The Flaws of Amaurot's society [SPOILER discussion]

[EdwinLi]

The flaw of Amaurot society and importance to the storyline we learned in Endwalker is rather interesting and puts together some understanding of the Ascians and why Amaurot fell to the final days compared to our world which did not give in so easily.

I am curious what is your opinion about these things we learned and how it may have affected your view on certain lore.

The flaw of Amaurot's society....

We got a glimps into Amaurot society in Shadowbringer but the time in Elpis shows us a lot of the bad aspect of Amaurot's society and how it was not perfect as the Ascians and other Amaurot's people thought. It also gives us a understand on how their soceity's norm affected the Ascians from the beginning.

The Norm

One of the biggest aspect of Amaurot's society was that they did not value life beyond those in Amaurot. Even then their value of their own life was very low as many saw giving up their life after they believe they completed their purpose in life is normal.

In fact, Amaurot's people planned to commit a mass suicide of everyone once they believe they have "perfected" the star.

It is to a point they did not even think about the life of other beings and the suffering they go through to achieve the perfection that Amaurot's society seek to create.

If they deemed any creature "flawed" no matter if they created it themselves or are beings born from the star naturally, they will erase it completely from existence.

Amaurot's people even views reaching death as peaceful and beautiful but that is only given to Amaurot's people. To other life they suffer painful and depressing deaths.

Despair and lack of emotions.

People living in Amaurot are so deprived of emotions that they hardly feel anything when another being dies or when someone close to them pass away. It is to a point that those who express emotions tend to consider themselves and by others outcasts as shown with Hermes and apparently Azem from what we learned previously in Shadowbringers.

Their lack of emotion is a flaw that became the source of their own downfall because their society way of achieving their "perfect world" was to erase anything that may cause them to feel negative emotions or cause negative emotions. This also greatly deprived them of the positive side of emotions as well such as joy and hope.

When finally put into a position where they could not "erase" the source of their own suffering during the Final Days, they gave into despair because they never faced their issues head on to find hope that can defeat that despair but instead escaped from it by erasing the source of their despair.

Even during the Final Days, the surviving Amaurot's people were obsessed with erasing the source of their despair by creating a society where the despair will be pushed on to other life while they enjoy a paradise built over the suffering of other life they consider lesser than theirs due to being considered flawed. Of course this lead to Venat sundering the world because at that moment she realized the only people left will be those who live a prosperous life through the suffering of other life not considered perfect to achieve it.

Effects on how Ascians are....

When you look at these things, it basically shows that Ascians have always thought this way since the beginning because in their home before the final days, it was just a normal thing to do. Erase anything they deemed flawed and create a perfect being to replace that flawed creation.

For them killing all these living beings to rejoin the world and bring back Amaurat is just another day in their life. A long day but one that they were use to due to being the norm of their society.

To take their wings so they can no longer fly and have them walk with their own feet....

It is a important meaning when Venat said this before she did the sundering. Amaurot's people were like Icarus as they always tried to fly higher to achieve their perfection giving into complacency and hubris. Now they have flown too close to the sun due to their actions of running away from their own suffering by erasing every life they deemed flawed. Thus they watch the world they created burn and their old self die just like Icarus when his wings melted and he fell to his own death.

[QT_Melon]

I just want to point out. Amaurot is not a race itself. It's just one of the concentrations of people on the planet well... a CITY.

So I don't know if your premise is just based on the city, otherwise I think Ancients would be more correct if you are talking about them as a whole.

I don' think there was a mass suicide once the "star" was perfected as it does show not everyone DID return to the star, and this was more voluntary since the life cycle existed BEFORE Zodiark to it make sense that they were willing to let go of that life eventually and new life would form

That said, their conformist city society made it difficult to deal with any that had mental illnesses or breakdowns.

I'm also curious about their evolutionary path in general. Like many societies you tend to hit a peak before you're ripe for a downfall. I'd like to know how their evolution happened

[Rulakir]

Disagree with just about everything.

I didn't view their society as flawed or near the precipice of collapse as others apparently did. I also don't agree they lacked emotion, they demonstrated a wide variety of them there just wasn't widespread unhappiness and they had a different set of values. Speaking as a former Christian turned agnostic, death was easier to handle when I still believed in an afterlife, it's since become less manageable and I envy those who have a belief system that souls go on to better things.

