When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[AlysanneVrannai]

Except they didn’t ignore the root cause, they just didn’t know what it was. Venat had the knowledge of it, she could have told them.Had she told them perhaps they could be able to face against Meteion and come out on top, Venat never gave them the chance so we may never know. Venat ran away from telling them the truth and lost hope in her people, the very thing she says not to do she did.

We are shown her pleading with people to learn to cope instead of bypassing suffering altogether in the post-Elpis cutscene, and they blatantly refused her and went for the Zodiark route instead.

[AlysanneVrannai]

Venat relied on the Zodiark plan for 12,000 years without ever even having told anybody about the threat or so much as implied that the universe might be in danger.

Relying on the Zodiark plan to actually prepare a counterattack vs relying on Zodiark creating the "perfect" safe haven and just ignoring the calamity are two very different things. She also absolutely talked about an alternative in the post-Elpis cutscene. Its not like she went straight for sundering without trying to steer people to what she thought a better course.

[KariTheFox]

Has anyone claimed that the ancients "deserved" to die? What happened to them was a horrible, unfortunate tragedy. Thier culture having trouble dealing with accepting loss and moving on from the past has nothing to do with what they "deserve".

[tokinokanatae]

Relying on the Zodiark plan to actually prepare a counterattack vs relying on Zodiark creating the "perfect" safe haven and just ignoring the calamity are two very different things. She also absolutely talked about an alternative in the post-Elpis cutscene. Its not like she went straight for sundering without trying to steer people to what she thought a better course.

There is something rather ghoulish in coming to a group of people who have lost loved ones and telling them they need to move on for their own good, when you were in the position to stop the deaths in the first place. But I guess if you needed those people to die as a shield for your plan, it's okay.

[AlysanneVrannai]

There is something rather ghoulish in coming to a group of people who have lost loved ones and telling them they need to move on for their own good, when you were in the position to stop the deaths in the first place. But I guess if you needed those people to die as a shield for your plan, it's okay.

How in the world was Venat in a position to prevent the first calamity? Are you talking about us failing to stop Meteion in Elpis?

[tokinokanatae]

How in the world was Venat in a position to prevent the first calamity? Are you talking about us failing to stop Meteion in Elpis?

By telling people in power about Meteion and what happened in Elpis.

Like, it really doesn't make any sense to say she offered an alternative when Zodiark was already there. Let's imagine that the people listened to her, said she was right, that they needed to move forward from this. Then what? How does that solve Meteion? How does that solve the Zodiark that now exists and the souls removed from the cycle of life giving him power? If they gave her the answer she wanted, are they suddenly worthy of being told the truth?

[Theodric]

We are shown her pleading with people to learn to cope instead of bypassing suffering altogether in the post-Elpis cutscene, and they blatantly refused her and went for the Zodiark route instead.

Given that Venat is indirectly responsible for the Final Days occurring (given that she had foreknowledge of their existence due to the lack of a memory wipe) and then is ultimately responsible for the genocide of her own species? Nah, I don't think she was in much of a position to 'plead' with the very same people she actively sought to screw over first by withholding key information and then murdering down to the very last man, woman and child.

Zodiark was also a necessity by virtue of being the very force that served to prevent Etheirys from being destroyed. If not for Zodiark, there would be no Etheirys given that both the first and second set of sacrifices served to prevent the planet from decaying and dying altogether. That is, of course, in addition to Zodiark serving as a ward against the return of the Final Days in both the Unsundered and Sundered world.

Of course, had Venat spoken up about the Final Days before they happened then Zodiark would not have been needed but blaming the Ancients for mitigating a disaster that was sprung upon them without forewarning would strike me as utterly bizarre.

[Lauront]

One of the assertions I find the most interesting about the ultimate fate of the Ancients is the idea of the game trying to show us that they were spoiled.

I remember when Shadowbringers first came out and all we had was Amaurot as a depiction of their lives, people wanted to say that they brought their deaths upon themselves because their "creation magic was obviously a drain on the planet", even though the game specifically goes out of its way to point out that all creation done by them is through internal reserves of aether.

When we got the side stories that gave us even more glimpses into the internal workings of their society, suddenly everything shifted. Now, rather than being an unnatural drain on the planet, the line against them was that they were too obsessed with upholding the natural order, which is, of course, why they deserved to be wiped out.

Finally, with Elpis showing us the widest picture yet, we're back to yet another reason why they deserved to die: they're spoiled (even though they talk amongst themselves when they're facing emotional problems?), decadent (????) and weak (all four of the Unsundered we know spent 12000 years in the single-minded pursuit of what they thought would save their world).

I'll be blunt. There is no reason the Ancients deserved to die. The fact that they did is a tragedy and not one they brought on by doing any one thing. It's a lying comfort to pretend tragedy only visits those people and societies that deserve it.

Agreed, it's just been a series of reasons as to why they supposedly "deserved" their downfall - and on a similar basis you could say the sundered have long had one coming themselves. It's little but fishing for reasons to excuse the sundering in the end and you are right, they did not deserve it (much as the dragons did not deserve what befell them), and the cited reasons you mention are all fatuous in their own right. The "spoiled" thing just so happens to be the most tenuous lines of reasoning in this case. Maybe the sundered should surrender their ability to use aether, and the Garleans specifically should abandon their tech, and they should all revert to living in caves after an enforced lobotomy of some kind. Wouldn't want to be "spoiled". Fandaniel has the right idea in that lone soldier scenario.

[AlysanneVrannai]

By telling people in power about Meteion and what happened in Elpis.

Like, it really doesn't make any sense to say she offered an alternative when Zodiark was already there. Let's imagine that the people listened to her, said she was right, that they needed to move forward from this. Then what? How does that solve Meteion? How does that solve the Zodiark that now exists and the souls removed from the cycle of life giving him power? If they gave her the answer she wanted, are they suddenly worthy of being told the truth?

They can move forward and face the crisis instead of fleeing from it, just like the story theme paralells in using the Moon as an Ark vs chasing after Meteion.

[tokinokanatae]

They can move forward and face the crisis instead of fleeing from it, just like the story theme paralells in using the Moon as an Ark vs chasing after Meteion.

How does that solve the Meteion issue if she doesn't tell anyone that Meteion exists?