Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[AnotherPerson]

They won't ever add Side Content as mandatory again, or else they would've done so by making Eden mandatory.
The whole patch with Zeromus would make MUCH MORE SENSE if they brought Eden onto the 13th in order to clash Light X Darkness. The First Sin Eater, against the Primordial Darkness.
Plus, Eden can terraform the land, which would also start fixing the 13th.
Unukalhai (Heavenswater Warring Triad NPC) and Cylvia(Final Shadowbringers Role Quest), both DENIZENS of the 13th searching for a way to restore the 13th back to its former origin, as you reunite them post SHB Role Quests in the First, were not even mentioned in appearance over a whole year of Void Plots.

As canon as it may be, none of it will ever be brought into the main narrative, and yes. It creates plot holes in every single expansion. Therefore you really cannot make a base on that argument.

If that's the case, FFXIV storytelling might as well be dead and any side plot might as well not exist since they can't add onto the story and world-building to the lore. I don't look forward to future expansions with this big of a plot hole in the storytelling aspect if they can't maintain a congruous narrative.

The principle of Dynamis is still vastly alien to us, but my understanding is simple: They do not follow the compositions required for a living being. If they are dead in the aetheric sense, why Dynamis make them 'alive and kicking'? They are dead, Ultima Thule displays only extinct and dead people. Even if you make a new place for them, it is just a limbo. I hardly even believe any denizen of Ultima Thule could ever dream of going away of it, or even trying to go to Eitherys. Conjecture, all of this sentence, but we have nothing to prove or disproof it.

Dynamis and [Life] Aether are effectively two separate energy sources and are unrelated to the psyche of a person itself. Dynamis is far more flexible because it can be whatever you want as long as you can influence and accumulate enough of it. The scions don't need to know how to use Dynamis to remake Ultima Thule. Neither did Meteion. That should speak volumes about how dynamic the energy source works. It's like a black box. You don't need to know how it works to use it. It just works. Limit Break is a manifestation of it. Healer LB3 and Tank LB3 are obvious examples. That's not the same as aether because we have to manually manipulate it to a certain way to get the desired output. Dynamis can be summarized as layman's creation magicks that gets better the more you have of it. Also Meteion basically used Dynamis to make 'life' exist, so... yeah, they're alive.

What constitutes your definition of being "alive"? That it has a corporeal form? That they only run on aether? Or by the definition of living - capacity for homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction? What is it that makes someone 'live'? To breathe air? To have a beating heart? What about the alien lifeforms before they were converted in Dynamis beings like the Omnicrons? What about the Ea, who shed their corporeal forms? The dragons clearly fulfills all these requirements to be considered alive, but are they considered not alive now that they're reconstituted with dynamis? What about the Voidsent and Zero? There's a lot of things that can be defined as alive even if they are dead in the aetheric sense or don't necessarily fulfills all the requirements to be living. Heck Ascians can be considered dead because they're fundamentally a ghost / a soul that embodies a host. But after the events in Shadowbringers we can conclude they are very much 'alive' as an individual. You can survive being just a soul with the Echo. The definition of being 'alive' has constantly been refreshed throughout our journey.

To me, being able to "feel, hear, and think" are effectively the core tenets to being alive, as cliche as that may sound. Any sentient being that can do all those 3 things are considered alive to me because it shows they can react and respond to stimuli on their own accord and demonstrate growth of an individual.

And no, please, people need to stop with that quote. The Endless ARE NOT THE SAME AS THE SUNDERED. They are not alive, they do not have hopes or dreams, and they have processed data where they act according to a code of past memories, nothing more. If when alive, a person had the dream of being the best chef, naturally the Endless version would have the same 'dream'. It's their aspiration of when they are alive, something that influenced their memories and importance, but it is not the person. It cannot evolve beyond that, the best representation is a Ghost unable to move on because they have unfinished business. If people cannot accept that it's just AI, that is by far the best comparison to what an Endless is, and a Ghost ain't a person.

Yes, they are not the same person, but that doesn't stop them from being a person themselves. A better example is the Blue sidequest 'Well-wishing at the Wishing Well", where the Endless has lingering sentiments and he mentions he wants to live again in another life as a tour guide -- which makes no sense because he currently already is living his dream as an Endless. The words "And I'm proud of that. Proud of staying true to myself." means he definitely felt the influence to do something else in this new lifetime, and it was an active decision on his part that kept him as a tour guide in this life based on the stimuli he received in Living Memory. In other words, the Endless himself has the same dream that separates him from the original dead self based on the experiences he had during his time as an Endless. The Endless then become more akin to a clone with similar experiences and memories.

By the way, in definition of the game... a ghost is alive and is a person, just not in the same circumstances of being alive with flesh and blood.

Alphinaud: “Hmmm… In the past, when I sought to identify the true nature of ghosts, I came upon literature examining a similar subject. The soul was likened to a core that resides in the aether, and its presence is what differentiates us from such beings as sprites and arcane entities. Upon death, said core ordinarily dissipates alongside the aether that composed the flesh. However, it may be held together and bound to the corporeal realm, either by the will of its owner or by means of certain arts. In time, the soul may regather aether unto itself to assume another form, or find newly emerged life in which to abide. The pixies may be one such instance of this.”
Alisaie: "...If ghosts are merely souls without bodies, what does that make us? I think you've become that which you fear most, Brother dearest.”

