struggling to grasp a "simple concept", but that's because the "simple" surface reading is the only thing you're grasping at all.

Just seconding all of this - 100% sums up my feelings on this zone. The tone doesn't match the setting or the theme, the Endless have no real personalities or beliefs (besides loving their great leader), and no one puts up any sort of fight against us, not even verbally. At the end of the day, Hiroi just doesn't know how to write conflict or realistic emotions. It's atrocious.

[Raven2014]

Just seconding all of this - 100% sums up my feelings on this zone. The tone doesn't match the setting or the theme, the Endless have no real personalities or beliefs (besides loving their great leader), and no one puts up any sort of fight against us, not even verbally. At the end of the day, Hiroi just doesn't know how to write conflict or realistic emotions. It's atrocious.

well if you go back and look at cowboy with rubber bullet things ... that is a pattern that track pretty consistently throughout the expansion.

It's like they want to make an AO rating movie ... but with kids as the target audience.

[genuine_stranger]

And of course I get as response the cringe Emet-Selch quote... Stg, the brainwash this community had for Emet and the Ancients fucked up all the future conversations about narrative. Really make me dislike all those arcs and characters even more.

I mean, why would you not blame the writers who introduced all this convoluted bs in the first place.

It's almost as if we have mixed messaging all over the place coming from a shallow of understanding of philosophical topics and the writers trying to force their view coupled with bad writing down my throat.

The Emet quote fits though.

[OMGJesuis66]

I'd argue that he's the son of a hostile invader who took the role of king by force and subjugated Alexandria's citizens. It just felt bad to me and seemed to go against the (poorly written) themes of DT.

He didn't subjugated Alexandria by force. Sphene and Zoraal established in agreement for her need of self preservation, a newformed government where both share powers as King of Resolve and Queen of Reason. The military forces were developed and controlled by Zoraal, and while his ways did left people if Alexandria with fear after he turned his own soldiers against his own people, it did not change that Gulool is the rightful heir in the absence of the two previous rulers, and all the control the King of Resolve had was passed to him with Zoraal death.

I believe the tensions and build up of Gulool as a proper leader will be addressed in the patches as they come, since the people are tense with a new leadership that reminds them of their previous leader that tried to kill them all, and they need to build trust into the new baby King.

[AnotherPerson]

But okay, let me do a proper post here.

Living Memory, by its standards, is an artificial Aetherial Sea. Denizens inside are not alive, their behavior, dreams, aspirations and sentience comes from their memories of when they were once alive.

The accurate statement that each individual there is, is that the are Ghosts. We are familiar in FFXIV that Ghosts hold memories and wants from when they were alive, and most of them builds rancor towards the living for being capable to do the things they desire to do, but are unable to. Thus, turning into monsters.

An addendum to that, is that on Deadwalk, we are in a portion of Living Memory where the fault of Aether made the place unstable and shatter, the memories in the terminal there turned into their own sorrows and became what? Monsters. In particular, Ghosts.

If by any means you want to argue that what we did in Living Memory was a genocide, you also need to consider all the Ashkins killed by us in the past and consider every Ashkin as an actual living being. From Palace of the Dead, to Sirensong Sea, etc, etc.

The formula to create both Ashkins and the Endless is the same. Incorporeal Aether (Souls), Life Force and Memories. Therefore, no. None of them are alive, none of them are real beyond what their memories made of them, and they are unable to make new ones.

Living Memory passed a beautiful message to understand, respect and carry on the legacy of those who fell before you, while you allow them to rest and finally sleep as the deserve so you can keep moving forward and carry their burdens with you and with respect.

But to resume that to "genocide" is of such dishonesty and a disservice to the place that's stunning af.

You should really re-read the entire lore instead to realize how much errors you have in understanding the concepts you wrote.

We do kill for a living as an adventurer. We do commit murders, but done with a self justification. When there are Ashkins that hurt others, it gives us a reason to remove them. There is a reason why DRK has such a good storyline because it goes into detail about what our actions, even justified, can cause to others. We do things because it's righteous, but even so there's consequences in our actions.

Ashkins like zombies are sentient (see: Manderville storyline with the 4 gentlemen of light). As much as a joke of a storyline it is, the implications of the storyline shows a clearer view of the interactions of other races post-death. However, not all of them were taken careful means to preserve their memory as in the case with the Endless.

The Endless are not actively trying to hurt others, they end up hurting others by their means of creation (needing aether to sustain themselves).

And if you're going to say they can't make new ones, you basically just said Cahciua hasn't made a single new memory after we see her interact with Erenville in LM and outside of LM.

No it's not. Otherwise you may as well call the current AI tech we have as Sapience. And I'm not talking about generative AI. There are a lot of stream/chat AI that can seemingly give reaction/opinion based on their assigned personality. I can link you a few video if you want.

You're talking about self-preservation code/program which for the most part is a Hollywood invention. Remember that even though most human has strong self-preservation instinct, we're still capably of making sacrifice. Since Cauchia is a big picture person, it's not strange for a program that simulate her to come to the same conclusion. In fact, you argument would make more sense if the program makes a decision that show a divergent from its original template.


No it does not, and I'll give you one word: Otis.

The sentient argument only makes sense if all Endless are like the mechanical Otis. Meaning they are a unique existence.

There is a saying: there is only one existence to a life.

And it's heavily implied that mechanical Otis inherit the original soul, than what the hell is the Z6 Otis if not just a fake copy? And if Z6 Otis is a fake copy, than by proxy all the Z6 Endless are as well.

You forget Otis is also the exception where he had Experiments done in his memory. Other Endless simply die and have their memory uploaded to the Cloud, creating a continued existence in their life.

Otis, along with Sphene, are more or less the rare exceptions because they don't follow the normal procedure to having their memories uploaded after death without any tampering. Otis was still alive when his memory was uploaded (hence he does not have any shared memories of robot Otis), but the same cannot be said for other Endless. Besides, what constitutes as a fake? For the Endless, they are effectively copied over. It's more akin to a clone.

And Clones already have established in-lore reasons for being "alive" through ARR to Endwalker even if they aren't the originals. Even if you don't see the Endless as the same person, they are still "alive" in another sense.

[OMGJesuis66]

I mean, why would you not blame the writers who introduced all this convoluted bs in the first place.

It's almost as if we have mixed messaging all over the place coming from a shallow of understanding of philosophical topics and the writers trying to force their view coupled with bad writing down my throat.

The Emet quote fits though.

You are right, it has been a convoluted bs since Shadowbringers with their approach of morality being obviously false, but played by a charismatic character enough to gaslight the community into thinking he is right, much likely as when people think Walter White is the hero in Breaking Bad.

Never forget that people here also think that Venat committed genocide.

[OMGJesuis66]

You should really re-read the entire lore instead to realize how much errors you have in understanding the concepts you wrote.

Please do tell me where I am wrong, because the conception of Ashkins is something that I often read plenty and I would love to know more.

You are right that the Endless do not try to hurt us, and I am not saying they are mindless monsters. Just that they are Ghosts and we stepped into their artificial mausoleum/fish tank.

Their souls deserve to be freed and return to the Sea, the entirety of it, much as likely any tragic existence of Ashkins.

Necromancy is not cool, be it made by magic or tech, and I am pretty sure all the concepts I spoke are very solid.