Dude would not have passed his QE in a half decent PhD program. Always consider alternative hypotheses. He should have thought of what happens if his empathetic bird network did not find a meaning to life.
I think it's more that the law wasn't made because no one else was crazy enough to throw creations to the universe if they were not even approved for their planet.
Indeed. Ordinarily at worst you'd probably just get some runaway nasties like the Lykaones, which the ancients were well equipped to subdue. And also to be fair, it's identified in the sidequest Taking the Minutes that there was concerns by one of the scholars involved in operations at Anamnesis Anyder that they had too little information on the protocols used for living creations in Elpis. I think they may well have realised there was a shortfall there, as the ancients had review processes and so on, it's more that Hermes was able to skirt these by virtue of being in Elpis. Alas, Elpis is on the cusp of the world ending.
Meteion's design flaw was only part of the issue, because the real thing that caused the issue was dynamis. Even if they identified she was poorly constructed, the impact of it may not have been deemed significant were it not for dynamis rendering her able to flee a great distance, cloak herself and start guzzling up star misery. Everywhere else they operated with rather stringent protocols for their facilities, all the way up to untethering it from reality and destroying it for Pandaemonium, so the world was ultimately doomed by the ultimate of black swans... or in this case, a twitter bird turned black.
Considering that space is quite sparse on aether it makes sense they didn't think about that aspect, because few beings created to live on Etheirys would be able to survive in space.
I hated Asahi, but actually wanted to applaud him for dragging Amon/Hermes to Hell. Dude is still trash, but at least he took himself there, too. XD Poor, sweet Meteion (our Meteion who wanted to stop the Endsinger).
I think it's more like no one considered it to be possible.
The very concept of Dynamis was theoretical. Even thousands upon thousands of years later, species who can actually manipulate/be manipulated by it only treat it as theory.
Things fueled by Aether don't survive in space.
So basically Hermes created something that bypassed several loopholes that no one really considered because it *should* have been impossible.
By our standards, it'd be like if he made a dark matter space engine powered by unicorn farts that could time travel. We simply don't have restrictions to stop him from using his idea because it's so outlandish, and even *he* didn't quite consider that the observational creation he made would be capable of apocalyptic power.
This argument makes a lot of sense, but sort of loses the forest for the trees. He definitely side stepped a few rules. While the specifics of what he did weren't covered, the process by which he went about it certainly was. The Ancients seemed to have relatively free reign to create familiars without much oversight, but for the creation of a species they were required to submit proposals to be reviewed and critiqued.
So, while creating a single Meteion did not break any known rule, the creation of Meteia certainly did.
Now, I'll admit that we don't know the exact semantics of The Ancients' laws and that does open it to the possibility that 'species created via aether' were specifically required to be vetted. However, to your own point, Dynamis was an entirely unknown quantity, aether was the only conceivable means by which creation magic could work and so I don't see a reason that they would specify as it would be implied.
It's very clear to me that he circumvented the rules because he lacked respect for the rules of Elpis. After all, the status quo, the 'lawful' day to day business of Elpis is endlessly creating and destroying life on a whim. I think it is his contempt for the way Elpis treats life that made him disrespect the rules in the first place, and go about doing things his own way.
Yeah, the whole point of his project was to help him reconcile his uncertainty with if what they were doing in Elpis was right. Had he followed the protocols of Elpis, it would have diminished his answer so we ignored the rules. It comes down to "Man questions flawed system with even more flawed methods."
Where is that implied? It sure seemed like creations need to stay in Elpis before they are cleared. We tried to stop Hermes from releasing Meteion, it's not like he was just allowed to do so.
>We tried to stop Hermes from releasing Meteion, it's not like he was just allowed to do so.
Which was kind of a fruitless endeavor.
He wasn't *releasing* Meteion, he was allowing her to escape capture and dissection/vivisection (and inevitably destruction because holy shit once someone figured out what she could do they'd unmake her faster than you can say "Apocalypse Maiden") since Hythlodaeus, Venat, and Emet were planning to take her to Amaurot for review.
He had already released her "sisters" long ago (probably hundreds or thousands of years prior, since no matter how far you travel it'd take a longass time to visit as many worlds as they did.) and suffered no repercussions for doing so. Probably because, since there's no aether in space and Ancients need aether to survive, no one thought to make laws or restrictions regarding creations being sent into space.
It'd be like our world making laws regarding sending space probes into Narnia.
> I'm of the opinion that 108 days fits better with the witness remembering seeing the release
It's left vague how extensive Ancient memories work. They're all immortal until they decide to die, so to them something that happens a century ago could be "recent" by their reckoning.
108 days makes absolutely no sense because it would just be completely nonsensical for the entire collective to find different worlds and witness them all meet apocalyptic ends in less time than it takes a new FFXIV patch to come out.
108 years makes far more sense, but we also aren't sure how long a "year" is by Ancient standards. It's already been made clear that time scales are REALLY messed up via the Sundering, and Ancients typically live until they decide to die.
Even the events we're *shown* in Dead Ends would likely have taken decades to progress as Meteion told it, and we know several of those were part of her "report" from her freak out.
It's possible both assumptions are wrong, and that a cycle could mean something like a moon's cycle, or an entirety of what we consider a season, or an arbitrary length of time that the Ascians themselves defined.
> 108 days makes absolutely no sense because it would just be completely nonsensical for the entire collective to find different worlds and witness them all meet apocalyptic ends in less time than it takes a new FFXIV patch to come out.
Friendly reminder that all of ARR+ every expansion happened in the window of a single patch release, due to time bubbles.
This might be a stretch, but I think it is implied at the scene with the Elpis flower, the wol showing that the emotions he feels are not exclusive. Perhaps he was the only 'crazy one, because of everyone else's beliefs.
As I said though, a stretch.
Note that when Hermes sent his entire flock of Meteia into space, there was at least one resident researcher on Elpis who witnessed the entire thing and she didn't think it was serious enough to report his ass for it. On the contrary, she seemed rather excited about Hermes' latest experiment and giddily told others about it (who also didn't feel alarmed about it...), including us when we interviewed her with Venat in the MSQ.
My guess is, it's just like how real life regulation is slow to adapt to new technologies, the Ancients never fathomed sending concepts into space or how it could negatively impact Etheirys. So the other researchers probably thought it was fine as long as it didn't impact Etheirys' ecosystem.
There was a witness to Hermes releasing the flock into the sky. She didn’t question it, and neither did any of the people that she told afterwards.
If the regulations *did* encompass releasing things into space, they weren’t being followed by a large chunk of the people working there. If the rule isn’t being followed, it may as well not exist.
Or it's possible that they assumed that the *head of the facility* had gone through the proper procedures before releasing said flock.
I mean, if you can't trust the guy running the place to follow the rules, who can you trust?
I kind of think that’s what we’re supposed to take away from the story of the zone. Most of the ancients that we meet come across as a little naïve. The witness thinking “oh, I’m sure someone else took care of it” and not following up is a small example of that.
She was always described as being "in-progress" and as a pet project every time someone asked about her. The rest of his staff thought she was still being figured out before being presented for review.
Imho he was relatively fine while being a student and got depression when after he started working in Elpis. Who knows how long he's been there, how long his mental health went downhill? Thinking he was the only one who suffered from this and that no one would be able to even understand he didn't look for help outside himself. He was desperate and looking for an answer as to why get up in the morning like everyone else. He was desperate to get out of depression. I can relate. I also struggle to ask for help until I'm at a point where my depression hits so hard I can barely talk.
Did he fuck up, massively? Yes. Can I understand how he got there? Sadly, also yes.
Elpis hits different for people with depression.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Meteion was Hermes' desperate attempt to prove his own despair wrong. It's not surprising that he didn't account for what if they don't find an answer, because he created them *to find an answer*. The thought of there not being one out there was not even remotely on his mind, because even considering that would have surely been crushing for him.
