Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Galvuu]

Omega was a default Omicron that got... promoted? We know he used to have a normal body and was most likely just another one of his race until chosen for the new duty as Omega weapon.

In fact, I'm not sure we get confirmation how many of the omicrons were biological or not.
Presumably, they were building more of them en masse, customized for each invasion, even after their original population for mechanized (again, Stigma Dreamscape). Some others were created by mechanizing the races they were invading after being conquered.
But, now that I think on it, technically Omega might have been one of the original biological ones, we never get confirmation.
(I went and rewatched some of the Omicron cutscenes/dialogue)

[CuteBucket]

Living Memory fails thematically for me because it's written to have two conflicting things be true at once:

1) The Endless are not living creatures. They are a magical databank of dead people's memories, but are not real, living people with souls. While they may simulate life in a believable way, they are not and never have been "alive," and the people they are based on are long dead. They cannot feel pain or despair and even when told we are going to shut down the terminals, make no attempt to preserve their own "lives" because they are not alive at all, in the same way that your Sims will not beg for their lives if you choose to delete them.

2) The Endless are living creatures. They are sentient beings capable of forming new thoughts, learning new information, changing their minds, pursuing their own goals outside of a set program, and for all intents and purposes act identically to a real, living person with a soul. We are supposed to see them as real people whose wants and desires are meaningful and deserve our respect and reverence. Their lack of a soul does not make them any less real and "alive" than other creatures in the world of FFXIV like the Omicrons and advanced magical constructs.

Both of these statements cannot be true, but the writing of this last zone can't decide whether 1 or 2 is the truth. Caciua tells us over and over again that 1 is true and we have no reason to believe she is lying. Yet her own existence calls this into question and all the side quests in the area make 2 seem true...until they suddenly don't and make 1 seem true again. I think if the writers had actually picked which scenario is true instead of trying to have it both ways we wouldn't be having this debate. But the feeling I got all through the zone is that they are operating under the idea that 1 is the true statement but then worry that means we won't be emotionally invested enough so then write the side NPCs as if 2 were true. It came off as confused and careless writing to me, which contributed to me emotionally tuning out of the entire last zone. They so desperately wanted me to feel bad about the digital memories of dead people while at the same time telling me over and over that they aren't real and to not feel bad about deleting them. It's not even a good or interesting moral quandary, it's just confusing and annoying.

[SteakDriven]

What's questionable is the physics of the place - when the rest of the tower got yeeted into the Source, why didn't the whole place come tumbling to the ground?

[SteakDriven]

The Endless aren't alive - they're sophisticated holograms programmed with the memories of the dead. What we did was turn off the holodeclk, but since literally everything is stored in RAM all of the holo data was lost. Sphene never would have needed to invade the source if the Alexandrians knew a daggone thing about system engineering.

[Ayche]

This is not really related to the Endless at all, but I don't think this can fully explain Omega.
Not really helpful to the discussion people are having here, but interesting to consider in the grand scheme of things.

Here is how I would tie it to the Endless. And this is going to be a wild throw, because I don't think the answer lies in either EE books or the game itself.

How do souls know what is life?
A robot is a metallic automaton powered by semiconductors, but we can also reduce people into flesh automatons powered by neurotransmitters. I think the souls knew even through all the technological augmentations that the omicrons were still ... people. I believe this because to me it explains the eventually development we saw in the omicron of the ultima thule. Omega was given a body that was capable of reaching such heights of free will, that it rediscovered that irrational messiness of being a person instead of a mere program.

And I think it is obvious that the Endless are not considered legitimate lifeforms in the same process. It is not merely that they are artificial, I would say that the Ea and Omicrons too are on some level "artificial". Losing your body is not enough to lose your soul, but death is. And this is why the souls are forced to fuel the Endless, and why it needs souls: it is the soul that gives them such life-like quality. But memories are not life, memories can never change. They are a thing of the past.

This is my speculation based on how I see this all pan out.

[TheMightyMollusk]

What's questionable is the physics of the place - when the rest of the tower got yeeted into the Source, why didn't the whole place come tumbling to the ground?

Same reason Azys Lla didn't crash when we killed the Warring Triad and removed its power source.

[Karious]

Did everyone just forget all the lessons that Endwalker taught us?



Did we forget this lesson at the Studium? Does Alexandria not have Electrope which can convert lightning aether into any other form of aether? Did Horoi just not care?



It was wrong to kill the endless, just as Sphene's motivations and plans were nonsensical.

[Yumarox]

It was wrong to kill the endless, just as Sphene's motivations and plans were nonsensical.

By one half of moral theory, yes it is wrong to kill the Endless for the act of killing anything is wrong for it harms the life of another. By Kant’s moral philosophy in the FF14 universe harming or forcibly altering anything with a soul is wrong. The complication is Kant is not the only moral theory to judge the situation by we have utilitarian ethics as well.

Utilitarian ethics is judged not on the action, but on the outcome. In the case of the Endless was shutting down the Endless a better outcome then letting the Endless live as Sphene designed? The Endless need a constant supply of aether from other souls to keep going. To keep the Endless going more souls need to be harvested, and here is where keeping the Endless alive is no longer ethical under Utilitarian ethics because by outcome more souls are being harvested than souls saved.

If we allow Sphene to have the power to do what she needs to do to keep the Endless alive more souls are harmed than saved making saving the Endless an immoral choice under utilitarian ethics. The Endless without Sphene's plan will die out anyway without the souls of others to keep it going so leaving them as are doesn't save them. Destroying the Endless stops Sphene from having the power to harvest the souls from the source the unfortunate only positive outcome.

[Bibine_Bine]

Did everyone just forget all the lessons that Endwalker taught us?

Holy shit, so many people are derailing this topic into a debate as to whether the Endless are actually alive or not and entirely missing the point of other people need to die for them to live. And it's also an unsustainable process that has been snowballing out of control for a while at this point.

Did we forget this lesson at the Studium? Does Alexandria not have Electrope which can convert lightning aether into any other form of aether? Did Horoi just not care?



It was wrong to kill the endless, just as Sphene's motivations and plans were nonsensical.

Nowhere has it been established that it's actually possible for people to just convert aether into souls. That happens in the Aetherial Sea, and it's the only way it's known to happen.

[Yumarox]

Nowhere has it been established that it's actually possible for people to just convert aether into souls. That happens in the Aetherial Sea, and it's the only way it's known to happen.

The only thing close is when it was the other way around and we see that in the Relic weapons. The ARR Relic weapon eats souls and converts it into the the power the wielder of the weapon's soul desires of it. We also "Make" a new soul in the Heavensward relic weapon but that is the WOL's memories and souls birthing a new one through the weapon by feeding it the WOL's experience and memories and even then it is very limited. The Shadowbringer relic weapons are taking the collected trauma of warfields and making a weapon out of that.

The lore many times makes it clear that souls can be powered to do thing, but the other way around is not the same that is the whole point of Endwalker that the alterations of the soul with Aether is only temporary and the soul it it's own thing.