From the very first moment they explained how souls were being used by regulators, I was horrified. In hindsight, I feel like this was intentional on the story writers’ part. This game has shown us multiple times how important souls are, it even brought us to the depths of the aetherial sea. Learning how the regulators also erase memories of deceased loved ones only deepened that horror. One of the major themes that has always been present in this game is how the people we meet and love influence us. Many times the game has given the warrior of light the choice of returning back to words of wisdom and compassion from those we have lost. The idea of forgetting those individuals that have influenced the warriors of light and their journeys is nigh incomprehensible. All in all, I have found Alexandria’s arc to be one of quiet, deeply disturbing horror.
Part of my massive frustration with the story delivery was how horrorific everything about Alexnadria's use of souls and 'life aether' was, yet the game kept trying to chalk it up to "well, different cultures! Lets learn about how they grow crops!". Just all came off WAY too casual given that we just literally bomb-train-blew our way into a military occupation where they had kidnapped an entire city and worse yet, Sphene was just a another Ascian, with pastel colors this time.
@@7RicolmE7 Its like they were all AFK during a certain characters "twisted mausoleum" comparison or simply can't grasp the difference between those who lived and are gone, and the simulacrum programs based on stolen memories of the dead they are looking at.
@@7RicolmE7 I think it is the tonal dissonance between last zone clearly tried to invoke some kind of emotional response such as saying good bye to these ''endless'' figure, to put it another way, writer want to have their cake and eat it too.
But those souls aren't erased tho. They were used in the regulators to act as battery, but them they were released back to the aetherial sea. If anything, it's just prevent them from entering sea right away.
I've been saying since DT launched that Alexandria has more in common with Eulmore than it does with the void. It is the first without the exach, it is the timeline where Vauthry wins. A shard on the brink, held in perfect stasis while it waits for a rejoining that will never come.
Consider this: Alexandria can never have a warrior of light. All memory of the ancients has been burned away in the cleansing process. The Echo can no longer exists for them. Similarly, their shard of Azem is gone, turned into a battery.
Although hades could have prevented azem( the play character shard of the 9th ) from being used as a battery considering he did pose as Azem and brought azems relic to them and wouldn't have let that happen to use he will bring us back he thought
@@Boxkar24 Not directly I think, but with what we know of how the soul wiping process works and how that interacts with what we know about how reincarnation works in ffxiv. it's quite a possibility that this could have happened. In fact I'd say it's fairly likely Azem's soul was turned into a battery and his memory was held up somewhere in Living Memory until recently. But where do memories without a soul go?
Not entirely true. We learn in Endwalker that souls are already scoured of memories in the aeherial sea. Indeed, even Dawntrail says that what origenics does is not terribly unalike what the aetherial sea does with memories in the soul. As for the echo, Elidibus states that those who bore witness to the final days were so scared by it that it left a mark on their very soul. With these two facts in mind, it is possible Elidibus was speaking literally. Granted, perhaps it wasn't literal and origenics does purge even that, but it wouldn't be a retcon if they ever say "well it's the soul that was scarred that let the echo be a thing." That said, idk how they rectify the personalities thing. Many people who inherit the souls of their ancestors, like the WoL, have personalities like their ancient counter parts (WoL = Azem). So that could be an avenue for an Azem shard on the 9th as well. But yeah deleting the memories of the deceased among the living, and reusing souls instead of them returning to the aetherial sea is still pretty fucked up.
I mean the memories are probably somewhere, right? I don't think memories can necessarily be destroyed. The aetherial sea already cleanses souls of their memories but they find a way back somehow.
Regulators really are just one of those things that the more you consider it, the worse it can be. What if someone murders your spouse and she can't revive? Well nobody remembers her, so likely her death is never gets investigated because who's gonna care enough that she's dead? What if your boss commits a crime that you witness? Well getting rid of you would be even more convenient wouldn't it. And now with the new dungeon and all its horrors, everyone involved has been thrown away, because Zoraal Ja likely knew that no matter who he abused or misused in that scenario, there'd be no one to miss them.
I mean... if someone murder your spouse, you will forget about them too... So you won't care that much either. But that's horribly fucked up. If you have a family, a spouse and childrens then one day of them disapear because they are murderer like you say, the whole family gonna continue to live like nothing happened. It's SO insane to me... I wonder if there was already a case where someone for exemple loose their child ( so they forgot they had them to begin with ) but still have physical proofs of the existence of the departed ? Doesn't that make them crazy to see a picture with their own child but they don't remember anything ? Or they simply don't care that much ? Man, Alexandria is so horrible and fascinating at the same time.
I was uncomfortable the moment they showed how they would strip away the memories of those who passed. For my WoL and the WoL as a general character , we have lost so many beloved characters that the thought of never having known them at all was terrifying
Also, as a note. The South Sea Isle Lalafells went to the Ninth during the Fifth Umbral Calamity, which was after allag had fallen. It was also only after the lalafells came to the Ninth, that the electrope we know today was made. Since beforehand, the people of the ninth couldn't use it for its current uses, as naturally occurring electrope isn't etched with sigils/etc. the Ninth also never experienced the source's lightning calamity. After all, shards can experience their own "calamities" not tied to the source. The "Lightning" problem they had was man-made. The alexandrian rise to power with electrope happened before eulmore ended up the way it did as well. Since the flood of light only happened after Minfilia went to the first with ardbert. Which was well over 30 years after Krile came through the ninth's portal. Way too many people seem to be having trouble with the timeline in FFXIV (I don't blame them, since shards have varying degrees of time), and I wanted to clarify these things.
Not even a joke, in the cutscene of the invasion of Tuliyollal, I referred to them as Decepticons and when I saw the extraction/reaping, I called out 'They have Spark Extractors!'
I love how philospohical and macro-level that the Professor gets in his videos. Such as the intro in which he discusses how pain can inform, and how you can only feel joy because you have sadness to compare it to.
As soon as I saw where the regulators take away a persons memory I knew that this society was messed up. I see the regulators as a way for whoever is in charge of Alexandria to control their people and take away their voice so they can do whatever they want.
I heard so many people complain how “stupid” the patch story was and how the people of Alexandria were weird. And I’m like??? When you and your parents and their parents never even conceptualized death and mourning until their QUEEN. And then they had to realize what happens to me? Who died before me. Did I have a partner, siblings, children, etc. stuff you NEVER will know and can imagine endlessly of. I think that story direction is amazing. I will HEAVILY commend the importance of Wuk Lamat and co. Being very open that they do not like it, but they need to respect it as they’ve done for all Cultures of Tural. It can’t continue objectively speaking, but if we just said your wrong stop NOW and fight them, we wouldn’t have Sphene’s or any of Alexandria’s people’s trust and more lives would be lost. Respecting cultures and finding a balance of maintaining culture but realizing how it can’t be sustainable such as the Blessed Siblings
For me, i had a feeling how bad Alexandria was when the Regulators came into light. Even more when i learn about the soul cell and the endless. And i wouldn't be surprised if we seen other civilization from other shard follow the same idea. Heck, i'm willing the bet that if we get a zanarkand version in 14, we'll see something similar to the 10 counterpart where the souls dreams to keep them alive or something like that.