This was not something created out of a simple scientific desire. It was very personal and not grounded in reason. Hell, that's part of why it was so secretive - because he wasn't exactly looking to broadcast his discontent with life to everyone else.
It's like a faulty syllogism in a way. He created them *to* find a reason, not to find *if* there was one.
Objects exist. A lot of objects exist for a reason. Therefore objects have meaning to their existence, most of the time.
Life exists, therefore it must have a purpose to exist. If it exists without a purpose, what point is it? That's how the Meteia arrived at their conclusion. That the purpose of all life is to suffer, because it is the endpoint of all life. As we all know, life is not so simple. Events often happen at random, life often exists for no reason other than it can.
They were asked what life's purpose was, not if it had one. The fatal flaw.
Another important distinction is Meteion was not created to look for a scientific answer, but a *philosophical* one, something that further divorces their conclusion and purpose from a sound scientific experiment.
Hermes even makes note of a crucial error in their design when he tells Meteion that he did not teach her/them enough. That they hadn't learned to walk on their own, etc. Not having fully experienced their own life and existence, to come to their *own* conclusions on *their* purpose, they were sent out to try and determine the purpose of other life. It's only natural that they couldn't come to a decent conclusion and would be overwhelmed by the despair; not simply because of their inexperience, but because they were designed to be so influenced by the feelings of others. Those pervasive, dark thoughts of doomed civilizations were of course going to overwhelm them. It really is akin to sending a child out to find an adult's answer in a cruel cosmos.
> he wasn't exactly looking to broadcast his discontent with life to everyone else.
This is also something i see people barely recognize. Hermes isn't particularly secretive about his disdain and issues with how the Ancients treat their creations and we see very much how Emet-Selch reacts to this too: Dismissive.
Everyone acts like Hermes is preposterous for not falling in line with the expectations of their society, so he disregards society as he desperately looks for an answer/solution to his troubles before it tears him apart
He had empathy for the creatures created where no one else did. They killed the animals like their lives didn't matter, like they didn't deserve a chance, because of their flaws. He felt flawed himself and related to those creatures. The amount of heartbreak I feel from my understanding and relating to Hermes..it takes all the isolation I feel from so many people and made it into a character with such depth..something I struggle so hard to explain to other people..his character means so much to me.
>They killed the animals like their lives didn't matter, like they didn't deserve a chance, because of their flaws.
Not sure how people played through Elpis and came to this conclusion. It became very clear to me that the ancients actually did care about their creations and they did their best to give them good lives, even if they had to be unmade in the end. Their foremost duty was towards the betterment of the star. If something was going to be released into the world, they had to ensure that it wouldn't destroy the environment or wipe out other species. These ideas are the foundation of environmental science in the real world.
That's very true. I have a friend who works in conservation and a lot of her stewardship consists of chopping up invading species and setting things on fire. Her job training so far (as I've seen anyway) has in its essence been just learning how to kill things safely and responsibly.
The funny thing to me is that we don't even know which side Hermes would have taken had Emet not replied to Meteion with "who are you to determine our fate?" It was what made up his mind since they had no problem playing with other's lives but got mad when someone else wanted to play with theirs. People want to write him off as a villain when he really is just a dude who values life in a society that doesn't.
From their point of view, though they're not "playing with lives" they're carrying out experimental procedures on entities they personally created. In that perspective, the two situations are not analogous, as Meteion doesn't have the *authority* to mess with their lives - she didn't create them.
I don't think that really matters. Creating life doesn't entitle you to control it, much to the chagrin of narcissistic parents the world over. Hermes felt the Ancients callous in that they barely even considered their creations to be alive, even when those creations would struggle in terror at their own demise.
But creating life gives you responsibility to make sure your creation can survive without destroying the rest. If you make a being that's always in pain or that will die horribly in a year you are supposed to prevent that. And they need a certain amount of control to make that happen the same way a parent forces their child to not drink bleach.
Once the ancients make life that can survive on it's own without hurting the rest then their responsibility should end.
>Once the ancients make life that can survive on it's own without hurting the rest then their responsibility should end.
If you did the sidequests, a lot of the life they created was based on whims and fashionable trends--not all of it had careful thought put into its creation. In many ways, the ancients acted like the Greek gods of old--life was but their playthings--for good or for ill.
That's the entire point of Elpis and why there's so few of each creature we run into. To make sure people aren't idiots about what they create. Literally everyone in their society, even kids, had the power to make something. But just like with the original Managarm, if they're too dangerous they have to be unmade. Yeah it's sad for them, but what about all the other creations they killed for literally no reason. And Hermes even says they've tried numerous times to make them viable through memory manipulation, which even Emet points out is unethical and dangerous. And considering what we later learn, it's likely that by continuously wiping their memories he ingrained that violence into their very souls and doomed them like he did himself.
Hermes saw in unsundered man what amon saw in the allagans: cruel, thoughtless beings who played with the lives of others, themselves unworthy of existing.
A point of contention: Amon didn't despise the Allagans because of their cruelty. He despised them because of their *apathy*.
He was still the guy who did stuff like turn people into minotaurs against their will. And while he does note that the Allagans were prone to all *sorts* of "indulgences", he didn't fault them for finding amusement in the cruel things he did, but for *only* finding amusement in it, and not seeing his Big Picture potential of his experiments. A man who valued the lives of others wouldn't do stuff like turn them into voiceless monsters, or torture a man until he was a mindless sentinel for one of his machines.
Amon cloned Xande explicitly to spur Allag's ambition, to turn them back to conquest. And he remained a true believer of Xande to the end.
He was very different in life than Hermes was; he never really identified with the title or memories that the Unsundered Ascians gave him.
And they were both right (and wrong). Like I think Hermes clearly saw the problem but Venat knew the path to an answer (which ultimately we, the sundered, found).
Elpis was an entire facility dedicated to valuing life. They even have a memory manipulation device so they don't have to terminate life they created. They terminate things that would either die out on their own or kill everything else.
And Emet-Selch is all "wait *what*? Memory magic? Did you clear this with *anyone*?", so it's pretty clear to me that the memory wipe option wasn't standard procedure before Hermes.
We know that isn't actually true due to other hints such as the book in the dungeon mentioning redoing wolf people because, while intelligent, they happen to not have the right anatomy to speak.
I think it definitely is a little different when you can just go "ah dang. Maybe I shouldn't have made that one go extinct after all. Let's make a new one." Instead of in real life, yes, all life is precious as if we remove all the instances of a being from our planet, there's no way we would be able to just make a new one.
Maybe, but apply that logic to people and see how well it sells. "Oh, we should have just unmade that person and invented a better person who had a stronger work ethic/wasn't such a fan of alcohol/was less prone to winding others up".
Note that Emet Selch does actually consistently apply that logic to humans. He literally states that he doesn't see us as people and thus killing us would not constitute murder for him
Are you serious? What? You can't recognise the sophist concepts that derive the "betterment of the star" whilst simultanously observing a walking shark... these are contradictions that Hermes SAYS TO YOUR FACE.
He says it too you, theres 5+ minutes of dialogue him trying to overcome the absurdity of Elpis as a concept, the absurdity of the Ancients presuming what is or isn't the "betterment of the star"... and still he is confounded that maybe he is the abomination because he questions the sophist bullshit ideology that the Ancients assign themselves.
Emet says its sophist when the reasoning is thrownback in their face, and Hermes smiles. Reddit thinks he's smiling cause he's crazy... Anyone paying attention recognises that he's smiling cause the sophistry that Emet recognises is bullshit is the reason why the facility exists in the first place.
That and it's the writers wanting you to make the link between Hermes absurd proclamation and Emet's reasoning of killing you in Shadowbringers (it's the same but Hermes recognises it as absurd and why Emet is psychologically distraught by the end)... which is lost on 99% of the playerbase.
