Dawntrail's Final Zones destroy everything the story has built.

[Willemdarke]

I love FF14. The story of hope, perseverance and looking towards a new dawn despite hardships has always resonated with me. Helping - or in the game's scope, saving - everyone I can is something I believe in.

I actually quite enjoyed Dawntrail's succession story. Yes, it was at times slow, cheesy and predictable, but it was also wholesome. Tural, I think, has the best worldbuilding the series has ever had, largely because it was given enough time to breathe, unlike the past 3 expansions, which have rushed past a myriad of disparate cultures/countries/societies.
Similarly, I eventually grew to enjoy the characters of Wuk Lamat, Erenville and Koana. They have all felt like realistic people with distinct personalities, character flaws and development.

Then came the expansion's endgame. This garbage was as badly written and as rushed as Zero's story in Endwalker. Worse than that - it completely goes against all the philosophical beliefs and moral values the story has been built upon and the personalities of both our player character and the supporting cast.

Dspite the multiple dialogue choices, FF14 isn't Baldur's Gate 3. You can RP however you like, but the player's personality is set in stone throughout the MSQ.

That said, how on Earth did anyone at Square think it's even remotely plausible for the characters to just go out and pull the plug on the life support of an entire race of people? This level of genocide is simply disgusting. And why? Because 2 or 3 Endless wanted to die? Setting aside the moral debate of assisted euthanasia, the vast majority of Endless never agreed to this, or even knew it was happening.

"We don't think the Endless are alive, so we aren't guilty of murder." That was Emet-Selch's entire argument for commuting mass genocide. Just two expansions ago, we vehemently opposed this line of thinking and condemned it.

Sphene was the threat and the problem. The Endless posed no threat whatsoever to the people of the Source and Reflections. More than that, they weren't even truly "endless". They were being sustained on a reservoir of aether - one that we were specifically told is running out. Why didn't we simply let the Endless live and die of "old age", when their aether ran out????? This whole section of the game made no sense and was simply uncomfortable to play through.

[Willemdarke]

To a lesser extent, these final zones invalidated the first half of Dawntrail too. We go through 7 levels of quests to determine who's the most knowledgeable, able and caring claimant - to determine who's worthy of being a leader. Bacool Ja Ja's superior genetics wasn't it. Zoraal Ja's birthright wasn't it. It was Wuk Lamat and Koana, the people who actually cared for the wellbeing of the people and who had the leadership qualities and education needed to make a nation prosper.

Then we go to Solution 9, Galool Ja is made king and everyone cheers and we are supposed to think this is great?
So a 5 year old, uneducated street urchin son of a deeply unpopular ruler, one who has zero social skills (barely speaking and continuously running away from carers to live with a robot) and knows -zero- about the people of Alexandria's needs and culture - is proclaimed king by said unpopular ruler and the Alexandrians are all there cheering.... What???

The second half of Dawntrail is not only exceptionally badly written, it actively harms the overall story of FF14. That was some Shadowlands level of BS and I think it's such a shame.

[Boblawblah]

Why didn't we simply let the Endless live and die of "old age", when their aether ran out?????

Because their psychotic Queen was programmed to not let us do that. *shrug*

meanwhile my WoL:

[AmorfaVex]

I love FF14. The story of hope, perseverance and looking towards a new dawn despite hardships has always resonated with me. Helping - or in the game's scope, saving - everyone I can is something I believe in.

I actually quite enjoyed Dawntrail's succession story. Yes, it was at times slow, cheesy and predictable, but it was also wholesome. Tural, I think, has the best worldbuilding the series has ever had, largely because it was given enough time to breathe, unlike the past 3 expansions, which have rushed past a myriad of disparate cultures/countries/societies.
Similarly, I eventually grew to enjoy the characters of Wuk Lamat, Erenville and Koana. They have all felt like realistic people with distinct personalities, character flaws and development.

Then came the expansion's endgame. This garbage was as badly written and as rushed as Zero's story in Endwalker. Worse than that - it completely goes against all the philosophical beliefs and moral values the story has been built upon and the personalities of both our player character and the supporting cast.

Dspite the multiple dialogue choices, FF14 isn't Baldur's Gate 3. You can RP however you like, but the player's personality is set in stone throughout the MSQ.