As soon as I saw the regulators and what they did to people, I felt a chill run down my spine, and that chill came back tenfold in the 7.1 patch. Not only are the people of Alexandria so emotionally stunted that they can't deal with grief, they've never felt that pain so they want to go back to being happy. As another commentator on here mentioned, its a lot like the society of the Ancients. They had 'perfection' for so long that when it all came crashing down, they couldn't deal with it. Honestly it's something that has to be destroyed, so that they can't go back. Its the only way that the people have a chance of survival.
Yeah, you try living in a brink of the world yourself. There are reason why the alexandrian turned to such technology. It literally the reason why they manage to hold on until now. It's not unlike the world of FF type 0, where people forget the deceased so that they won't fall into grief and unable to keep fighting. As for the ancients, they are capable of dealing with grief. Why do you think they cannot? They do feel sadness when someone decided to return to the aetherial sea, but they keep strong and make it a celebration because their culture revolve around reincarnation. The only time they "surrender" to grief, they have very valid reason for it. Their world is dead, and they lost 75% of their population to restore it (not to mention people who died due to blasphemies and final days). Who wouldn't be in despair if they're on their shoes?
I have a mountain of problems with DT but Solution 9 has a lot of potential and intrigue that could be used to great effect if they get it together for the rest of the patches. The concept being very similar to FF Type Zero is very horrifying if presented well. One thing I will give them as a defense for a common Solution 9 complaint is it being so empty, because to me it implies the sheer amount of people that potentially lived there and have been turned into soul capsules while the citizens are so unaware they don't even question why this massive city is so empty.
When I was first playing though 7.0 and got to the "Unlost World" and found out what it was, I saw that the Alexandrian system was unsustainable and poorly though out. The fact that so many resources were going into preserving the memory of people (even if only a small % were 'active') and the fact that it would grow exponentially worse struck me as emblematic of a stagnating society. So much effort was spent on creating was was essentially theme parks of the past (The idealized Venice like tourist town, amusement park with disneyfied history, water park, and very formal managed garden). This effort to maintain an "idealized" version of the past also being the justification for invading other dimensions struck me as the most horrific aspect of Alexandria. Wanting to commit what amounts to genocide across the multiverse to sustain a system that is fundamentally flawed. Particularly, as the general populous of Alexandria is unaware of it, gets no benefit from it (can't visit relatives when the memory has been erased). It seems to me the only person who this really benefits is A.I. Sphene, allowing it to fulfill its savior programming. In addition, there is another implication of the memory removal that is not discussed. That a lot of a person's personalty and development as a person relies on experience and interaction with others, and removing memories of that person would effect everything about a person. What if someone learned to cook from their grandmother, then the grandmother passed away. Would they still be able to cook? Or if the passing of a loved one from an untreatable disease motivated them to dedicate their life to curing such a disease? But with no memory of that person, there would not be that motivation.
i love your mention of Loving Memory's zones. And i think each is actually worse than it looks at first, on purpose: Venetian canals with a medical collection that's literally hollow Not-Quite-Disney where the rides aren't even working when you get there Gardens that even the most adventurous inhabitants have never really seen, and the poisonous plants turn out to have been fake the whole time and the water park LITERALLY AT A VOLCANO WITH HISTORY BURIED UNDERGROUND could that have been any more explicit
It’s almost as if someone read about the False Hydra, and went “bet, but what if it kept them blissfully ignorant instead of horrified?” Alexandria is what I consider to be the pinnacle of science not bothering with morality. I play my Warrior of alight as deeply offended by it all, considering they’ve been to the lifestream and had to realize that Venat would never gain access to it. That was a choice. A horrific self sacrifice for the future of the world. This? These people are controlled by the system.
The more I read this story, the more it reminds me of "We Happy Few" and "Brave New World" which is only making me love it more. I am super excited to see where it goes!
it's not just cyclical with Allag, it's cyclical with the likes of the Ea, with the Omicron. The Warrior of light is defined by their ability to tread through repeated adversity and hang onto the scraps of joy they can find at the other end. the regulators steal the ability to hear the truth, to feel the dark and traumatizing facts of life, and to think and dwell on those experiences seared into one's memory. the push for an ideal at any cost lead to the Ea mooring from their flesh, only to be consumed by their relationship with cheating death being beaten by the heat death of the universe. The Omicron gave up the soul and their capacity for dynamis, only for their single-minded conquest for safety to crack beneath a quandry that could not logically be resolved by their computerized hive-mind. Sphene is a monolith built on folly and misunderstanding, and so that folly spread through and numbed the people.
I thought the same thing when he mentioned the whole thing about "once a society reaches a certain pinnacle and doesn't fear pain or death, it fails". That goes hand in hand with what Meteion told us about the civilizations she encountered throughout the universe. It's not just Alag that it compares to, it's a lot of other less explored (and already long gone) societies within the game's expanded lore as well. :(
That also happens in Fate, the creation of lostbelts happens when a world is SO much shit or too much Glory that their existence became a burden to the universe
To be honest, Spoilers for 7.1 Seeing the alexandrians still clinging to the regulator system made me feel disappointed in them. Like I finally understood how Venat felt during the Sundering scene wherein she was trying to convince the ancients that summoning Zodiark was bad. As they begged for paradise, I could not help but sigh as I see the same behavior from the Alexanderians
I feel this also all speaks of Carl Jung's thoughts on consciousness. The self, the shadow, the collective unconsciousness. Even the division of Mind, Body, and Spirit are represented by Memory, Body, and Soul. I still feel that the new Sphene is the shadow of the Sphene we knew, but that the Sphene returned in Living Memory is the physical return of her possibly with or without her memories. I feel the reunification with her shadow self may be the path forward. I feel like the Sphene in solution nine is gathering souls to try and grant herself a physical form again. I could go on about this for hours lol.
I definitely wouldn't want to numb myself when my parents pass away from old age(they're reaching 80 in a few years, my mom just celebrated her 74th birthday today) so I can agree that despite how much you want to erase the pain, living through it is essential. I've read so many murder mystery series and the recent book I am on is about the single mother of two young boys who runs a tourist hotel. The last book I read had her reunite with her husband who she thought was dead, only to find he was dying anyways due to a villain's mental training, and the husband sacrificed himself to kill the villain so that she could live in peace, making her mourn again. But if she were to have her memories of her husband erased and forgot who he was, then the story would be hollow and unfulfilling. It's this tragedy that makes stories wonderful and a world where the death of a loved one means they disappear from your life forever is something that is horrible and evil.