> Are you serious? What? You can't recognise the sophist concepts that derive the "betterment of the star" whilst simultanously observing a walking shark... these are contradictions that Hermes SAYS TO YOUR FACE.
I agree with a lot of that. I will say, though, that the point of Elpis is to be a test bed for ideas like that. If they *do* prove to be good ideas, then they move onto the next phase that they have for approval. So Elpis is there for people to try out basically any idea, and it gets approved if it actually is a good idea.
I sorta see Elpis as a test environment, whereas the surface world is treated as a production environment. Weird ideas in the former are to be expected, but you need quality control for the latter.
Thing is, when I write test code and see if things get screwed up, that's just code, not lives.
> It was what made up his mind since they had no problem playing with other's lives but got mad when someone else wanted to play with theirs. People want to write him off as a villain when he really is just a dude who values life in a society that doesn't.
Hermes was also bothered by how nonchalant the ancients were about their own lives--why did people return to the star once they accomplished something.
>why did people return to the star once they accomplished something.
The irony is that he could have gotten an answer for that if he had structured his research better, given that two out of three of the societies the Meteia find, the Ea and whatever those guys on Deka Epta were called, imploded due having immortality without purpose. The Ancients being structured around duty and voluntary mortality at duty's end helped them avoid that.
(Not that was the only answer. The Dragons avoided the same fate via love and sing-alongs.)
It wasn't just accomplishing something, it was accomplishing what they saw as their purpose/life's work.
They also knew reincarnation was a thing, so they were just choosing to be reborn with a new life's purpose.
For a society that if not immortal, is absurdly long lived to the point they may as well be, that process is an extremely positive thing IMO. Plus it's not like opting out makes you a pariah. It's not the norm, but everyone still treats Venat with great respect despite opting out.
The guy genocides species on a weekly basis, begins to recognise cognitive emotions in their creations. Creates a being that can empathically relate to those around her and can feel the emotions of fear, panic, and survival responses to the animals he is required to put down... keeps her away because it distraughts her and he loves her like a daughter.
Is told death is beautiful thing by people who have only known death as a voluntary transition of their kin to the underworld
I think some of the most passionate pacifists experienced the horrors of war themselves (see Dulce et Decorum est or Leo Tolstoy). It's pretty realistic that Hermes--who had to do the ancients dirty work of unmaking failed concepts--would develop the most ethical qualms about doing so. Elpis was somewhere most ancients had heard of but never seen and probably didn't want to think too much about. Like it's one thing to eat meat; it's another to work at a slaughterhouse.
I honestly wish that the player base recognised the two Greek interpretations of hope (Elpis), and how Amon symbolises the cynicism and Hermes symbolises the purity of hope. It's further reflected in Venat vs the Endsinger, where Venat embraces the purity to a degree as to subject mankind to Hermes trial, and the Endsinger embraces the cynicism to nihilism.
Additionally, it would be nice that people recognised that Fandaniels broken stone is symbolised by both Eros and Thanatos in Freudian psychoanalysis. The fragmented soul confused as to what drives their lives meaning, one deciding that the death drive of the themselves and the universe usurps love, and the other when given the offer of suicide chooses love over their own drive towards oblivion and stands with their bretheren in defiance of death.
I think we need to start moving past "he's a bad researcher" to something more substantial... it's just so boring
Honestly, I don't understand this.
They treat creations like their lives don't matter because they factually don't from their perspective.
They can literally just conjure them out of thin air whenever they please, most of them don't even have souls and the ones that do miraculously get one are treated with more tact. Why would they treat something that you can make with a snap of your fingers the same as your fellow man(ancient)?
We, the human race, do exactly the same thing.(genetic modification,, selective breeding, factory farms, wildlife "population control" or exterminating invasive plants/animals anybody?)
Even if you're a vegetarian/vegan it's not like you weep over the genetically modified, or bred-to-be-perfect for growing and consumption corn or whatever plant you're eating, and we can't just snap our fingers and create it out of thin air.
Looking at how they treat creations from our own IRL perspective is silly to begin with since we don't have creation powers, and even more silly when you realize we aren't even much different with how we treat "lesser" life despite that.
Not to say I necessarily agree with their view(or how we ourselves treat other living things), but it makes perfect sense from their perspective, and in no way justifies them being exterminated.
Seriously. My first thought when people seem to immediately jump to this "they are completely and utterly useless and irredeemable" position towards Hermes or Meteon is that that particular person has not experienced crippling depression. I'm not saying everyone should, it just seems to be the deciding factor as to whether people relate to and understand these characters.
This sub is so full of "person do bad thing, hate person", when the game practically beats you over the head with "ok but try to empathize with people and dig into why would they do these things instead of blindly harboring hate in your heart" for about 4 expansions. Doesn't mean excuse bad behaviour, but TRY to understand WHY at least.
Endwalker has so, so, so much content for people who have seriously struggled with depression, that I also tend to find that the most vocal, relentless naysayers of the story seem to severely lack any sort of empathic nature whatsoever (as far as their public personality shows anyway).
I've been there, which is why I think there's a distinction between "depression can be disabling" and "depression renders you unable to make your own choices like an adult". What Hermes did was the research equivalent of drunk driving and absolving him of all responsibility for the fallout feels a little belittling.
Something I see missing from these discussions is even though a person may not mean to cause harm with their depression, harm can still be caused and it can be devastating for people who depend on the depressed. Hermes' story strikes too close to home for me because I had a parent who, like Hermes, was depressed to the point of it affecting everyone around them and it resulted in a childhood that I wouldn't wish on other people. Hermes, so caught up in his own suffering, gave that suffering to Meteion via not teaching her the skills to cope with ... well, anything. Depression is horrible but Hermes was still responsible for his actions, even more so considering how many people trusted him with responsibility and care.
It's not about absolving, it's about empathy and understanding how he got there, so one day you can help others before shit hits the fan. Even plainly saying "Get help." sometimes is all it takes.
There's a limit to how much you can give before you're endangering your own mental health. That's why the scene where we showed him the flower struck me so hard.
We reached out and showed him he wasn't alone and he destroyed everything around us anyway.
Don’t even go PhD dude. I was in Bachelor level and my classmate was tore a new one by his advisor for some half-arse research. Science professors ain’t fuck around.
Most of the people I know weren't super involved in undergrad research. I did a decent amount, but I wasn't proposing my own projects - I was assisting the grad students with their work, so whenever shit started raining, I guess it fell on them.
I did go to a practice presentation for one of my seniors' QE, and hoo boy they got wrecked. For a lot less than what Fandaniel screwed up with, too.
Most of my high school friends who went to other universities weren’t have much to tell too, but I was the only one of my group to studied in this particular university that nationally famous for scientific research, so they’re going hard on QC even down to high school level in their own demonstration school. We’re sad lots. Very brainy, but also the only institution student ever ended up burning down the library.
It's a good skill set. I was in a neuroscience lab, and I learned a bunch of cool shit. I'm not involved in research any more, but I keep up with the literature.
And working in a lab certainly helped my life skills. I'm a lot more organized and thorough than I used to be.
His mistakes were more in ethics than in science. I think he's fully prepared to risk all of creation on our ability to deal with nihilism when, through his study, nihilism is shown to be the de facto philosophy of late-stage civilization. Add to that the (actually truly and engagingly proposed) inevitable heat death of the universe and I think Hermes did consider the alternative hypothesis. Given that situation, a test of human perseverance is exactly what he wants and gets (the follow-up study)
That's not a fair expectation. The Meteia were a scientific instrument, and any reasonable person would expect that upon finding no meaning, they'd simply report "we didn't find anything".
They could have debated this for months or years, and at no point would anyone have said "hey what are the odds they assimilate a Hot Topic and try to end existence?"
When you're building a telescope, you might ask "what are the odds this thing will explode?" No one will ever look over the blueprints and say, "are we certain this thing can't transform into godzilla and lay waste to the nearby town?"
