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.

[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

[Roda]

I'm sorry but I can't help myself.

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.

(the unfortunate problem with the Endless wasn't that they "weren't people", we weren't given enough time to have any kind of revelation to validate that, it's that their society couldn't be sustained without the destruction of ours and everyone else's. They were unsustainable and a threat.)

[Aurumis]

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.

Exactly this!! You can't compare that to real people. And they are EATING other's people live's for a selfish desire of continuing existing when they are already DEAD. Meanwhile the rest of the worlds have only ONE opportunity to live. Fuck Alexandrians, unplug them all.

[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.

[Aulainn]

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.

Say goodbye to G'raha then. He is just "AI computer code" controlling a physical body.