I imagine the crime in Alexandria are pretty bad. As I explored in solution 9 dive deep to see the details in one spot, I saw there gang-like behaviors. I found one guy in the dumpster, but I can't tell if the dude was alive or not. Solution 9 sounds like it can be placed to live too, if one person don't like the other they simply can have murdered that one soul. And no one will know and forgotten everything about that soul. To be forgotten is worse than death.
I definitely agree that the society of Alexandria is egged up. I especially find the erasure of memories the most disturbing, as the video puts it, you could have had a great relationship with someone. But when they died you would forget everything about them, which essentially erases the bond you had with that person. And I definitely would rather suffer in pain and loss than forget a bond I share with someone, since if it’s extremely painful to lose them, then that just means the bond and memories of them were priceless to you
Removing memory effectively removes choice (because you have had vital information removed), which negates will. Even if the Alexandrians never have to work a day in their lives, they're still slaves.
The theme of a highly advanced, decadent society, incapable of accepting the hardships of life, brought crumbling down under the weight of their hubris. The comparison to the Allag Empire isn't inaccurate, but it's not the conclusion I thought you were leading to. What comparisons I had drawn was those to the World Unsundered. The Allags, the Garleans, the Alexandrians, all of them are reflections of the Ancient society that all once was. The Ancients were not decadent in the traditional sense, with imagery of the highborn celebrating themselves while the world outside their window burned. But they were decadent all the same. I ask you, is holding "duty" above all else, to a point where mourning the loss of life is seen as weakness not self-indulgent in its own way? Remember, it was this self-indulgence in "duty" that created the perfect storm which led to the creation and subsequent corruption of Meteion. Given the origins of the Allagan and Garlean empires, it is poetic that they too fell to hubris as did the home of their Unsundered puppetmasters. And given all parallels, as well as the elemental crisis that befell the Archeo Kingdom, it is all too likely that the Ascians had their hands in Alexandria as well.
I had a horrible bad feeling when i saw the soldier extract *something* out of the old lady after killing her when they invaded tural and that only got confirmed more when we started learning about the regulators
What all three of these societies tell us is that we cannot sustain life while sacrificing others. The Crystarium and Tuliyolal are perfect parallels as well. Its what our Exarch G'raha Tia and our dear Dawnservents cultivated and learned through their journeys that it is the people gathering together to life each other up that natural happiness can occur. It is not stripping away all of the "bad" so good can flourish. Its understanding that to live is to suffer, yet find light and joy within the darkness, together. Kinda makes me think of the "life isn't fair" crap that gets spouted. We can be fair to each other if we choose to. Last note, we already know that the Alexandrian way of life isn't sustainable from just the side quests. Theres 3 side quests in and out of S9 where ppl end up finding the trail of someone they lost despite their memory being wiped. It's truly heartbreaking to watch these characters find out what they lost, and how much they want it back.
The issue with using soul cells is that those souls can not be reborn. But the question is: if you are technically a different person every time you are reborn, and if Etheirys has the power to constantly create and grant new souls to living beings, what is the purpose of rebirth to an average person? I believe the regulator's ability to alter and delete memories is far worse and far more dangerous, because it is in large part memories that define a person's mind and identity.
Oh I could tell that Alexandria was a flawed, doomed society from the moment we stepped foot within the lightning orb. I would also like to bring up the Ancients as a comparison point. Upon waking up to the realities of suffering during the Final Days, the Ancients invariably tried to return to the "perfect" society they used to have rather than accepting their new normal. It got so bad that Hydaelyn used it as another justification for sundering the star. Severing any possible connection to the past so they'd have no choice but to carry onwards into the future. If Alexandria cannot accept their new reality, we may not have a choice but to do similarly for them. The first step was, of course, cutting off the "power supply" to Living Memory, because that was obscene. If that doesn't stop them, we'll have to try other things...
I was just thinking I needed a new video to make my morning better and the notification popped up 2 seconds after that thought. Thank you for that. As for the state of Alexandria, I can’t help but think how many times this played out on other worlds in Endwalker. We don’t need to know them intimately, just the fact those worlds were so prosperous and tried to do the same thing ended in failure. So many failures, so we should know off the bat it’s going to fail, but we still have the power to stop it from taking a lot of people down with it than they already have.
A big part of the end of dawntrail for me is that we're doing the exact same thing that Emet said he was doing. "I do not consider you alive, therefore I am not guilty of murder if I kill you." All of the scions pretty much immediately were on board with this over the Endless. And I have to wonder why the Endless are the way they are. Do they have to stay in Living Memory? Why can't they control robots like Cahciua or Sphene to continue their life? They aren't truly endless in Living Memory, just a snapshot frozen in time at the end of their lives. Is it in their nature? Is it systemic? I would argue that, because Cahciua were able to continue acting upon the world, to make new memories and make meaningful decisions, they were necessarily more alive than the automatons they were controlling. But were they outliers? Or was Sphene preventing that? If the dead were able to continue to walk among the living through the automatons, would there even be need to erase memories? There's a lot that goes on with the Endless. And I don't think the story treats it with the respect it deserves. It's needlessly simplified. And the thing is, G'raha even puts it best as a perfectly justifiable reason to commit to the genocide, they will consume until there's nothing left. They are a locust. But I guess they don't want the player to feel guilty in any way.
this area made me so deeply uncomfortable with ALL of these implications around souls. It was such good evocative writing. It's a heartbreaking place. I genuinely didn't like going to Solution 9 until i had good memories of crafting with a friend there.
Alexandria wouldn’t have existed without their system. Their dome is more of an Ark. Origenics is their Aetherial sea or as close as possible. I doubt they have a natural Aetherial sea being that they lack a planet with the vast majority of their Shard having rejoined the source. So without them recycling souls they may have run out and simply died out, ending with an empty dome. We did see parts where its been mentioned that birth rates have lessoned most likely from a lack of ambient souls. Also they arnt all happy. We know they fear death because of how they react to being on their last soul cell. They also struggle with their jobs or witness disease and infirmity. The only thing theyre spared is the sadness with knowing someone has died but they still fear death for themselves and those currently alive and suffering. As for souls in natural atherial seas they regain all the memories of past lives and exist there for a while. Basically dreaming. Eventually when the soul returns those memories are restripped to stay in the sea. We dont know for certain how this process functions or what parts are necessary. We dont know if the rest is needed and we dont know what is more important, the soul or the memories. Not that whats going on is good. I agree its feels bad and im sure they coulda come up with other ways to handle their process to mimic a more natural system. Also we spend a whole expansion learning to accept cultures for their differences only to then say screw this culture in particular right at the end. I wanted to disagree with shutting down living memory and hated that despite having one chance to ask if there is another way you still get forced to click agree. Its my only gripe with the whole expansion. My point there though is we dont know if alexandria knows what a natural aetherial sea is or does. They may have simply stumbled into this process. If thats the case then the citizen might not be numb to the horror of loved ones using souls as commoditys but they could have seen from the very start as it just being a differing form of aether of no consequence. Remember even here on earth people have different ideas of what a human soul is or how important or if it even exists. We know souls have importance in ffxiv and we seen the aetherial sea…but we dont know if they know any of it. I wouldnt be surprised if they always saw souls as just a byproduct of cleaning and storing memories. They also dont delete peoples memories when someone dies. They transfer them to living memory. Its transfer and not a copy/delete. Especially knowing the aetherial sea doesnt destroy but instead stores memories. The hidden horror however is that was not mentioned regarding memories is that they create the ideal version of each person not just based on their personal belief or happiest moment…but based on what others remember of them too. Imagine being remembered as arrogant but you really wernt, now in living memory you have a bit of arrogance. While I disagreed with deleting tons of virtual beings in living memory…none of them were who they were in life. We simply dont have enough information to come to anything but emotional culturally filtered conclusions to know sadly. Though i will say i agree. It seems abhorrent and their hands arnt clean. I personally think souls need that rest and think its bad to prolong their lives with souls. This most likely is why they started having a birth rate problem. I also dont like how they strip memories.
