Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[redheadturk]

Regardless of Venat's reasoning or justification, I do not think she had the right as a single person to decide the course for the entirety of mankind based on her own beliefs. Venat has no right to act as a higher being or some sort of messianic figure to her fellow man; who is she to pass judgement? Who is she to decide the ancients right to live because of her own fears of the Plenty? This is my issue with Venat. As Emet-Selch said to Hermes in Ktisis, "Who are you to decide our fate?".

Maybe some can justify genocidal actions to themselves with the argument of the ends justify the means, but I cannot. Hermes was wrong to set a test for mankind's right to existence. Venat was wrong to pass judgement on their fate, especially whilst she withheld the stakes and vital information regarding the situation from essentially the entirety of the population. Emet-Selch was wrong to perpetuate a cycle of genocide to undo what was done to the ancients.

I would argue that what Venat did was worse. By withholding that information, she is at least partially complicit in the Ardors as well.

[Cleretic]

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: The Ancient world was an objectively better place than the one that Venat left us with. As I see it as a moral imperative to lessen suffering for your fellow man, yes, she was objectively wrong for not helping them prevent the Final days and for the sundering.

Except that the event that ended that perfection was not the Sundering: it was the End of Days, an event that could not be stopped (well, unless someone introduced Hermes to the concept of peer review, but for some reason that's not the idea being discussed). After that point, untimely deaths were now a thing, people were in pain, and difficult decisions were no longer unavoidable. A perfect building stops being perfect when it's felled by an earthquake; the sin is not on the demolitionist clearing the rubble, no matter how much you think it could be repaired.


Knowing that the notion of 'nobody was inherently right or wrong, because morality is not inherent and not all choices are made comfortably' was completely intentional to the point where the game directly asked it, I do think it's interesting to see exactly why people take the stances they do--including the people who take a stance that they can't take a stance. The people saying they don't have important information are perhaps the ones that I most understand without agreeing with, because from them I see an overall angle of 'I want to know I will make the right choice, and right now I don't'. Some are genuinely unsure and just want clarity, some seem to be leaning one way or the other but want some kind of green light to say that they're right before they plant their feet. I get that, but I don't think it's ever going to happen; actual proof of what the third sacrifice entailed, or the exact conscious experience of being a soul inside Zodiark, probably won't come. You might just need to make peace with the fact that you won't be perfectly happy with your answers.

Another thing I see, though, is sort of a post-hoc justification of the position someone landed on, either by claiming facts that aren't relevant (or might not be there at all) or taking swings at the character representing the other side. Essentially, to shore up the belief that you made the right choice by knocking the other side down even further. I wouldn't even say I'm free of this, even if the evidence for my stance came non-linearly; I land on Team Hydaelyn because I'm an environmentalist who will ultimately put the wellbeing of the planet over the comfort of its people, but somewhere in my greater argument will always be 'and also that guy on the other side goes on to invent fascism'. If I'm completely honest, even I don't know how relevant that part is to the argument or my eventual stance on it. But overall... I hope all the people taking this approach actually did get there through considering the situation as given, and didn't just twist, ignore or fabricate evidence to land in the camp they wanted.

[Cleretic]

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

And this is mostly unrelated, but I want to point out that I just realized that this thought of 'shoving mindless beasts into Zodiark might just make him a mindless beast' isn't unfamiliar to the series--you've just come from a different direction and essentially reinvented Exdeath from FFV. (Which I can't knock, I love Exdeath.)

[redheadturk]

Except that she had information with which they could have prevented the final days and didn't share it. not even with Emet. I could have understood not sharing it with the convocation at large, but not sharing it with Emet whom though he might not have believed it at first would still have investigated and acted on it [as proven by his actions leading up to Ktisis] is something that is a hard sell for me to forgive.

Edit to add: It's also why our inaction prior to leaving Elpis bothers me so much. I would have been screaming from mountaintops what was coming so that they could have acted, even if it would have meant my erasure. "To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom, it is indolence" is a tenet I take quite seriously, both in game and IRL, and that we weren't allowed to save the Ancients when we could have conceivably done so is horrific to me.

[KageTokage]

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

The Final Days spared no one, least of all the creations of the Ancients who presumably would've been susceptible to the influence of dynamis, with the "keening" described as triggering a change in all life by an Amaurotine.

There may not have even been enough wildlife left to fuel such a monumentally powerful act of creation at that point.

As far as the later sacrifices go, who knows how that might've played out, though I think it would've been nice for them to have offered more solid reasoning for it being "ill-fated" according to the codex. I was honestly expecting the Sundering happened because there was concrete evidence discovered by Venat's faction that something might or would've gone horribly wrong immediately if they had gone through with their plan to offer more sacrifices to Zodiark, mostly due to that 5.2 scene with them having expressed that efforts to turn the Convocation away from making that decision fell on deaf ears.

[Cleretic]

Except that she had information with which they could have prevented the final days and didn't share it. not even with Emet. I could have understood not sharing it with the convocation at large, but not sharing it with Emet whom though he might not have believed it at first would still have investigated and acted on it [as proven by his actions leading up to Ktisis] is something that is a hard sell for me to forgive.