I also find judging the Ancients response to the Final Days grossly unfair. We've experienced a pandemic for the past 1.5 years, a result of which is a massive increase in mental health disorders (including suicides) and that's without people conjuring monstrosities in the streets that devour them or their loved ones alive. The Final Days was a horrific and traumatic event that no one would respond well to and it's a shame that there was relatively little focus paid to it in the present. Had it continued long enough I have no doubt that current Etheirys would have also fallen to despair and started seeking ways to make the torment stop.

I'd also note that the Ancient world isn't shown to have any widespread crime either whereas in current time we're introduced to such atrocities as human trafficking as early as level 15 in ARR. It seems odd to me to judge a past society on being too idyllic while present day humanity engages in a myriad of unthinkable acts but we're supposed to somehow be more emotionally evolved?

[EdwinLi]

Disagree with just about everything.

I didn't view their society as flawed or near the precipice of collapse as others apparently did. I also don't agree they lacked emotion, they demonstrated a wide variety of them there just wasn't widespread unhappiness and they had a different set of values. Speaking as a former Christian turned agnostic, death was easier to handle when I still believed in an afterlife, it's since become less manageable and I envy those who have a belief system that souls go on to better things.

I also find judging the Ancients response to the Final Days grossly unfair. We've experienced a pandemic for the past 1.5 years, a result of which is a massive increase in mental health disorders (including suicides) and that's without people conjuring monstrosities in the streets that devour them or their loved ones alive. The Final Days was a horrific and traumatic event that no one would respond well to and it's a shame that there was relatively little focus paid to it in the present. Had it continued long enough I have no doubt that current Etheirys would have also fallen to despair and started seeking ways to make the torment stop.

I'd also note that the Ancient world isn't shown to have any widespread crime either whereas in current time we're introduced to such atrocities as human trafficking as early as level 15 in ARR. It seems odd to me to judge a past society on being too idyllic while present day humanity engages in a myriad of unthinkable acts but we're supposed to somehow be more emotionally evolved?

You misundestand my intentions since discussion of negative aspect such as flaws may appear to people as a attack on something. I am disucssing this more out of interests towards how the knowledge of the flaw within the Ancient's society affected what we have learned so far. I also feel it is important to understand these flaws because it is part of the building block towards the Ancient's society state we see it in during Shadowbringer and Elpis.


It is correct their society had zero crime rates as it was designed in such a way that there was literally no need for crime. That is thanks to their society always providing everyone a job no matter their skill level and type of skill sets while making certain every job will pay them enough to cover bills, a home, food, and personal needs. You can basically have a job at what is their version of a Starbucks or McDonalds and still be paid enough to support yourself and family both in life necessities and personal desires. One can say it is the ideal society people in our world dream to have as no matter their job and life skills, they will always have enough to support themselves and their own family. This, however, did lead to them feeling the need to express emotions less as well since there was no need to feel strong emotions due to every need being covered. Emotional expression is often expressed during hardships the most but in Ancient society there is almost no hardship so their lack of emotion is understandable.

However, to build such society they will have to erase any "flawed" beings that may resort to crime naturally and could not be taught to take another path in life that does not involve crime in the past during the time they were building the Ancient's society before reaching the point we see them as now during Shadowbringer and Elpis.

Shadowbringer had a large focus on the positive side of the Ancient's society to give people a more positive understanding why they wanted their society back. Endwalker focus is more on the flaw that will ultimately lead to their own downfall even if a certain "creation" did not trying to bring the final days herself since as we learned from her sisters that other Worlds with civilizations eventually reached their own final days and fell due to their own flaws. All Meteion really did was push the time to be sooner. However, this does bring up the question about how so many worlds fell because they lack a "hero" to give them hope but that is a discussion for another time and post.

I disagree with most of it.