Sentient too, in fact. Edda also exists. Edda can be considered physically dead, but her ghost pervades the City-States at 2AM Eorzean time if you haven't completed Palace of the Dead after completing Tam Tara Deepcroft. She is still alive but not in the same sense as being physically alive. She's also gotten some experiments done by the real boss of PoTD and went off the deep end since losing her fiance though.

[Carolingian]

The actual "moral" problem with the Living Memory has nothing to do with us shutting it down. It's the entire system itself. When someone dies their memories and all that get uploaded into the Living Memory so they can continue to "Live on" and people can come visit them and all that, but also those little techno dodads everyone's wearing then wipes their memories of the dead. Why? If they don't believe dying is that big of a deal because they'll just get uploaded into the Living Memory, then why wipe their memories of the person? In fact, why wipe their memories of the person at all? This is where things aren't making sense, why are they wiping peoples memories of the dead in the first place? None of it makes sense, and seems to directly contradict their stated philosophy of "living on forever so long as your remembered". With the way the Living Memory is designed the living could still come visit those that have passed on, except they don't cause they have no memory of them.

The whole memory wipe thing doesn't make sense in general and is probably just something the writers came up with to make the whole thing seem more evil and contrast it more clearly with the whole "you live on in our memories" message of the previous zones. I don't think it has anything to do with how Living Memory itself works (as proven by the two Otis) nor with the question whether the Endless (intelligent and self-aware as they are) should be considered alive/sentient or not.

It's just one of many instances this expansion where the weak writing lets you see the hand of the writer way too clearly.

[Zakuyia]

Look ill be real.... I wasn't remotely attach to living memories so I could easily shut it off. Judge me how u see fit. IF THAT PLACE THREATENS OTHER SHARDS it has to go down. Your ok with the 1st being destroyed cause oh sympathy for that place question your own mindset. It was a blight and cursed existence that needed to be removed like the disease it is. Pretty zone tho.

[CKNovel]

The whole memory wipe thing doesn't make sense in general and is probably just something the writers came up with to make the whole thing seem more evil and contrast it more clearly with the whole "you live on in our memories" message of the previous zones. I don't think it has anything to do with how Living Memory itself works (as proven by the two Otis) nor with the question whether the Endless (intelligent and self-aware as they are) should be considered alive/sentient or not.

It's just one of many instances this expansion where the weak writing lets you see the hand of the writer way too clearly.

Finally, my "Akschually" moment.
It's a FF IX reference, "To be forgotten is worse than death", but also because Alexandria wanted a happy going kingdom that knows no sadness or grief.
By wiping the memory of an individual, they made them forget the loss and they don't have to go through the well known steps of grief. But if you're forgotten, does it means you truly lived?

It's not "evil" it's just classic "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

[Alchemii]

The whole memory wipe thing doesn't make sense in general and is probably just something the writers came up with to make the whole thing seem more evil and contrast it more clearly with the whole "you live on in our memories" message of the previous zones. I don't think it has anything to do with how Living Memory itself works (as proven by the two Otis) nor with the question whether the Endless (intelligent and self-aware as they are) should be considered alive/sentient or not.

It's just one of many instances this expansion where the weak writing lets you see the hand of the writer way too clearly.

Yea, but it's a complete moral and psychological contradiction. Like everything we've been told and seen of the Alexandrians makes the memory erasing not make sense. So long as there is no explanation for why, then it not only serves no purpose, it goes in direct contradiction to the moral ideology of Sphene and the Alexandrians.

[Turtledeluxe]

There is no question that it had to be done because the plot contrived itself to make it necessary.

It's more the lack of actual contemplation about that matter that came across as awkward to me because everyone is just totally on-board with it following Cahciua's insistence that there's no value to their existence (Which should be highly subjective depending on whether or not someone considers a soul or memories more integral to defining someone's existence.). You can't just say "These people are fake and don't matter", then do absolutely nothing to further convince the viewer of that, especially when it's stressed earlier in the MSQ that people do not truly die as long as they're remembered...which largely cannot happen for those in Living Memory due to the regulators, so we're effectively rendering them deader then dead in that respect.

They could have chosen to avoid that by not having them all be deleted permanently (And perhaps they could still end up doing that in the post-MSQ), but it all came across as rather tone-deaf...though it wouldn't be the first time considering my feelings on EW which similarly aimed to moralize and stir up emotions in a manner that was seemingly oblivious to various uncomfortable implications made in the process...

The idea that being remembered qualifies as being alive is pushed by a minority of characters in MSQ and has no bearing on reality.

We also don't really know what happens to the memory aether as far as I know. Maybe it rejoins the original soul in the aetherial sea? We don't know really know. I mean is anyone in XIV dead? The souls of the dead are also alive in all "perceivable ways". If just being perceivably the same as something that's alive makes you alive, then no one in XIV is actually dead and the use of word in general is meaningless.

