Finished the MSQ - Feels bad, pushed to do evil [Spoilers inside]

[AmorfaVex]

So uh, just turn the computers back on...

[Bright-Flower]

So uh, just turn the computers back on...

Those computers were powered by the souls of the dead, preventing them from returning to the aetheral sea and requiring war and death to get enough to power it. Plus we didn't just power the machine down we deleted the memories stored there. Unless we forgot to empty the recycle bin or something they probably can't just be restored.

[Magikazam]

As much as I agree, I doubt there was a reasonable way to keep the Endless around long term.

Agreed. The issue is just as you say, they tackled it badly. It just come as we need to get rid of them cause they are problematic. Will it true, it fail to explore the fact that these being could be considered ''alive'' despite being fantasy world AI. It come off bad since we had an xpac where we shame a certain Ascian who want to kill lesser form of life to save his own people.

without undermining the writers other pet theme they like pushing: that the endless circle of life and death is a good thing, we shouldn't aspire to break from it, and we shouldn't be sticking around too long or cling to the past either.

That kinda weird and go against existing lore too. Immortal being exist, Primal are eternal and can even be summoned back to life if they die, Dragon are immortal. Ancient decided when they ''joined the stars''. Zenos and that one fishmen in leviathan questline can use their Echo to litteraly body swap and cheat dead. In our fight against the former, we even use dynamis and echo to powerup and heal fatal injuries.

[Kaedan]

The Endless weren't alive. They were AI crafted from recorded memories. We didn't "kill" anyone. We just shut down the AI servers.

Now, a different argument I suppose would be if you actually consider AI "alive" (which I personally don't), but your premise that they "are clearly alive" has not been justified.

Furthermore, I would say that even IF we grant the fact they are alive (again, I don't see any argument that can justify that, but for argument's sake), they are alive at the COST of other real people's lives.

So it would be like saying America became a land of vampires but needed to kill and eat people of other countries to survive. That's not okay on any level.

[Hironaga]

Tell me you didn't read the dialogue without telling me.

[LylyAmery]

Do you completely cease to exist in every way when there's a power outage where you are?

Do you have something selectively controlling what memories you have access to and which you don't?

Do you lack a soul?

I do cease to exist if I run out of energy, I die, it's pretty simple.

I do have something selectively controlling what memories I have access to and don't, my subconscious. Just because you can be influenced doesn't mean you aren't real, if someone took a knife to someone's brain, they could most certainly change them, but they would still be alive (barring overzealous slicing).

I do lack a soul because souls, to my knowledge, can't be proven to exist. Sure they exist in the FFXIV world, but even then, why do we endow that half of a living being with any more significance than the other.

Cahciua's existence and actions are in tension with the entire second half of what you said.

[KageTokage]

XIV has always been nebulous and philosophical about what truly defines a person.

The Endless honestly didn't come across to me as being any less "alive" then the shades in Ultima Thule (Who had a whole quest chain dedicated to validating their existence) so being forced to erase them did leave me feeling rather...uncomfortable regardless of the circumstances demanding it.

[AmorfaVex]

Those computers were powered by the souls of the dead, preventing them from returning to the aetheral sea and requiring war and death to get enough to power it. Plus we didn't just power the machine down we deleted the memories stored there. Unless we forgot to empty the recycle bin or something they probably can't just be restored.

The last I checked the zone wasnt destroyed (as I would have preferred)

The final cutscene focused on the crown, which served as a special regulator for the Queen.

The hardware is still intact, if shutting the system down bothers everyone so much, just restart the system.

This way in 7.xx I will actually have something to destroy.

[BigCheez]

If the ending felt evil, you must have missed some major plot points.

[Ozmandis]

Tell me you didn't read the dialogue without telling me.

Tell me you didn't read the thread without telling me.

We don't care what the dialogue says. Are you pretending that if the dialogue was saying that a cat was a dog you would blindly listen ? That's absurd. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They presented the endless as something that we can't certainly define as non living so we have feelings for them just to tell us they are not alive so we don't feel too bad about ending them. That's bad writing 101, that's all.