The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[Gemina]

you COMPLETLY misunderstood the entire thing....
to the very core
THE EXODUS WAS THE PLAN B!!!! The Exodus was her plan if humanity ended up not being capable of fighting the Final Days and Endsinger or if they just "gave up".
She specificaly said "[I] saved [...]my power for this very moment" testing us was the plan A, if we failed, she would send us away to never look back(specificaly she says in the trial herself "Follow your light, Or Fly my children and Never look back")


and what you mean "instead of fighting with us to give us an edge" SHE IS A PRIMAL!! A BEING SOLELY COMPRISED OF AETHER!!! She is the least usefull thing that could have "helped" us in the fight,

at best its a Stalemate where noone can do anything, at worst the dynamis would drown her out(she is CONSIDERABLY weaker then Zodiark).

The exodus was not the plan B. It became the plan B. Hydaelyn explains to Y'shtola after she asks if she really expects mankind to just flee that the exodus in one of two paths, and that the other will take the adventurers to Meteion. The scions already inacted the plan to wipe the floor with Psychotron before even confronting Hydaelyn in the Aetiascope. It was their intention to do everything possible to save the star before abandoning it to its fate. When Hydaelyn says the other path takes us to Meteion, we are kind of like, "Bingo. So are you going to help, or not?" Then she proceeds to tell us that she bars the path to Meteion, and we are like, "So no, then?"

Obviously, I'm using some paraphrasing based on my feelings towards Venat, but it doesn't change that the Scions learn of Hydaelyn's plan of Exodus through the Loporrits, and decide for themselves that is without question, the last resort. This was when it became fundamental to contact Hydaelyn because they just had to know if this was her true intention.

When I mention fighting with us, that doesn't necessarily mean she is there intervening on Ultima Thule. *sigh* I admit to being wrong here. I know she did give us the ability to conjure forth both Emet and Hytholdaeus and restore the Scions, empowered the mother crystal, which also served to get Zenos to Utlima Thule, created the Loporrits, and loves us like no other. I know she placed the burden of burdens on her shoulders, and was punished heavily for the sundering. There's a part of me that remains bitter though. Very similar to an actual mother/daughter relationship. Anger makes it easier to part from her.

[KageTokage]

Chiming in late, and only read the OP.

I've tried to relate to the ancients multiple times. It's like trying to plug in your laptop at a hotel in another country without an adapter. There are some reasons for this:

- Collectively, they decided to sacrifice half of their entire population
- twice
- were going to do it a third time
- Venat said, "Nay. All y'all."
- Unsundered caused 7 mass extinction events. Killing billions.
- Just one created a collective conscious aka Psychotron 9000, and sent them into space where they proceeded to end several civilizations.

These guys have a serious genocide complex, and I can see why we (Azem) turned against essentially all of them. Even Venat.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I also only recently remembered that according to Hythlodeus in Mare Lamentorum, the potential revival of the Ancients who gave themselves to Zodiark was always a consideration from the very beginning, which likely played into their willingness to go through with it.

The first sacrifice was very definitely needed as the world and mankind were both on the brink of total annihilation.

The second might not have been needed, but it's implied that the environment had been damaged so badly that more lives would've been lost by the time things corrected themselves naturally and/or with the aid of the Ancients doing in a more mundane (By their standards, at least) fashion.

The third was definitely not needed, but would've been the last according to the Convocation's plans. There surely would've been some Ancients who still wouldn't have been satisfied, perhaps those who lost loved ones to "natural" causes and were claimed by the Lifestream, but sparing those souls from being trapped in Zodiark would've been a certain kindness at a cost we were really not given enough context behind.

Just the fact that troubled people like Hermes and Erichtonios still existed stood as proof that their world really was only perfect in a relative sense, and I don't think they were at much risk of a "death by paradise" with how calculated every decision the Convocation made was.

[Gemina]

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I also only recently remembered that according to Hythlodeus in Mare Lamentorum, the potential revival of the Ancients who gave themselves to Zodiark was always a consideration from the very beginning, which likely played into their willingness to go through with it.

The first sacrifice was very definitely needed as the world and mankind were both on the brink of total annihilation.

The second might not have been needed, but it's implied that the environment had been damaged so badly that more lives would've been lost by the time things corrected themselves naturally and/or with the aid of the Ancients doing in a more mundane (By their standards, at least) fashion.