[Carolingian]

I mean is anyone in XIV dead? The souls of the dead are also alive in all "perceivable ways".

The souls of the dead aren't even self-aware as far as we know. So they're obviously not alive in all "perceivable ways".

Though it would have been great if the story decided to explore that a bit more. Clearly on the Source most people consider the Soul as the most important part of being alive. When someone dies the Soul goes back to the aetherial sea, gets cleansed/stripped of its memories, and then eventually reincarnates and thus doesn't need memories to "live on". Yet on Alexandria's world they believe Memories are the core part of being alive and that they don't necessarily need the Soul part to live on.

In Shadowbringers a big part of the story was about how maybe people on the Source were wrong (or at least missing some important information) about the way we look at Astral and Umbral compared to people on the First. Could the same be true here?

That question isn't even entertained, we just instantly go to "no, they're wrong so it's fine to destroy it all". It's all so frustratingly shallow.

[SDaemon]

The souls of the dead aren't even self-aware as far as we know. So they're obviously not alive in all "perceivable ways".

We make contact and have conversations with Amon's and Asahi's souls in the Aetherial Sea.

[Turtledeluxe]

The souls of the dead aren't even self-aware as far as we know. So they're obviously not alive in all "perceivable ways".

Though it would have been great if the story decided to explore that a bit more. Clearly on the Source most people consider the Soul as the most important part of being alive. When someone dies the Soul goes back to the aetherial sea, gets cleansed/stripped of its memories, and then eventually reincarnates and thus doesn't need memories to "live on". Yet on Alexandria's world they believe Memories are the core part of being alive and that they don't necessarily need the Soul part to live on.

In Shadowbringers a big part of the story was about how maybe people on the Source were wrong (or at least missing some important information) about the way we look at Astral and Umbral compared to people on the First. Could the same be true here?

That question isn't even entertained, we just instantly go to "no, they're wrong so it's fine to destroy it all". It's all so frustratingly shallow.

I guess you didn't play SHB or EW.

It's interesting to me that you're so passionate about an ethical debate but you won't acknowledge we have interacted with several characters who are dead yet perceivably alive.

When we talk about things being alive, that indicates there's biological processes going on perpetuating that organism. As far as recreating a person, you'd need way more than just memories to do that. This is why I think the arguments around XIV are silly in nature. Maybe you all aren't aware of this, but humans can't be recreated from just memories.

What's happening in XIV is all magic and doesn't really apply anything outside a purely theoretical discussion for funsies.

And what we are left with given that, is were the protagonists, who are not real, contextually ethical in the fiction? When the Endless themselves are distinguishing from their state vs the living and several of them giving reasons to turn off the terminals (it's not just Cachiua), the limited time and resources considering the threat of Sphene, it can be argued that they did the best they could with the time, resources, and info they had. And if you're really not satisfied by that, you'd still have to admit the real villain is Cachiua. Not the the protagonists and certainly not players.

[Carolingian]

stuff

Being alive, or sentient, isn't limited to just "biological processes". At least not in a fantasy or sci-fi setting. And that's what we're talking about, we're obviously not talking about real life. It's one of the main philosophical questions and debates in most science fiction. One Dawntrail doesn't seem interested in approaching in any kind of interesting way, even though FFXIV did manage to do that before with the likes of Alpha/Omega, Gigi, and Ultima Thule. That is my main problem.

I agree that some dead people have still been shown to be sentient, mostly while they were still in the aetherial sea before their soul was fully cleansed and reincarnated. But the game has pretty much always treated messing with said aetherial sea, or at the very least the souls within it, as abhorrent because those souls are what people on the Source consider "life". It's why what happened during The Final Days is seen as extra awful because those souls aren't returned to the Aetherial Sea. Neither is Venat's for instance because her aether is completely used up. They are considered truly dead dead.

That's why I find it extra disappointing that the game doesn't treat Alexandria's belief that it is memories, not merely the soul, that makes one alive with the same kind of consideration. It would have made for an actual interesting story and philosophical question. But Dawntrail insists on remaining really shallow and just handwaving it all away (just as it did with previous big problems and ethical questions like in Mamook), making the whole section extra frustrating because we're forced to just swallow the lacklustre explanation that Cachiua (and thus the writers) give us.

And yes, if we were to consider the Endless sentient then it could easily be argued that Cachiua is a villain and the WoL is an accessory to genocide. Especially when her request to erase all Endless doesn't even make much sense when she later explains that shutting off Sphene's terminal would shut off all other terminals anyway. So why even make the request when it's seemingly inevitable when stopping Sphene?

But I'm pretty sure that's just another sign of the weak and unsubtle writing of this writing team. A particularly heavy-handed way to force in extra stakes and sacrifices without it necessarily making much sense (same reason why we can't just shut down the terminals without erasing the data). It's not unlike how the ending of Mass Effect 3 forced you to also kill all Geth and EDI if you wanted to kill the Reapers.

So it's obviously not the players who are unethical for doing what the video game tells us to do. It's the video game characters doing arguably unethical things in-universe that are waved away by weak excuses thanks to weak and shallow writing. Like the OP said: the writers wanted a certain result and they didn't really put much care or thought in how they were going to reach that result.