While I genuinely disliked most of the pacing of the MSQ, the entire second half felt like dystopian psychological horror to me (Which I am a big fan of, to be fair). I was very offput by it, in a good way, similarly like in my by far favorite side questline, the weapons series. The psychological dread inflicted by all of what happened during the MSQ this time around, had me walking through that entire part of the story saying "I hate you and everything you stand for, I *will* put a stop to this." And while I don't exactly like how some of the story developed, was paced etc, it is a testament to the writing skills that I was able to feel that amount hate against the ideologies shown in alexandria.
I still don't believe the souls are truly consumed emptied of energy, sure. But if they were truly erased from existence The aseans wouldn't have allowed it. That's like 1/13th of their friend.
why won't we learn that high tech leads to doom? There is not a single high Tech society in XIV that has actually thrived besides Sharlayan, and they're stuck in a constant state of investigating every single detail of life itself
Ascians were the reason why those high tech societies fell, they were engineered to fail so that the Ascians could forward their plans. As for Alexandria, I think we need more info but I would not be surprised if one of the remaining Ascians was lurking in the shadows.
No words can describe how much I hate DT writing. This is once again just another story so that ff14 can preach about the "best way to live", and if you disagree with it, you're morally wrong/evil/weak/whatever. Ever since EW ff14 keep making the players who agree with them to feel morally superior, it's sickening.
My main issue with Alexandria begins and ends with it's memory manipulation. I don't agree with the idea that the soul being used in the way that it is with the regulators is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I would argue that it's a rather clever use of the fact that a soul is little more than a specific combination of two different patterns of energy. In fact, the use of a soul's left over energy to extend life doesn't seem to be too bad. An issue comes from, I argue, the regulators themselves. They're storing soul cells in a device of electrope. Which aspects the soul and poisons both the soul cell and the recipient of said soul when it's used. Levin sickness is a standing problem within Alexandria. The main issue, however, does come from memory manipulation. As easy as it is to say that the use of a soul is *evil*, we must remember that elemental crystals are the remnants of aether of those who have died previously. We're not doing something that's entirely different there, albeit on a much smaller scale. No, the issue comes from the erasure of memory due to someone dying. That, in and of itself, implies not just that the people of Alexandria are becoming numb to pain, but that they're *entirely* subject to the whims of those who control their regulators. Do not underestimate Sphene's ability to make use of propaganda in a way that would be absolutely terrifying to anyone who's studied political science.
I don't believe we know how necessary the resting of the soul is yet in FFXIV. I've read a light novel where the cycle of reincarnation was artificially sped up and restricted into a single world so the souls kept getting cycled over and over without rest, and it resulted in the souls of that world being so worn down they only had a fraction of their original strength and were on the brink of collapsing in on themselves. Given that there even is a natural resting time in FFXIV, I'm willing to wager that it could work similarly here. But the biggest problem with the soul cells is that they lock down ever more souls without releasing many (if any) back into the world, which has resulted in a noticeable decline in birth rate in Alexandria which will only get worse. It's a clever bit of technology yes, but the creation of soul cells itself does inherently have issues both ethical and practical.
i saw the horrors immediately what was this reflection's ascian's doing by letting this go on or were they unintentionally the first to fall victim to their machinations thus allowing it to spiral out of control, i know not every world had a "flood of light" scenario but this goes beyond anything that they would logically allow to happen. i know hades would have been aghast at this since he could see into the lifestream, all those individual souls lost to the ages unless their aether simply fuses with the recipient, even if he didn't see us as whole beings they were still pieces of a greater whole that will now never be
I suspect that if they are still around we might be dealing with a Fandaniel-tier rogue actor within Preservation, who cares more about their own goals than The Plan. As of the end of 7.1 it looks like they're reusing the Ardbert & Elidibus plot point from 5.x anyway, so why not Amon?
God, I can’t stand that nonsensical idea that life has no meaning without suffering. If that were true, babies and small children wouldn’t be capable of experiencing happiness at all, now would they? Not to mention that, were it correct, we would expect to see people’s levels of happiness decrease in proportion to their quality and ease of life. And that, as anyone who’s ever looked at the world happiness index can tell you, is categorically *not the case* . Alexandria has a lot of issues, but their recognizing death as what it is-a preventable disease-and trying to *cure it* , rather than clinging to animalistic mythologizing of it as something “necessary”, is *not* one of them. It’s really no different than the people who refuse to give their children a life-saving procedure because it’s “gods plan” in our world. Nothing more than the most contemptible cowardice.
@@L337Koala He is retarded, he calls woke everything he doesnt like, Still I agree with the retirment part. The game is stagnated, and will die if Yoshi P doesn't do something
I was playing since Beta but meh after DT I lost full interest in the story. Probably won't ever be going back unless there is serious change in the future.
@@chump5876 Name checks out. Something tells me you were never really invested in the story as much as going along with it because people said it was good.
From the very first moment they explained how souls were being used by regulators, I was horrified. In hindsight, I feel like this was intentional on the story writers’ part. This game has shown us multiple times how important souls are, it even brought us to the depths of the aetherial sea.
Learning how the regulators also erase memories of deceased loved ones only deepened that horror. One of the major themes that has always been present in this game is how the people we meet and love influence us. Many times the game has given the warrior of light the choice of returning back to words of wisdom and compassion from those we have lost. The idea of forgetting those individuals that have influenced the warriors of light and their journeys is nigh incomprehensible.
All in all, I have found Alexandria’s arc to be one of quiet, deeply disturbing horror.
And still there is people who think that we are the villains for erasing the data of the people who past away on DT final arc.
Part of my massive frustration with the story delivery was how horrorific everything about Alexnadria's use of souls and 'life aether' was, yet the game kept trying to chalk it up to "well, different cultures! Lets learn about how they grow crops!". Just all came off WAY too casual given that we just literally bomb-train-blew our way into a military occupation where they had kidnapped an entire city and worse yet, Sphene was just a another Ascian, with pastel colors this time.
