Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Bright-Flower]

Only slightly on-topic, but you picked a terrible game for this, sorry.
XIV's story has always touched on dark and morally gray topics.
Even the WoL has been forced to side with "lesser evils" at times (like letting Lolorito get away with a bunch of terrible stuff for the benefit of the Ala Mhigans, or cooperating with Gaius who has a history of conquest, etc etc).
DT being this happy-go-lucky place where all strife is resolved with 10 minutes of talk-no-jutsu and even the cruelest people can magically become good-doers is an exception, not the rule, as far as XIV goes.

The talk no jutsu only really worked on Balool Ja Ja as far as major antagonists go. We still had to kill the giant monster Valigarmanda, and couldnot reason with Zarool Ja or Sphene. Though I do think Bakool went form 'freeing Valigarmanda to get ahead in the contest' to 'good guy' a little too quickly and cleanly, he's the only major antagonist in the expansion this worked for. And Tuliloyol was saved by the nation rallying together and bringing in outside allies to repel the second attack rather than convincing anyone to stand down. It's really only minor obstacles that we peace and friendship our way through other than Bakool who was a persistent antagonist throughout the first four levels.

I do agree with your point about doing morally questionable things though. In SB we sided with actual pirates because they're anti Empire. Pirates who make their living by extorting protection money out of people passing by and doing bad things to them if they refuse. Then we used the Xaela's traditions to drag them into a war they had no investment in until after we won the actual contest and Grynwaht antagonized them by coming into the Steppe to chase US down etc.

[ElHeggunte]

I don’t see how any of this is a moral issue on our part. The Endless barely qualify as existing. They certainly aren’t alive in any meaningful capacity. And their continued existence was going to be at the expense of everyone on the Source.

It’s not like we barged into a stable world that was just minding its own business and screwed things up for the people living there. Someone from an unstable and dying world invaded ours and declared war so they could continue to sustain the projections of people who didn’t really exist anymore. The only questionable ethics lie with Sphene and her interpretation of her programming.

[Averax]

I mean there's good reason the endless should have, y'know, ended. It doesn't mean it had to feel good to do it.

Left unhindered, Sphene would have consumed each reflection until there was nothing left to sustain the endless. Many endless didn't seem to really be cool with the idea of mass death being caused to keep them going when they've already died.

[Themarvin]

Well in short you get the ability to turn off Skynet before it become a reality it is also a punch in the face to the direction of where AI is going as well the entire concept that we live more on out smartphones in a virtual world where you are an actual victim of misinformation and brainwashing, because it is what is happening right now and big companies and groups in the real would with malicious intend, is using this media to polarize people in general in a way they believe what the smartphone say but forget there is an option to look in other places unless trapped with an algoritme.

Like the pit-fighter in the cutscene, who is having mental breakdown as got no more souls to feed on in a figure of speech.

In general alot of people have problems to grasp that and or lack the ability to analyze the content and deeper meaning with the story, as it is also a mockery of what is happen right now in the real world, and not just in your local country or only within your borders.

Currently big parts of the world is moving into not asking questions and just being a slave of social media.

[Bright-Flower]

If their guns and ships worked like you say, why did they use Hunters with Beast Souls and regulators to begin with? Why waste the precious souls needed to keep Living Memory going on Hunters, if they didn't need to? Electrope may work for a while outside in Tuliloyol, but it was specifically said it converts LIGHTNING energy and needs quite a bit. Plus, what would be the point of the continued use of Electrope, when it's no longer needed because the source isn't assailed by massive amounts of lightning energy? What purpose would regulators serve without souls? Absolutely none.

I admire your continued nativity, I'll give you that. You really do try to look on the bright side (no pun intended), but life and the world can be cruel.

Why use hunters and beast souls when they have a robot army and airships? I don't know. Maybe it's lazy world building. Maybe Zooral Ja was just a bad ruler and didn't care about such issues when he was focused on conquest. Either way he's gone now, but they still have that technology.

Technology that was working just fine outside of the dome. At best you could argue that 'maybe' they have to go back to Heritage Found to recharge or something, but we haven't seen that actually happen. In both attacks against the capital their guns and robots and airships worked just fine despite being away from the lightning dome.

'The Source' is not assailed by lightning but Heritage Found definitely is. Electrope will continue to be useful there for as long as the region is heavily lightning aspected, and there's no hint of that going away. No suggestion in the story that Electrope or Electrope technology is going away. And even if it did, that would be a consequence of them fusing themselves to the Source, not us destroying their culture.

You're looking at this for what you think 'should' from your perspective be a realistic outcome, but that's not the reality the game is presenting us. You're not being realistic here you're trying to impose doom and gloom onto a story that's telling us these people are fine for now.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Why use hunters and beast souls when they have a robot army and airships? I don't know. Maybe it's lazy world building. Maybe Zooral Ja was just a bad ruler and didn't care about such issues when he was focused on conquest.

We're told that hunters are used for problems that aren't major enough to call in the military. Also that Zoraal Ja was a total warmonger and wouldn't divert resources for it anyway. As for using the beast souls, they didn't think any more of them than they would of picking up a gun. It's literally an entertainment industry in the Arcadion. Consuming souls is just how their society worked.

[CVXIV]

I've seen this argument a lot in the last week or so, and I don't really understand how it is a moral dilemma. Could there have been an alternative solution? Perhaps, but we weren't afforded the time to deliberate and come up with one.

Not only this, but Sphene isn't innocent either, as she was complicit in the attack on Tuliyollal, which harvested souls, and not only that, she took over a large part of the land of Tural and essentially took its citizenry.

Many times, the party tried to reason with her and find an alternative, but she refused and maintained her objective of harvesting souls from other shards until nothing remained.

We had to make a choice, and we did.

[Turtledeluxe]

Stopped reading after genocide. We did not turn off the Meso Terminals in order to eliminate the Endless (it was ultimately to stop Sphene), and even if that was the goal, genocide is a word that exists for a reason. It's not just a word you use when a group of people die, or in this case, not people.

I have no idea what SE did to attract people who do this.

[Eraden]

Mao curious. Mao impression is that everything was simulation created by big gold blocky machine. Why nots just blow ups machine itself? Mao big fan of "kill its with fires".