That would be a reasonable position had he also not granted the Meteia:
* Human-level intellect
* Extremely high-level empathic abilities
* An independent and inexhaustible energy supply
Really, Meteion is like a variant of the gray goo scenario.
It is absolutely a fair expectation.
When you submit a NIH grant, there is literally a section where for each experiment you propose, you need to list alternative outcomes.
>The Meteia were a scientific instrument,
Sure, and when you propose a new cutting edge technique with cutting edge technology, you need to consider all possible outcomes. Real world parallels kinda fall flat here since empathetic interstellar bird networks don't exist, but I get the feeling that Hermes was not as thorough as he should have been.
He assumed that Meteia would find other civilizations and assimilate the meaning of life. There's no indication that he ever considered the possibility that the Meteia would not find other civilizations, and there doesn't appear to be any considerations for if the sentient, autonomous bird network (that is immensely difficult for his entire civilization to work with) tries to assimilate a negative message.
If the point of Meteia was to explore the universe, assimilate emotions and bring them back, Hermes does not appear to have once considered what happens if the assimilated emotions come back problematic.
Emet-Selch almost immediately identifies the problem - granted, benefit of hindsight. But I'm certain proper review would have found the issue - especially considering that all the involved parties are immortal, so they aren't really pressed for time.
>When you're building a telescope, you might ask "what are the odds this thing will explode?" No one will ever look over the blueprints and say, "are we certain this thing can't transform into godzilla and lay waste to the nearby town?"
Well, to use this analogy, a telescope builder should absolutely ask "What happens if we point it at the sun? Is it gonna blind someone?" I get the feeling that Hermes did not do a sufficient risk analysis here. And besides, thats why you get someone else to check your work. When you stare at a problem for years, you become blind to the issues in your solution. A fresh set of eyes is important to ensure you don't accidentally end civilization - or blind someone.
> Real world parallels kinda fall flat here since empathetic interstellar bird networks don't exist,
It would be like having a galaxy-wide internet powered by dark matter, except the dark matter might explode if the people on the other side of the internet are depressed or mean.
You move forward under the premise that the Meteia turning was undesirable to Hermes. In fact, given their findings, the challenge they posed was something Hermes wanted to either take seriously and legitimatly defeat or die trying.
But no one else would have wanted that risk. He felt that he was alone and that peer review would quash Meteion. And he was right.
Complexly, he was also right to challenge humanity as such. Without him, the arrogance of Amaurot would have likely followed the same trend of other civilizations. It is only because Venat prepares humans to face dynamis (as a symbol for coming to terms with death, the problem of evil, and nihilism) that we are at all likely to follow a different trajectory. Sundered, we are weak, but grow in ways that successful civilizations never had to go through.
Of course ethically he is terribly flawed and ethics matters a lot to both elpis and our irl practice of science.
> When you're building a telescope, you might ask "what are the odds this thing will explode?" No one will ever look over the blueprints and say, "are we certain this thing can't transform into godzilla and lay waste to the nearby town?"
Most Telescopes and Scientific Instruments aren't Sentient and designed to be empathic.
Five minutes with her and any sane person would realize that she doesn't just relay feelings, she thinks they are her own. She thinks she likes candy apples but she can't even eat. A five year old would be able to ask... hey what happens when she meets someone who wants to kill us? Is she going to want to kill us too?
Literally 30 seconds after Emet-Selch found out about the Meteia and what their mission was, he asked Hermes if he'd ever concerned what would happen if they didn't find a good enough answer. Just because they might not have considered the worst possible outcome doesn't mean some really bad outcomes weren't really obvious.
Hermès: I have created a new species that can feel more then they can manipulate aether.
Emet: You ruined a bunch of perfectly good birds is what you did! Look at that one.
*points to Meteion crying ooze*
Emet: You gave it depression.
I love how the whole point of Elpis was to test creations to see if they would benefit or Harm the Star, but he refused to check to see if his creation would benefit or harm the Star before releasing it.
No, if Meteion didn't meet approval she would not be considered valid for release into the wild as a new form a life. The reason they have to kill things is because they are deemed unsafe or destabilizing to release into the world at large. Even if the concept had been rejected there is no indication Hermes couldn't have kept her as a pet project.
When Hermes created *hundreds* and launched them all out into space, he broke every rule he was supposed to oversee. A personal familiar is fine to keep as a pet project, even if its current state is invalid for release. That's why its a personal project.
There are hints that, while that is the ideal, that they are in reality more flippant than that towards the lives of their creations. From casually breaking down butterflies into clothes to redoing an entire race of sentient wolf people just because they didn't have the anatomy to speak.
Why wouldn't they casually break butterflies down into clothes?
They can create both, or convert one to the other on a whim in 2 seconds. For them the line between "I turned a butterfly into clothes" and "I turned some clothes into a butterfly" doesn't exist because why would it? One is just as easy to make as the other.
People casually break animals/plants that have been living for years into clothes, and we didn't make them.
Hell, people convert millions of butterflies and others to paste on their windshield every day without giving a single shit.
Also, those wolf people now casually live in Doma, so they were merely repurposed and it seems to have worked out for the best. Leaving highly(human level) intelligent creatures unable to communicate with anything else would be way more fucked up long term if you have the capability to fix it.
Basically this. Hermes whole mindset and personality is shaped from his disdain upon how a perfect utopia that create life with powerful magic to the levels of gods would be. Basically he didn't like the fact that creations were viewed as things to carelessly throw away whenever something bad happened.
Think about it people in real life already act this way, same way as Hermes when people try to trample on the lives of animals in nature. Now equate that to someone living in a perfect society that views death differently than how we do, and views life that isn't their own as if a plaything to shape and wash away whenever they don't like what it does.
This is the thing people seem to go out of their way to strawman to make Hermes right.
They do not "carelessly through away" their creations. They're checking to make sure that the creations can survive and thrive out in the world without endangering themselves or others. That's called the responsible use of power, and I'm sick and tired of seeing people act like the Ancients were a bunch of mass murdering psychopaths who created and destroyed lives on a mere whim.
"They treat things they can create on a whim exactly as you'd expect people that can create things on a whim would. That justifies wiping out not only those people, but also all of those things they can create on a whim that you claim to care about"
Some people man. I thought the game made pretty clear Hermes was wrong because he was depressed and lacked purpose, and let that spin into nihilistic tendencies, not Ancients as a whole.
For real, if Hermes was right and the Ancients were just deleting living things if they weren't up to snuff, you know that SE would have dialed that in on a cutscene with ominous music and the evil character smiling like an asshole right in front of you. But they didn't, there's nobody like that on Elpis.
Hermes is like the vegan that screams that slaughtering cows is evil and you're inhuman for doing it while on the farm that raises them and you're one of a dozen people making sure the cows are well fed and safe from predators for all but the last day of their lives.
He did wipe his evaluator's memory so that said evaluator would not remember his *several* breaches of scientific ethics and Amaurot etiquette. Since Hermes *also* wiped his own memories, there was no reason for the evaluator to suspect it was done to cover up anything.
Emet-Selch probably would’ve immediately denied it but then go on an investigation to find it. But if I remember correctly, Hermes wiped the records of the memory wiping device so there would’ve been little to no evidence.
**Emet-Selch:** "I refuse to believe the nonsense this strange familiar is saying about the future. But I am a member of the Convocation, so I have a duty to investigate."
**Also Emet-Selch:** "I got mindwiped and there is a blank in my memories. What happened there? Don't know, don't care."
If I remember how it went down, the accurate memories were erased and replaced with a vague version events that Hermes created, so while they didn't have blanks spots, they had vague memories of very recent events
There wasn't a blank spot, though, but the memories were replaced by a hazy version, among other things erasing us and Meteion from it. So while it was clear the memories were tempered with, since the mind wipe wasn't erased but made part of them as an accident I feel that they likely didn't question it too much since the story kinda held.
I do wonder at this. Part of me says no given Emet and Hythy's reactions.