@@7RicolmE7 Its like they were all AFK during a certain characters "twisted mausoleum" comparison or simply can't grasp the difference between those who lived and are gone, and the simulacrum programs based on stolen memories of the dead they are looking at.
@@7RicolmE7 I think it is the tonal dissonance between last zone clearly tried to invoke some kind of emotional response such as saying good bye to these ''endless'' figure, to put it another way, writer want to have their cake and eat it too.
But those souls aren't erased tho. They were used in the regulators to act as battery, but them they were released back to the aetherial sea.
If anything, it's just prevent them from entering sea right away.
I've been saying since DT launched that Alexandria has more in common with Eulmore than it does with the void. It is the first without the exach, it is the timeline where Vauthry wins. A shard on the brink, held in perfect stasis while it waits for a rejoining that will never come.
Consider this: Alexandria can never have a warrior of light. All memory of the ancients has been burned away in the cleansing process. The Echo can no longer exists for them. Similarly, their shard of Azem is gone, turned into a battery.
Dude! I hadn't thought of this. Holy crap. Was this stated in-game?!
Although hades could have prevented azem( the play character shard of the 9th ) from being used as a battery considering he did pose as Azem and brought azems relic to them and wouldn't have let that happen to use he will bring us back he thought
@@Boxkar24 Not directly I think, but with what we know of how the soul wiping process works and how that interacts with what we know about how reincarnation works in ffxiv. it's quite a possibility that this could have happened. In fact I'd say it's fairly likely Azem's soul was turned into a battery and his memory was held up somewhere in Living Memory until recently. But where do memories without a soul go?
Not entirely true. We learn in Endwalker that souls are already scoured of memories in the aeherial sea. Indeed, even Dawntrail says that what origenics does is not terribly unalike what the aetherial sea does with memories in the soul.
As for the echo, Elidibus states that those who bore witness to the final days were so scared by it that it left a mark on their very soul.
With these two facts in mind, it is possible Elidibus was speaking literally. Granted, perhaps it wasn't literal and origenics does purge even that, but it wouldn't be a retcon if they ever say "well it's the soul that was scarred that let the echo be a thing."
That said, idk how they rectify the personalities thing. Many people who inherit the souls of their ancestors, like the WoL, have personalities like their ancient counter parts (WoL = Azem). So that could be an avenue for an Azem shard on the 9th as well.
But yeah deleting the memories of the deceased among the living, and reusing souls instead of them returning to the aetherial sea is still pretty fucked up.
I mean the memories are probably somewhere, right? I don't think memories can necessarily be destroyed. The aetherial sea already cleanses souls of their memories but they find a way back somehow.
Regulators really are just one of those things that the more you consider it, the worse it can be.
What if someone murders your spouse and she can't revive? Well nobody remembers her, so likely her death is never gets investigated because who's gonna care enough that she's dead? What if your boss commits a crime that you witness? Well getting rid of you would be even more convenient wouldn't it. And now with the new dungeon and all its horrors, everyone involved has been thrown away, because Zoraal Ja likely knew that no matter who he abused or misused in that scenario, there'd be no one to miss them.
I mean... if someone murder your spouse, you will forget about them too... So you won't care that much either.
But that's horribly fucked up. If you have a family, a spouse and childrens then one day of them disapear because they are murderer like you say, the whole family gonna continue to live like nothing happened. It's SO insane to me... I wonder if there was already a case where someone for exemple loose their child ( so they forgot they had them to begin with ) but still have physical proofs of the existence of the departed ? Doesn't that make them crazy to see a picture with their own child but they don't remember anything ? Or they simply don't care that much ? Man, Alexandria is so horrible and fascinating at the same time.
@@neoshinsei4073 Yeah that's what I was saying, that there'd be no justice for someone killed cause no one would remember them.
I was uncomfortable the moment they showed how they would strip away the memories of those who passed. For my WoL and the WoL as a general character , we have lost so many beloved characters that the thought of never having known them at all was terrifying
Also, as a note. The South Sea Isle Lalafells went to the Ninth during the Fifth Umbral Calamity, which was after allag had fallen. It was also only after the lalafells came to the Ninth, that the electrope we know today was made. Since beforehand, the people of the ninth couldn't use it for its current uses, as naturally occurring electrope isn't etched with sigils/etc.
the Ninth also never experienced the source's lightning calamity. After all, shards can experience their own "calamities" not tied to the source. The "Lightning" problem they had was man-made. The alexandrian rise to power with electrope happened before eulmore ended up the way it did as well. Since the flood of light only happened after Minfilia went to the first with ardbert. Which was well over 30 years after Krile came through the ninth's portal.
Way too many people seem to be having trouble with the timeline in FFXIV (I don't blame them, since shards have varying degrees of time), and I wanted to clarify these things.
Not even a joke, in the cutscene of the invasion of Tuliyollal, I referred to them as Decepticons and when I saw the extraction/reaping, I called out 'They have Spark Extractors!'
I love how philospohical and macro-level that the Professor gets in his videos. Such as the intro in which he discusses how pain can inform, and how you can only feel joy because you have sadness to compare it to.
As soon as I saw where the regulators take away a persons memory I knew that this society was messed up. I see the regulators as a way for whoever is in charge of Alexandria to control their people and take away their voice so they can do whatever they want.
I heard so many people complain how “stupid” the patch story was and how the people of Alexandria were weird. And I’m like??? When you and your parents and their parents never even conceptualized death and mourning until their QUEEN. And then they had to realize what happens to me? Who died before me. Did I have a partner, siblings, children, etc. stuff you NEVER will know and can imagine endlessly of. I think that story direction is amazing. I will HEAVILY commend the importance of Wuk Lamat and co. Being very open that they do not like it, but they need to respect it as they’ve done for all Cultures of Tural. It can’t continue objectively speaking, but if we just said your wrong stop NOW and fight them, we wouldn’t have Sphene’s or any of Alexandria’s people’s trust and more lives would be lost. Respecting cultures and finding a balance of maintaining culture but realizing how it can’t be sustainable such as the Blessed Siblings
For me, i had a feeling how bad Alexandria was when the Regulators came into light. Even more when i learn about the soul cell and the endless. And i wouldn't be surprised if we seen other civilization from other shard follow the same idea. Heck, i'm willing the bet that if we get a zanarkand version in 14, we'll see something similar to the 10 counterpart where the souls dreams to keep them alive or something like that.
That tracks with the giants belief that remembering the ones you love keeps them alive.
The theme really permeates this expansion.
As soon as I saw the regulators and what they did to people, I felt a chill run down my spine, and that chill came back tenfold in the 7.1 patch. Not only are the people of Alexandria so emotionally stunted that they can't deal with grief, they've never felt that pain so they want to go back to being happy. As another commentator on here mentioned, its a lot like the society of the Ancients. They had 'perfection' for so long that when it all came crashing down, they couldn't deal with it.
Honestly it's something that has to be destroyed, so that they can't go back. Its the only way that the people have a chance of survival.
