*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's not like Venat's memories actually prove the Final Days are coming - she has memories of the WoL telling her about them, and Meteion's report, promise to kill us all and Hermes using Kairos.

None of that actually proves that the Final Days are coming to a skeptic. How do you know that Warrior of Light is telling the truth? How do you know this Meteion creature is even capable of what she says she's capable of? The two that could give corroborating testimony, Meteion and the WoL are long gone.

You could ask Fandaniel about the nature of Meteion, to understand if she could do what she says she can do, but now you're just back to the problem of letting Fandaniel know anything about the real causes of the Final Days.

You act like the ancients are stupid. I don’t know if people are just willfully being obtuse or what but it has been stated many a time. Venat isn’t some random person. She is a highly respected ex-member of the convocation. We are shown in Elpis, the ancients are open to ideas and even skeptical Emet is shown to at the very least be forced to believe our story and investigate due to his duty to the star. The probability of the convocation hearing her story and looking into her memories and deducing “this is all fake” or “wow what a liar you are” is astronomically low. Also, Azem is a convocation member at this time are they not? If they look into her memories and see it’s Azem’s familiar that gives her this info, that adds even more credibility. Hell, if we actually had any agency, we could have Venat look into our memories, and then with those memories she now has of us showing her, she can then show that to the Convocation. It’s not exactly rocket science and it’s perfectly in line with how we have seen the echo used, especially with Bozja as an example of memory.

[YianKutku]

Venat isn’t some random person. She is a highly respected ex-member of the convocation.

To be precise, Venat is respected as an ex-member of the Convocation. She is not respected as herself; the respect is all based on her former office. This would imply (and is shown) that Venat, as an ex-member of the Convocation, is not as respected as a current member of the Convocation, which would include Emet-Selch and Fandaniel.

Venat herself was seen as a very strange person, which is only adjacent to respect at best. This is because she refused to "return to the star" after her tenure on the Convocation, and this is against the "traditions" of the Ancients. For another similar case, consider how "respected" Matoya is to the Sharlayan Forum. There's no contempt as such, but rather a sort of avoidance and pretending that she is not relevant to anything, while possibly giving her bureaucratic makework just to fit her into the general org chart; in Venat's case as a sort of surrogate Azem when Azem isn't around, and in Matoya's case as the default caretaker of the Antitower after it was abandoned and superseded by the Aitiascope.

[KizuyaKatogami]

To be precise, Venat is respected as an ex-member of the Convocation. She is not respected as herself; the respect is all based on her former office. This would imply (and is shown) that Venat, as an ex-member of the Convocation, is not as respected as a current member of the Convocation, which would include Emet-Selch and Fandaniel.

Venat herself was seen as a very strange person, which is only adjacent to respect at best. This is because she refused to "return to the star" after her tenure on the Convocation, and this is against the "traditions" of the Ancients. For another similar case, consider how "respected" Matoya is to the Sharlayan Forum. There's no contempt as such, but rather a sort of avoidance and pretending that she is not relevant to anything, while possibly giving her bureaucratic makework just to fit her into the general org chart; in Venat's case as a sort of surrogate Azem when Azem isn't around, and in Matoya's case as the default caretaker of the Antitower after it was abandoned and superseded by the Aitiascope.

To be even more precise then, she was on friendly terms with Emet-Selch, who like you say, was a pretty influential figure. As was Hythlodaeus, who himself says he would like to look into the matter of his memory erasure. So please try to find some other excuse because this one just isnt working at all. Far too many plotholes so go on, ill be waiting.

[KariTheFox]

To be precise, Venat is respected as an ex-member of the Convocation. She is not respected as herself; the respect is all based on her former office. This would imply (and is shown) that Venat, as an ex-member of the Convocation, is not as respected as a current member of the Convocation, which would include Emet-Selch and Fandaniel.

Venat herself was seen as a very strange person, which is only adjacent to respect at best. This is because she refused to "return to the star" after her tenure on the Convocation, and this is against the "traditions" of the Ancients. For another similar case, consider how "respected" Matoya is to the Sharlayan Forum. There's no contempt as such, but rather a sort of avoidance and pretending that she is not relevant to anything, while possibly giving her bureaucratic makework just to fit her into the general org chart; in Venat's case as a sort of surrogate Azem when Azem isn't around, and in Matoya's case as the default caretaker of the Antitower after it was abandoned and superseded by the Aitiascope.

There's also the fact that Fandaniel is also a highly respected member of the convocation, and any testimony Venat gives to the convocation is going to eventually lead to her accusing Fandaniel of some pretty serious offenses.

I don't think the convocation would just accept those accusations at face value, there'd be an investigation, Fandaniel would be given a chance to defend himself- and oh no, looks like Fandaniel summoned Kairos and activated it again, and this time made sure Venat got hit by it too.

And I don't think Emet-Selch would be on board with Venat trying to tell just him and keeping the truth away from Fandaniel and the rest of the convocation, I think he'd be pretty offended by the idea of lying to and keeping secrets from his fellow Convocation members.

[Rulakir]

Both Venat and Emet believed the word of a 'familiar' claiming to be from the future enough to investigate their claims, so it's hard to take these reasons why Venat would've been dismissed seriously.

Fact of the matter is, Elpis in and of itself was inconsistent. Emet expresses concerns about Kairos when it's first mentioned, but later after he's a victim of said device decides it's not important? The Echo scene with Venat probably shouldn't have happened at all because it throws a wrench into everything following it.