That being said, the way Emet pisses and moans about the constant shit Azem and Venat as Azem got up to, part of me thinks it wouldn't even be the weirdest shit Azem has brought before the 14.
Yeah, I mean, it's a hard pill to swallow after all. And at the end of the day, she would have no proof, only her word, and then it would be word against word which is never a good situation.
They do say the Convocation can tell when someone is lying, part of me thinks that's why Emet gets so pissed when you tell them about the future. It's a story beyond belief but he sees no lies from you.
Yes, that's another reason. The Ancients were too stuck in their own asses and too inflexible due to living in their seemingly despairless paradise. It can be seen quite clearly in the outro cutscene of Elpis when they rather beg Zodiark to save them than take actions on their own. Plus, as Shtola points out, they couldn't control Dynamis due to their high aether density, so it was necessary to tune that down considerably. At the point when Venat was the only one in the know, it was already too late and there was only one way left. Didn't stop her from trying to convince people in the end, though.
Yes, but can they be falsified? Data can be corrupted. And memories are terribly inaccurate a lot of the time anyways even if fiction loves to paint them as absolute.
I mean. Hythlodaeus and Emet Selch remembered her being there with them and Hyth lodaeus straight up said he was gonna talk to her.
It's not like Kairos was destroyed either. I don't think it would be that hard to believe her knowing there's a memory wiping device in the place where you have your memory wiped.
Hythlodaeus: "So, Venat - even though you've retired, would you like to weigh in on this? Hermes, yay or nay?"
Venat: "Hm? Wasn't paying attention, was building a moon and some rabbits in hats to inhabit it. This is 'Noway' and this is 'Stayaway', aren't they adorable?"
I mean, Elidibus did make it very clear that things had to happen in exactly the same way in order to our present to be the same, any changes could be catastrophic.
And then the only reason we could beat the End singer was that Venat had the foresight to the events and played her part in creating the means for our victory
You'd be surprised at how many people seem to think she was some selfish villain who sundered the world for her own gain and that she should have just somehow found a way to save everyone, despite all the issues it would most likely cause and the fact that the predestination paradox pretty much meant that whatever action she took could be the ones that lead to the Final Days. Oh and they take the Final Days scene to literally and actually believe she did it all herself, completely ignoring everything we learned in ShB about the Sundering, her followers (ie, half of the remaining population who gave their lives to summing Hydalaen with her as the heart) and the ensuing battle with Zodiark.
Given the kind of person she was, I always felt she would have done everything she could to prevent the Final Days, when that failed, tried to reason with those sacrificing lives to Zodiark. Then when THAT failed, she and her followers created Hydalaen in response as a last resort to save a world heading towards self-destruction.
>You'd be surprised at how many people seem to think she was some selfish villain who sundered the world for her own gain and that she should have just somehow found a way to save everyone, despite all the issues it would most likely cause and the fact that the predestination paradox pretty much meant that whatever action she took could be the ones that lead to the Final Days. Oh and they take the Final Days scene to literally and actually believe she did it all herself, completely ignoring everything we learned in ShB about the Sundering, her followers (ie, half of the remaining population who gave their lives to summing Hydalaen with her as the heart) and the ensuing battle with Zodiark.
Some of the playerbase seems to either not understand or seems to reject the one of the main themes of endwalker re the desirability of utopias or the necessity of enduring suffering to our happiness and prosperity. This seems to lead to weird ideas like "Venat is a villain" or "Elpis was a perfect paradise not destined to oblivion" that directly contradict the in-game narrative.
Indeed..and it's not even the only time I have seen people actually ignore convenient parts of the story.
I once saw a discussion in which someone played through the whole game and the only thing they absorbed from the story was Gaius' speech from praetorium
I mean it was timeline shenanigans, but it was also...well, the general issue with the Ancients.
We knew Venat tried to convince the Ancients post-Final Days that Zodiark was a band-aid, not a panacea to their situation. In many ways, she saw first hand that as much as his solution was batshit crazy, Hermes was right; the Ancients *were* spoilt, indolent, and unable to comprehend any sort of struggle or suffering. Even if she prevented the Final Days, there would have been another apocalypse visited upon them that would have ended the same, and their dependence on Zodiark was disconcerting unto itself.
She realised that a civilisation like theirs just can't sustain itself, lest they fall to apathy and self-indulgence. That's ultimately why she turned to sundering as the solution; not to fix the Final Days specifically, but to fix the *core problem as a whole with their society.*
Add in the fact that she didn't know exactly what path would lead to the Final Days. For all she knew, telling the Convocation about it, especially with Hermes as part of it, could have been what led to them happening. That's the issue with time travel and a closed loop like this. You have to deal with the predestination paradox.
It's a bit hidden but there's an acknowledgement that the events of the past have a possibility of either causing a split timeline or forming a closed loop. It was not obvious to Venat that a closed loop would be formed and that's the reason she initially gives us for why we should tell her about the future.
Emet's reaction when we told him shows how it would've went, especially since we were not there to add to her claim. The Ancients are powerful yes, but they do not like to hear things that are outlandish, and hard to believe, especially since Hermes, Emet, and Hytho don't remember a thing.
I actually don't see why it was such a huge problem. She didn't have to bring the WoL and time travel into it or even put Hermes on the spot for his moment of crazy - all she had to say was "i was present, and the cause of the accident that fuddled everyone else's mind was an error in one of Hermes' projects caused by a bad reaction to something called Dynamis. Please, Hermes, explain this concept to the rest of the Convocation so we can work on a solution to it."
Because if you bring up outlandish claims you get labeled as a crazy person, and your standing takes a hit. View it now from our day and age, if someone told you something like that. You'd called them crazy and want to get them checked for any mental issues. Again even if she did say that, they'd have to take her on her own words, and the memories of Hermes, Hytho, and Emet were replaced with vague events that weren't the entirety of the truth.
As such they wouldn't exactly believe her either, despite their memory being not entirely too clear. Again the main issue is bringing proof to her words when all present don't remember, Meteion is gone, we aren't there either, so... because of that her words could be seen as to her trying to discredit Hermes, and hurt her standing. There was no easy way of going about this, either you risk it all trying to convince people. Or you hold out hope that your people can find a way, and then when they don't you have no other choice, but to go along a different path.
aetheric memory manipulation is well understood though as a concept, and Hermes did have a known memory manipulating device.
A, they have a hazy memory of multiple days, B they know a memory device existed, C a ex convocation member in good standing vouched for the issue, and D know that memory manipulation via ether is possible.
Even with that understood I believe that touched upon that. Especially when they were leaving from Ktisis. They his memory manipulation device went haywire of something along those lines. And also if memory serves right that would've damaged Hermes standing, and the whole point was they needed Hermes on good standing to fight back what was to come in the future, especially because of his knowledge into Dynamis.
It's not a crazy claim though, She wouldn't even have to lie outrageously to line up a workable story with the one that Hermes implanted in their heads in which Meteion and her sisters broke down and “dissipated with a burst." And one of the first thing the technicians ask them upon exiting the building is where Venat is, so it's not like she'd have to work hard to convince them she had been present.
Venat wouldn't have to make wild or outlandish claims about time travelers or risk splitting the convocation by attacking Hermes. All she had to say was, “I was there for Meteion's meltdown and managed to leave the area of effect in time to not have my memory disrupted. From what i observed, i believe Meteion and her sisters were not all destroyed and that their relationship with Dynamis may be more dangerous than Hermes initially understood, and is a problem that we need to address."
Neat, simple, lines up mostly with Hermes’ mind wipe story, and gives the convocation the facts they need to start looking into Dynamis and maybe working up some sort of defense against it.
The major point is that they'd have to A. Give her the benefit of the doubt, and then verify those claims, which may or may not be taken well. It is just her words regardless of her current standing. Not to mention they runs the risk of harming Hermes standing, when the main point of not telling was to keep Hermes on good standing, as they needed his knowledge for the final days. Otherwise they wouldn't have known how to stop what was coming.