Yeah, you try living in a brink of the world yourself. There are reason why the alexandrian turned to such technology. It literally the reason why they manage to hold on until now. It's not unlike the world of FF type 0, where people forget the deceased so that they won't fall into grief and unable to keep fighting.
As for the ancients, they are capable of dealing with grief. Why do you think they cannot? They do feel sadness when someone decided to return to the aetherial sea, but they keep strong and make it a celebration because their culture revolve around reincarnation. The only time they "surrender" to grief, they have very valid reason for it. Their world is dead, and they lost 75% of their population to restore it (not to mention people who died due to blasphemies and final days). Who wouldn't be in despair if they're on their shoes?
I have a mountain of problems with DT but Solution 9 has a lot of potential and intrigue that could be used to great effect if they get it together for the rest of the patches. The concept being very similar to FF Type Zero is very horrifying if presented well. One thing I will give them as a defense for a common Solution 9 complaint is it being so empty, because to me it implies the sheer amount of people that potentially lived there and have been turned into soul capsules while the citizens are so unaware they don't even question why this massive city is so empty.
When I was first playing though 7.0 and got to the "Unlost World" and found out what it was, I saw that the Alexandrian system was unsustainable and poorly though out. The fact that so many resources were going into preserving the memory of people (even if only a small % were 'active') and the fact that it would grow exponentially worse struck me as emblematic of a stagnating society. So much effort was spent on creating was was essentially theme parks of the past (The idealized Venice like tourist town, amusement park with disneyfied history, water park, and very formal managed garden). This effort to maintain an "idealized" version of the past also being the justification for invading other dimensions struck me as the most horrific aspect of Alexandria. Wanting to commit what amounts to genocide across the multiverse to sustain a system that is fundamentally flawed. Particularly, as the general populous of Alexandria is unaware of it, gets no benefit from it (can't visit relatives when the memory has been erased). It seems to me the only person who this really benefits is A.I. Sphene, allowing it to fulfill its savior programming.
In addition, there is another implication of the memory removal that is not discussed. That a lot of a person's personalty and development as a person relies on experience and interaction with others, and removing memories of that person would effect everything about a person. What if someone learned to cook from their grandmother, then the grandmother passed away. Would they still be able to cook? Or if the passing of a loved one from an untreatable disease motivated them to dedicate their life to curing such a disease? But with no memory of that person, there would not be that motivation.
i love your mention of Loving Memory's zones. And i think each is actually worse than it looks at first, on purpose:
Venetian canals with a medical collection that's literally hollow
Not-Quite-Disney where the rides aren't even working when you get there
Gardens that even the most adventurous inhabitants have never really seen, and the poisonous plants turn out to have been fake the whole time
and the water park LITERALLY AT A VOLCANO WITH HISTORY BURIED UNDERGROUND could that have been any more explicit
It’s almost as if someone read about the False Hydra, and went “bet, but what if it kept them blissfully ignorant instead of horrified?”
Alexandria is what I consider to be the pinnacle of science not bothering with morality. I play my Warrior of alight as deeply offended by it all, considering they’ve been to the lifestream and had to realize that Venat would never gain access to it. That was a choice. A horrific self sacrifice for the future of the world.
This? These people are controlled by the system.
The more I read this story, the more it reminds me of "We Happy Few" and "Brave New World" which is only making me love it more. I am super excited to see where it goes!
I realized that what Alexandria was doing was wrong but I never thought it was repeating what came before it in such a way.
it's not just cyclical with Allag, it's cyclical with the likes of the Ea, with the Omicron. The Warrior of light is defined by their ability to tread through repeated adversity and hang onto the scraps of joy they can find at the other end. the regulators steal the ability to hear the truth, to feel the dark and traumatizing facts of life, and to think and dwell on those experiences seared into one's memory.
the push for an ideal at any cost lead to the Ea mooring from their flesh, only to be consumed by their relationship with cheating death being beaten by the heat death of the universe. The Omicron gave up the soul and their capacity for dynamis, only for their single-minded conquest for safety to crack beneath a quandry that could not logically be resolved by their computerized hive-mind.
Sphene is a monolith built on folly and misunderstanding, and so that folly spread through and numbed the people.
I thought the same thing when he mentioned the whole thing about "once a society reaches a certain pinnacle and doesn't fear pain or death, it fails". That goes hand in hand with what Meteion told us about the civilizations she encountered throughout the universe. It's not just Alag that it compares to, it's a lot of other less explored (and already long gone) societies within the game's expanded lore as well. :(
That also happens in Fate, the creation of lostbelts happens when a world is SO much shit or too much Glory that their existence became a burden to the universe
To be honest, Spoilers for 7.1
Seeing the alexandrians still clinging to the regulator system made me feel disappointed in them. Like I finally understood how Venat felt during the Sundering scene wherein she was trying to convince the ancients that summoning Zodiark was bad. As they begged for paradise, I could not help but sigh as I see the same behavior from the Alexanderians
The techno-necromancers from Alpha Centauri! The prophet Gary warned us!
I feel this also all speaks of Carl Jung's thoughts on consciousness. The self, the shadow, the collective unconsciousness. Even the division of Mind, Body, and Spirit are represented by Memory, Body, and Soul. I still feel that the new Sphene is the shadow of the Sphene we knew, but that the Sphene returned in Living Memory is the physical return of her possibly with or without her memories. I feel the reunification with her shadow self may be the path forward. I feel like the Sphene in solution nine is gathering souls to try and grant herself a physical form again. I could go on about this for hours lol.
I definitely wouldn't want to numb myself when my parents pass away from old age(they're reaching 80 in a few years, my mom just celebrated her 74th birthday today) so I can agree that despite how much you want to erase the pain, living through it is essential. I've read so many murder mystery series and the recent book I am on is about the single mother of two young boys who runs a tourist hotel. The last book I read had her reunite with her husband who she thought was dead, only to find he was dying anyways due to a villain's mental training, and the husband sacrificed himself to kill the villain so that she could live in peace, making her mourn again.
But if she were to have her memories of her husband erased and forgot who he was, then the story would be hollow and unfulfilling. It's this tragedy that makes stories wonderful and a world where the death of a loved one means they disappear from your life forever is something that is horrible and evil.
Ah Dawntrail. You go from a summer vacation to an actual psychological horror story...
Sometimes I think I understand things and still need somebody to put the pieces into perspective for me. Thank you, Scribe.
I imagine the crime in Alexandria are pretty bad. As I explored in solution 9 dive deep to see the details in one spot, I saw there gang-like behaviors. I found one guy in the dumpster, but I can't tell if the dude was alive or not.
Solution 9 sounds like it can be placed to live too, if one person don't like the other they simply can have murdered that one soul. And no one will know and forgotten everything about that soul.
To be forgotten is worse than death.
