Omicrons and The Endless (Do Endless Dream of Electric Sheep?)

[PyurBlue]

For me, the problem is that everything needs to be taken together in context. Despite having awareness, they cannot exist independently from the devices that manifest them outside their server and they are people who have already had a life and then were converted to this state after death where they depend on the souls of sapient people in order to persist.

Taking life from others is an obvious moral problem, but why does it matter if they need external devices to survive? That can be looked at as something like a very advanced version of a pacemaker. That the people they were based on died also doesn't reflect on their current living status either. It just makes them unique from the originals.

[MikkoAkure]

Well, that’s the problem with cherry picking arguments like that, it goes both ways.
They can’t give birth? Well, can Omicrons? Is procreation now a definition of life, not soul then?
They can’t leave the Living Memory area? Scions were dying in the First. People on life support can’t be without it. We can’t survive in space as is, and so on.

And you seem to be cherry picking my posts.

Like I said, it's all about the context. It's not just one or two things, otherwise we'll be in a "featherless biped" situation and things like ghosts, skeletons, mammets, carbuncles, and magitek reapers could count as life too.

Other than turning their terminals off, the Endless cannot be slain like every other anything that exists in this world. They cannot exist beyond the reach of their terminals and are anchored to them like a cyberpunk phylactery. They are dead people being made manifest by an overly complicated necromantic ritual that is more science than magic. They are literal ghosts in a machine and they required more souls from other people to be formed so we had to shut the whole thing down. Personally I think the idea of artificially keeping my dead ancestors in a static environment rotating in and out of a computer for eternity downright gross and needing to kill innocent people to keep it going makes it worse.

I'm not happy about the Ultima Thule situation either but at least they have or seem to have all the aetherial components we understand are required to compose an independent, living being on their own without assistance. We've also seen the Omicron factory and they can replenish their numbers that way and some Omicron may indeed receive souls. Endless can't work like that. You can't produce an Endless from nothing because it requires the memories of the deceased. If you have no qualms in putting down ashkin, then I don't know why you draw the line at ending the Endless.

Taking life from others is an obvious moral problem, but why does it matter if they need external devices to survive? That can be looked at as something like a very advanced version of a pacemaker. That the people they were based on died also doesn't reflect on their current living status either. It just makes them unique from the originals.

Like I said above and in the post that you quoted from me, it's all the things put together, not just one thing.

[Mr_Gyactus]

I think you all are missing something important: the correct question to get the correct definition.


What is a LIVING BEING? what are its characteristics?


Because everything we do in the last area, every endless we meet is in a way or another against this definition.

[Tsumdere]

I think you all are missing something important: the correct question to get the correct definition.


What is a LIVING BEING? what are its characteristics?


Because everything we do in the last area, every endless we meet is in a way or another against this definition.

To me a living being is something that has independent thought, consciousness, and actions. Humans are alive. Animals are alive. I believe eventually computers will be alive (as scary as that is to me). Using a cheesy example, in the context of their films I believe Wall-E and the Terminator to be alive. I think many people would be upset at the prospect of having to kill Wall-E because he is alive even if it was for the greater good.

Therein lies the problem of Living Memory. The writers didn't consider their own themes of living vs not living present in EW or that there is many, many people who hold similar sentiments to me. They didn't explain themselves or why it had to be that way - they simply told the player what to think and people are pushing back against it.

[Fawkes]

To me a living being is something that has independent thought, consciousness, and actions. Humans are alive. Animals are alive. I believe eventually computers will be alive (as scary as that is to me). Using a cheesy example, in the context of their films I believe Wall-E and the Terminator to be alive. I think many people would be upset at the prospect of having to kill Wall-E because he is alive even if it was for the greater good.

Therein lies the problem of Living Memory. The writers didn't consider their own themes of living vs not living present in EW or that there is many, many people who hold similar sentiments to me. They didn't explain themselves or why it had to be that way - they simply told the player what to think and people are pushing back against it.

Ok, but animals/monsters are living beings but they make a distinction between beast souls and people souls. So now I wanna know where the line is, like do beast tribe races all have people souls? Some of them are less capable of speech and things, is that part of the metric? Or is it some more lore-involved answer where beings created by the ancients have beast souls and beings created from the ancients via the sundering have people souls? And then what about whole or partially rejoined souls, are they like another tier up, like people souls deluxe edition? If we bring Emet back and stuff him in the soul battery machine is it worth like 14 times as much soul juice as some regular old person in Tural?