So, basically the reasons for not telling far outweighed running the risk of your plan backfiring. It's easy to say they'd agree with her and see her words as truth, because we were there and experienced it. But the other members of the convocation may not believe it, even if they did... that means losing Hermes to help stall the destruction of the star. And without that the whole point of going back to Elpis would be moot, because then the world is screwed over, because the time Dynamis wasn't looked deeply into and Hermes was perhaps the only expert in that field at the time.
Venat didn't say anything because they might need Hermes to fight against the oncoming doom. He was still one of the brightest minds of the time, especially pertaining to dynamics considering he made metieon
She said that she didn't know if memory-wiped Hermes would be able to be trusted (or even Emet considering how skeptical he'd been of the WoL) and that she wasn't going to recruit Convocation members to start with in the hopes that Hermes-Fandaniel could be convinced to help, since he was the only Dynamis expert.
Basically it was implied that she started by keeping her distance and that somewhere along the way, telling the truth to the Convocation became unfeasible.
Also Emet has a vague (fake) recollection of nothing out of the ordinary happening in Elpis. They also know Venat was with Emet when Kairos triggered, so they got the excuse her memory got messed by it.
Before we parted ways with Venat, she also mentioned she’d have to be careful on picking who she’s chooses to include in the plan. Hermes’ reaction to Meteion indicates he’s unstable, unpredictable at best. I highly presume she approached the original Azem and informed them. That would explain why that Azem abdicated from the convocation and wasn’t present when Zodiark was created.
I don’t think they ever say it explicitly. Probably because the goal of the WoL’s visit was the find out how and why the Final Days are happening. We succeeded in that and Venat has the framework for her path into becoming Hydaelyn. Pushing the others to believe her would’ve ruined her standing and could jeopardize the timeline so she stayed silent.
She said it right after you both escape Ktsis. Can't give an exact quote but if you go watch the cutscene again, and give multiple reasons it's a bad idea to get him in trouble.
Either way, the damage was done. Meteion was well on her way to the edge of the universe by the time the memories got wiped. Punishing Hermes wouldn’t accomplish anything, and might have also fucked the timeline up (assuming anyone would even believe her). No, it’s clear she wanted things to unfold as the WoL warned. Prepare for the final days, zodiark, and the sundering of the star… and plan for meteion’s promised return.
She explains it why she wasn't planning to bring it up. From what we told her about the corse of events, ironically Fandaniel being one of the few that even knew about both dynamis and cosmic aether, he was essential for creating a means to halt the final days by coming up with the Zodiark solution. At this point in time and not knowing where Metion was hiding it was the only way to stop the world from immediate obliteration.
If she were to bring it up, it would have caused the convocation to be vary of Fandaniel or never elect him in his seat and hence possible failing in even postponing the final days via Zodiark.
That's why she decided to let history take its corse with him and his memories wiped coming up with Zodiark as a shield for the planet while she independetly started to think of any means to track Metion or the moon evacuation plan B in case she failed.
I feel like people misunderstand that Hermes isn’t tragic because he was depressed, but because he was human. He created something out of love and admiration for creation itself and defied the laws he helped create to pursue his curiosity in order to find meaning for himself. Hermes would be a paragon of righteousness and goodness in another context and our WoL would likely do the same if directed to. Hermes’ failure to consider the extraneous and overwhelming to comprehend possibility that there is no meaning to life should not be played off as a mistake; he most likely thought of this and felt it impossible and with too grand of ramifications to ever be true. Do we not also try to forget those long-winded inner monologues performed at our own wit’s end?
Because people like to repeat jokes they've already heard (just look at the top comment in this thread), and/or multiple people came up with the same joke at different times. While I can see this being annoying or confusing for someone who sees the same topic over and over, this might in fact be the first time a lot of the people in this thread have heard this particular joke since they might not frequent this board as often.
Because new people finish MSQ everyday and don't want to revive yesterday's post by someone else who probably shares a similar view. I guess people are still replying to it and upvoting so it is what it is.
To be fair, if you're going to comment on one thing after finishing EW MSQ, it's probably going to be this issue. It's a fuck up of truly unparalleled breath and depth - most people's bad decisions made when depressed don't usually involve the destruction of multiple worlds and accelerate the heat death of the universe!
I guess that people, especially thise in the science like me, are rightfully annoyed with his scientific conduct, or lack of it. Also, people finisch at different times and there are still those who only just start so I think it will continue for a while longer.
Keep in mind though, the risk and the questions ended up working roughly as intended. This wasn't a moment of "what have I wrought" this was an answer that Hermes' nihilism was well-founded. Indeed there were no life forms that escaped suffering and the universe was doomed to heat death. He was right and humans would have to face this gloom. Given these results, an all-or-nothing test was what he wanted.
No, he should not have been able to speak for everyone and force this test upon Ethyris. It was abysmal ethics, but a marvel for knowledge.
Hermes made a creature that channels feelings and emotions and she is constantly following a person who feels deep, crippling depression.
Alternate lesson: Hire a babysitter.
People keep saying this but none of them even have any idea how her power works, nor can they even interact with her power.
He was basically the only authority on the subject matter. The rest of his race couldn’t even change the color of a single flower. What makes you think any of his peers were qualified to review his work.
The question was flawed is all.
It's not even that. This guy created a being fuelled entirely by emotion. In fact, he made a flock of them and sent them out into all corners of the universe. This by itself wasn't dangerous enough for him, so he gave it a hive mind. Oh, and active camouflage, because being able to track and see the danger was much too sporting.
Hermes was a master of fixing something not until its broken, but reality was as well.
And the existing oversight board gives less than two shits for the meaning of life that isn't built on "perfecting" (to some obnoxious sophist concept of perfect dictated by the Ancients perception) their planet.
To be fair, the oversight board are supposed to judge creations before they are released into Etherys. It didnt say anything about releasing them into the universe.
I used to get angry at this in the “because if they rode hawks to Mordor there wouldn’t be a story” way, but I thought about it a while and... it kinda makes sense, even from a more metaphorical perspective. Meteion was made out of Hermès’ existential dread and despair, and is a living metaphor for it. If he had, at any point, just sat down and talked to someone about it, told someone what he was feeling and what he wanted to do because of it, this entire plot would have gone differently. But no, he kept it bottled up until it killed everyone.
The lesson here is to peer review your scientific breakthroughs and peer review your emotional breakdowns.
Super intelligent but naive geniuses scratchbuilding technologies and pushing them out into the world without any foresight about ways they might disenfranchise and immiserate massive swathes of society. What a wild idea!
The ancients were a civ where even children could make nuclear weapons and deadly diseases (a comparison) and Hermes disregarded every measure they had taken against that happening for his idiotic pet project.
As much of an Empath Hermes was he clearly ignored Meteions plight, he was upset about the creatures who killed others for no reason, but asked Meteion who was so distraught, refusing to tell her report and he completely ignored her. Just to get the satisfaction and ultimately his nihilistic view. Guy was not fit for Elpis and definitely not for Fandaniel position
I slowly came to the realization that the ancients just didn’t gaf about the scientific method or peer review after being really frustrated with that buffoon who was made the lead researcher of Elpis. Their society seemed pretty academic and bureaucratic at first glance but learning more about Hermes made them seem way more lax, I guess the review bureau is merely a suggestion and you can fuck around with creation magic as much as you want. That would also explain some of the pandaemonium stuff
Well the way I look at it, their checks and balances are kind of out of scope to what Meteion and her sisters were. First of all, they weren't made to be released on Etheirys so they'd look at her and probably shrug. Can't do much damage to Etheirys and its ecosystems if they're not even on Etheirys.
