What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Brinne]

Once again, debating the ins and outs of the viability of Venat pursuing other options is ultimately irrelevant, because she decides right before our eyes that she thinks that the Ancients have to pass Hermes's test by facing the Final Days. Were there other ways Venat chose not to pursue? Of course there were other ways. Look at the sheer improbability/miraculous factor to our victory - who could have predicted Zenos showing up at the eleventh hour to save us, when Meteion effortlessly melted the Scions when they faced her, despite all their resolve? If our victory hinged on such a far-fetched miracle shot, I don't see any reason to presume that some kind of miracle wasn't also possible for the Ancients.

Yes, Venat hems and haws a bit about why immediately going straight to the Convocation might have complications, but strip down everything and boil it down to her core conclusion and you're still left with:

Regardless of how we proceed, if we are to permanently avert the Final Days, we must be equal to Hermes's challenge. We must prove that mankind is worthy to exist. And this hinges, I think, on how we confront the all-consuming despair that accompanies a senseless and seemingly inevitable end.

In Venat's mind, the true enemy was never actually Meteion, per se. Given her report, Venat believes that Meteion has a right to question whether mankind should even bother existing, so the only way to go is to "answer" her via taking her on and letting her test play out. Ultimately, Venat was, more than anything else, worried about the Plenty.

EDIT: To put it another way, assuming that Venat's goal was to "save lives" is the wrong premise to begin with, and is going to lead to confusion because her actions don't make sense following that. Venat's goal was not "saving lives." It is, as she stated, "proving life is worthy to exist," the altar upon which she allowed countless number of individual lives to be sacrificed. Was it worth it? Well, uh, come to your own conclusions. I don't think life has anything it needs to prove, personally, but.

[PawPaw]

Yep. Plus if the Ancients were made aware of Meteion's existence...then they could have worked towards finding a solution to the problem. Not only for the sake of their world but all the others that succumbed to Meteion's influence. After all, by withholding the information she had access to Venat is indirectly responsible for the destruction of numerous worlds.

Which makes her decision making process all the more baffling, really. I'm sure we'll soon be subjected to another lecture from Alphinaud about how wrong it is for a character to stand by and do nothing even as other characters suffer. In the usual tone deaf, hypocritical manner where somehow Venat is a 'herois' for doing exactly that.

Certainly. I think most of us would have been happier had they never been forced to resort to something like Zodiark to begin with and found another way; But mmo storytelling at the end of the day, I guess.

All I can do is cross my fingers that one day they'll give us the alternate timeline where the Ancients aren't punished by a single self-righteous ideologue for not suffering enough.

[Lauront]

*snip*

I agree, but I think it's worth at least addressing it as a point because it is her stated reasoning to Y'shtola, and it at least has a veneer of plausibility if you don't consider the fact that the story allows for some alternative possibilities right off the bat. Given how Yoshi articulated the point, you're right that the fate of the Plenty is the overarching concern and her decision to sunder is driven by and subservient to that:

Q: Venat had good intentions and her plan worked out in the end. But as a result the world was Sundered and most of the Ancients suffered. Was Sundering the star really the only way to save it?

A: This is a question that I consulted with Nacchan (Natsuko Ishikawa, Scenario Writer of Endwalker) to come up with the answer so it will make sense when we explain it. At the very least, as Y’shtola theorizes, Venat believed that the Ancients, being so dense in Aether, could not control Dynamis. So she thought they could not have stopped the Final Days and its source. So you know there were other Ancients who thought summoning Zodiark would solve everything but she saw that summoning Zodiark and using it to deflect Meteion’s “Despair Beam” and thought, “even if we were to do this and keep going as we are the rest of the Ancients will probably be unable to change as a people” when she’s looking at Hermes, or “we will always be our own undoing”. If you look at the dungeon, “The Dead Ends”, at the very end there’s a boss called Ra-la, and that’s sort of our vision for what probably would have happened to the Ancients if we just let them continue as they were. So for that reason, she chose to Sunder the star to dilute mankind’s Aether so that someday they might be able to use Dynamis and to fight back against despair and the Final Days at the Source

With that said, she did not really give them much reason to change, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

EDIT: To put it another way, assuming that Venat's goal was to "save lives" is the wrong premise to begin with, and is going to lead to confusion because her actions don't make any sense with it. Venat's goal was not "saving lives." It is, as she stated, "proving life is worthy to exist," the altar upon which she allowed countless number of individual lives to be sacrificed. Was it worth it? Well, uh, come to your own conclusions. I don't think life has anything it needs to prove, personally, but.

