Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[EaraGrace]

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.

And what did he have to say after the truth sunk in?

Nashvan: It all seemed so surreal...which was probably what saved me from the transformation. The truth of it didn't begin to sink in until the worst of it was over. I have not the words to describe how I felt then. The sorrow, the overwhelming sense of helplessness... I may still be wallowing in misery if not for my old friend, Djinabaha. I'd lost my will to work, and he encouraged me with kind words and odd jobs. Now, somehow, I live again. I am thankful to him, to the courageous Ahewann, and to you. If you see your comrades, please let them know their efforts were not in vain.

One other little line that is important in this discussion I think needs to be brought up.

Omega: You were of the same mind. Resolved to the same purpose. Yet your strength of heart─of spirit─was not equal. If merely emulating the individual is insufficient, then some other unseen factor must be involved...

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.

Zodiark seeding life on a damaged world does not mean those souls wouldn’t have been Ancients. If the world was truly becoming impossible to live in, then humanity would also wither, even if they were Ancients. They would need the new life as much as it needed them, the star after all still needed to grant new Ancients their souls after all.

2. The writers do not even reference this as a motivation of hers.

I would point out that it is indeed mentioned in her speech in the now “infamous” cutscene in Elpis. The Third Sacrifice was important for what it marked, the sacrifice of lives in order to restore what once was. As you yourself noted the Convocation was also divided on this action, so we can say this wasn’t a haphazard decision. They thought on this, and decided that it be best to trade those future lives for the ones in Zodiark. For a species that was on the road to destroying itself due to a belief that the old world was perfect, this is consequential. Not to mention the potential complication of having even more Ancients who had been touched by Zodiark now having to decide whether they should seal him away or continue using him.

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?

For one the summoning of Hydaelyn may not necessitate burning through their souls. Humanity as well may not need to be completely wiped of their remembrance of the past, as they would have demonstrated they could move forward even with the temptation of their “paradise.” Beyond that we can only speculate given we can’t exactly ask what the plan was, but I am of the belief that something similar to the Twelve could’ve been arranged. Namely that while many would be Sundered, as many could’ve been separated from the world, able to live out their lives helping and protecting the Sundered from afar. The Lunarians in FF4 is the obvious parallel.

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.

Old Fandaniel knew nothing of the celestial, as per Emet Selch statements.

[redheadturk]

Note I said branched timeline. G'raha did it, there is no reason we could not have. In all likelyhood we would have either been forced back to our timeline [in which case we never would have been able to see our handiwork of saving the ancients, which I am completely all right with as long as they are alive and happy in that other branch] or have access to both timelines through Elidibus' tinkering with the tower.

Old Fandaniel knew nothing of the celestial, as per Emet Selch statements.

I wasn't talking about using him for dynamis reasons, but for the reasons of keeping his protégé from spoiling the sauce due to the jogging of his memory of what he had done.

[Cleretic]

Note I said branched timeline. G'raha did it, there is no reason we could not have. In all likelyhood we would have either been forced back to our timeline [in which case we never would have been able to see our handiwork of saving the ancients, which I am completely all right with as long as they are alive and happy in that other branch] or have access to both timelines through Elidibus' tinkering with the tower.

G'raha orphaned his timeline, he can't go back. And we had the exact same time machine as we did. You would not be 'forced back to our timeline', you would be unable to access it. This doesn't mean you have a chance to save both timelines; it means that the present day dies in darkness, waiting for you to come back with crucial information that never comes; they can never find Meteion because they never know she's there. This is not speculation: this is STATED, by Elidibus.

It is not possible to save both worlds. I was going to compare this scenario to a trolley problem, but in truth, it's worse; the trolley problem presumes that if you act, less will die but those who do will be on your hands. In the scenario you've invented, to stay on the course is to save more lives; diverting is the cruelest possible choice, by all metrics.

[redheadturk]

At which point I decide which lives hold more value to me, and to be honest the Unsundered Ancients hold more value to me than the Sundered, who seem to have quite a bit of skill at destroying themselves than the Unsundered ever did. The sacrifices they made were ones made out of necessity due to Venat not telling them the truth. Also, as it has already been stated by Word of God that the Sundered were shards of the Ancient World, in all likelihood we could find and befriend the Unsundered forms of all of our friends.

