Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Cenobia]

FFXIV: "Yes, these people are lingering memories given form by Dynamis, but they're sentient, therefore should be considered real people worth helping.
Also FFXIV, somehow: "Yeah just delete all of these perfectly recorded memories that can experience existence again by being given bodies through aether lmao, they're not real anyway, none of them will even complain."

It's just bad writing, period. Hiroi did not play the game he's "writing"(ruining) for, and it shows.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Surely hating on undead is one of the most common stances in fiction. Zombies, ghosts and vampires that prey on the living for sustenance are the most basic narrative vehicles there is, it is very very normal to oppose them. Only twist Dawntrail takes is that they make the undead appear nice and harmless on the surface and the system does the harm.

Up until the attack on Tuliyollal, the Endless ran off the life force of those who died of natural causes who had opted into their system by wearing a regulator. Their leaders killed 51 people. In return we wiped out their entire Endless population. If they are vampires, they are vampires in a universe where Tru Blood exists and we didn't stake them because they were actively attempting to drink our blood, we staked them because vampires are gross. We even knew wiping them out wouldn't stop Sphene from attempting to drain the Source because she still had the Meso Terminal. We seriously did it because they are "twisted and unnatural."

Don’t forget they already had a machine form prototype in the form of robo otis but they did consider a version that has all the memories and can live with minimal help for over 200 years and could be upgraded a bad prototype version. Plus the inconsistency of needing to kill robo Otis off so there wouldn’t be a problem when facing endless Otis (also he dies while saving not even the queen but a drone, so completely pointless death)

I mentioned that here in my dissertation on why Alexandrians are the dumbest advanced society ever created that they had already come up with a sustainable way of achieving their goals and abandoned it for a stupid way that would eventually destroy the universe.

FFXIV: "Yes, these people are lingering memories given form by Dynamis, but they're sentient, therefore should be considered real people worth helping.
Also FFXIV, somehow: "Yeah just delete all of these perfectly recorded memories that can experience existence again by being given bodies through aether lmao, they're not real anyway, none of them will even complain."

It's just bad writing, period. Hiroi did not play the game he's "writing"(ruining) for, and it shows.

And I love being lectured on the importance of accepting death when I'm standing next to the guy who rewrote time because he couldn't accept the WoL's death... And I'd just like to remind everyone after the Exarch (who has lived for CENTURIES) died, we stuck his memories and soul in a crystal and jammed them into his younger self (hopefully with his younger self having consented to it and we didn't just shove them in there while he was sleep). But when it's not Grandpa SimpCat we're "violating the natural cycle."

[Ayche]

Up until the attack on Tuliyollal, the Endless ran off the life force of those who died of natural causes who had opted into their system by wearing a regulator. Their leaders killed 51 people. In return we wiped out their entire Endless population. If they are vampires, they are vampires in a universe where Tru Blood exists and we didn't stake them because they were actively attempting to drink our blood, we staked them because vampires are gross. We even knew wiping them out wouldn't stop Sphene from attempting to drain the Source because she still had the Meso Terminal. We seriously did it because they are "twisted and unnatural."

I think you have lost the plot. Like you can be unsatisfied with the delivery of the story, but the moral of the story is rock solid. They ARE twisted and unnatural, the dead do not come before the living. The point of vampires is that they are ... vampires. They are undead that live at the expense of the true living, they die without the blood of the innocent. Trying to solve vampires with fake blood, animal blood or blood donations is missing the point of vampires, they are a story device. It is wrong to live at the expense of others. This is like one of the most common plot points there are.

[Papayatar]

Don’t forget they already had a machine form prototype in the form of robo otis but they did consider a version that has all the memories and can live with minimal help for over 200 years and could be upgraded a bad prototype version. Plus the inconsistency of needing to kill robo Otis off so there wouldn’t be a problem when facing endless Otis (also he dies while saving not even the queen but a drone, so completely pointless death)

I’m going to guess the reason for rejecting the robo bodies has to do specifically with giving Sphene a physical form, since robo-Otis is a pro type made after the real Sphene a dead. And also rejecting robo bodies because something to do with her crown since the crown was hinted at being something special.