The way I make sense of it is that she felt this question had to be answered one way or another for life to persist without meeting the fate of the other stars Meteion had encountered. My view on it is that while the issue may have been genuine, Hermes's conditions of "fairness" and the way she seemed to honour these in her own way by not revealing the actual basis of her concerns to her people (yes, the story gives some purported rationale on her part for it, but I don't find it awfully compelling) were utterly unreasonable and had no place in the entire ordeal... not to mention in the end the sundered get given the answers with plenty of assistance. Plus given that they share many of the aspirations of the ancients to reduce suffering along various dimensions, most prominently showcased in the Scions, there is little to guarantee that with the passage of time, any "lessons" learnt will not be forgotten in due course... and "our plight is repeated." Particularly given that these aren't the long-lived ancients.

[Kyohei]

Maybe, in the end, it's actually pretty realistic. Sadly realistic situations aren't all the time equal to logical, especially when humans are involved.
Things aren't always just and logical. People and populations suffer irrational choices of others on daily basis. Some die unfairly, some other rise and try to make the most of it. At the very least we can see ancients as martyrs maybe?
And probably be thankful Venat didn't just fill the worlds with loporitts...

That might just be me trying to find some reasons in all this in order to try and appreciate what's to come, idk.

[Rulakir]

It's still irrational to me. The sundered are no more equipped to not become The Plenty, in fact, one of the notes states that they started out similar to the sundered. Venat may have kicked the can down the road, but it's not as if her 'solution' is permanent.

I hesitate to mention Allag or Garlemald because people get hung up on them being Ascian constructs, but Allag was close to "perfection" and Garlemald was close to the second world in the Dead Ends. It doesn't take a lot to manipulate mankind into destroying themselves.

[Kyohei]

Yeah it is, but irrationality is widespread and it does have consequences. Nonsense, sadly, can be realistic.

[Lauront]

It's still irrational to me. The sundered are no more equipped to not become The Plenty, in fact, one of the notes states that they started out similar to the sundered. Venat may have kicked the can down the road, but it's not as if her 'solution' is permanent.

I hesitate to mention Allag or Garlemald because people get hung up on them being Ascian constructs, but Allag was close to "perfection" and Garlemald was close to the second world in the Dead Ends. It doesn't take a lot to manipulate mankind into destroying themselves.

Totally, that is the biggest issue with it, and it sits ill at ease with the perfectionist tendencies which sundered man - again, most prominent in the Scions - still harbours. So the "test" can either be administered again by another supreme deity... or they can figure out ways not to kill themselves out of boredom should they achieve the extirpation of suffering. I know which I'd consider the better route. And at the end of the day, the stars are what maintain the cycles of rebirth...

[Ixon]

snip

I am very much appreciative of the information given and am learning quite a bit. The only part that still confuses me is the constant mention of "prayer" in regards to Zodiark. The dialogue of Emet-Selch in the Ravel's Keep dungeon holds Zodiark in much higher regard than a creation or tool to stop the Final Days, but much more of a deity. Unsure if I am reading into it wrong, but seeing Zodiark referred to as "Him" with a capital "H" like some religions do, saying "His grace". "A savior mighty and magnificent, deserving of reverence and gratitude" really doesn't sound like something the Emet we meet on Elpis would say, which is why I am still locked on Zodiarks tempering of others. Though to be fair he also mentions how "they fought, and they fought, and they fought." which does not appear to be what happens in the cutscene we see, so both could be explained by a change in story direction.