The third was definitely not needed, but would've been the last according to the Convocation's plans. There surely would've been some Ancients who still wouldn't have been satisfied, perhaps those who lost loved ones to "natural" causes and were claimed by the Lifestream, but sparing those souls from being trapped in Zodiark would've been a certain kindness at a cost we were really not given enough context behind.

Just the fact that troubled people like Hermes and Erichtonios still existed stood as proof that their world really was only perfect in a relative sense, and I don't think they were at much risk of a "death by paradise" with how calculated every decision the Convocation made was.

The only pardon I grant the ancients is that they were ill-prepared for the initial final days (before any bootstrap parodoxes). They were indeed desperate. However, subsequent sacrifices only goes to show how easily and quickly they are to resort to these "desperate measures". It leaves the question, "Did they really have to sacrifice so many souls to halt the end of days?"

Venat's case is much different. As only half of the ancients were willing to sacrifice their lives. Everyone else were murdered by the sundering. She's no hero in my eyes. But she was saved by one.

The potential revival of the souls sacrificed is an interesting one coming from the perspective of one of those very ancients who sacrifice themselves. I believe Emet also said this, but that is coming from someone who justifies the rejoinings by considering sundered souls to not actually be living, so he's not actually killing anyone.

As I said before, this race of people have destruction written in their DNA. Every bit as much as their creation magicks.

[Lihtleita]

catch me fortnite dancing in amourot because the ancients are finally dead

[Lauront]

Although I agree with your points, which are well made, there's one thing I'd differ on - Hythlodaeus is referring to an awareness of the plans for their revival, but the timing is unclear. I'm aware that he phrases this as "the events leading to our purgatory", but he also frames Hydaelyn's intervention and the star's fate in that context, which would've came after, and suggests they were along for the entire ride as an audience; I suspect what he's referring to is their state within Zodiark on the moon all those thousands of years, later culminating in a dream of kinds, as "purgatory". I am speculating a little here, but given that Elidibus stated in SoS that he could hear the debate on this raging amongst his people, and thus emerged to reconcile their differences, to me it seems more like a case that those inside him became aware of this through something like that. The most compelling reason for the third round of sacrifices in my eyes is the fact that by all appearances, being left in Zodiark deprived them of something they valued as a people, which is return to the star. There may have been a case to delay this until Meteion is driven back, but that'd require them being informed of this.

The screen I posted earlier with the Hythlodaeus dialogue describes how badly damaged their star was by the incident.

[ElizanderNorisse]

Yes except for Hermes.

[Kranel_San]

Ancients deserving better doesn't mean they should have it. That's how things work irl and I'd prefer it to stay as such to give a touch a logicality.

[Rulakir]

Ancients deserving better doesn't mean they should have it. That's how things work irl and I'd prefer it to stay as such to give a touch a logicality.

Unfortunately, nothing else in the game works like this. The Scions being the poster children of how to handle suffering and despair was laughable when they're some of the most privileged bunch we ever meet. The average citizen of Eorzea has been through more. It's arguably a side effect of joining themselves at the hip to the WoL who never loses, so they're handed wins and rarely ever have to suffer any setbacks.

Needless to say, it's hard to take something like this seriously when the main fault of the Ancients is they didn't have the WoL championing them. There was no logical reason for either Doma or Ala Mhigo to win against Garlemald, but here we are.

[jameseoakes]

Unfortunately, nothing else in the game works like this. The Scions being the poster children of how to handle suffering and despair was laughable when they're some of the most privileged bunch we ever meet. The average citizen of Eorzea has been through more. It's arguably a side effect of joining themselves at the hip to the WoL who never loses, so they're handed wins and rarely ever have to suffer any setbacks.

Needless to say, it's hard to take something like this seriously when the main fault of the Ancients is they didn't have the WoL championing them. There was no logical reason for either Doma or Ala Mhigo to win against Garlemald, but here we are.

I agree a lot of this, the most of the scions are extremely privileged and not at all products of of suffering and Sharalya is probably more apathetic than Amamarot ever was so it feels so odd with the narrative the push for the Ancients and the current times

[Saraide]

I agree a lot of this, the most of the scions are extremely privileged and not at all products of of suffering and Sharalya is probably more apathetic than Amamarot ever was so it feels so odd with the narrative the push for the Ancients and the current times

Sharlayan being so outwardly apathetic was exactly the reason the scions left it behind.