I definitely agree that the society of Alexandria is egged up. I especially find the erasure of memories the most disturbing, as the video puts it, you could have had a great relationship with someone. But when they died you would forget everything about them, which essentially erases the bond you had with that person. And I definitely would rather suffer in pain and loss than forget a bond I share with someone, since if it’s extremely painful to lose them, then that just means the bond and memories of them were priceless to you
I really want to know now what the real Sphene would have to say about what Alexandria has become.
Really excited for 7.2 now.
I'm so keen to see how they expand upon these horrors in future patches and expansions. the latest dungeon was >an experience
Removing memory effectively removes choice (because you have had vital information removed), which negates will. Even if the Alexandrians never have to work a day in their lives, they're still slaves.
I’m curious to see more of this company “Preservation” and who is on the board of Directors
The theme of a highly advanced, decadent society, incapable of accepting the hardships of life, brought crumbling down under the weight of their hubris. The comparison to the Allag Empire isn't inaccurate, but it's not the conclusion I thought you were leading to. What comparisons I had drawn was those to the World Unsundered. The Allags, the Garleans, the Alexandrians, all of them are reflections of the Ancient society that all once was.
The Ancients were not decadent in the traditional sense, with imagery of the highborn celebrating themselves while the world outside their window burned. But they were decadent all the same. I ask you, is holding "duty" above all else, to a point where mourning the loss of life is seen as weakness not self-indulgent in its own way? Remember, it was this self-indulgence in "duty" that created the perfect storm which led to the creation and subsequent corruption of Meteion.
Given the origins of the Allagan and Garlean empires, it is poetic that they too fell to hubris as did the home of their Unsundered puppetmasters. And given all parallels, as well as the elemental crisis that befell the Archeo Kingdom, it is all too likely that the Ascians had their hands in Alexandria as well.
Best way to build an army that never back down.
I had a horrible bad feeling when i saw the soldier extract *something* out of the old lady after killing her when they invaded tural and that only got confirmed more when we started learning about the regulators
That is my Scribe!! Great video.
Queen bee, black cat, wicked thunder and the cat kid is also found in Eulmore. So there are lots of shards.
What all three of these societies tell us is that we cannot sustain life while sacrificing others. The Crystarium and Tuliyolal are perfect parallels as well. Its what our Exarch G'raha Tia and our dear Dawnservents cultivated and learned through their journeys that it is the people gathering together to life each other up that natural happiness can occur. It is not stripping away all of the "bad" so good can flourish. Its understanding that to live is to suffer, yet find light and joy within the darkness, together.
Kinda makes me think of the "life isn't fair" crap that gets spouted. We can be fair to each other if we choose to.
Last note, we already know that the Alexandrian way of life isn't sustainable from just the side quests. Theres 3 side quests in and out of S9 where ppl end up finding the trail of someone they lost despite their memory being wiped. It's truly heartbreaking to watch these characters find out what they lost, and how much they want it back.
I honestly believe that Alexandria was designed to be similar to a cult
It could also be considered a direct allegory to modernity in general.
The issue with using soul cells is that those souls can not be reborn. But the question is: if you are technically a different person every time you are reborn, and if Etheirys has the power to constantly create and grant new souls to living beings, what is the purpose of rebirth to an average person?
I believe the regulator's ability to alter and delete memories is far worse and far more dangerous, because it is in large part memories that define a person's mind and identity.
Oh I could tell that Alexandria was a flawed, doomed society from the moment we stepped foot within the lightning orb. I would also like to bring up the Ancients as a comparison point. Upon waking up to the realities of suffering during the Final Days, the Ancients invariably tried to return to the "perfect" society they used to have rather than accepting their new normal. It got so bad that Hydaelyn used it as another justification for sundering the star. Severing any possible connection to the past so they'd have no choice but to carry onwards into the future.
If Alexandria cannot accept their new reality, we may not have a choice but to do similarly for them. The first step was, of course, cutting off the "power supply" to Living Memory, because that was obscene. If that doesn't stop them, we'll have to try other things...
The arcadion is that first step
The corn servant story addressed something I thought of.
I was just thinking I needed a new video to make my morning better and the notification popped up 2 seconds after that thought. Thank you for that.
As for the state of Alexandria, I can’t help but think how many times this played out on other worlds in Endwalker. We don’t need to know them intimately, just the fact those worlds were so prosperous and tried to do the same thing ended in failure. So many failures, so we should know off the bat it’s going to fail, but we still have the power to stop it from taking a lot of people down with it than they already have.
A big part of the end of dawntrail for me is that we're doing the exact same thing that Emet said he was doing. "I do not consider you alive, therefore I am not guilty of murder if I kill you." All of the scions pretty much immediately were on board with this over the Endless. And I have to wonder why the Endless are the way they are. Do they have to stay in Living Memory? Why can't they control robots like Cahciua or Sphene to continue their life? They aren't truly endless in Living Memory, just a snapshot frozen in time at the end of their lives. Is it in their nature? Is it systemic? I would argue that, because Cahciua were able to continue acting upon the world, to make new memories and make meaningful decisions, they were necessarily more alive than the automatons they were controlling. But were they outliers? Or was Sphene preventing that? If the dead were able to continue to walk among the living through the automatons, would there even be need to erase memories?
There's a lot that goes on with the Endless. And I don't think the story treats it with the respect it deserves. It's needlessly simplified. And the thing is, G'raha even puts it best as a perfectly justifiable reason to commit to the genocide, they will consume until there's nothing left. They are a locust. But I guess they don't want the player to feel guilty in any way.
this area made me so deeply uncomfortable with ALL of these implications around souls. It was such good evocative writing. It's a heartbreaking place. I genuinely didn't like going to Solution 9 until i had good memories of crafting with a friend there.
Your videos are fantastic as always. Thank you so much for all the work you do!
Alexandria wouldn’t have existed without their system. Their dome is more of an Ark. Origenics is their Aetherial sea or as close as possible. I doubt they have a natural Aetherial sea being that they lack a planet with the vast majority of their Shard having rejoined the source.
So without them recycling souls they may have run out and simply died out, ending with an empty dome.
We did see parts where its been mentioned that birth rates have lessoned most likely from a lack of ambient souls.
Also they arnt all happy. We know they fear death because of how they react to being on their last soul cell. They also struggle with their jobs or witness disease and infirmity.
The only thing theyre spared is the sadness with knowing someone has died but they still fear death for themselves and those currently alive and suffering.
As for souls in natural atherial seas they regain all the memories of past lives and exist there for a while. Basically dreaming. Eventually when the soul returns those memories are restripped to stay in the sea.
We dont know for certain how this process functions or what parts are necessary. We dont know if the rest is needed and we dont know what is more important, the soul or the memories.
Not that whats going on is good. I agree its feels bad and im sure they coulda come up with other ways to handle their process to mimic a more natural system.
Also we spend a whole expansion learning to accept cultures for their differences only to then say screw this culture in particular right at the end. I wanted to disagree with shutting down living memory and hated that despite having one chance to ask if there is another way you still get forced to click agree. Its my only gripe with the whole expansion.
