Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Xylira]

The Endless are just echoes of the dead, copies of memories being played out by an elaborate AI system powered by blanked souls. There are the occasional glimmer of some manner of autonomy or sentience, but they're just illusions. I felt the story made it quite clear that despite appearances it was all just a hollow and artificial existence, and the Endless are little more than AI ghosts. It's why Sphene was so hell bent on protecting 'her people', so much as to justify genocide, as it was just the system's directives playing out through the lens of an approximation of the dead queen's personality recreated from her memories.

[OMGJesuis66]

It is interesting to me that everyone who speaks up against the actions taken in Living Memory, cannot really process that the Endless are not living beings. They wish to blame it upon writing, they wish to compare it with Emet-Selch's actions, and it's such a screaming false symmetry that is stunning.
If anything, Emet and Sphene's actions were almost equivalent, albeit different solutions to simply recover/preserve the dead.

There is no life in Living Memory, at all. There's nothing for us to hold onto the prospect of saving genuinely, all there's there cannot be saved because there is NOTHING there.
It is the equivalent of a Ghost, the best thing you can do to pay respects is to shut down the lights, close the door, and preserve those who passed in your heart as you move on with grief.

The living remains, the dead are set to have their rightful rest. Even for basic literacy, this is not hard to comprehend and it stuns me how people twist the topic of such a beautiful zone that much. For me, and in my personal opinion only, a vastly better zone than Tempest and Ultima Thule.

[Magikazam]

It is interesting to me that everyone who speaks up against the actions taken in Living Memory, cannot really process that the Endless are not living beings.

The issue there being that we've seen similar being in ultima thule that are considered ''living beings''. I wouldn't consider it weird if it wasen't for the fact that AI and the inhabitant of UT are considered ''living'' in lore.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The issue there being that we've seen similar being in ultima thule that are considered ''living beings''. I wouldn't consider it weird if it wasen't for the fact that AI and the inhabitant of UT are considered ''living'' in lore.

The people in Ultima Thule are entirely physical beings, who are shown able to grow and change with outside stimuli, even just during the MSQ spent there. The people in Living Memory are projections of stored memories from a computer, which also edits their memories to keep them "happy", or can freely switch them off to conserve power. They're about as alive as a boss's summoned adds.

[Bunyon]

The people in Ultima Thule are entirely physical beings, who are shown able to grow and change with outside stimuli, even just during the MSQ spent there. The people in Living Memory are projections of stored memories from a computer, which also edits their memories to keep them "happy", or can freely switch them off to conserve power. They're about as alive as a boss's summoned adds.

For an expansion where memory is such a big theme, it's absolutely INSANE to me how little people even consider the topic. "Projections of stored memories"? They're not video clips playing over and over, they're sentient, they can feel, they can listen, think create new memories.

"BRO THEY'RE JUST MEMORIES"
Do you even consider what your memories are? They're one of the biggest parts of what make you YOU. They're all your experiences, they're everyone you know, they're everything you've learned. The last zone made be go absolutely insane at how quickly sentient beings perfectly simulated from the memories original people are not even worthy of being considered to be in any way shape or form preserved. IMMEDIATELY you are told that bunny mom wants to die so it's ok.

I revisited the MSQ of the last area to try and figure out if I was missing something, but as far as I can tell this is what I gathered:
- The only way to get to Sphene is by entering the terminal during the last moments, when defenses are down.
- Shutting down the endless is only being done because Sphene would maybe lose motivation
- Bunny mom even says they don't have to shut them down now, but she REALLY REALLY WANTS TO DIE HOLY SHIT ERENVILLE CAN'T YOU BE HAPPY FOR HER THAT SHE WANTS TO DIE, WHAT A WHINER

And, please correct me if I'm wrong, Sphene never even for one line acknowledges at any point that you shut down the endless, meaning that you could've very well just have saved that for patch content and actually explored these themes and characters in depth (even if the conclusion was the same, and we had to shut it down).