That said, how on Earth did anyone at Square think it's even remotely plausible for the characters to just go out and pull the plug on the life support of an entire race of people? This level of genocide is simply disgusting. And why? Because 2 or 3 Endless wanted to die? Setting aside the moral debate of assisted euthanasia, the vast majority of Endless never agreed to this, or even knew it was happening.

"We don't think the Endless are alive, so we aren't guilty of murder." That was Emet-Selch's entire argument for commuting mass genocide. Just two expansions ago, we vehemently opposed this line of thinking and condemned it.

Sphene was the threat and the problem. The Endless posed no threat whatsoever to the people of the Source and Reflections. More than that, they weren't even truly "endless". They were being sustained on a reservoir of aether - one that we were specifically told is running out. Why didn't we simply let the Endless live and die of "old age", when their aether ran out????? This whole section of the game made no sense and was simply uncomfortable to play through.

They werent a race, they were memories stored in a database.

If it was simply that, in and of itself, I MIGHT sympathize.

But no, it went further than that. A computer that killed living beings and harvested its souls to sustain itself.

Sorry, that was an abomination. My only regret is not blowing the damn place to smithereens.

[Khet_Fyth]

I get what you're saying, but this wasn't a race of people. It was AI computer code based on the memories of living people that required the consumption of actual living souls to maintain. Unless you think an AI generated version of someone has the same rights as a living breathing person you shouldn't feel anything at all except relief no more souls are being destroyed to fuel it.

[tsuchii]

You needed to end the endless to stop Sphene from cannibalizing more reflections.

The endless is already gone. That was the moral dilemma. They are going to expire anyway. They have had their life and their fill.

The post-yellow quests will expand on this because some of them refuse to end. You help them complete their unfinished business and they move on on their own.

[Connor]

Is it even possible to genocide AIs? Even if they are based on real people. Like, it’s not like you killed anyone - you literally saved countless lives by turning the system off. We just shut down the programs emulating once-living people.

Lastly, I can’t help but wonder if Sphene’s crown appearing at the end of Dawntrail suggests that her story isn’t quite over yet. I mean, being a super advanced AI carries the extremely convenient ability of being able to easily transfer yourself between electronic devices. Maybe she found a back-up server? She could be hiding in the ffxiv equivalent of Reddit servers

[Willemdarke]

We saved countless lives by killing Sphene, who was programmed to sustain the Endless and wanted to cannibalise other worlds to do so. Without her, the Endless are not a threat to anyone and would have eventually dissipated on their own.

Shutting down the terminals didn't even hinder Sphene, she was seemingly so crazed that she didn't even realise we removed the thing she was trying to sustain and we had to kill her anyway.

As for them not being a real race - *that's the point* - it's not our place to determine what is life and what isn't, just like it wasn't Emet-Selch's place to determine that we aren't alive.

Lest we forget, this game's character possess only fractions of souls and fractions of the aether, unlike truly "alive" races like Dragons. Still, despite being incomplete, imperfect beings, we are urged to live on.

Our role in Shadowbringers was reversed and we now we played the villain.

[Connor]

We saved countless lives by killing Sphene, who was programmed to sustain the Endless and wanted to cannibalise other worlds to do so. Without her, the Endless are not a threat to anyone and would have eventually dissipated on their own.

Shutting down the terminals didn't even hinder Sphene, she was seemingly so crazed that she didn't even realise we removed the thing she was trying to sustain and we had to kill her anyway.

As for them not being a real race - *that's the point* - it's not our place to determine what is life and what isn't, just like it wasn't Emet-Selch's place to determine that we aren't alive.

Lest we forget, this game's character possess only fractions of souls and fractions of the aether, unlike truly "alive" races like Dragons. Still, despite being incomplete, imperfect beings, we are urged to live on.

Our role in Shadowbringers was reversed and we now we played the villain.

I still think you’re misunderstanding what the
‘Endless’ actually are. It’s essentially an aetherial Frankenstein created using a repurposed soul and given form through stored memory data based on living individuals. They’re no more alive than Carbuncles, Fairies or Egi’s. That is to say, they’re artificial constructs that utilise data to give the impression of ‘being alive’. Turning that program off doesn’t harm or affect the souls being used in this process - it simply lets them go back to the aetherial sea and do whatever souls do (be reborn probably).

