Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[CKNovel]

But yes, if there's a whole society of sentient self-aware ghosts and we decide to kill all of them then that would also be considered genocide. But I'm pretty sure the summoned ghosts and zombies aren't sentient so this hasn't happened yet. It is funny though that once again there is a Hildibrand questline that handles this question of sentient zombies with more depth than Dawntrail.

As to the continued existence of the Endless putting lives at risk I'm honestly not completely convinced that's true. It seems that only the Endless who have been physically manifested consume aether. The ones that are just saved in storage don't. That's why Sphene has been manifesting less and less of them to save resources. But we don't really get to explore those other options of preserving them.

You're thinking too deep, it's a simulation based on memories.
They simulate the thoughts, the feeling, the desires.

They didn't materialized everyone because they didn't had the resources. If they had enough they would've done it.

The technology ate too much aether, wasn't sustainable and will never be sustainable even if they had a Dyson Sphere, because the demands grows infinitely.
We could either provide them an infinite source of energy to fuel a simulation or shut it down.

If Sphene actually wanted to cap the aether consumption she would've done it way before she started murdering people for their soul juice and livers.

[MikkoAkure]

But yes, if there's a whole society of sentient self-aware ghosts and we decide to kill all of them then that would also be considered genocide.

The Endless aren’t a society, they’re a zoo.

They’re preserved memories of the dead because Sphene can’t let go over her people. 90% of them don’t even have bodies and are locked in storage in the terminals until the system decides on drafting up “serendipitous” encounters. The Endless don’t do anything and have every single need magically catered to them. Living Memory isn’t even very robust and much of it is just a facade. Just off the beaten path are empty alleyways and monsters.

They’re also a perversion of the natural order of life. They’re an overly complicated graveyard manifested by a scientific approach at necromancy. We already know what is supposed to happen after you die and the Alexandrians decided against it and to plunder worlds of their souls to continue it. There is no incentive for us to prevent soul and memory aether from going back to the Lifestream as is natural.

We also can’t exactly fix it with Dynamis unless we’re in the depths of space because our world is extremely aether thick and even after sundering it has no effect here. It’s all moot to begin with because Sphene didn’t want to negotiate and we had to shut the terminals to get to Sphene.


Other undead seem to have varying degrees of sentience as well. Edda and Nybeth are the most preserved, and there are also undead Ronkan sorcerers who shed their corporeal form. Then there’s the whole thing with the Sirensong Sea where Lorelei, an undead siren, had a whole thing attracting and then crashing ships against the island. Other Ashkin in the books also show an awareness at their circumstances and an anger at the living.

[Zakuyia]

So in allot of ppl views we should sacrifice the other shards to let ppl who long since dead continue to thrive????

[arstoka]

While I agree the debate is worth having and, not to shut down discussion, but it bears repeating that the writers really did not put as much effort into writing the story as everyone here (and in other threads) have put into analyzing what the text is saying.

Whether or not the Endless are "alive" and the player committed genocide on the people, the perceived intention of the writers was to create a zone that would illicit strong emotional reactions on a very surface level.

The text asks us to imagine meeting people we've lost and have to give them up. That's sad, possibly cathartic. Who wouldn't want to have the ability to tie up loose ends with someone, to spend a little more time with them, to get to say your last goodbye or speak your mind before they pass on. It's a sentiment that many people could resonate with.

The narrative wants you to believe what you are doing is okay and that, in some ways, you are helping the dead move on (evidenced by the lingering quest NPCs once the terminals are shut down).

The truth is, the people in Living Memory are dead. The only way they ended up there is through the process of death. Their memories are all that remain. It's a graveyard for Sphene who cannot let her people go (hence why the regulators delete the memories of the people who die). It serves no one any purpose other than to perpetuate Sphene's weird sense of preservation.

Furthermore, the narrative wants us to still try and respect her because the protagonist of Dawntrail, Wuk Lamat, wants to understand her, her culture and her people.

We're here to push the themes of the story that 'that we should do everything we can to understand another's 'culture' and the different types of 'legacies'. We're not suppose to think too hard about the implications of our actions because we're only supposed to engage with the surface level reading of the story, not its contradictions.

We can certainly argue with the ethics resulting from the writer's mishandling of the themes and topics but the intent of the author(s) has made it clear: it's a good thing the characters shut down Living Memory and we're all supposed to be okay with it. (I mean the egregious song 'Smile' plays during the credits, good gods.)

Whether or not you, the player, are okay with it is purely subjective.

[Carolingian]

You're thinking too deep, it's a simulation based on memories.
They simulate the thoughts, the feeling, the desires.

The Endless aren’t a society, they’re a zoo.

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo. The Omicrons in general, who used to be people but then uploaded their brains into computers (not unlike the Endless), aren't a society. And what about the Crystal Exarch? We upload his memories into young G'raha after he died yet act like he's still very much the same person we travelled the first with. Is that also just fake?