My point there though is we dont know if alexandria knows what a natural aetherial sea is or does. They may have simply stumbled into this process. If thats the case then the citizen might not be numb to the horror of loved ones using souls as commoditys but they could have seen from the very start as it just being a differing form of aether of no consequence.
Remember even here on earth people have different ideas of what a human soul is or how important or if it even exists. We know souls have importance in ffxiv and we seen the aetherial sea…but we dont know if they know any of it.
I wouldnt be surprised if they always saw souls as just a byproduct of cleaning and storing memories.
They also dont delete peoples memories when someone dies. They transfer them to living memory. Its transfer and not a copy/delete. Especially knowing the aetherial sea doesnt destroy but instead stores memories.
The hidden horror however is that was not mentioned regarding memories is that they create the ideal version of each person not just based on their personal belief or happiest moment…but based on what others remember of them too.
Imagine being remembered as arrogant but you really wernt, now in living memory you have a bit of arrogance. While I disagreed with deleting tons of virtual beings in living memory…none of them were who they were in life.
We simply dont have enough information to come to anything but emotional culturally filtered conclusions to know sadly.
Though i will say i agree. It seems abhorrent and their hands arnt clean. I personally think souls need that rest and think its bad to prolong their lives with souls. This most likely is why they started having a birth rate problem. I also dont like how they strip memories.
While I genuinely disliked most of the pacing of the MSQ, the entire second half felt like dystopian psychological horror to me (Which I am a big fan of, to be fair). I was very offput by it, in a good way, similarly like in my by far favorite side questline, the weapons series. The psychological dread inflicted by all of what happened during the MSQ this time around, had me walking through that entire part of the story saying "I hate you and everything you stand for, I *will* put a stop to this." And while I don't exactly like how some of the story developed, was paced etc, it is a testament to the writing skills that I was able to feel that amount hate against the ideologies shown in alexandria.
Reminds me of that idea that babies cry because this very well may be the worst day of their life.
Good video, as always ^^
I still don't believe the souls are truly consumed emptied of energy, sure.
But if they were truly erased from existence
The aseans wouldn't have allowed it. That's like 1/13th of their friend.
Chilling
14 also loves it's horror stories
Im not sure why, but I feel Necron is coming in one way or another
Oh boy now that is the true final boss
why won't we learn that high tech leads to doom? There is not a single high Tech society in XIV that has actually thrived besides Sharlayan, and they're stuck in a constant state of investigating every single detail of life itself
Ascians were the reason why those high tech societies fell, they were engineered to fail so that the Ascians could forward their plans.
As for Alexandria, I think we need more info but I would not be surprised if one of the remaining Ascians was lurking in the shadows.
Who would want to live in Eulmore? 😂. At least ancient Allag and Alexandria have tech that can make you immortal or ease your life strugglings
No words can describe how much I hate DT writing. This is once again just another story so that ff14 can preach about the "best way to live", and if you disagree with it, you're morally wrong/evil/weak/whatever.
Ever since EW ff14 keep making the players who agree with them to feel morally superior, it's sickening.
My main issue with Alexandria begins and ends with it's memory manipulation. I don't agree with the idea that the soul being used in the way that it is with the regulators is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I would argue that it's a rather clever use of the fact that a soul is little more than a specific combination of two different patterns of energy. In fact, the use of a soul's left over energy to extend life doesn't seem to be too bad. An issue comes from, I argue, the regulators themselves. They're storing soul cells in a device of electrope. Which aspects the soul and poisons both the soul cell and the recipient of said soul when it's used. Levin sickness is a standing problem within Alexandria.
The main issue, however, does come from memory manipulation. As easy as it is to say that the use of a soul is *evil*, we must remember that elemental crystals are the remnants of aether of those who have died previously. We're not doing something that's entirely different there, albeit on a much smaller scale. No, the issue comes from the erasure of memory due to someone dying. That, in and of itself, implies not just that the people of Alexandria are becoming numb to pain, but that they're *entirely* subject to the whims of those who control their regulators. Do not underestimate Sphene's ability to make use of propaganda in a way that would be absolutely terrifying to anyone who's studied political science.
I don't believe we know how necessary the resting of the soul is yet in FFXIV. I've read a light novel where the cycle of reincarnation was artificially sped up and restricted into a single world so the souls kept getting cycled over and over without rest, and it resulted in the souls of that world being so worn down they only had a fraction of their original strength and were on the brink of collapsing in on themselves. Given that there even is a natural resting time in FFXIV, I'm willing to wager that it could work similarly here.
But the biggest problem with the soul cells is that they lock down ever more souls without releasing many (if any) back into the world, which has resulted in a noticeable decline in birth rate in Alexandria which will only get worse.
It's a clever bit of technology yes, but the creation of soul cells itself does inherently have issues both ethical and practical.
We still don't know if a soul can be reincarnated as anything, do we? An animal, beast, any kind of spoken? Or only human-variant playable character?
i saw the horrors immediately what was this reflection's ascian's doing by letting this go on or were they unintentionally the first to fall victim to their machinations thus allowing it to spiral out of control, i know not every world had a "flood of light" scenario but this goes beyond anything that they would logically allow to happen. i know hades would have been aghast at this since he could see into the lifestream, all those individual souls lost to the ages unless their aether simply fuses with the recipient, even if he didn't see us as whole beings they were still pieces of a greater whole that will now never be
I suspect that if they are still around we might be dealing with a Fandaniel-tier rogue actor within Preservation, who cares more about their own goals than The Plan. As of the end of 7.1 it looks like they're reusing the Ardbert & Elidibus plot point from 5.x anyway, so why not Amon?
Meow!
God, I can’t stand that nonsensical idea that life has no meaning without suffering. If that were true, babies and small children wouldn’t be capable of experiencing happiness at all, now would they? Not to mention that, were it correct, we would expect to see people’s levels of happiness decrease in proportion to their quality and ease of life. And that, as anyone who’s ever looked at the world happiness index can tell you, is categorically *not the case* .
Alexandria has a lot of issues, but their recognizing death as what it is-a preventable disease-and trying to *cure it* , rather than clinging to animalistic mythologizing of it as something “necessary”, is *not* one of them. It’s really no different than the people who refuse to give their children a life-saving procedure because it’s “gods plan” in our world. Nothing more than the most contemptible cowardice.
I take it you take therapy quite often don't you fella?
I've been playing Final fantasy 14 for 16 years, sadly after Dawntrail and it's WOKE storyline, I retired..😔
What about the storyline is woke?
@@L337Koala He is retarded, he calls woke everything he doesnt like, Still I agree with the retirment part. The game is stagnated, and will die if Yoshi P doesn't do something
Terrible bait. XIV has only been around for 14 years.
I was playing since Beta but meh after DT I lost full interest in the story. Probably won't ever be going back unless there is serious change in the future.
@@chump5876 Name checks out. Something tells me you were never really invested in the story as much as going along with it because people said it was good.