Quote Originally Posted by Kiarin View Post

Note 1: if Endless are your precious citizens, dear Sphene, why the heck didn't you try to protect them? Put at least some guards around monoliths, you know? Especially considering that you saw and knew that we, hostile forces, have arrived into Living Memory.

Why we do even have to erase them instead of just shutting the system down? We know that only 1/10 of Endless are online, so that means they can be kept archived offline for no or much less energy. We could just put them all offline temporarily, without erasing the data itself, and take any amount of time to search for the solution of their problem. If we could fetch huge amounts of aether from 1st to 13th, we have all chances to reconfigure Sphene's system somehow. Maybe feed it the souls of voisent, lol, since they all want to die anyway. Perfect combo.

Note 2: when the fight with Robo-Sphene starts and she talks again about protecting her precious Endless, why couldn't anyone tell her - sorry, lady, we just erased all of them, so you don't have the reason to fight anymore?

Now, one could counterargument that we are effectively at war with Sphene's nation and we make harsh decisions in extreme circumstances. But erasing Endless doesn't serve to diminish Sphene's battle power. We are just targeting civilians, which is a warcrime - at least from Sphene's point of view.

Summary. I have a feeling that thay wanted no matter to implement the art decision of shutting down the beatiful realm, because they knew it would have emotional impact. But in doing so, they hammered the whole plot logic into a very questionable, to say the least, writing.

What do you think?
1: They explicitly explained that while Sphene was preparing for Interdimensional Fusion they couldn't easily stop, let alone suspend the process. They also explain that shutting down the terminals is the same as erasing the Endless, and even if we didn't, shutting down the Meso terminal would have the same effect in the end. You weren't paying attention.

2: There were still those in the Meso Terminal and the living citizens in Solution Nine. She doesn't care about JUST the Endless, but ALL her citizens.