Edit to add: It's also why our inaction prior to leaving Elpis bothers me so much. I would have been screaming from mountaintops what was coming so that they could have acted, even if it would have meant my erasure. "To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom, it is indolence" is a tenet I take quite seriously, both in game and IRL, and that we weren't allowed to save the Ancients when we could have conceivably done so is horrific to me.

And as I've mentioned multiple times now: going to Emet would have been the worst idea, because he's the one guy we're absolutely sure would have ruined everything. Hermes is needed in the seat of Fandaniel to protect against the End of Days, and also needs to be generally mentally well and unaware that he caused the bloody thing to remain on-task. Telling Emet-Selch would lead him to breaking both of those things; not only is he gonna get in the way of Hermes' appointment, but he's gonna make it damn clear about why. And we know that because we saw him do all of that when he learned it all the first time. We actually don't want him to investigate it, because him investigating it caused this mess. As to 'doing more in Elpis': remember the mechanics of time traverl in this universe. Making too much of a change creates a new timeline and orphans your old; if you were screaming from the mountaintops, not only do you go, so does everyone that was counting on you. And... again, because of the 'Hermes Needs To Help' factor, you probably can't even help.

Again, I think I understand where you're coming from; you believe in helping your fellow man, and for that reason you think Zodiark's sacrifices were the right choice. And I think what you're doing is trying to make yourself happy with that choice; to simplify it by making Venat worse, by making the problem avoidable. To take away the greys and shadows of where you landed, so that you can be completely okay with it.

[redheadturk]

Except I did want him to investigate it. I do want the game timeline orphaned and split off so both ends get happiness in the end. I'm speaking what I do because I want the timelines fractured and branched. Also, we are forgetting the old Fandaniel still exists and even if Hermes had discovered what he had done, the old Fandaniel could have stuck around much like Venat did after stepping down and kept his ass in control.

[Veloran]

Or as said by Omega it’s a combination of random environmental and emotional factors like friends, family, support systems, personal beliefs, hopes, experiences etc.

Or just raw shock and incomprehension, like with the main interviewee. Omega pretty much discards the notion of any actual correlation of factors at play.

Another thing I see, though, is sort of a post-hoc justification of the position someone landed on,

Omega specifically calls this out. Both with the player describing Emet-Selch as sort of a tragic friend, and with the innate inconsistency of viewing Venat as a hero and Hermes as a villain even though their actions and motivations in trying to forcibly change humanity are identical.

[Lauront]

Mm. I know a number of posters - Lauront included - have posts with clear sources that have been posted in response to such claims. At one point I had them bookmarked though something tells me hunting them down would prove to be a waste of time when they're deliberately overlooked and/or downplayed.

Yep, here for the older ones and the JP Hyth text Lurina kindly provided.

Honestly I think the third set of sacrifices are a moot point come Endwalker, as we know now that the point of contention was purely ideological.

Venat was clearly scared of humanity following the path of the Plenty and believed they needed to embrace suffering and hardship. This is no doubt affected by the fact she met the WoL, where the sundered are largely forced to accept living with suffering and strife, even though this is because their only other option is death. She came to the conclusion that the ancients, who had the ability to ultimately escape their newfound situation through both their own power and Zodiark and would over time return to their previous idyllic world, had failed the test set by Hermes and passed her judgement. The test which only she knew was taking place, the test which only she knew the cause of.

Would they have been able to have the resolve to defeat Meteion and find a way to do so in the future, had they known the cause? Most likely, considering how powerful the ancients and especially the members of the convocation were. However it is clear that Venat's issue lie within the ancient way of life itself and where she believed they were headed. She took it upon herself to be the one to pass judgement, which is what I believe to be her failing.

I agree. My problem with the fixation on the sacrifices is this:

1. It is ambiguous as to what they are. Statements about wanting to entrust the star to them do not resolve this. Moreover, the text on Hyth in the JP version, coupled with knowledge of how the ancients create life from 6.0, is strongly pointing to these being creations, and probably their progeny once they got round to the usual "the bees and the birds" thing. Very few of these are even capable of any real degree of sapience, and those which are in a limited fashion, we're told by and large don't qualify for souls (familiars.) So was she spinning a narrative that some of these might potentially become sapient, e.g. through a process of evolution, with knowledge she gained from the WoL about the sundered world, and used to embellish a bit? Were some sapient familiars or the like? Did she just mean make do with this new life and don't restore our brethren in the Purgatory, because this would repeat our doom? Is she pulling a bait and switch to buy time through such arguments, such that she can amass more support to summon Hydaelyn? We do not know, because it's never specified, and this is one of the biggest issues many of us have with the story, along with shying away from showing the Sundering and shoving it into the Nier crossover game. Bringing me to the next point.