[Tsumdere]

Ok, but animals/monsters are living beings but they make a distinction between beast souls and people souls. So now I wanna know where the line is, like do beast tribe races all have people souls? Some of them are less capable of speech and things, is that part of the metric? Or is it some more lore-involved answer where beings created by the ancients have beast souls and beings created from the ancients via the sundering have people souls? And then what about whole or partially rejoined souls, are they like another tier up, like people souls deluxe edition? If we bring Emet back and stuff him in the soul battery machine is it worth like 14 times as much soul juice as some regular old person in Tural?

Exactly. They slap in the word soul and expect everyone to be on the same page. There are cultures (many cultures in fact) who believe everything has a soul - including inanimate objects! For those that are unfamiliar look up animism.

Of course if the writers don't explain FFXIV's definition of soul there is going to be confusion, upset, and anger. For me, it's not even about having to kill the Endless to save the living but rather how callously they were deemed not worthy of living because of this nebulous "soul" and not the qualities of humans that make them human.

They certainly had no problem drilling into our brains about peace for Tural, but then kinda just skirt around not explaining something that really needs explanation. Or else they end up with what they have now which is an ending zone that is pretty fxxking distasteful in my opinion.

[VoidsentStatus]

clearly failed to convey their moral of Living Memory

Agreed. When I was going back and researching things, different characters perceive/describe the Endless in different ways.

Erenville the first time you go to Living Memory: "memories of the departed abided", "alive in all perceivable ways but knowing no loss" <- Considers Endless departed

Constancy, initial guide in Living Memory: "we have been recreated from the memories of those who have exhausted their souls - the departed, in other words" <- Only considers someone dead after they no longer have soul aether available.
"great effort is taken to ensure the integrity of your memories, so it will feel no different from when you were flesh and blood" <- Considering he believes us to be Endless as well, he is speaking as if memories have some sort of conscious.

Gra'ha: "All men eventually die. If you make Endless of everyone, you will never have enough aether to sustain them. You but prolong the inevitable." <- Speaking as if Endless are not dead or AI since he's using the word prolong.

Cahciua: "Being alive, you're the only one's who can do this." <- Contradicts Gra'ha's notion seemingly considering Endless to be dead.
"Can't bear to exist because someone died." <- Implies Cahciua believes Endless are only alive when they have soul aether.
"No matter how lifelike we may seem, we Endless are but facsmilies crafted from memories." <- Weird statement considering facsmilies are copies by definition. There's no "cloning" of the memory aether that got extracted and stored. It would seem as if facsmilies crafted is moreso a reference to their physical state being recreated based on memories since the original corporeal aether is not available and not the Endless as a concept as a whole.
"She is powerless to resist her purpose." <- Referencing Sphene. Adds the idea that different Endless have different levels of control considering Cahciua is going against the system. If every Endless was "programmed", Cahciua wouldn't exist.
"Harnessing the love the living Sphene bore for her people, they brought forth an eternal queen" <- This is odd language. Harnessing love is not in the process of creating an Endless traditionally. Origenics is not harnessing love or other emotions. Something different/specific has happened with Sphene. Almost giving me primal vibes.

And if we go back to Otis:
"She lives yet she does not. Tis admittedly a difficult distinction to make." <- Goes on to describe Sphene being made used extracted memory aether, and considers someone alive just because of that sake, regardless of the soul aether requirement.

It rides off of who you want to believe the most xDD I chose to go off Otis and Gra'ha because Otis is an explanation dump section of the MSQ & Gra'ha is a knowledgeable figure in general, although I would've preferred if we had Y'shtola in Living Memory.

[SongOfTheWind]

And you seem to be cherry picking my posts.

I left what you addressed at me I assumed, given the quote above and the character limit I was facing by not cutting it. Would ‘snip’ be more up your alley?

[OMGJesuis66]

the geth asked its creator "does this unit have a soul"

then a galactic war broke out. lets not repeat that here

Can we have a galactic war? I want a galactic war.

[Nitelancer]

...
And if we go back to Otis:
"She lives yet she does not. Tis admittedly a difficult distinction to make." <- Goes on to describe Sphene being made used extracted memory aether, and considers someone alive just because of that sake, regardless of the soul aether requirement.

It rides off of who you want to believe the most xDD I chose to go off Otis and Gra'ha because Otis is an explanation dump section of the MSQ & Gra'ha is a knowledgeable figure in general, although I would've preferred if we had Y'shtola in Living Memory.

Even if we came to conclusion that they were alive, their existence posed an imminent threat to our existence. Their survival depended on our extinction. Faced with such a threat, whether they were alive or not becomes irrelevant, and the right thing to do was to shut them down because it ensures our survival, assuming there was no other solution.