The way they remove creatures is literally break them down to the aetheric level to be repurposed. It's shown first with the moth to create your robe, and then with the creatures that have to be removed because they're nefast to the rest of the ecosystem. It is not "painful" nor "depressing".
Elpis itself is the proof that they don't kill and remove indiscriminately: they literally have a testing ground to try on a limited scale if species would fit well and integrate in the world. If not, then yes, they have to be removed. While we obviously can't create life as they can, don't we do the same when trying to alter native fauna or integrate new species? Don't we cull certain species when needs be?
Neither do they remove everything that can cause negative emotions: for instance, they create apex predators (Behemoths!) who could very well hurt them. They just understand it's part of a greater cycle, and obviously they try not to get affected by it, as they aim for a perfect place. There's also morbols, and a bunch of poisonous species. There has to be at least one Ancient who got lost and died, who was killed by their creation, or anything.


Their point of view on their own deaths are wildly different from our own, and it stems from the way they see their existence: each of them are "cells" of the greater "Etheirys" organism, and it's their duty to make sure their world gets better. Going back to the star means you have fulfilled your purpose, not that you're just death and everybody should cry. If anything, I find it inspiring. Besides, is that "suicide" when you know your soul is part of an endless cycle of rebirth? Isn't it just "starting over"?
On their lack of feelings and emotions: we see them having feelings for each others, for their creations (these researchers attached to their concepts), rejoice for successes, be grateful, and rejoice for when someone returns to the star.

So it's true they experienced mostly good emotions, and all that made them ill prepared to deal with the Final Days. Obviously you'd want to go back to a period of time when everything was easier, if any calamity happened to you. Do you think civilians in a country at war wouldn't?
How many people say that on a daily basis in *our* society where we know pain and suffering on a daily basis. If anything, it's human. The issue is, they have the power to make it happen instead of facing the harsh reality.


If Meteion wasn't around, we have no idea how things would have turned out. For Etheirys, and the other stars that went extinct because of the effect she might have had. What if the Great Filter can be passed by only a few civilizations? What if Amaurot's peculiar wish of a perfect paradise for the planet but not for themselves, the actual answer?
Our answer was but one to the possibilities against despair, and while the Ancients should probably have learned to suffer at some point, it doesn't mean the first time they experienced Despair *had* to be the end of their civilization: it was brought because of Meteion, which pushed Venat to take actions to defeat Meteion.

To me, the Ancients didn't care about singular lifeforms because they were part, themselves, of a greater cycle of birth and rebirth and their stars. What then, if they disappeared, as long as the world became a better place? Souls would still reincarnate, something else would come up in their stead, as long as the planet got better. What the Unsundered (and I say unsundered instead of Ascians because we don't know how much they know) are doing is because the current state is clearly inferior to the pre-sundering world, from their viewpoint. Who's to say they're wrong and they didn't have that perfect society, had external influence not affected it?

Neither side are right and wrong since different eras has different experiences and values. The important part of all this we learned in Endwalker is that despite everything we may view things as, there will always be flaws we cannot escape from nor ignore.

That is, what I believe, is the lesson of the story in Elpis. No matter how perfect a society and life maybe, there are always flaws that are a part of those things. These flaws may even be instrumental to the creation of society and life. It is why people cannot escape from the hardship in life forever because the more they run from it and ignore it the harder it is to face it and defeat it.

As for Meteion, from my understanding it was not her influence that caused the final days of other worlds with civilizations but their own actions. Consumed by their own despair created by their own actions they all caused their own Final Days which created the Universal Despair that Meteion's sisters became corrupted by. This does bring in the question about how their world may lack a Hero to give them hope to fight the despair they created themselves and if the world of FF14 is the only world that has a Hero to give them hope but that is another topic for another time and post.

I just want to point out. Amaurot is not a race itself. It's just one of the concentrations of people on the planet well... a CITY.

So I don't know if your premise is just based on the city, otherwise I think Ancients would be more correct if you are talking about them as a whole.

I don' think there was a mass suicide once the "star" was perfected as it does show not everyone DID return to the star, and this was more voluntary since the life cycle existed BEFORE Zodiark to it make sense that they were willing to let go of that life eventually and new life would form

That said, their conformist city society made it difficult to deal with any that had mental illnesses or breakdowns.

I'm also curious about their evolutionary path in general. Like many societies you tend to hit a peak before you're ripe for a downfall. I'd like to know how their evolution happened

Their development is something I am interested in as well since we basically see the Ancient's society at their peak during Shadowbringer and Elpis. Never during the time when they are building their society to their current point in time when we see it. However, the introduction of the flaws of their society in Elpis does give us a bit of insight about how they achieved it.

