Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Turtledeluxe]

Well, according to YoshiP the Endless aren't there to teach us that beings that feed off life are inherently evil and should be exterminated no matter what. He says they are there to get us discussing and thinking about how we will treat similar beings once tech advances to the point where we can digitally upload the human brain. So I guess I didn't miss the plot after all. I guess I'm doing what they included them in the story to get me to do. To think. To discuss. Not to blindly accept what one character strongarms the other characters into accepting to get us to the next boss fight.



https://www.thegamer.com/final-fanta...siting-future/

This quote just confirms that the Endless are recreations, which means your claim that the mind is with your memory aether false. The memory aether allows an instance of the original person to exist. And no one has to regard a new instance of a person as the original person, or really a person to begin with. People who do this will be regarded as willfully delusional if it ever becomes reality.

And frankly, the cast were not willing to entertain this delusion. So Yoshi P answered his own question. It will be a little novelty for 2 hours and then people will move on. Krile turned off her parents happily for gods sakes.

To be clearthe mind is not with the aether. A mind is. An important distinction.

[Alchemii]

The major problem I have with that zone is that nobody in the MSQ questions "If someone is living in this digital world, are they really living?". Does Yoshi think it does? If so, has he not played DT? Had he even read the script? Talked to the writers at all during pre-production? Checked in during production? Where is that questioning in game??

The MSQ shows the "heroes" destroying them all without questioning the morality of it, looking for better/other alternatives or even feeling a tiny bit bad about it.

Was the MSQ written that way on purpose to make some players question it and start discussions? That seems like quite a reach, so pretty doubtful.

So what went wrong there?

It feels he's talking about a story that is pure headcannon, not what we actually received in the MSQ and that is honestly more than a bit worrying for the future of FFXIV.

Hey now. They can't have the player base questioning if living in a digital world is actually living. If that happens people might you know realize they need to get away from the computers and go outside, and then next thing you know they'll stop playing the game, and paying subs, and buying stuff.

[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.

[Jojoya]

I think Emet-Selch would've absolutely shut down Living Memory.

I think Emet and the other Ascians were responsible for Living Memory. I think Preservation was their experiment group for finding a new way to recreate those they had lost. Emet had already told us they had no hesitation when it came to using our aether to restore their dead.

Once the system was perfected to their satisfaction, they would have removed the test subject memories of the Alexandrian people and replaced them with the memories of the Ancients that were sacrificed to Zodiark or lost in the Sundering. The memory crystals we found then passed onto Elidibus as he died (except for Azem's) may not have been the only ones in existence. The appearance of Living Memory would have changed to reflect Amaurot, Elpis and other places of the pre-Sundering world.

[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

[Turtledeluxe]

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.

The sundered are all unique people distinct from the Ancients resulting from their effective death. SHB is pretty much nothing like what's going on here where we are dealing with exact perversions meant to function as the original identity.

[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.

[Fiel_Tana]

The sundered are all unique people distinct from the Ancients resulting from their effective death.

Yes, that is fairly true, however nowhere in the story does that define life nor whether any group deserves to continue or not. Whether or not you feel they are "perversions" is also your opinion, not canonical to DT. If they were so perverse, why bother to give them happy memories before destroying them? Why not say something about how the scions, WoL and Wuk felt about them? Why do none of the characters have any opinions or curiosity?

What I'm getting at is that the story doesn't deal with the theme that Yoshi set out, to quote him "That then makes us face the question, would we call that human? If someone is living in this digital world, are they really living?" You have the opinion that they are not. Others feel that they do fully qualify as alive. I feel that perhaps they are and in previous expansions that would have been examined and 100% should have been here. All those opinions are perfectly valid.

What I'm arguing is that based on the story so far in previous expansions and the characters canonical experiences and knowledge, there should be more than enough doubt that the scions and WoL should have questioned whether they qualified as alive or not, whether there was another way, or at the very least not been so blasé about destroying them all.

That fact that they don't leaves the area very uncomfortable for some players, along with leaving a (for the WoL and scions) a rather large moral issue left unquestioned. It also makes for a very unsatisfying story for many players.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

The major problem I have with that zone is that nobody in the MSQ questions "If someone is living in this digital world, are they really living?". Does Yoshi think it does? If so, has he not played DT? Had he even read the script? Talked to the writers at all during pre-production? Checked in during production? Where is that questioning in game??

The MSQ shows the "heroes" destroying them all without questioning the morality of it, looking for better/other alternatives or even feeling a tiny bit bad about it.

Was the MSQ written that way on purpose to make some players question it and start discussions? That seems like quite a reach, so pretty doubtful.

So what went wrong there?

It feels he's talking about a story that is pure headcannon, not what we actually received in the MSQ and that is honestly more than a bit worrying for the future of FFXIV.

Given the state DT launched in, I'd bet all the money in my bank account he hasn't played it. There is just no way if someone with power had played through the entirety of this we would have gotten what we got. So I agree he might be talking about why it was added while having no idea how it was handled in the story.

The sundered are all unique people distinct from the Ancients resulting from their effective death. SHB is pretty much nothing like what's going on here where we are dealing with exact perversions meant to function as the original identity.

Okay, Azem.