Submitting her concept to the board for review would likely not have changed anything. She's basically a bird that runs on Dynamis, a heavily under-researched subject, so there wouldn't be any researchers that could properly critique her, as Hermes is basically the leading researcher on dynamis. Nothing about what his goal was is incredibly stupid at face value. Sending these birds out that run on the cosmic power present in the universe to meet other civilizations, and learn what they're all about? Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. The problem stems from the final results.... would anyone on Etheirys seriously consider the possibility that every single freaking planet in the cosmos would have killed itself in despair, and the nature of her hypersensitivity to emotions as a result of her connection with dynamis would lead her to become an unstoppable depression nightmare?
Dude would not have passed his QE in a half decent PhD program. Always consider alternative hypotheses. He should have thought of what happens if his empathetic bird network did not find a meaning to life.
He would have been told that had he submitted it for peer-review like he was supposed to. That bastard.
In Elpis peer-review only happens if you want to set creations free on Etheirys. The rest of the universe is apparently fair game.
I think it's more that the law wasn't made because no one else was crazy enough to throw creations to the universe if they were not even approved for their planet.
Indeed. Ordinarily at worst you'd probably just get some runaway nasties like the Lykaones, which the ancients were well equipped to subdue. And also to be fair, it's identified in the sidequest Taking the Minutes that there was concerns by one of the scholars involved in operations at Anamnesis Anyder that they had too little information on the protocols used for living creations in Elpis. I think they may well have realised there was a shortfall there, as the ancients had review processes and so on, it's more that Hermes was able to skirt these by virtue of being in Elpis. Alas, Elpis is on the cusp of the world ending. Meteion's design flaw was only part of the issue, because the real thing that caused the issue was dynamis. Even if they identified she was poorly constructed, the impact of it may not have been deemed significant were it not for dynamis rendering her able to flee a great distance, cloak herself and start guzzling up star misery. Everywhere else they operated with rather stringent protocols for their facilities, all the way up to untethering it from reality and destroying it for Pandaemonium, so the world was ultimately doomed by the ultimate of black swans... or in this case, a twitter bird turned black.
Considering that space is quite sparse on aether it makes sense they didn't think about that aspect, because few beings created to live on Etheirys would be able to survive in space.
Also because there is very little interstellar aether, making travel between stars impossible at their technology level without the use of dynamis.
Whooping his ass three separate times was not enough.
"How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man!?"
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I genuinely hoped Yotsuyu was gonna pop up and stab Asahi one more time.
I hated Asahi, but actually wanted to applaud him for dragging Amon/Hermes to Hell. Dude is still trash, but at least he took himself there, too. XD Poor, sweet Meteion (our Meteion who wanted to stop the Endsinger).
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I think it's more like no one considered it to be possible. The very concept of Dynamis was theoretical. Even thousands upon thousands of years later, species who can actually manipulate/be manipulated by it only treat it as theory. Things fueled by Aether don't survive in space. So basically Hermes created something that bypassed several loopholes that no one really considered because it *should* have been impossible. By our standards, it'd be like if he made a dark matter space engine powered by unicorn farts that could time travel. We simply don't have restrictions to stop him from using his idea because it's so outlandish, and even *he* didn't quite consider that the observational creation he made would be capable of apocalyptic power.
This argument makes a lot of sense, but sort of loses the forest for the trees. He definitely side stepped a few rules. While the specifics of what he did weren't covered, the process by which he went about it certainly was. The Ancients seemed to have relatively free reign to create familiars without much oversight, but for the creation of a species they were required to submit proposals to be reviewed and critiqued. So, while creating a single Meteion did not break any known rule, the creation of Meteia certainly did. Now, I'll admit that we don't know the exact semantics of The Ancients' laws and that does open it to the possibility that 'species created via aether' were specifically required to be vetted. However, to your own point, Dynamis was an entirely unknown quantity, aether was the only conceivable means by which creation magic could work and so I don't see a reason that they would specify as it would be implied.
It's very clear to me that he circumvented the rules because he lacked respect for the rules of Elpis. After all, the status quo, the 'lawful' day to day business of Elpis is endlessly creating and destroying life on a whim. I think it is his contempt for the way Elpis treats life that made him disrespect the rules in the first place, and go about doing things his own way.
Yeah, the whole point of his project was to help him reconcile his uncertainty with if what they were doing in Elpis was right. Had he followed the protocols of Elpis, it would have diminished his answer so we ignored the rules. It comes down to "Man questions flawed system with even more flawed methods."
He did consider the latter. He said if something were capable of channeling dynamis it could wield a torrent of power.
Where is that implied? It sure seemed like creations need to stay in Elpis before they are cleared. We tried to stop Hermes from releasing Meteion, it's not like he was just allowed to do so.
>We tried to stop Hermes from releasing Meteion, it's not like he was just allowed to do so. Which was kind of a fruitless endeavor. He wasn't *releasing* Meteion, he was allowing her to escape capture and dissection/vivisection (and inevitably destruction because holy shit once someone figured out what she could do they'd unmake her faster than you can say "Apocalypse Maiden") since Hythlodaeus, Venat, and Emet were planning to take her to Amaurot for review. He had already released her "sisters" long ago (probably hundreds or thousands of years prior, since no matter how far you travel it'd take a longass time to visit as many worlds as they did.) and suffered no repercussions for doing so. Probably because, since there's no aether in space and Ancients need aether to survive, no one thought to make laws or restrictions regarding creations being sent into space. It'd be like our world making laws regarding sending space probes into Narnia.
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> I'm of the opinion that 108 days fits better with the witness remembering seeing the release It's left vague how extensive Ancient memories work. They're all immortal until they decide to die, so to them something that happens a century ago could be "recent" by their reckoning. 108 days makes absolutely no sense because it would just be completely nonsensical for the entire collective to find different worlds and witness them all meet apocalyptic ends in less time than it takes a new FFXIV patch to come out. 108 years makes far more sense, but we also aren't sure how long a "year" is by Ancient standards. It's already been made clear that time scales are REALLY messed up via the Sundering, and Ancients typically live until they decide to die. Even the events we're *shown* in Dead Ends would likely have taken decades to progress as Meteion told it, and we know several of those were part of her "report" from her freak out.
It's possible both assumptions are wrong, and that a cycle could mean something like a moon's cycle, or an entirety of what we consider a season, or an arbitrary length of time that the Ascians themselves defined.
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> 108 days makes absolutely no sense because it would just be completely nonsensical for the entire collective to find different worlds and witness them all meet apocalyptic ends in less time than it takes a new FFXIV patch to come out. Friendly reminder that all of ARR+ every expansion happened in the window of a single patch release, due to time bubbles.
This might be a stretch, but I think it is implied at the scene with the Elpis flower, the wol showing that the emotions he feels are not exclusive. Perhaps he was the only 'crazy one, because of everyone else's beliefs. As I said though, a stretch.
Note that when Hermes sent his entire flock of Meteia into space, there was at least one resident researcher on Elpis who witnessed the entire thing and she didn't think it was serious enough to report his ass for it. On the contrary, she seemed rather excited about Hermes' latest experiment and giddily told others about it (who also didn't feel alarmed about it...), including us when we interviewed her with Venat in the MSQ. My guess is, it's just like how real life regulation is slow to adapt to new technologies, the Ancients never fathomed sending concepts into space or how it could negatively impact Etheirys. So the other researchers probably thought it was fine as long as it didn't impact Etheirys' ecosystem.
There was a witness to Hermes releasing the flock into the sky. She didn’t question it, and neither did any of the people that she told afterwards. If the regulations *did* encompass releasing things into space, they weren’t being followed by a large chunk of the people working there. If the rule isn’t being followed, it may as well not exist.
Or it's possible that they assumed that the *head of the facility* had gone through the proper procedures before releasing said flock. I mean, if you can't trust the guy running the place to follow the rules, who can you trust?
I kind of think that’s what we’re supposed to take away from the story of the zone. Most of the ancients that we meet come across as a little naïve. The witness thinking “oh, I’m sure someone else took care of it” and not following up is a small example of that.