I’m going to have to go back and watch some cutscenes, but…

Didn’t they mention that they’re putting souls into a lot of these creations? Venat’s introduction also tells us that they’re creating things just to be trendy. She describes how suddenly sharks became a trend and they started to make flying ones and walking ones and if they’re popping souls into these things, deciding they suck, and then killing them over and over, that’s not exactly my idea of heaven.

I also feel like a lot that happened in Ultima Thule went over players’ heads as the whole point to me was that the Ancients were headed down a path to stagnation, which leads to the collapse of a bunch of the societies we met.

That is basically what was happening as the Ancient's society move forward. The state of Stagnation they were heading in was going to create their own Final Days due to their own actions like all the other civilizations in other worlds did to themselves though each civilization caused different final days due to their different actions. All Meteion did was push the time to be sooner than intended.

[Alenore]

Neither side are right and wrong since different eras has different experiences and values. The important part of all this we learned in Endwalker is that despite everything we may view things as, there will always be flaws we cannot escape from nor ignore.

That is, what I believe, is the lesson of the story in Elpis. No matter how perfect a society and life maybe, there are always flaws that are a part of those things. These flaws may even be instrumental to the creation of society and life. It is why people cannot escape from the hardship in life forever because the more they run from it and ignore it the harder it is to face it and defeat it.

As for Meteion, from my understanding it was not her influence that caused the final days of other worlds with civilizations but their own actions. Consumed by their own despair created by their own actions they all caused their own Final Days which created the Universal Despair that Meteion's sisters became corrupted by. This does bring in the question about how their world may lack a Hero to give them hope to fight the despair they created themselves and if the world of FF14 is the only world that has a Hero to give them hope but that is another topic for another time and post.

I do agree there's flaws, the simple existence of Hermes and Venat who value strongly the individuals more than the collective show it wasn't 100% one sided. But I don't agree that the ones you listed are actual flaws or even exist for some, like the lack of emotion, etc.
As for the Final days, it was implied that she led civilizations to their doom, most likely unconsciously through the bad dynamis. For instance, the Eas mention at least another world where the Final Days happened, and were careful not to tell us how much time we had left.

[EdwinLi]

I do agree there's flaws, the simple existence of Hermes and Venat who value strongly the individuals more than the collective show it wasn't 100% one sided. But I don't agree that the ones you listed are actual flaws or even exist for some, like the lack of emotion, etc.
As for the Final days, it was implied that she led civilizations to their doom, most likely unconsciously through the bad dynamis. For instance, the Eas mention at least another world where the Final Days happened, and were careful not to tell us how much time we had left.

I think you need to rewatch the cutscene when Meteion reports her findings again. As she said in that cutscene she arrived to each world finding it already destroyed by different Final Days events. She never caused any of their destruction directly nor indirectly. Each one different but all the same being all life became extinct by a horrible end created from the actions of the civilization that once lived there.

The one planet she manage to find with life even ending their world by war due to deployment of weapons of mass destruction shortly after arriving.

[Rulakir]

I think you need to rewatch the cutscene when Meteion reports her findings again. As she said in that cutscene she arrived to each world finding it already destroyed by different Final Days events. She never caused any of their destruction directly nor indirectly. Each one different but all the same being all life became extinct by a horrible end created from the actions of the civilization that once lived there.

The one planet she manage to find with life even ending their world by war due to deployment of weapons of mass destruction shortly after arriving.

The notes in the last dungeon indicate she did, in fact, contribute to the end of at least two of those worlds. The one that went to war was because one faction deemed themselves superior because extraterrestrial life (Meteion) had visited them first instead of the other faction. The last one she caused to have an existential crisis with her questions.

[Alenore]

snip

That would be the second world we visit in The Dead Ends.

That otherworldly beings should first grace us with their presence is a sign. Indeed, they understand that we─the Global Community─are possessed of the wisdom and compassion needed to guide this star back to the path of righteousness!
Yet the Freedom Fighters dare to undermine us, inviting chaos to disrupt the order we labored so hard to build. They have forgotten the history of this star and its once myriad nations. The wars waged, the countless lives lost...