2. The writers do not even reference this as a motivation of hers. The in-game explanation, articulated by Y'shtola, is that she was concerned ancient man could not manipulate dynamis. The Q&A explanation given is her belief that her people would not change and thus fear that they would head the way of the Plenty. As I've noted in the sources, even discussions in her faction centre around the ancients repeating their doom and she concedes that the Convocation intended the sacrifices in their bid to secure the star's future well-being, so their motives aren't in dispute. And even the dispute over it may have centred around whether those inside Zodiark would want to be revived; something a returned Elidibus could comment on and confirm the state of purgatory the souls saw themselves in. The writers have now had ample opportunity to clarify this - to me it is now abundantly clear that her overarching concern is dealing with Meteion and avoiding the Plenty, as the evidence concerning any intrinsic concern with the sacrifices is scant, and besides this, she has no qualms sundering all life on the star.

3. If, as some argue based on the new Watcher dialogue, her faction knew about her intent to sunder all along, then what would convincing the ancients otherwise accomplish? True, they were already divided over this (and the implication seems to be support for her faction's purported viewpoint waned over time), but let's posit the scenario where all handing over the star to the new life meant is the ancients don't exchange animals, plants and familiars for those in the Zodiark purgatory - if as some argue that the ancients could not devise means to deal with her (which, like you, I don't really buy), then so what if they did stop the sacrifices? She - resolved to do so whether the rest of her faction was or not - would still need to proceed with sundering them anyway. And if she did have in mind a scenario where they contrived alternate means (thus resolving the Dynamis problem), but was concerned that based on their mentality at the time, they'd end up as the Plenty, then this is precisely the point where the debate reverts to "well what if she'd told them the truth?" and the sacrifices become irrelevant.

TLDR I consider them to be a red herring at this point, as her real beef was their stance to "suffering". And like Brinne has articulated, EW has helped explain their strong emotional motive to proceed with this third stage. I think the burden of proof required by a civilisation that had managed to extirpate or at least mitigate many forms of suffering, in light of this, is going to be greater than a few platitudes about "suffering".

I also do not really understand this fixation with Venat being "objectively" justified. For the choice I went with (yes, Emet), it was sufficient that they're justified based on their perspective and aims - i.e. restore a star and people inexplicably shattered following an apocalypse, albeit at a terrible cost to the resulting fragmented life forms. But did it need to be "objectively" justified in the sense that you have to agree this was the best or only way forward, or that all parties had to agree this was necessary? No, there is no reason the sundered had to accept his own intentions as a reason to be wiped out, and neither did it need to be the case with Venat. It was a decision she made based on beliefs she had and was a way to achieve her aim, and it came at a great cost, both for the ancients and for the sundered shards.

If the writers revert to trying to push this as some "objectively" best scenario, in spite of all the ambiguities in the game which cast doubt on this (with the Omega quest further pulling apart this notion of one "correct" stance to despair, as Veloran notes), or resume attempts at ancient bad to transmute their erasure into a "good thing", and do so with more clumsy, heavy-handed and at best superficially/tangentially relevant "themes", I'm afraid that's the point where I will check out, as I've little interest in being pushed such a narrative. I don't necessarily want something like an AU - it would be nice for the sake of exploring and I wouldn't object to it, but it's not necessary - for me the key thing is that they clarify their message on what happened to the ancients and Venat's actions being driven by her beliefs of what would be best, rather than some Objectively Best and Only Way, and they went some way to treating this as a matter of perspective in the Omega quests. So a regression would be most unfortunate.

On the topic of personal views, I will simply say that had the story premised her as annihilating her people over a dispute regarding animals, plants and maybe some rare sapient familiars, that would be an even more abhorrent reasoning to me than what they went with in the story - this viewpoint simply does not compute for me, and I am afraid I am simply at an irreconcilable impasse with anyone who would see it as sufficient - something I'd view as dimly as wiping out humans for the sake of some 'ecological' balance, or for the sake of animals, or the like. Overall, based on what we know of the sundered, vs the ancients and their symbiotic view of how they, their creations and star fit into a singular lifeforce, I am baffled that it is even argued that the ancients were somehow worse in this respect - this is at odds with everything we're shown about the sundered, whatever excuses are contrived for them. But again, even if this were the reverse, it would still not suffice for me as a good enough reason, let alone an "objective" one.

[Cleretic]

Except I did want him to investigate it. I do want the game timeline orphaned and split off so both ends get happiness in the end. I'm speaking what I do because I want the timelines fractured and branched. Also, we are forgetting the old Fandaniel still exists and even if Hermes had discovered what he had done, the old Fandaniel could have stuck around much like Venat did after stepping down and kept his ass in control.

We don't actually know that the old Fandaniel would still be around, and I'd actually bet otherwise. I had a longer thing about this talking about the fact the timeframe was probably fairly short, and that I'd expect Old Fandaniel to vacate the seat early, but... hoenstly, I'm less interested in talking about that than I am in that first part of what you said.


The present day was relying on the Warrior of Light to come back with vital information. It is no exaggeration that if they failed in their journey, for any reason, that entire world dies. More than one world, in fact--we can't forget the shards (of which right now there's five in good state). Meanwhile, the Ancient world is unlikely to change even if you threw everything at it, for the reasons described.

What does your moral imperative to lessen the suffering of your fellow man say about the fact that your decision in this scenario is to leave six worlds to die, while trying to protect one with a slim chance of survival?