Reading further into the plan with Zodiark though(correct me if I am wrong), it seems on the final step they were planning on sacrificing the new life brought back to Etheirys with the power of Zodiark to bring back the souls of the Ancients used to summon Zodiark initially? If so, perhaps it was that choice of sacrificing other life of Etheirys for the sake of the Ancients that both Venat(the previous Azem) and the current Azem disagreed with, both being the "Traveler" and holding life outside of the Ancients in much higher regard? On top of the preferred faith of the "future" against Metion. Though I could be missing information in this logic.

[PawPaw]

It's still irrational to me. The sundered are no more equipped to not become The Plenty

More likely that the Sundered will go the way of the diseased ocean invaders or the friendly neighborhood Globalcitizen. Same dungeon but let's be honest, the Sundered could never be peaceful long enough to get bored to literal death of it.

[Lauront]

I am very much appreciative of the information given and am learning quite a bit. The only part that still confuses me is the constant mention of "prayer" in regards to Zodiark. The dialogue of Emet-Selch in the Ravel's Keep dungeon holds Zodiark in much higher regard than a creation or tool to stop the Final Days, but much more of a deity. Unsure if I am reading into it wrong, but seeing Zodiark referred to as "Him" with a capital "H" like some religions do, saying "His grace". "A savior mighty and magnificent, deserving of reverence and gratitude" really doesn't sound like something the Emet we meet on Elpis would say, which is why I am still locked on Zodiarks tempering of others. Though to be fair he also mentions how "they fought, and they fought, and they fought." which does not appear to be what happens in the cutscene we see, so both could be explained by a change in story direction.

Reading further into the plan with Zodiark though(correct me if I am wrong), it seems on the final step they were planning on sacrificing the new life brought back to Etheirys with the power of Zodiark to bring back the souls of the Ancients used to summon Zodiark initially? If so, perhaps it was that choice of sacrificing other life of Etheirys for the sake of the Ancients that both Venat(the previous Azem) and the current Azem disagreed with, both being the "Traveler" and holding life outside of the Ancients in much higher regard? Though I could be missing information in this logic.

No, the final stage (and I am filling in some gaps here on what it was because the story is very vague on this life besides possessing souls; nonetheless, I think the JP version of the Hyth text is instructive) by all appearances would involve creations similar to those in Elpis. We know from the quests in Elpis (but also Emet-Selch's short story) that creations meeting the right criteria would qualify for souls from the star (the star itself spawns these), appropriate to the type of being it is, and so you'd get animal and plant life - for creations which do not qualify, they're essentially arcane entities. So when the story uses the term "life", it means creations qualifying for a soul, which the star itself bestows upon them. It is a very broad spectrum of things, mostly consisting of plant and animal life, and as KageTokage mentioned, precursors to the sort of beings comprising the beast tribes.

Current Azem opposed the summoning of Zodiark altogether, but the reasons are not given. It's possible that Venat knew what was to come and nudged them to do that without offering them any reasons and that their trust in her as a mentor led to them simply taking her word for it, hence it seeming so capricious to the remaining Convocation. The sacrifices are not given as the reason for it as their departure pre-dated his summoning.

As for Venat, the rationale given both by her and in the recent Q&A the devs did is avoiding the fate of the Plenty. Preventing the sacrifices is only a means to that end, i.e. for the ancients to desist in their efforts to revive their civilisation. If you read the sources I provided, you will see that there is very little moral condemnation discussed about the sacrifices in the scene in Anamnesis Anyder, and she even states that the Convocation was doing what it thought best to secure their star's future. The exhortation to hand over the star to the new life all seems to revolve around stopping the ancients from restoring their people and zooming ahead (in her view) to the Plenty's fate.

Just one final point - Zodiark very much is deemed to be a god, but the ancients - including Emet - see him as a manmade one. Likewise, Hydaelyn is referred to as an all-powerful being by Y'shtola, and refers to herself as a "supreme deity". This all comes down to their sheer power, rather than tempering, per se. Lahabrea and Nabriales took it a step further with their zeal and that I believe is why they brought it up - Lahabrea in particular let his identity fade through extensive body-hopping, and so the idea seems to be he was changed by it unlike Hades. Elidibus sustained memory loss but his guiding duty, stemming from the Convocation, appeared to at least allow him to retain enough of his identity to avoid going the way Lahabrea did.