The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[KizuyaKatogami]

I think those in the other timeline gave in to despair, too. We got the impression their world was pretty bad off. But they looked to the past like the Ancients did. I thought it was rather poetic there that as Middy had come to Etheirys because it meant hope, he was able to become the hope for that timeline and allow them to look to the future again.

Have you ever seen a situation where every is losing it except that one person? They keep things together because they have to. That's our WoL. I think that's part of why the Scions told the world they had disbanded. Time to find their own solutions for once.

As far as the Empty, I don't believe there was any indication in the story there that we were going to harm anything with summoning. We were attempting to kickstart the elements again since they had stagnated due to overexposure to Light. If you're approaching it from the idea of looking into the past, it's not really that. That land can't support life anymore. We weren't restoring it entirely to what it was before. We were making it viable to whatever life grew there from that point onward.

My empty point was you portrayed that summoning a god to fix your problems for you is wrong. Yet we do that very thing for the empty. As for harming....do you not remember e8? Ryne was about to cause another flood of light, and we couldnt do much to stop it. It's only because of Gaia that we're able to beat her and prevent it. The same way you're saying middy was their hope in that other timeline is the same way Zodiark was the ancient's beacon of hope. He was literally a manifestation of hope and want for salvation, this is further cemented by Elidibus. If it wasnt for him, we literally wouldnt exist. We rely on gods over and over yet somehow its only wrong when the ancients do it? Give me a break.

[anhaato]

One of these days you will all give Elidibus the respect he deserves for protecting us for 12k years

[Lauront]

At the end of the day, their star was on the verge of dying, which is explored in texts relating to SHB, e.g. Hythlodaeus detailing its state after the Final Days as the wind ceasing to blow etc. The Amaurot dungeon visually portrayed this, as below. They worked to provide a solution within the confines of what they knew and what methods they had available to them. Even if the Final Days could not directly affect them, they were capable of creating powerful creations, which the Final Days hijacked control over for many of them. This is what posed a huge risk and turned it into such a disaster. Simply not giving into despair will not suffice, because as touched upon by the role quests, eventually even the most strong willed will eventually be affected by Endsinger's despair vomit. You can calm the situation for a while, although even so Thavnair's skies were swarming with blasphemies and they were lucky enough to have champions with whom Hydaelyn deigned to share the truth, so that Endsinger could be brought low. The ancients devised a potent workaround that shielded the star for 12k years, which the sundered owe their very existence to. While Midgardsormr giving the 8UC "hope" is touching, it doesn't amount to much alone.




It is possible an actual alternative, viable solution could've been devised if Venat had been upfront with them early. Absent this counterfactual scenario, we are stuck with what they devised - a solution which shielded their star for 12k years. At least up to and including the second stage of sacrifices, what they are doing is no different to using the primals in the Empty to restore it, other than Zodiark needing to stick around to keep the shield up. As for the third stage? Had Venat been upfront with them about the risks this plan posed, mayhap they'd have re-considered it. But she did not share this knowledge, and with the fact that those in Zodiark turned out to be caught in some manner of limbo, deprived from their ability to return to the star, it is not exactly difficult for me to see why they were considering the final stage of sacrifices described in the sources I posted. Meanwhile, Venat's concern was ever two things - 1) dynamis manipulation and 2) heading to the Plenty. Even if she convinced them to stop the sacrifices, and not continue restoring their world (which is what she thought would lead to a similar fate to the Plenty), what was she proposing to do then with 1) remaining an issue? Was she going to risk ending the WoL's timeline given her fascination with them (assuming she didn't think an AU could form a la the 8UC)? If she truly was concerned about messing up with the timelines, and thus the desire to maintain their consistency, that is fine, but one cannot simultaneously use this argument and try claim this is the only conceivable and best outcome. It is a choice/decision, which comes at the expense of the ancients. Hence the need for some, I think, to try dress this up as the only conceivable outcome.

I've yet to see a good argument as to what the alternative was to Zodiark without Venat explaining the situation to them clearly, and she herself relies on him for her own plan to work. Meanwhile, the Minstrel had this to say on the action of summoning Zodiark:

That the ancients should sacrifice half their number to save the star... The strength of their resolve makes me tremble in admiration.

The fact that the Ascians would go on to fight for their people and star for 12k years is proof to me that the one thing the ancients certainly did not want for is resolve.