They must to be brought to heel, the world united under a single standard, no matter the cost.

However, about the Eas.

During the post-Hermes encounter cutscene:

One race had concluded that finite time was the root of all woes. Aspiring to shatter its shackles, they went in search of infinity.
They discovered nothing is infinite, and that neither time or death can be cheated. Disillusioned, they gave up on the future─and themselves.

And then during the explanations ofthe Eas about the end of their world.

We acknowledge, with regret, that your star is in the midst of the same panic-induced cataclysm that befell Deneb III.
As such, in order to avoid causing undue distress, we will refrain from explicitly stating how much time you have remaining.

Apparently, the same Final Days event befell them when they were still "alive". Despair has existed for a long time on Etheirys, but it stopped manifesting blasphemies since Zodiark was summoned.
I can't remember if it's during Venat's cutscene with the other where we expplain everything, or in Radz-at-Han, but someone mentioned that the influence that triggered this cataclysm was coming from outside : we know it to be Meteion.

Ergo, Meteion has met this race, then at some point the Final Days happened, and she was able to recreate them at a point in time after this cataclysm occured. So it must have had happened during her time here. While they were already disillusioned and willing to die, she triggered it at least on this star, which means it could have happened on others.
What if, then, she visited a star not yet decided to die, like Etheirys, but then triggered the Final Days here too? She'd take from that that despair and fear is also prevalent, and it would only increase her despaired world count.

We don't have the full report, not even Hermes has it.

Edit: Oh and if Deneb III is not their world, they at least witnessed it on a world they knew about, and still had living beings.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

In reference to the mental illness or outcast thinking such as Hermes.

There's a movie I love that most people hate because they thought it was dumb and ignore the moral. But in it you had a society that thought themselves 'perfect' or at least left the world and tried to rid themselves of crime, and hate. I speak of M. Night Shyamalan's the Village. In it, the village had horrors and depression and crimes to deal with, and so they hid themselves from the outside world and brought their children up in a 'paradise' that didn't know anything else existed and used beasts to hide them.

Point being what ends up happening is that someone is born that has mental illness, develops a crush on the main girl lead, and ends up killing the guy she liked so she tries to get help and is let in on the secret. THE POINT, Emotions of love, mental illness, and a refusal to admit imperfection are the moral of the story. That a man-made paradise can never succeed (won't get into religion.) Because there will always be some sort of flaw or sin, that develops. In the Village it was mental illness.

In Amaurot it was someone that saw things differently than the others, somewhat mental illness, in that they were different and couldn't accept life as it was without questioning it (the girl to questioned it).

And as Venat goes on to tell us, along with all the failed civilizations. You cannot have perfection. There will always be some sort of flaw, whether through the emotions of sentient beings, lack of emotion, ones who think differently, or rebellion. There will always be that one kink in the system so to speak. Something unforeseen, because sentient beings are not made for perfection, life is not made for perfection, the universe as a whole due to chaos/entropy itself to create randomness.

Which goes with your Icarus analogy. Amaurot fell because they tried to create a man-made utopia ("nowhere") and could not accept imperfection where it came up.

With the Village, the people tried to run from their suffering, loss, and put an end to crime and value safety over all. And this is exactly what Amaurot was trying to do, run from the suffering, fix the loss, and go on with their lives again like none of it ever happened, putting their safety over the rest of the world (not hiding like the Village since they're an entire planet, but hiding from the truth of the matter).

What would have happened if they had fixed it but then came another Hermes, or more questioning of their society? Another kink to create strife? Amaurot was doomed to fail the longer they tried to hide.

Such as the civilizations that did the same, and what Venat saw.

[Zoliru]

Oh I would say they have very few flaws, and more importantly those flaws can be fixed when you hold the power of creation at hand, had huge amounts of aether, and the fact that the convocation and many of the ancient ones focused on making the world better, oh and did I almost forgot, they were immortal hence why for me they are objectively the better world to bring back. Which is after meeting Emet Selch in shadowbringers I would absolutely join him and cause the rest of the required rejoinings.


