Quote Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon View Post
Usually when people die in the FF14 universe, their force ghosts are sitting in the afterlife, they can watch people on the star doing stuff, make commentary, maybe pop in and do us a favor. They can still interact with and impact the world. Emet-Selch and Hyth helped save the universe after they died. That's not possible with the Endless because we shut them down without a second thought. We dissipated the part of them that hangs out in the afterlife and narrates.
Not true.

Normally when people die in the FFXIV universe, they go to the Lifestream where their memory aether is washed off their soul before their soul is reused and born again. They're not watching anything and certainly not interacting with anyone.

You really can't compare the normal process to what happens with Emet-Selch, who spent 12,000 years as a ghost and before that was an Ancient tasked with overseeing the Underworld (Lifestream) itself. After the events of EW MSQ are dealt with, he finally allows his spirit to go back to the Lifestream to go through the normal process. That's not something most people can do and I have no idea where you got the idea that it was possible for more mundane people.


Quote Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon View Post
And the argument that we had to because they need something from us that would harm us doesn't work because that's true for any conflict. If we wipe out the Mamool Ja then they can't attack the Xbr'aal for their land anymore. If we wiped out the Garleans then they can't drop moons on people. Wiping out an entire population pretty much solves any conflict with any group. So why do we bother looking for other ways in those situations? We could just wipe them out and declare "we had no choice."
The difference is that the Endless are already dead.

You can't compare civilizations of living, breathing people with a collection of simulacra made from dead peoples' memories. And besides, multiple Endless are OK with their passing, one actively pursues it, another doesn't care either way, and another expresses disgust at the idea of continuing at the cost of living people.

The actual civilization of Alexandria is still there and is thriving. No culture is erased, no living people are wiped out. Just the over-complicated graveyard that no one even knows exists beyond the fact there's a "cloud".