[Silvaire_Valtain]

This is just straight up false and it makes your entire point that the WoL was complicit in the ancients' demise fall apart. By the time of us meeting the gang in elpis, the meteion sisters had already visited all their planets. They had already soaked up enough despair to corrupt the network completely. With their inability to manipulate dynamis they would have had a far worse chance than us at succeeding against the endsinger in her domain. Y'all need to pay more attention to what's going on.

Venat's dicision was a cruel one but faced with absolute annihilation even dark paths seem easy to take.

The Ancients could create Entelechies, like Meteion. So they could create an Entelechy to go fight Meteion.

Y'all need to think about things and not just accept what you are told.

[TaleraRistain]

My empty point was you portrayed that summoning a god to fix your problems for you is wrong. Yet we do that very thing for the empty. As for harming....do you not remember e8? Ryne was about to cause another flood of light, and we couldnt do much to stop it. It's only because of Gaia that we're able to beat her and prevent it. The same way you're saying middy was their hope in that other timeline is the same way Zodiark was the ancient's beacon of hope. He was literally a manifestation of hope and want for salvation, this is further cemented by Elidibus. If it wasnt for him, we literally wouldnt exist. We rely on gods over and over yet somehow its only wrong when the ancients do it? Give me a break.

We had absolutely no way going into E8 to know Ryne was going to throw a nutty like that. And what we did with the ideas of the primals, since they weren't even real primals we were summoning, was similar to what Azem did in the story with Ifrita. We weren't summoning a god and expecting it to fix all our problems. We were composing the aether into something and then dispersing it for another purpose.

[Elesh]

The Ancients could create Entelechies, like Meteion. So they could create an Entelechy to go fight Meteion.

Y'all need to think about things and not just accept what you are told.

In theory they could, but what makes you think you know more about their capabilities than Emet Selch?

Emet Selch himself said '(the WoL) got humanity farther than (the ancients) could have' - perhaps he had a better gauge of their limitations than we do, being among their best and brightest?

[AnnaUK]

It felt rushed to me. I wanted to see so much more of their homeland.

[Avidria]

The Ancients could create Entelechies, like Meteion. So they could create an Entelechy to go fight Meteion.

Y'all need to think about things and not just accept what you are told.

They could have, but how long would it take? Would they have enough time? Would the one person to ever attempt it, let alone succeed (arguably considering the outcome), cooperate with them?

I mean there are definitely holes in the story and the timeline, but that pretty much just means we have no idea how much better or worse it would have been for anyone if Venat did tell everyone and give them a chance to come to agreement on some solution other than literally ripping their civilization apart.

And, I mean. There is the fun fact that our characters and their stories literally couldn't exist if the sundering didn't happen. So. SE kinda backed themselves into a corner, there.

[DPZ2]

Do people just forget about what happened in ShB? You know, with the Exarch coming from different timeline...?

Our timeline remains our timeline. It is perfectly possible that in another, parallel, universe, Meteion returned, Hermes declined to speak of their despair and the Ancient perished anyway. Not my problem.

As for the 8th Umbral Calamity. Not my problem either. I'm dead in that timeline. Hydaelyn is no more. The remaining Three Ancients are perfectly capable of bringing about the Rejoining. Eventually they die, since none of them know how to deal with Meteion, since Fandaniel didn't leave notes. The end.

The 8th Umbral Calamity occurs. I'm dead. Hydaelyn is no more. The world is Rejoined and Hades can finally call back the dead. Meteion kills them all with another version of the Final Days. The end.

Rinse, repeat. Again and again and again, through an unending set of parallel universes, including one where Meteion is never created, and the Ancients happily live to the conclusion of their civilization.

Our story is not that story. Never was.

[AnEmissary]

Then I would truly prefer that the story had ended there, or completely changed in its focus, than continued on as this horrifying nightmare of a broken world. It's okay for things to end, if it means remaining true to the themes and prior material of the story. It would have done it credit, in my opinion, for a game to acknowledge that. It could have been followed on by an FFXIV 2: After Story sort of thing if the devs had wanted: a new and more modern MMO without the limitations with which this one is stuck, a technical metaphor for the expanded possibilities available in a whole world.

But if not, that's fine too. This just feels like an absolute betrayal of principles and themes that have been around since the very beginning.

'To give up on those one might conceivably save is not wisdom--it is indolence.' And I believe with my whole heart that there was a way for the Ancients to be saved, and in not doing so the story has abandoned the idea to which it has clung so tightly, even in this very expansion.

(Post has been edited to correct some typographical errors.)