I honestly couldn't disagree more. If a creature/being has self-awareness, intelligence, and the capability of change and their own dreams and desires then I'd personally consider them alive and at the very least sentient. And the Endless possess all of that. We even see them beat the Turing Test.

But I can respect it if you simply belief that artificial intelligence can never be considered sentient but then I am honestly curious if you think the same of AI characters in other franchises like EDI in Mass Effect, Data in Star Trek, Cortana in Halo, C3P0 in Star Wars, and Wall-E in... Wall-E.

So in allot of ppl views we should sacrifice the other shards to let ppl who long since dead continue to thrive????

No, those are two separate questions. Are the Endless alive/sentient, and were we right in stopping Sphene? I'd personally answer both questions with yes, I just question whether the way we stopped Sphene was truly the best way, and I criticise the shallow writing surrounding both of these things. Again, it's not unlike the ending of ME3 where destroying the Reapers also suddenly required the destruction of EDI and the Geth because the writers said so, just like destroying Sphene also requires the destruction of the Endles just because the writers say so. No matter all the potential alternative solutions.

[CKNovel]

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo. The Omicrons in general, who used to be people but then uploaded their brains into computers (not unlike the Endless), aren't a society. And what about the Crystal Exarch? We upload his memories into young G'raha after he died yet act like he's still very much the same person we travelled the first with. Is that also just fake?

I honestly couldn't disagree more. If a creature/being has self-awareness, intelligence, and the capability of change and their own dreams and desires then I'd personally consider them alive and at the very least sentient. And the Endless possess all of that. We even see them beat the Turing Test.

But I can respect it if you simply belief that artificial intelligence can never be considered sentient but then I am honestly curious if you think the same of AI characters in other franchises like EDI in Mass Effect, Data in Star Trek, Cortana in Halo, C3P0 in Star Wars,

Big strawman there, we never mentioned those characters, focus back on XIV's golden city, not Omega, not C3PO, not Wall-E or your coffee machine that says good morning every morning.
G'raha wasn't dead just asleep, both just fused you can ask him after waking him up from the Crystal tower.

You also makes a massive mix-up comparing AI that thinks for itself and AI that is ordered to think in a certain way. You need to spread your emotional thinking and logical thinking.

As for your other questions, "were we right to stop Sphene" just take the same situation in a different way. Imagine if Sphene was taking care of Undead and those undeads requires live human flesh to feed.
Would it be moral to stop Sphene? Of course it's moral, at which point does sacrificing a life to prolong the image of another is moral?

[Zakuyia]

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo. The Omicrons in general, who used to be people but then uploaded their brains into computers (not unlike the Endless), aren't a society. And what about the Crystal Exarch? We upload his memories into young G'raha after he died yet act like he's still very much the same person we travelled the first with. Is that also just fake?

I honestly couldn't disagree more. If a creature/being has self-awareness, intelligence, and the capability of change and their own dreams and desires then I'd personally consider them alive and at the very least sentient. And the Endless possess all of that. We even see them beat the Turing Test.

But I can respect it if you simply belief that artificial intelligence can never be considered sentient but then I am honestly curious if you think the same of AI characters in other franchises like EDI in Mass Effect, Data in Star Trek, Cortana in Halo, C3P0 in Star Wars, and Wall-E in... Wall-E.



No, those are two separate questions. Are the Endless alive/sentient, and were we right in stopping Sphene? I'd personally answer both questions with yes, I just question whether the way we stopped Sphene was truly the best way, and I criticise the shallow writing surrounding both of these things. Again, it's not unlike the ending of ME3 where destroying the Reapers also suddenly required the destruction of EDI and the Geth because the writers said so, just like destroying Sphene also requires the destruction of the Endles just because the writers say so. No matter all the potential alternative solutions.

Honestly your all making this harder than it needs to be. Pull the plug shut it down. There are an abomination. What makes there existence even remotely understandable. They are like ashkin being who need to long since be removed. There existence threatens other shards I long since made my peace. Shutting down there existence is a mercy. What did Erenville mother call it a twisted mosuleum

[MikkoAkure]

So in allot of ppl views we should sacrifice the other shards to let ppl who long since dead continue to thrive????

I think they wanted the writers to magically make it so that a bunch of randos from another world solve all the Alexandrian’s problems with their own technology using the laziest plot-device magic in the whole story because the game made them bad about ripping out the batteries from Sphene’s dying Tamagotchi.

[Ozmandis]

I think they wanted the writers to magically make it so that a bunch of randos from another world solve all the Alexandrian’s problems with their own technology using the laziest plot-device magic in the whole story because the game made them bad about ripping out the batteries from Sphene’s dying Tamagotchi.

So in allot of ppl views we should sacrifice the other shards to let ppl who long since dead continue to thrive????

You either lack reading comprehension skills or are acting with some unbelievable bad faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[OMGJesuis66]

Oh no, they are right.
People who just defend this whole notion of "we did genocide", just hold an incredible bad take with no argument to sustain themselves unless they try to rationalize and argue using many false symmetry and lacking of basic comprehension of the narrative.
Then again, that's the standard behavior as I have seen.