Something about the new Ascian lore

[Big-Isaac]

It was about time we got a proper insight into the main villains of this game and I quite enjoyed the way it was handled overall. However there's something that bothers me about it.

Before the level 80 dungeon, Emet Selch gives you a massive "the reason you suck" speech, to which we react by collectively staring at the floor, apparently having zero counter arguments. Emet turns to leave, and it's only then that Alph responds... with a really corny, poorly thought out retort.

What bothers me is that Emet's logic is deeply flawed for a few reasons, yet the party seems to be incapable of seeing it. "Our lives have value, too" is a dumbest possible argument you can offer a guy who - as he explained earlier - doesn't even consider you to be truly "alive"

In particular, there are 2 arguments the characters could have made to establish how hypocritical the Ascians' thinking is

1 Emet kept talking about how the current humanity keeps creating discord and war... even though pretty much every. single. conflict. we've dealt with in this game so far was perpetrated by the Ascians. He's blaming a tree for falling over, while still holding the saw he used to cut it down. There's no telling what the 13 worlds would look like today had the Ascians not kept founding warmongering empires and causing massive calamities. Humanity creating discord and war is a self-fulfilling prophecy only because the Ascians themselves make it so.

2 Somewhat related to the first point, I highly doubt the civilization of the original humanity popped up over night. Odds are they took eons upon eons to develop, meaning there's no reason why this current humanity couldn't reach the same stage of development as well.

[h-alpha]

"Our lives have value, too" is a dumbest possible argument you can offer a guy who - as he explained earlier - doesn't even consider you to be truly "alive"

Therein lies the problem with even trying to use logic against someone like Emet-selch. He doesn't just not consider us to be alive, he considers us to be inferior and imperfect. Broken. Instead of seeing individual people with worth and potential, capable of building a future for themselves, he sees only the fractured souls of his people.

The argument that given enough time, we could eventually build ourselves into something more, something on the level that the Ascians were on, probably wouldn't even register to him as having any ounce of weight. When a glass vase breaks and shatters on the ground, you don't look at the pieces and think "maybe these could potentially have value." You pick them up and throw them away because they're broken pieces of glass (or, in Emet-selch's case, try to glue them together I guess).

It's hypocritical of the Ascians to shift the blame of the problems they created onto us, but in their minds we're already doomed to fail no matter what. We're broken, we can't possibly hope to stand on the level of their people. How can the individual parts be equal to or more than their whole? Could one brush stroke ever possibly hope to be more beautiful than the painting?

I think Alphinaud's remark that we are worth more than he gives us credit for was good, because it at least planted the idea in his head to give us a chance to prove it. What else do you say to someone who considers you one small piece of a divided whole rather than a whole person on your own?

And in the end, he gave us a chance in Amaurot, showed us the fate of his people and tested us, but was still unsatisfied and unconvinced. We had to do no less than kill him in order to prove ourselves.

[Anonymoose]

Emet-Selch at least admits the moral relativism involved, and Alphinaud might be flower and idealistic about it but his core point is that Emet's elitism in deigning to draw the boundaries of what life matters is bad enough, but the one's he's fighting for are already gone.

Over 75% of Amaurot's surviving population was consumed by Zodiark and all he cares about is freeing those souls. If the Great Sundering had never happened, if Hydaelyn had never been summoned, the council would still be trying to sacrifice the life that came after to restore the "better" life that came before.

Emet-Selch's own people didn't unilaterally buy into this logic, this worldview, or this plan. Emet-Selch's own people created Hydaelyn to stop it. Divided and diluted though that life may be, it is happy in being so and it is alive right now; it has every right to take a stand and - if they can manage - bring everything Emet's side stands for tumbling down.

War only works if both sides think they're right.

[Theodric]

The writing was fine, as far as I see it. Emet-Selch made for a very compelling antagonist and the Ascians, as some of us have been saying for years, had goals that were beyond simple villainy for the sake of villainy. Given how impressive their society and powers happened to be it isn't a huge shock that those remaining would wish to see it restored at any cost. Especially when they're practically immortal and have felt the loss and isolation of outliving every single person they used to know and care for.

Hydaelyn being a Primal makes her a major threat and I hope we end up taking both Hydaelyn and Zodiark down at some point in the future. That way the reins of history are placed firmly in the hands of man rather than dictated by false deities.

[Anonymoose]

The core question remains: Can we?

If the coup de grace to the Will of the Star sundered not only Him, but the world itself, into fourteen pieces, can we kill the current Will of the Star and keep the Lifestream as we know it? Would you seal the death warrant of mortal life in the terms we've fought for it all along just to spite Hydaelyn's history?