I mean, by mere comparison both the source, the shards and even real life pale in comparison, imagine world leaders that might actually care about improving the world and not their short sighted interests, imagine being able to solve problems by just creating a concept for it, and let's not forget that they were able to understand life and souls far better than any of the sundered could, it was such a tragedy what happened, a ton of knowledge was lost at that point.

The ancients werent godlike beings, similar to humans, some were a lot brighter than most, convocation members being a good example, hence why even at the face of true despair they didnt get paralyzed and still sought a way to bring the old world back, like any rational person would if they had the tools.
We lack such power hence why it seems weird, had we the power of literal creation, many many doors would be open to us that arent now.


On to the main subjects:
-The norm
They did not plan to commit mass suicide, I am pretty sure hythlodeus suggested that as a joke for the simple reason that problems and flaws will always exist and appear after each change, meaning there will always be work to be done.
The way they show life was like this because they were very knowledgeable, their ability to see souls was a constant reminder that nobody is ever "truly" dead, they return to the athaeric sea and you could even see the hue of their souls. People who were satisfied in life simply returned there.

Now let's focus on what we have now, we are supposed to live in a world where people value life yet countless people die from poverty, disease, wars and more, not only that, when wars come suddenly the value of life of your enemy becomes negative, funny how that works.
Cumulatively speaking, the suffering that happened over the years through the source and the shards is likely many more times multiple to the suffering of the ancients, so, if you value life so much, wouldnt it make sense to want lessen suffering?
Or do you just want people to exist while they suffer just so people like hermes dont feel bad when others die. Hermes was the selfish one here, fandaniel was happy, he was satisfied, it was his choice to rest and return to the star, yet Hermes didnt like that because it made him feel bad. And even then, the ancients were so much better than many many people we met over the years in the source and the first and absolutely deserved better.

So from my view, they were very right.


-On the despair and emotions area
They clearly had emotions, there were just very few situations that you would see emotions out of control, they were mostly happy because they lived in a nice world with a great future and power to solve their problems.

On the despair part Venat indeed had a point, when she show how dependent many of the ancients had become on their power and how a single tragedy broke them she absolutely understandable felt repulsed and hopeless for her people, but she herself showed clear understanding of the issue, suffering will always exist, humans were just lucky to escape it for a while(Luck in a sense they were born so extraordinary powerful with the power of creation at hand).

And there's when she failed, she clearly understood the problem, but her solution was to destroy a magnificent civilization in hopes that after years of sufferings other might be able to brute force an enemy such as meiteion.
Let me describe the superior alternative, she goes to the convocation and explains the problem of their own people, the convocation like Venat is made of extraordinary individuals even by ancients standards so it is more than likely that they would understand what she said, and by holding the literal power of creation all they needed to do to make the world better keeping that in mind is to create a concept with the purpose of controlled suffering.
So now not only you keep the knowledge, power and immortality of a magnificent civilization, you have just improved it which is what the members of the convocations are there to achieve.

And to be honest that is something that is a common thing even in real life, people who have faced the atrocities of war and suffering know that war is something to be avoided and not even thought of as an option, yet the people who have not lived through wars are a lot more open to the idea of war, that is because history lessons are a poor substitute for the suffering victims of war went through, so the idea would be to create limited controlled suffering to teach people lessons because only then can people truly understand and learn, but some would call that unethical.
Of course flawed beings kinda hurt that concept when for example you have parents who physically abuse their child for being different in an attempt to make it conform because they believe that if their kid is not like them, not what their society irrationally deems "correct", it will be bad for it and they cannot even imagine the possibility that their kid destroys the irrational norms of their society and moves beyond them.

From what we ve seen at least, the ancients did not suffer from such irrational issues since when they deemed something flawed, they had quite a technical and logical reason for it, though with the addition of suffering as a new literal concept for them, things would become a lot more complicated and interesting and only further make the ancient world and civilization better.


Plus I see no reason to not "play god" as some would call it if you have the power of literal creation, creation is as simple as how the ancients treated it, you create something, you observe it and create a conclusion based on that observation, that fear of "hubris" always sounded more like a fear of powerlessness, if hubris does not exist after all, it means you are completely at the mercy of the ones who are more powerful. Come to think of it, it sounds just as silly as many religions who in order to justify the suffering and evil in the world, they tell their people they ll get rewarded in death if they are good xD