Did I skip something in the MSQ? This part doesn't make any sense to me

[Ilenya]

Honestly I feel like they just completely failed to convey the sense of emergency that really should have been there. The idea that Sphene wasn't willing to give us time to find a solution was fine, but we spend so long talking to people and not just rushing to stop Sphene it's like the writers forgot their own plot point.

The entire "We don't have time, we have to stop Sphene now!" only really felt like it came into play during the Alexandria dungeon, well after we shut everything down.

On the other hand, it would have felt honestly fitting if the people we interacted with (Wuk Lamat's mother figure, Otis, Krile's parents, Erenville's mom) were chosen to be there in the story specifically to slow us down, but the game never spells that one out, and not a one of them actually try to stop us in any meaningful capacity.

[sylphlands]

Dawntrail's writing is so terrible that it gaslights the player into thinking they're the one missing something. Unfortunately, it's just that bad. I can't believe this expansion got through a single editor (if it even had one, which I'm not convinced of).

[Maltrea]

I'm sorry, but you're supposed to just cry, say about how the MSQ changed your life for the 1000th time and not think about it deeply at all, otherwise you're insulting the great Yoshi-P and the brilliant company that is Square Enix. Now eat up your slop that came out of SE's bum, peasant.

Jokes and hyperbole aside, though, yes, it's as the other comments in the thread already mentioned. The story is just poorly thought-out and written. They shoved in way too many things into this one expansion's X.0 story, because they couldn't decide on what to focus on (Or rather, they were afraid of making a slower/lower stakes expansion like what we see in the first half, so they decided to throw in the whole Alexandria storyline as well), plus add the new writers' inexperience and incompetence into the pot, and we end up getting this shoddily written and rushed mess of a MSQ that reeks of insecurity and cowardice.

There are some good things in the story, but all of it is wasted potential because indie company is too scared to make a mistake, so in the process of trying to appease everyone, they made an even bigger one.

[kaynide]

Not a fan of the MSQ either, lots of “wtf are they talking about?” Or “why did they set it up like that?”

It all works if you just accept this: the new writer probably didn’t play through the core game, and wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do to connect major story beats, or didn’t really utilize his writers’ room/round table discussions.

Sure, if you really wanna bend over backwards and force things to make sense, sure, fine, go for it. But to me, the entire 2nd half was bleh.

I mean, I would have found it better if more endless existed outside of Living Memory, functioning in the way Sphene does (hologram’s robot pawn)…but eh.


/rant rant rant on

The entire setup was awful with the big tagline being what would happen if the scions were put on opposing sides. That was supposed to be a major plot point. We had, what.. one moment in a dungeon where Thancred blocked our path? That was the big climax of our rivalry?

They couldn’t write what should have been a fun Indiana Jones-esque adventure with hinjinks between friends?

An overly affectionate father wouldn’t notice something is up with his boy? You’re telling me Daddy Galool never praised his son? Or that he wouldn’t be all over his son trying to make sure he’s ok? I struggle to find how Zoraal could possibly grow up to be as brooding, ignorant and full of misguided ambition.

What even is the point of waging a war to exhaust the people from ever waging war again? And against who are you gonna wage war on? You’ve got no air force, no navy, barely an army. Their best infrastructure is probably their Amazon Delivery Network Pelupelu Alpacas. Is he saying he will jack up the mail delivery? Poke holes in the drums?

/rant rant rant off

TL;dr, we got Disney sequel writing this expac…is what it is.

[Gaddes]

I know folks are comparing the beings in the Last Dregs / Ultima Thule with the Living Memory people, but just putting a devil's advocate argument out there that at the beings in Ultima Thule are dynamis-powered, not aether-powered, and also most importantly are self-sustaining, whereas the Living Memory people will require a constant, unsustainable supply of aether in perpetuity. So when it comes down to it, there's no problem really with the Ultima Thule beings existing and milling about (whether they're real or not), while the Living Memories will continue to threaten aetheric lives.
The debate of whether they're real or not kinda doesn't matter when the aspect of guaranteed murder to acquire more aether trumps that.

... now of course there are the correct counter-arguments that we really should've been able to have time to come up with a solution to the Living Memory aether needs (the Scions have solved much harder topics), but in the absence of being allowed that option, we're pushed into a corner where we have to stop Sphene (which eliminates the memories) or real, breathing people will die.

[Jeeqbit]

I think it's essentially that if you try to preserve everyone in Living Memory, each possessed of a soul from the aetherial sea, then eventually there will be no souls remaining for the actual living and everyone will merely be in Living Memory. But worse, this was headed to come at the expense of the souls of other shards.

Ultima Thule differs because they aren't being endlessly created. Those that exist now, exist. They may have off-spring, but there is no guarantee that their parents can't pass on. The Omicron are also unlikely to have more of themselves created. It's limited overall by the supply of Dynamis there, which isn't infinite, so something would eventually give. Which is probably why when you finish the tribal quests, it's not as complete as you'd perhaps want.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I think it's essentially that if you try to preserve everyone in Living Memory, each possessed of a soul from the aetherial sea, then eventually there will be no souls remaining for the actual living and everyone will merely be in Living Memory. But worse, this was headed to come at the expense of the souls of other shards.