[EaraGrace]

Both Venat and Emet believed the word of a 'familiar' claiming to be from the future enough to investigate their claims, so it's hard to take these reasons why Venat would've been dismissed seriously.

Fact of the matter is, Elpis in and of itself was inconsistent. Emet expresses concerns about Kairos when it's first mentioned, but later after he's a victim of said device decides it's not important? The Echo scene with Venat probably shouldn't have happened at all because it throws a wrench into everything following it.

Emet was more than skeptical actually. While he does investigate the issue he states plainly that he doesn’t believe we were telling the truth even after Ktisis. On top of that, if disclosure was the plan then as was pointed out Venat would be having to convince the Convocation of Hermes actions as well, to which he would obviously argue against.

This leads to several problems. First this would sow discord in the Convocation at the worst possible time. Second it would deny the Ancients their foremost expert on celestial aether currents at a moment when that field is integral to survival, and third it could potentially sow panic as people find out about the fate of other stars and the threat of Meteion. The benefit of disclosure rapidly diminishes with each additional problem.

And one other small disagreement. Hades dismissed the importance of the lost memories, not the act of having Kairos used on him. He actually seemed quite angry about the latter, the former he doesn’t have any reason to think much of.

[YianKutku]

To be even more precise then, she was on friendly terms with Emet-Selch, who like you say, was a pretty influential figure. As was Hythlodaeus, who himself says he would like to look into the matter of his memory erasure. So please try to find some other excuse because this one just isnt working at all. Far too many plotholes so go on, ill be waiting.

Hythlodaeus said he was going to look into the memory erasure, but as we know based on how history proceeded, this resulted in no significant outcome. Emet-Selch himself said he did not care and did not see the value in looking into that memory erasure, and also given how history proceeded, we can assume that either he had no success, or he meant what he said and completely dismissed it.

Emet-Selch and Venat were on terms that could be considered "friendly", but Emet-Selch, as we see in Elpis, did not wish to engage further with Venat than he truly had to. He tolerates Venat's oddities, and apparently tolerates Azem's oddities just as much if not more, but without any prompting, he would just as well ignore Venat's existence. Consider that this is Emet-Selch's very first visit to Elpis, such that he required a guide in Hythlodaeus. Meanwhile, Venat is living in Elpis, even if she commutes to wherever she wants to go. This does not seem like enough of a link to the current Convocation to use as backing to accuse another member of the Convocation, especially given Emet-Selch was the one to recruit Hermes as Fandaniel in the first place, while ignoring his memory erasure.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Hythlodaeus said he was going to look into the memory erasure, but as we know based on how history proceeded, this resulted in no significant outcome. Emet-Selch himself said he did not care and did not see the value in looking into that memory erasure, and also given how history proceeded, we can assume that either he had no success, or he meant what he said and completely dismissed it.

Emet-Selch and Venat were on terms that could be considered "friendly", but Emet-Selch, as we see in Elpis, did not wish to engage further with Venat than he truly had to. He tolerates Venat's oddities, and apparently tolerates Azem's oddities just as much if not more, but without any prompting, he would just as well ignore Venat's existence. Consider that this is Emet-Selch's very first visit to Elpis, such that he required a guide in Hythlodaeus. Meanwhile, Venat is living in Elpis, even if she commutes to wherever she wants to go. This does not seem like enough of a link to the current Convocation to use as backing to accuse another member of the Convocation, especially given Emet-Selch was the one to recruit Hermes as Fandaniel in the first place, while ignoring his memory erasure.

My point about Hythlodaeus’ comment was that they knew they were mind wiped, so all it would take is her going hey, i have the memories of how you got mind wiped. They aren’t so stupid as to believe “oh yeah you’re lying even though that makes logical sense and we have the missing memories to prove it and connect it.” Idk if it’s people purposely trying to underplay the ancients and their smarts/knowledge or what but…geez.I mean theres literally ancients there that can attest to seeing us going inside Ktisis etc.

[Tehmon]

My point about Hythlodaeus’ comment was that they knew they were mind wiped, so all it would take is her going hey, i have the memories of how you got mind wiped. They aren’t so stupid as to believe “oh yeah you’re lying even though that makes logical sense and we have the missing memories to prove it and connect it.” Idk if it’s people purposely trying to underplay the ancients and their smarts/knowledge or what but…geez.I mean theres literally ancients there that can attest to seeing us going inside Ktisis etc.

The story does a piss poor job of framing ancients as a super intelligent race, if Emet's '' sundering also affected your intelligence '' is not a cope, but reality. But if the ancients are this super intelligent race of people as Emet claims they are, then the same can be said about Venat, and that the innate superb intelligence of ancients must've also affected Venat's decision in regards to how she treats the information she has.

[Absimiliard]

I get the impression it's less the Sundered being less intelligent and more them having simply lost so much that tens of thousands of years hasn't been sufficient to rediscover the bulk of what the Ancients knew. We learned from Emet-Selch's reaction to the whole G'raha/Crystal Tower time travel debacle that, given time and effort, the Sundered were plenty capable of grasping things even their forebears hadn't yet figured out by the time their civilization ended. The raw intellectual capacity of modern Sundered appears to be close, if not equal, to what it once was.

The above said, it should be noted Emet-Selch saw the Sundered as they were immediately after they were split. They initially had very unstable forms, and their minds were diminished to the point they couldn't even form cogent thoughts, let alone utilize anything resembling language. Seeing what had once been his people like that probably colored his views, particularly once he started making liberal use of copium as the weight of what he had to do gradually crushed his spirit and will to continue.