The ‘Endless’ was a computer program that was programmed to keep souls hostage and repurpose them as frequently as possible to form its inhabitants. But those inhabitants aren’t actually ‘alive’ - the program simply gives the illusion that they’re somehow ‘living on’.

The Endless could never be classed as ‘living beings’ in the standard sense; the only free will they had was that afforded to them by the system. We saw that with Sphene’s hesitation to invade other worlds being overwritten by her main directive to preserve the Endless. It’s also worth mentioning that ‘Sphene’ never actually became ‘crazed’, she was simply following her main directive of preserving the Endless. It wasn’t an entirely conscious or self-actualised path, she was simply a program doing what programs do (what they were made for lol).

Frankly it made me extremely frustrated throughout the final sections that we never got a single option to explain to Wuk Lamat that you cannot reason with a program/AI lol. They have their directives and that’s simply the end of it, outside of reprogramming them on the technical end. And naturally, despite all of Wuk’s usual preaching, Sphene still does the exact thing she was supposed to anyway (because she didn’t ever actually have a choice).

Like, to frame it another way - think of The Sims lol. You give the names, lives, determine their personalities and everything they ever do. But if you kill one (we have all tried locking on in a room with no door let’s not lie lol) or more, you’re not going to suddenly wonder if you’re truly honouring the sanctity of life and free will lol. The Endless are essentially the same thing - just physically manifest through aether+repurposes souls+technology.

That was my understanding of things anyway

[Granyala]

Worse than that - it completely goes against all the philosophical beliefs and moral values the story has been built upon and the personalities of both our player character and the supporting cast.

That said, how on Earth did anyone at Square think it's even remotely plausible for the characters to just go out and pull the plug on the life support of an entire race of people? This level of genocide is simply disgusting. And why? Because 2 or 3 Endless wanted to die? "We don't think the Endless are alive, so we aren't guilty of murder." That was Emet-Selch's entire argument for commuting mass genocide. Just two expansions ago, we vehemently opposed this line of thinking and condemned it.

Sphene was the threat and the problem. The Endless posed no threat whatsoever to the people of the Source and Reflections. More than that, they weren't even truly "endless". They were being sustained on a reservoir of aether - one that we were specifically told is running out. [B]Why didn't we simply let the Endless live and die of "old age", when their aether ran out?????

1) Kinda the point. This is supposed to teach us 2 things:
-1: that even a good sentiment like "protect my people at all costs" can be extremely harmful when adhered to in a fanatic manner. Even "protect" must have boundaries.
-2: that not every conflict can be resolved in a diplomatic, wholesome manner. It's either them or ALL inhabitants in all shard worlds and the source, possibly even beyond that because the system IS NOT SUSTAINABLE.
Both are extremely important lessons for our naive Wuk Lamat to learn.

2) It's not Genocide, the are no longer alive. They are trapped in a tiny dome, cannot move away from the machines that offer life support. The only reason why they appear happy is because they memories are being fudged with on an epic scale. If they had ALL their memories, they would quickly realize that this endless state is pure torture. Cachciua made that abundantly clear, and she is one of the few that actually HAS ALL HER MEMORIES.

3) No, Sphene was not the problem. The system was. As Raha stated: it is not sustainable. Never will be. Other forms of energy are not a valid substitute, they already did the research.
Killing sphene and pulling the plug are the same thing, the moral difference is merely in your head. Both actions result in the extermination of the endless.

Yeah what we have to do feels shitty. It is supposed to feel shitty. It is supposed to hurt. It is supposed to remind us that survival comes at a cost.

Is it even possible to genocide AIs?

Lots of Sci Fi have wrestled with that. Would an AI be alive?

I believe so, IF we're talking about a sentient AI.

The endless are technically sentient but their memories are being censored left, right, front and center to keep them in line and "happy" within the system.
At that point, it stands to reason whether they actually are still alive and their own persons.

Cahciua would be the big exception here and she made it clear that she considers this existence (limited to the dome, dependent on machinery) torture.