Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Magikazam]

Shutting down the Endless struck me as no different than wiping a hard drive. It's interesting that so many people are wracked by some kind of moral panic about it, but if that bit of the story has everyone talking this much I'd say it was a success. Better to have a thought provoking and divisive story than something boring, IMO.

The issue here is that due to Omnicron and Ultima thule being. We know that data is/can be alive in lore. I'm not denying the meme people keep bringing that ''They are just a Sims 4 save file'', my point is that it canon in lore that your Sism 4 save file can potentially be alive.

Yea if we apply real life logic the whole argument is silly.

[CidHeiral]

The issue here is that due to Omnicron and Ultima thule being. We know that data is/can be alive in lore.

Neither of those beings are just data.

[Ayche]

Omicrons were never able to completely Ship of Theseus their souls away. It was a tiny tiny fraction that was left rattling somewhere deep inside their consciousness, but that was what responded when they were confronted by Meteion and it is something that Omega on its dying moments also grasped deep within itself.

[Galvuu]

Omicrons were never able to completely Ship of Theseus their souls away. It was a tiny tiny fraction that was left rattling somewhere deep inside their consciousness, but that was what responded when they were confronted by Meteion and it is something that Omega on its dying moments also grasped deep within itself.

This is not really related to the Endless at all, but I don't think this can fully explain Omega.
We know Omega was something they created much later, after the Omicrons became machine-like, after many prototypes- not a being of flesh that was turned into a robot, but a completely new mechanical being created to evolve and deal a decisive blow against the dragons during their war with the dragonstar, if the Stigma Dreamscape lore is to be believed.
Omega just somehow, during its travels and battles (or maybe because of it?) gained some semblance of a soul. Might have to do with the fact it needed to analyze life or simulate it- it's never made clear.
It'd actually be interesting to know what happened to Omega. And, I guess, to Alpha, which wasn't a fully physical entity either (originally couldn't exist outside of the Interdimensional Rift).
Not really helpful to the discussion people are having here, but interesting to consider in the grand scheme of things.

[Ayche]

This is not really related to the Endless at all, but I don't think this can fully explain Omega.
Not really helpful to the discussion people are having here, but interesting to consider in the grand scheme of things.

Here is how I would tie it to the Endless. And this is going to be a wild throw, because I don't think the answer lies in either EE books or the game itself.

How do souls know what is life?
A robot is a metallic automaton powered by semiconductors, but we can also reduce people into flesh automatons powered by neurotransmitters. I think the souls knew even through all the technological augmentations that the omicrons were still ... people. I believe this because to me it explains the eventually development we saw in the omicron of the ultima thule. Omega was given a body that was capable of reaching such heights of free will, that it rediscovered that irrational messiness of being a person instead of a mere program.

And I think it is obvious that the Endless are not considered legitimate lifeforms in the same process. It is not merely that they are artificial, I would say that the Ea and Omicrons too are on some level "artificial". Losing your body is not enough to lose your soul, but death is. And this is why the souls are forced to fuel the Endless, and why it needs souls: it is the soul that gives them such life-like quality. But memories are not life, memories can never change. They are a thing of the past.

This is my speculation based on how I see this all pan out.

[Kuroka]

Omega was a default Omicron that got... promoted? We know he used to have a normal body and was most likely just another one of his race until chosen for the new duty as Omega weapon.

[Galvuu]

Omega was a default Omicron that got... promoted? We know he used to have a normal body and was most likely just another one of his race until chosen for the new duty as Omega weapon.

In fact, I'm not sure we get confirmation how many of the omicrons were biological or not.
Presumably, they were building more of them en masse, customized for each invasion, even after their original population for mechanized (again, Stigma Dreamscape). Some others were created by mechanizing the races they were invading after being conquered.
But, now that I think on it, technically Omega might have been one of the original biological ones, we never get confirmation.
(I went and rewatched some of the Omicron cutscenes/dialogue)

[CuteBucket]

Living Memory fails thematically for me because it's written to have two conflicting things be true at once:

1) The Endless are not living creatures. They are a magical databank of dead people's memories, but are not real, living people with souls. While they may simulate life in a believable way, they are not and never have been "alive," and the people they are based on are long dead. They cannot feel pain or despair and even when told we are going to shut down the terminals, make no attempt to preserve their own "lives" because they are not alive at all, in the same way that your Sims will not beg for their lives if you choose to delete them.

2) The Endless are living creatures. They are sentient beings capable of forming new thoughts, learning new information, changing their minds, pursuing their own goals outside of a set program, and for all intents and purposes act identically to a real, living person with a soul. We are supposed to see them as real people whose wants and desires are meaningful and deserve our respect and reverence. Their lack of a soul does not make them any less real and "alive" than other creatures in the world of FFXIV like the Omicrons and advanced magical constructs.

Both of these statements cannot be true, but the writing of this last zone can't decide whether 1 or 2 is the truth. Caciua tells us over and over again that 1 is true and we have no reason to believe she is lying. Yet her own existence calls this into question and all the side quests in the area make 2 seem true...until they suddenly don't and make 1 seem true again. I think if the writers had actually picked which scenario is true instead of trying to have it both ways we wouldn't be having this debate. But the feeling I got all through the zone is that they are operating under the idea that 1 is the true statement but then worry that means we won't be emotionally invested enough so then write the side NPCs as if 2 were true. It came off as confused and careless writing to me, which contributed to me emotionally tuning out of the entire last zone. They so desperately wanted me to feel bad about the digital memories of dead people while at the same time telling me over and over that they aren't real and to not feel bad about deleting them. It's not even a good or interesting moral quandary, it's just confusing and annoying.

[SteakDriven]

The Endless aren't alive - they're sophisticated holograms programmed with the memories of the dead. What we did was turn off the holodeclk, but since literally everything is stored in RAM all of the holo data was lost. Sphene never would have needed to invade the source if the Alexandrians knew a daggone thing about system engineering.

[Karious]

Did everyone just forget all the lessons that Endwalker taught us?



Did we forget this lesson at the Studium? Does Alexandria not have Electrope which can convert lightning aether into any other form of aether? Did Horoi just not care?



It was wrong to kill the endless, just as Sphene's motivations and plans were nonsensical.