Quote Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo View Post
The narrative repeatedly emphasizes that the "inhabitants" of Living Memory are computer simulations based on memories. This is not a story that explores philosophical questions like "if AI acts like a human, does it actually have personhood?", because concepts that are intangible and theoretical to us (souls, memories, etc) are scientifically understood quantities in this fictional world. If you accept the premise of the world-building being presented to us, then Living Memory's only life is its plants and animals.

Personhood aside, Living Memory has to be shut down; it can only sustain its existence by infinitely harvesting the lives of others. It's the classic sci-fi catastrophe grey goo.

The only viable solution is so obvious that it would be disingenuous to truly refer to this as any kind of trolley problem; you have a society made entirely of computer simulations on one track, and every life throughout the universe on the other. Which track should you switch the trolley onto? If we truly want to be ethical, there is a single right answer.
Yes, this is something I constantly had to do, to separate "myself" from the story being tld because it went heavily against my philosophical thoughts about life. to just try and stay within the confines of the world 14 has built.
That said I never thought that characters from ARR to Endwalker would hold such strong beliefs of what you can and can't do with a soul. Even when they themselves have been transported beyond reflections within crystals and while it is not the same, it is still a perversion of the natural state of things within 14's world building. Yet G'raha does it forcefully and accidentally pulls half of the scions to another reflection. But Alisaie isn't even remotely bothered by this in Shadowbringers.

But she is bothered by this memory shenanigans now. She even learns about the Yok Hyu's version of the similar belief on this expansion, that people are remembered by others and it's somehow a better belief than the one Alexandriands cooked up, why?
I could argue that the Aetherial Sea is just a different version of Living Memory, they just operate differently with different sets of beliefs.

but yes, Living Memory has to be shut down, but not because it hosts the memories of the endless, but because what Sphene and Sphene alone is doing to sustain those memories. Don't get those two mixed up.
Had Sphene not presented her ultimatum and started the interdimensional fusion, we would have 100% tried other solutions to keep these memories "alive". Even if Cahciua had come to us with the same proposal.

I don't see the crew doing the same thing would they have had more time. I honestly don't.