It felt RUSHED, cool interesting themes were completely under-explored, and it left a really sour taste for this expansion for me.

[Magikazam]

The people in Ultima Thule are entirely physical beings

Ea are stated to be non-corporeal beings.

The people in Living Memory are projections of stored memories from a computer

And the Omnicron are a 100% robotic lifeform that has a computer serving as a brain.

They're about as alive as a boss's summoned adds.

Again, you can't have it both way, If Endless aren't alive, Omnicron aren't alive. Both are computer. Again, I agree by real world logic that the Endless aren't alive, but it not my fault if Computer are living being in lore.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Ea are stated to be non-corporeal beings.

The Ea are composed of pure aether, while still being affected by some physical stimuli (they can interact with objects, or be attacked with entirely mundane weapons, as shown with the rogue Ea that act as enemy mobs around the settlement). They're like elemental sprites with sentience.

And the Omnicron are a 100% robotic lifeform that has a computer serving as a brain.

Again, you can't have it both way, If Endless aren't alive, Omnicron aren't alive. Both are computer. Again, I agree by real world logic that the Endless aren't alive, but it not my fault if Coomputer are living being in lore.

The Omicrons were living beings who voluntarily uploaded their collective consciousness into machines. Then they got stuck in a rut of conquest and destruction until they were destroyed. They don't re-develop sentience until they're influenced by dynamis. So I would argue that they weren't really alive until the Endsinger meddled with them.

Which also brings up another point; the beings in Ultima Thule can exist independently of the Endsinger, while the projections in Living Memory fade out when their leynodes are shut down. A handful linger on for unfinished business, but they too disappear as soon as it's completed. They're automata.

[Volgia]

I found it to be disturbing, because they're simulacrum of an approximation of a person, but they also need an actual soul to function. If they were just a simulation you'd only need data and electrope, but it's an echo of a person living off a real being's energy.

[Eyrilona]

<sarcasm>
Hey guys, we just founded the Church of Blahawabbel. We have this great monopoly on understanding what life is, and it is that anything that has not been blessed by Blahawabbel is not truly alive. This is confirmed by all our narratives written by us for our own consumption, and accepted by us and everyone who agrees with us and thinks just like us. So logically, all other people-shaped entities trying to convince you that they too are living beings, are really not. Everyone that doesn't agree with our definition must just accept that their place as the mere mockeries of live that they are even if they act in all ways like us living things, and nothing they do or say can detract from our conclusion that they are not alive, because only we write that narrative.
</sarcasm>

[Yumarox]

We can put this to a simple test if it is ethical or not, does the choice follow one of the two main moral theories, Utilitarian or Deontological?

To get the easy one out of the way it can not be deontological because the WOL makes an action for many souls and doesn't ask them all. This also would never work for we know the WOL doesn't work on this moral framework since under it all murder is wrong and the WOL does kill people. Without going through all of Kantian Ethics in detail the very notion that the WOL did this action without consulting everyone this action was done to first makes it a clear case it was not moral by this framework. Though the WOL has never used this moral framework this should not surprise anyone leaving only one other means.

Under the utilitarian framework, we look to see if this action created more good than it harmed, the outcome judges if it's moral or not. so did turning off the souls make for a better outcome for more souls in the universe? Since in FF14 people are judged by having souls or not as being alive it would be measured if turning off the Endless and stopping the need to consume more souls to keep it going saving more souls or harming more souls. It seems by the fact that they need to drain the source to keep it going longer that stoping it needs to happen as the Endless need souls to keep going and keeping things as they are means the Endless are going to consume more and more souls. Putting an end to it means stopping more souls being used for fuel in the future so that could be argued as a moral outcome. WoL has always been one to weigh the options of outcomes so a utilitarian framework seems appropriate.

So if stopping the Endless is an over all better outcome for more souls then letting things continue then the WOL is moral.