Perhaps this is a result of my bias - while I've remained open to the "kill all the gods with the power of friendship" route, declaring for #TeamHydaelyn as a player going through the story has been simply more fun, the same way it's been more fun to doubt Gaius's death or accept the Twelve are probably imaginary or poorly remembered Warriors of Light (Perhaps they were Hydaelyn's summoners!). As a result, "Kill Crystal Mom" is often my last resort while She continues to profess that She has our backs, loves Her children, and - above all - has proven time and time again for 12,000 years that if no one is rocking the boat, She goes to sleep and history belongs to man.

First things first, I want to see that She can be excised from the Lifestream and nothing meaningful will change for the inheritors of the planet.

If we can't guarantee that, it's not even on my table.

[Theodric]

I suspect it would be possible. It wouldn't be easy by any stretch, though with the Warrior of Darkness being more powerful than ever before and the heavy revelations in regards to the powers of creation I can't discount the Hydaelyn and Zodiark story arc ending with both of them being successfully dealt with on a permanent basis.

I have to wonder if Eden will play into it all somehow as that is the next big source of lore revelations until the MSQ's continue in 5.1.

[Lauront]

I don't even think "moral relativism" is the right term here, even though he used it - it's more that they don't consider most life forms following the Sundering to be relevant to moral considerations at all. It's a two step thing - 1) they poured in a great deal of sacrifice to get their world back up and running and 2) they had intended for Zodiark to cede some power, after the world was nurtured, and restore those who were sacrificed. To then have half the aether of the world consumed and have it sundered, resulting in beings nigh unrecognisable to them, it becomes clearer that there is absolutely no reason why they would see anything coming thereafter as legitimate forms of existence. This applies even if they did not intend to restore the sacrificed, since by all accounts, those who gave themselves unto Zodiark to restore the world did so freely and this was down to the nature of the original race, something Emet-Selch himself brings up. They want things restored as to how they were and were not responsible for the Sundering.

Now had Emet-Selch, the Convocation and those who sacrificed to summon Zodiark themselves been responsible for Hydaelyn and what followed, then there's more of a case as to why their viewpoint would be illogical or hypocritical - but they were not. On their view, to restore life to how it was all the aether broken up across woulds would have to be re-assembled. Thus, he thinks the potential of such post-Sundering lifeforms is inherently stunted. Also, whilst the Ascians stir the pot, let's not pretend there wouldn't be conflicts without them. They merely engineer their scale and exploit existing opportunities. It is precisely this perceived imperfection in man that they are utilising to realise their ends. By all accounts, their race did not necessarily lack similar impulses but had learnt to transcend and manage them. They don't think the sundered lifeforms even have it in them to get to that point, where 75% of the race would condone to sacrificing itself to save its world, cleaning up whatever mess plagued it.

Moreover, it is revealed in the end that you are one of them; no less, in all probability, the member who left the Convocation, thus why you can contend with them, albeit in Emet-Selch's case with a lot of help and circumstantial advantages (i.e. the built up corrupted Light.) That really doesn't serve to do much to undermine his case.

The fact that some of Emet-Selch's own people summoned Hydaelyn does not mean he would not loathe the culprits for it and for undoing the plans they had to restore those sacrificed, and also for shattering their race and their world. Sure, it is a contest of wills, but his scorn for diluted life forms as he sees them does not mean he cannot disagree over the actions some of his own kind took or that he thinks those of his own race cannot err - after all, they were no hivemind. Yet what material difference does it make to them and where they find themselves? That isn't to say that I think it means our characters should just take it lying down - clearly not. It just moves the issue for me to an area where it boils down to irreconcilable differences on fundamental premises of morality between the two sides, rather than dealing with a pure villain like Zenos.

That said, I am sure, given how the story is being written, that some element will be thrown in to show how it was "necessary", i.e. some plotline that the Convocation members became corrupted, and/or altered their plans, rather than going down the more interesting route that both gods were ultimately mistakes. I'm also fairly confident that they'll have you be the departed member of the Convocation, who rallied others to her summoning. Perhaps to cease the sacrifice, perhaps for other reasons (Zodiark spiralling out of control, for example), though the method in question does make me think it would be more than just the sacrifice being made to Zodiark, or maybe the reasons behind it, but if no end seemed in sight, then mayhap it was that. Not the route I'd like them to take but it seems plausible and it would alter matters in terms of the logic behind it.