Ultima Thule differs because they aren't being endlessly created. Those that exist now, exist. They may have off-spring, but there is no guarantee that their parents can't pass on. The Omicron are also unlikely to have more of themselves created. It's limited overall by the supply of Dynamis there, which isn't infinite, so something would eventually give. Which is probably why when you finish the tribal quests, it's not as complete as you'd perhaps want.

Living Memory doesn't run off souls. There are no souls in living memory besides those of the player character and our party. The Endless are made of memory aether and corporal aether (life force) making them more akin to digital vampires. Souls are eternal, had they been left with their souls and simply kept out of the aetherial sea then they would be ghosts with no need to take anything from anyone. And if we killed them under those conditions, then we'd be the ones attempting to take their aether, so it's pretty clear why they didn't use the easy obvious method to achieve their goals that harms no one. They needed a contrived reason for conflict.

While the residents of Ultima Thule can pass on, several of the species they are modeled after are immortal and given when one decided to end his existence after fulfilling his purpose, we told him, "No, wait, don't, just find a new purpose." So...are we gonna go back and be like, "Our bad, based on new data, you should just off yourself after you've completed your function."

Also, not only is dynamis the most abundant energy in the universe, the universe someday ends. We convinced all those people to keep living life knowing that someday the whole server's getting shut down. We'd look crazy going back like, "Actually, nevermind, you should just stop existing now, even though we endured 12k years of torture to teach you how to live through any hardship you may face. Our bad. Big misunderstanding. Upon further thought, not enough energy in the universe to go around, so maybe you should consider packing it up."

I'm pretty confident the heat death of the universe will reach us before the residents of Ultima Thule breed us out of existence.

[kaynide]

Endless~!

Just to add, it's probably better to think of the Endless as digital copies a la the game "Soma".

That is to say, Otis, the original, died. Dead-dead. When he died, his entire memory was able to be copied digitally, which resulted in both the robotic doll and at a later time, the Otis we meet in Living Memory.

Neither of these are the actual Otis as he lived. It just happens that one requires additional life force to keep it running.

The big problem in the writing is, it's never really clear EXACTLY what it is this "life force" is, aside from maaaybe it being Dynamis...because otherwise they had the tech to convert Aether A into Aether B as much as they liked.

It's weird "science" and doesn't really make sense given the established lore we have in that, as far as we know, Aether is kinda like matter/energy in that is can't be created or destroyed but rather converted into something else. So, really really not clear what the "Corporeal Aether" (as you said) is, unless it's actually Dynamis..which has a lot of question marks.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

The reason why I picked digital vampires is because it helps conceptualize what they are actually taking from the living. In a lot of fiction, the reason vampires need blood is it's life force, which the vampires themselves lack due to being dead. Corporeal aether is physical aether that makes up the body. People think the Endless are soul eaters and understandably so because the regulators run off souls. But it's important to distinguish that they don't, given that we erase them not because we believe they can't be helped, but that they shouldn't be helped. So the question of if we should stake all vampires, no matter how nice they are, due to their existence being unnatural is the actual question we're being asked here.

We've already know what happens when something is memory and soul. The Ascians can go on forever because they are able to avoid returning to the aetherial sea upon death which is why we have to capture them in special crystals and slowly feed them into the aetherial sea to successfully kill them. The Scions lived for years on the First as memory and soul and were physically solid and could interact with things. Unukalhai and Cyella are just hanging out at the bar minding their immortal business. The story is full of ghosts living forever without issue and without us attempting to shove them back down into the aetherial sea if they aren't causing any harm. And the Alexandrians have already developed a way to keep memory and soul from going to the aetherial sea with the regulators, so they already have a better solution to their goals than making everyone digital vampires.

While it may take reading the codex to get what they are doing, it's actually pretty clear what Living Memory runs on. When they drain the lady, they grab two balls, the second one is meant to be her life force, her corporeal aether, her "blood." If they were using souls then it would have been best to leave everyone with their original souls as it would have removed all need for conflict and destruction. What they are trying to set up is a scenario like in Daybreakers where everyone becomes a vampire and then they all start to starve because now there are no humans around to get blood from.

As for dynamis, no. The people of Etheirys are aether-based beings and while we can manipulate dynamis because our aether is so thin, we are in no way made of dynamis. So that isn't what they are taking because we don't actually have any to take.

[Naoki34]

Yes, I've skipped all the tribal quests with pointless stories at random: Moogle, Pixie for the most part (only the quest to conclude a reputation stage is worth it sometimes, or simply trashed).

In MSQ, when it starts to bore me or any other game, it's deserved. I never skip the whole thing, but I click to skip the dialogues.

It's like when you're dealing with a goblin or something and some character's talking too much without interest.

I did this a lot in Dawntrail, especially in the last zone. What do I care about your story, you're going to die, I'm going to obliterate you and you're already dead... And the MSQ who want me to believe that they have a tender heart underneath their selfishness and don't want to die. Ah yes, the MSQ in a Shaloani atmosphere, it's the epitome of filler quests and sabisu (fan service) that in the end ends up on a BGM that doesn't match the subject, Great !

I'm going to re-run the NG+ Endwalker part 2 to walk around Elpis to remind myself that it was too good, Bye ! A date with the “Best Friend” and “Best Antagonist” and “Momy” !!!!