[Iscah]

Note I said branched timeline. G'raha did it, there is no reason we could not have. In all likelyhood we would have either been forced back to our timeline [in which case we never would have been able to see our handiwork of saving the ancients, which I am completely all right with as long as they are alive and happy in that other branch] or have access to both timelines through Elidibus' tinkering with the tower.

If we did it the exact way G'raha did it, we would be stuck. We would create a new course of time while we are in it, and be carried along into a different future to the one we travelled from – leaving all our friends and our entire world to die without the precious information we learned. (And whatever you may personally think of the Scions, they are clearly the generic-WoL's dear friends, and I would doubt that the WoL is the sort of person who would leave them to their fate.)

It's possible that Elidibus's portal would work differently and create a bridge across the two branches, but perhaps we didn't want to risk it, or didn't think of it, or the writers didn't think of it.

Ultimately, the ancients ARE doomed to go through the suffering of the Final Days in at least one timeline, and creating a second better one won't actually fix it for the first lot. And we do need to get back to our own timeline.

[EaraGrace]

I wasn't talking about using him for dynamis reasons, but for the reasons of keeping his protégé from spoiling the sauce due to the jogging of his memory of what he had done.

You’d be hoping his despair at Meteions report and his love for her isn’t outweighed by the affection he has for his mentor. Given he already attacked a member of the Convocation, the Head of the Bureau of Creation, the former Azem and their guest, threw Elpis into chaos and used Kairos to manipulate human memories, all while knowing that his former mentor would still be around to hear about it, I’d say that’s not likely to work.

[Cleretic]

At which point I decide which lives hold more value to me, and to be honest the Unsundered Ancients hold more value to me than the Sundered, who seem to have quite a bit of skill at destroying themselves than the Unsundered ever did.

You've said exactly that you value the unsundered more than the sundered, a few times before this, in fact. So I'm not sure why I ever expected you to choose otherwise.

Ironically, despite what you were always saying, you never were choosing to save your fellow man.

[redheadturk]

You've said exactly that you value the unsundered more than the sundered, a few times before this, in fact. So I'm not sure why I ever expected you to choose otherwise.

Ironically, despite what you were always saying, you never were choosing to save your fellow man.

Except I was, because I consider the Ancients much closer to "my fellow man" than I ever considered the Sundered.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I just find it incredibly convenient that the writers managed to make it work where the protagonists are able to not only create a branching timeline but do so where both timelines people(main cast that is) are effectively safe and fine. Yet now fast forward to this expansion and all of a sudden all of this just….isn’t possible. All of a sudden it’s the ancients are doomed no matter what and there’s no way time travel would help. Which is a bit ironic considering one of the main themes in not only this game but also the ff series as a whole is defying fate. This is something even the twins reference in UT saying “they will defy fate no matter the cost.” Well….why doesn’t this apply twofold?

[Theodric]

No, the idea is correct. When we're dealing with a moral quandary which entails the destruction of one world for the sake of creating another one, inevitably everything that happens in that latter world is relevant to the question. For an example related to your hypothetical, look at Yotsuyu, someone who resorted to countless horrible deeds after being abused by the people and circumstances she was born to. Obviously, the conditions that made her who she was never would have happened in the ancient world. Similarly, anytime in the future there's some evil done by mankind against itself, there will always be the lingering sentiment that something else was destroyed specifically to enable this to happen. So whenever we look back and judge the ancient conflict, we're weighing it against the consequences of the world we have now.

Fair point. I do agree that Venat - and Hermes - are to blame for pretty much everything bleak that has every happened in the game's story. It's a consequence of trying to tie everything together instead of allowing each piece of the puzzle to thrive as its own thing. It rids various characters and factions of their agency.

I'd also note that nobody is under any obligation to approve of Venat's actions and the strange insistence that Venat is being 'attacked' for engaging in genocide is - quite frankly - bizarre to me. More so the deceptive attempt to pretend as if those of us criticising her have not consistently said 'let's agree to disagree'.