So the story not extrapolating on it, instead gives us a “wait for the sequel” post credits hint and then the flip flop nature of the story saying we should and shouldn’t care about the Endless makes things awkward because we don’t know enough other than they’re fueled by souls so gotta shutdown the PC despide and moral dilemas being ignored.

So my half-thought of theory is the robo bodies weren’t viable due to memories 100% being retained. Even though LM Otis had his PTSD moment he was still an early version of an Endless so he probably didn’t get the full memory wipe treatment. Sure his moment was directly related to Sphene but I think that was probably also a flaw they worked out with future Endless.

It’s possible that whatever they needed a Sphene copy and her special crown required some level of memory manipulation even if they were just making super advanced AI vers of their dead queen. And for whatever reason making the Endless the way they are and tying her directives to the might be related. But I could be giving the writing too much credit through speculation.

[Mortex]

I don’t like that they don’t even give the characters an option saying this entire “turning off” living memory feels wrong. Like we stand there like muppets and not try everything in our power to safe them because the game and the story says too us “well they aren’t alive so might as well pull the plug”
And we had to do it because if we didn’t sphene would have done shard fusion and kill way more people. The problem I also had is that they try too make you feel bad and sad for the endless but on the other hand tell you that you should delete them. Like the writer know they can’t make this have bad consequences for the characters because we are the hero’s and not emet or ascians so we can’t be the bad guys.

[Turtledeluxe]

Of course the cast doesn't feel bad about it. Convincing as they are, Endless are perversions of real people. This is not like humans creating artificial beings with their own unique consciousness. That would be cool. Perverting the dead by using other people's soul aether is weird, and wrong.

And for the millionth time, there is no alternative "fuel". How many different ways did the team have to write it? It's stated by 3 characters at least and also indirectly by our knowledge of what humans are composed of in XIV.

[Fiel_Tana]

Convincing as they are, Endless are perversions of real people.

Canonically, so are the sundered. Yet the story clearly shows that the sundered have a right to live.

Shadowbringers dealt with this exact theme and did it brilliantly, DT fails to even question it, that's the problem many people are having here and one of the reasons why DT is such a disappointment. According to Yoshi's quote, that was the intended theme of that area, to question what 'being alive' really means.

[jameseoakes]

Canonically, so are the sundered. Yet the story clearly shows that the sundered have a right to live.

Shadowbringers dealt with this exact theme and did it brilliantly, DT fails to even question it, that's the problem many people are having here and one of the reasons why DT is such a disappointment. According to Yoshi's quote, that was the intended theme of that area, to question what 'being alive' really means.

I think a lot of this gets more iky as this is all part of Alexandria culture, this is literally the afterlife of there culture for an expanstion that aggressivally obessives over how amazing and imporant culture is, when we find one that's problamtic we're very quick to demonise it and then burn it to ground

[Dorito_Burrito]

I think a lot of this gets more iky as this is all part of Alexandria culture, this is literally the afterlife of there culture for an expanstion that aggressivally obessives over how amazing and imporant culture is, when we find one that's problamtic we're very quick to demonise it and then burn it to ground

It's problematic because the Endless are literally sustained by the life force of others. It has nothing to do with the Endless as individuals, because they really are completely innocent in their situation and were never allowed any agency over their state of existence after death, including Sphene, who may very well have been brought back as an Endless and altered by Preservation for some hitherto unknown sinister purpose.

[jameseoakes]

It's problematic because the Endless are literally sustained by the life force of others. It has nothing to do with the Endless as individuals, because they really are completely innocent in their situation and were never allowed any agency over their state of existence after death, including Sphene, who may very well have been brought back as an Endless and altered by Preservation for some hitherto unknown sinister purpose.

I might be problatic but deleting them doesn't fix anything, they could have been left to run down there reserves of energy until maybe a better solution could be found but the game just jumps strait to removing them. As I said before it feels really strange we have really humanising interactions with them and then the game just goes now it's time to remove them, it just feels terrible. The life energy stuff mostly seems to be Sphenes arc it seems to have very baring on the Endless active in the zone (or at least the first part)