Regarding the effects her excision would have - the planet could certainly survive without her, although quite what those "Terminus" monstrosities truly are is unclear. Going from the NPC dialogue in Amaurot, the affair was described as a screeching cacophony beneath the earth, distorting living things and wresting from the ancients their creation magicks - this then ties in with Emet-Selch's voice during the dungeon, in describing how their worst impulses, their sins, were given life through the power of their creation magicks. They could not point to the source and even through Emet-Selch's recollection, it does not seem to have been determined. To me, this all is indicative of some manner of parasite, possibly even an otherworldly one, but nonetheless something within the planet which caused this suffering. I'd also leave open the possibility that in some places outwith Amaurot, they may have been less diligent in self-regulating their powers of creation, but by the account given, parasitic activity sounds likely.

Whatever their origin, in that event perhaps having such a "will in the star" could be beneficial, to ward off the possibility of such an event recurring. The other big question is how would life on it alter? Certainly, the natural environmental aether and things like forests and such can clearly exist without a planetary will. It's possible that the world would change somehow but to me it looks like all that aether is contained in the Primal itself, and its release would just mean an awful lot of aether to be harnessed. Unless they're somehow conducive to naturally balancing the world, to avoid calamities like that which befell Amaurot, or for some other reason (i.e. the fragmented life forms since the Sundering somehow depend on them to exist), their existence at the least appears to be negotiable. So I'll agree that we need more information to see what to make of all this, before concluding that their excision is 1) feasible and 2) desirable.

Lastly, I wonder whether the persistence of the alternative 8th Umbral Calamity timeline G'raha postulated as a potential scenario (implied by his own persistence after it is forestalled) may mean a possible way for the Ascians to summon Zodiark without rejoining the Shards in this timeline, were they able to exploit this. It'd enter very messy territory in terms of the logical implications of such a state of affairs, but it's a viable avenue if SE wanted to leave the other Shards untouched in our timeline but have Zodiark summoned.

For full disclosure, though, if this were a game where we got to pick sides, I'd side with the Ascians. Their reclamation narrative and alignment to darkness greatly appeal to me from an RP/fantasy perspective.

[ObsidianFire]

Emet-Selch goes out of his way in the MSQ cut-scenes to portray the Ascians and Zodiark in the best light as possible. Outside of the cut-scenes, he's a lot more forthcoming with some information to the WoL if you decided to talk with him.

One of most important bits of information he tells the WoL outside of a cut-scene is that the summoners of Zodiark (Convocation of Thirteen) were tempered by Zodiark.

Which in my mind puts the plan to restore the world by sacrificing more Ancients to Zoidark and the plant to free the Ancient souls sacrificed to Zodiark by sacrificing more future souls to Zodiark in a very different light. All primals need aether. All primals want aether. The goal of people who have been tempered is to keep their primal supplied with aether. And that is exactly what the Convocation of Thirteen's plan would do regardless of their reasons why they are sacrificing souls to Zodiark. We aren't even told if Zoidark can even gives the souls/aether he was summoned with back! So far, all primals we have fought only give back the aether they have absorbed when they are killed. Which suggests that if the Convocation of Thirteen really wanted those souls back (or at least free to be reborn most likely) they would have had to kill Zoidark, not provide him with even more aether down the line.

I can see non-tempered Ancients parsing that logic and realizing that the Convocation of Thirteen is essentially planning on sacrificing their progeny to Zodiark to hopefully get back the souls of the dead and deciding they did not like that plan. And so they came up with an entirely different operating system for a primal. One that while it did absorb aether when people died also automatically would give that aether up to be reborn again eventually. Throw in a genuine love of life and not defaulting to wanting people to die to get more aether and a way to weaken beings without killing them and you pretty much have Hydaelyn. I can easily imagine some surviving Ancients deciding that dying and then getting reborn/reincarnated afterwards was an acceptable alternitive to having to watch their kids sacrifice themselves to bring back people who had already agreed to die.

Compared to a lot of other FF worlds, the FFXIV world pretty much rolled a natural 20 when it came to setting up the deity who watches over their world.

[Lauront]

...yes, but then take it a step further, give her the ability (enervation) to sunder and shatter Zodiark, the world itself and all souls in it, and then shroud the act in secrecy, and it grows a little more dubious as to how much of a "20" it really is, seeing their people and world shattered. So unless there was a really compelling reason for it, the question of whether the benefit warranted the cost remains - and to the Ascians, the answer is decidedly in the negative.

[DSCH]

Does anyone else think Hythlodaeus may have first proposed the summoning of Hydaelyn(which incidentally appears to be a diminutive of his name)? He seemed to imply that he was removed from the convocation of fourteen for disagreeing with the summoning of Zodiark. He said, "The Convocation of Fourteen-- Well, it was Thirteen at the time-- endeavored to create a will for our star. He also mentioned how his apparent consciousness may have arisen from a stray thought of Emet-selch, perhaps Hythlodaeus will realize the truth.