Quote Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon View Post
Rejoining the shards will not turn us into Ancients and/or end suffering. We'll just have the trauma of another half dozen brutal deaths etched into our souls. I'm sure that'll make us kinder to one another as species.

While it does look like some sort of rejoining is the direction the story is going. Just murdering everyone is a terrible plan. If not for moral reasons (which yes, for moral reasons) then because trauma impacts the soul for thousands of years and so far the only uses we've found for having a dense souls is holding a lot of aspected aether and curing someone else's soul corruption.
I don't think the story goes into a rejoining direction.
The thirteens will be healed, the first is on it's way to recover and the survivors of Alexandria have found a world outside the dome if they wish to leave it.
There could even be other survivors from former rejoinings if Yoshidas Interview is any indication and I think that is the direction they want to go.

The game makes a big point of remembering other people, the cultures and that they lived. If there are survivors then the cultures may not be lost yet.

That's also why I find that take you replied to... uh I don't have nice words for that.
Joining the Ascians and rejoining everything would wipe out those cultures, their history and their memories.
We would have never met Otis or Sphene (and I do like those). Imagine Ryne and the others from the first or even Zero just being erased without anyone remembering they existed in the first place.

I really don't know how someone can actually think like that tbh. I can't wrap my head around that.