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

[Fhaerron]

The entire DT itself doesn't make sense.

Almost feels like sweet baby inc made it.

[chizLemons]

(...)

Again, there's some really bad writing going on and some of it is at odds with things that were explained in prior expansions. Trying to nitpick philosophical points is rather useless when it's a fictional story and the writers are the ones that control what is going on.

The writers created the Endless as computer facsimiles of dead people based on the memories stripped from their souls and so that's all they are. The intended moral appears to be "it is wrong to kill the living for the sake of those already dead", which does more or less align with one of the morals at the core of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story.

It doesn't matter how much players wants to convince themselves the Endless are living beings. The writers have told us that they are not and it is the writers that have created the Endless.

That's the main problem. I agree, there's some REALLY bad writing going on, and some of it is not only at odds with things from the past, but it's at odds within itself. There's even an interview where YoshiP talks about Living Memory and how it "makes us face this question".

That then makes us face the question, would we call that human? If someone is living in this digital world, are they really living?

It seems that in some point during early development, he thought about this. The gondola quest makes me think it was supposed to be there, but then, everywhere else, it ISN'T. And I'm sorry, but we are used to this game throwing philosofical questions at us and letting us nitpick them and reach our own conclusions, so it's not weird to have expected that to happen here - it didn't, and that's disappointing.
If the writers really created the Endless to only be computer facsimiles and not meant to be seen as living, then what was even the point of even meeting them? Why did they go out of the way to humanize them, if we were supposed to not think about it?
The scenes were all written to be emotional, and none of the characters acted like that meant less to them because of what they were, but that question was never raised. We treated all of the Endless like we would any other living being, and Wuk Lamat kept talking about how much fun she was having (which would often be either annoying, out of touch or outright disrespectful - she never thought about ANYTHING).

My point is that the philosofical debate shoul be there, but then something happened that it was either discarded or they failed to write them in there, and it's not weird that the playerbase is thinking about it.
The writers should have the control of what is there, but we shouldn't feel like we're being forced to think what they want us to. Well written stories usually make us reach the conclusion the writer wants us to by ourselves.

[OgruMogru]

Enforced gradual slow-onset alzheimer's for the entire population who are then rewarded at the time of death with a digital copy of all the memories stripped away during their life is just their culture. Don't question it. Don't think about it. I don't think the writers did.

[CuteBucket]

Living Memory and the Endless is just one big very stupid and not well thought out Trolley Problem the writers dumped on us.

You know, the philosophical thought experiment that became a meme in and of itself? Yeah, that Trolley Problem. The runaway trolley is headed towards five victims, but you can pull a switch and send the trolley down another track and only kill one person. Something-something needs of the many vs few, utilitarianism, ham-fisted metaphor that isn't very useful in practical applications, yadda yadda, not getting into all that right now.

Living Memory puts all the people of Etheirys on the bottom track and all the people of Living Memory on the top track that we the players as the Warrior of Light can flip the switch to change the trolley on. But then the writers encountered a problem: that might make the players feel really bad about killing all of these people, even if it was to save Etheirys. So instead, they set up a scenario where all of the Endless are just digital reconstructions of dead people's memories and aren't really "people" at all. Problem solved, now the players and the characters don't have to feel bad about killing every last one of them, because they were already dead to begin with.

But wait, that makes another problem for the writers, because they made this whole zone full of a bunch of characters and they need the audience to have a reason to care about them. So the writers decide to make the players stop and talk to them and get to know them as people first. That way the audience will care about the Endless and feel sad when they have to shut them down. Problem solved!

BUT WAIT, that makes the Warrior of Light and co sound like complete monsters, reuniting lovers and putting on a play for kids right before erasing them from existence. We can't have that, that's not good. So they make sure Caciua is there the whole time reminding the players that the Endless aren't real people and its fine. "See?" the writers say. "Even the Endless who know they're about to be erased don't mind! Don't feel bad! Just feel sad about Erenville and Krile's dead parents, that's okay, you're supposed to feel sad about that."

They can't make up their mind if the Endless are real people that we should give a damn about or not. They gave us a trolley problem where the guy on the top track is like, "Hey buddy, I know you may feel bad about throwing that switch and killing me to save the five others, but I'm not actually a real person, so it's fine, don't feel bad! But I sure would love if you took a moment before the trolley comes to get to know me as a person and share some ice cream with me, that would be real swell."

It's incoherent.

[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.