Thread: [SPOILERS] Dawntrail should get an ARR-style retcon in the post-MSQ

I have not seen many people discussing the true implications of what Wuk Lamat has done by the end of the MSQ: Wuk Lamat effectively committed a genocide on the Endless (the Alexandrian ruling class), and then installed a puppet proxy king in the form of Gulool Ja (a non-native). They even emphasize this by stating Wuk Lamat will be there to "guide" the literal baby in his role as king. Wuk Lamat killed the leaders of Alexandria and is now in control of it, she conquered them.

Not a SINGLE Alexandrian pushes back against this, for some reason. Their beloved-beyond-all-words queen Sphene, whom has been their ruler for hundreds or thousands of years, and led them in a peaceful and happy existence was overtly killed by Wuk Lamat. The ONLY reaction to this is a small blurb of dialogue about how they "mourned their queen". Not only that, but many of them feared and disliked Zarool Ja, and would be unlikely to support his wishes for succession. This is honestly a disgrace of writing and the only way things end up like this are purely due to the writers making it that way.

Not only all that, but Dawntrail's entire final plot arc is totally antithetical to everything done in Endwalker and even to Final Fantasy IX. The MSQ almost feels intentionally spiteful to anyone who resonated with the messages in those other stories. Endwalker's ultimate plot was set in motion by Hermes who became distressed at the callous mistreatment of "lesser souls" and Creations (whom were living and experienced feelings) by the Ancients, who did not acknowledge their sentience, and his questioning the purpose of life which led to him creating the Meteia and forming nihilistic ideas. FFIX's many themes revolve around life and death, and the sanctity of all forms of life, no matter how they are created or born. By the end of FFIX, Kuja himself comes to terms with being able to make his life what he wants it to be, and Vivi's whole personal arc centers on him coming to terms with being an artificial creation without a soul and understanding that even if he was created he is still a valuable living person that should live life to the fullest. In Dawntrail, we are made to erase the Endless from existence because they are a "facsimile", a claim by Cahciua (who is not a member of the Alexandrian society), while the Endless are clearly sentient people that practice a different way of life and afterlife that's more similar to the Ancients. Cahciua herself should know that, as she lives both inside and outside Living Memory to the extent she managed to form a resistance organization, she is very clearly self-aware, has feelings, desires, needs, etc. The Endless are living things. All of the logic for why it was "okay" to erase the Endless is reductive at best and downright malicious at worst, and is completely derogatory to the lessons on the sanctity of life in Endwalker and in FFIX. And it never needed to be like that, had the writers had any amount of competency.

After finishing the Dawntrail MSQ, I felt gross and disappointed, to be honest. This story made me feel genuinely disgusted in what I was forced to take part in by Wuk Lamat. Wuk Lamat herself is a nearly sociopathic character for a variety of reasons, and her goofy incompetence quickly devolved into causing genuine harm and destruction to an entire civilization and way of life because she, for once, couldn't understand it.

I see no way that this can be repaired aside from introducing some sort of restoration project for Living Memory, which is now a literal PHYSICAL SCAR within the game of what we were made to do. Wuk Lamat needs to be narratively confined to her palace and phased out of the story, while the Scions and WoL deal with setting things right for her with the Alexandrians, and working towards getting them a fairly chosen ruler of actual Alexandrian heritage.

I understand many people will probably not fully agree with everything I've said, but the main thing stands that the writers did an UNFORGIVABLE disservice to the Alexandrian people and their entire arc. They existed to be conquered and be a vehicle for Wuk Lamat's ambitions and "growth"(non-existent). More could be said about how Krile was backseated when this should have absolutely been her expansion too, but there's enough as it is, one thing at a time.

Originally Posted by Striker44

The Endless are AI's. They are not "clearly sentient people." They are AI's programmed to act like the people they are based on, but as we see in the case of Sphene, even that programming can be "tweaked" to emphasize or de-emphasize things about them. They are the equivalent of ChatGPT's given bodies. EW was about valuing beings that were actually real, living creatures. DT is about letting go and moving forward with our lives.

Also, don't forget that Alexandria itself effectively invaded and conquered part of Tural. It exists on the Source, in Tural, and is part of Tuliyollal's empire (including the Turali people it took away from their own lives by isolating them inside the dome). In the end, Alexandria invaded Tural, fought a war against Tuliyollal and lost, and is now part of Tuliyollal's empire as a result.

It may be time to step away for a bit. When someone reaches the point of shouting about "unforgivable" things in a video game and declaring the writers incompetent because one personally doesn't like the story they wrote, that sounds like a good sign it's a healthy move to detach oneself.

The endless are 100% implied to have sapience because an AI program created to eternally preserve a persons memories would be unable to take steps towards ending its own existence. Cauchia is definitive proof the endless have a degree of agency

The endless (via cauchia, Otis, krile’s parents and the proposal NPC) are all fully aware they are endless and understand how their programming works but also have shown to act beyond it, particularly the proposal NPC who states he has been spat out by the system before and never made a move for his finance but chose to do it this time because he is unsure of how long the existence of the endless can last (a common thread amongst the endless in that they understand that their existence isn’t forever), in that scene he breaks out of the implied temporal lock that exists amongst the endless. The NPC that makes the game for you in yesterland and changes his age when he realises that his childhood form doesn’t make him happiest is another example

The endless may not be human but they are 100% sapient, they aren’t the people they were based on, they are different entities that use the memories of the deceased Alexandrians as a foundation

One element of the Endless situation that bothered me somewhat was how easily we were able to flick the terminal 'off switch' in general. Other than the Messo terminal there were no safeties in place on the other ones at all. Granted, the Endless themselves couldn't do anything with them but considering that neither the Endless nor the 'robots' could tell that 'we' were living, you'd have thought there would've been something in place to prevent tampering. But no - we just wandered up to them and turned them off.

I hate the endless situation so much because it conflicts so heavily with my personal headcanon that i wrote to be so beige that i thought there was no way they could conflict with it

Like due to traumatic events in my WOL’s past he can’t bring himself to end someone’s life purely on the basis that that person can be deemed non human (yes his past involves slavery how could you guess)

Like how beige is that? The apparently benevolent WOL can’t even avoid declaring others as non human then massacring them. It’s horrid, I completely rewrote the ending of DT in my WOL’s headcanon because of how badly the conflict with the morals of the endless is with his worldview

Dawntrail is a parody and not meant to be taken seriously, we're still asleep on the boat on the way to Tural.

Did you really think the writers would mess up such a simple sci-fi concept after Shadowbringers and Endwalker? Surely you jest.

Originally Posted by Connor

Also maybe it’s harsh but frankly I still do not see how you can ‘genocide’ computer programs, no matter how realistic they are. I mean the souls are all released back into the aetherial sea right? We’ve literally done the exact opposite of a genocide by turning the terminals off because those souls will go on to create new life. If we’d done nothing they’d still be trapped in Living Memory being used to fuel a projection of someone that isn’t even them anyway.

Stealing people’s literal souls and using them to try and cope with grief seems just as unforgivable to me. If the dead can live on through memories does it really matter if a machine is projecting a manifestation of those memories? Or is it enough for them to live on in our memories ; in that way they never truly leave us. kinda thought that was the entire point of the storyline but I guess it was about murder lol

If they are just programs then most of the second half of dawntrail is just roleplaying with chatbots...