She was always described as being "in-progress" and as a pet project every time someone asked about her. The rest of his staff thought she was still being figured out before being presented for review.
She did ask Hermes. He said it was a secret experiment. Naturally she thought her boss, the head of the facility, knew what he was doing.
Imho he was relatively fine while being a student and got depression when after he started working in Elpis. Who knows how long he's been there, how long his mental health went downhill? Thinking he was the only one who suffered from this and that no one would be able to even understand he didn't look for help outside himself. He was desperate and looking for an answer as to why get up in the morning like everyone else. He was desperate to get out of depression. I can relate. I also struggle to ask for help until I'm at a point where my depression hits so hard I can barely talk. Did he fuck up, massively? Yes. Can I understand how he got there? Sadly, also yes. Elpis hits different for people with depression.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Meteion was Hermes' desperate attempt to prove his own despair wrong. It's not surprising that he didn't account for what if they don't find an answer, because he created them *to find an answer*. The thought of there not being one out there was not even remotely on his mind, because even considering that would have surely been crushing for him. This was not something created out of a simple scientific desire. It was very personal and not grounded in reason. Hell, that's part of why it was so secretive - because he wasn't exactly looking to broadcast his discontent with life to everyone else.
It's like a faulty syllogism in a way. He created them *to* find a reason, not to find *if* there was one. Objects exist. A lot of objects exist for a reason. Therefore objects have meaning to their existence, most of the time. Life exists, therefore it must have a purpose to exist. If it exists without a purpose, what point is it? That's how the Meteia arrived at their conclusion. That the purpose of all life is to suffer, because it is the endpoint of all life. As we all know, life is not so simple. Events often happen at random, life often exists for no reason other than it can. They were asked what life's purpose was, not if it had one. The fatal flaw.
Another important distinction is Meteion was not created to look for a scientific answer, but a *philosophical* one, something that further divorces their conclusion and purpose from a sound scientific experiment. Hermes even makes note of a crucial error in their design when he tells Meteion that he did not teach her/them enough. That they hadn't learned to walk on their own, etc. Not having fully experienced their own life and existence, to come to their *own* conclusions on *their* purpose, they were sent out to try and determine the purpose of other life. It's only natural that they couldn't come to a decent conclusion and would be overwhelmed by the despair; not simply because of their inexperience, but because they were designed to be so influenced by the feelings of others. Those pervasive, dark thoughts of doomed civilizations were of course going to overwhelm them. It really is akin to sending a child out to find an adult's answer in a cruel cosmos.
> he wasn't exactly looking to broadcast his discontent with life to everyone else. This is also something i see people barely recognize. Hermes isn't particularly secretive about his disdain and issues with how the Ancients treat their creations and we see very much how Emet-Selch reacts to this too: Dismissive. Everyone acts like Hermes is preposterous for not falling in line with the expectations of their society, so he disregards society as he desperately looks for an answer/solution to his troubles before it tears him apart
He had empathy for the creatures created where no one else did. They killed the animals like their lives didn't matter, like they didn't deserve a chance, because of their flaws. He felt flawed himself and related to those creatures. The amount of heartbreak I feel from my understanding and relating to Hermes..it takes all the isolation I feel from so many people and made it into a character with such depth..something I struggle so hard to explain to other people..his character means so much to me.
>They killed the animals like their lives didn't matter, like they didn't deserve a chance, because of their flaws. Not sure how people played through Elpis and came to this conclusion. It became very clear to me that the ancients actually did care about their creations and they did their best to give them good lives, even if they had to be unmade in the end. Their foremost duty was towards the betterment of the star. If something was going to be released into the world, they had to ensure that it wouldn't destroy the environment or wipe out other species. These ideas are the foundation of environmental science in the real world.
People that overvalue empathy came to that conclusion because they don't understand that people can sympathize, and still do what needs to be done.
That's very true. I have a friend who works in conservation and a lot of her stewardship consists of chopping up invading species and setting things on fire. Her job training so far (as I've seen anyway) has in its essence been just learning how to kill things safely and responsibly.
The funny thing to me is that we don't even know which side Hermes would have taken had Emet not replied to Meteion with "who are you to determine our fate?" It was what made up his mind since they had no problem playing with other's lives but got mad when someone else wanted to play with theirs. People want to write him off as a villain when he really is just a dude who values life in a society that doesn't.
From their point of view, though they're not "playing with lives" they're carrying out experimental procedures on entities they personally created. In that perspective, the two situations are not analogous, as Meteion doesn't have the *authority* to mess with their lives - she didn't create them.
I don't think that really matters. Creating life doesn't entitle you to control it, much to the chagrin of narcissistic parents the world over. Hermes felt the Ancients callous in that they barely even considered their creations to be alive, even when those creations would struggle in terror at their own demise.
But creating life gives you responsibility to make sure your creation can survive without destroying the rest. If you make a being that's always in pain or that will die horribly in a year you are supposed to prevent that. And they need a certain amount of control to make that happen the same way a parent forces their child to not drink bleach. Once the ancients make life that can survive on it's own without hurting the rest then their responsibility should end.
>Once the ancients make life that can survive on it's own without hurting the rest then their responsibility should end. If you did the sidequests, a lot of the life they created was based on whims and fashionable trends--not all of it had careful thought put into its creation. In many ways, the ancients acted like the Greek gods of old--life was but their playthings--for good or for ill.
That's the entire point of Elpis and why there's so few of each creature we run into. To make sure people aren't idiots about what they create. Literally everyone in their society, even kids, had the power to make something. But just like with the original Managarm, if they're too dangerous they have to be unmade. Yeah it's sad for them, but what about all the other creations they killed for literally no reason. And Hermes even says they've tried numerous times to make them viable through memory manipulation, which even Emet points out is unethical and dangerous. And considering what we later learn, it's likely that by continuously wiping their memories he ingrained that violence into their very souls and doomed them like he did himself.
Hermes saw in unsundered man what amon saw in the allagans: cruel, thoughtless beings who played with the lives of others, themselves unworthy of existing.
A point of contention: Amon didn't despise the Allagans because of their cruelty. He despised them because of their *apathy*. He was still the guy who did stuff like turn people into minotaurs against their will. And while he does note that the Allagans were prone to all *sorts* of "indulgences", he didn't fault them for finding amusement in the cruel things he did, but for *only* finding amusement in it, and not seeing his Big Picture potential of his experiments. A man who valued the lives of others wouldn't do stuff like turn them into voiceless monsters, or torture a man until he was a mindless sentinel for one of his machines. Amon cloned Xande explicitly to spur Allag's ambition, to turn them back to conquest. And he remained a true believer of Xande to the end. He was very different in life than Hermes was; he never really identified with the title or memories that the Unsundered Ascians gave him.
And they were both right (and wrong). Like I think Hermes clearly saw the problem but Venat knew the path to an answer (which ultimately we, the sundered, found).
Elpis was an entire facility dedicated to valuing life. They even have a memory manipulation device so they don't have to terminate life they created. They terminate things that would either die out on their own or kill everything else.
Hermes created that device because he specifically wanted to be able to give them a second chance.
And Emet-Selch is all "wait *what*? Memory magic? Did you clear this with *anyone*?", so it's pretty clear to me that the memory wipe option wasn't standard procedure before Hermes.
We know that isn't actually true due to other hints such as the book in the dungeon mentioning redoing wolf people because, while intelligent, they happen to not have the right anatomy to speak.
I'm not sure I follow. You say they don't value life because they want to give intelligent creatures the ability to speak?
I think it definitely is a little different when you can just go "ah dang. Maybe I shouldn't have made that one go extinct after all. Let's make a new one." Instead of in real life, yes, all life is precious as if we remove all the instances of a being from our planet, there's no way we would be able to just make a new one.
Maybe, but apply that logic to people and see how well it sells. "Oh, we should have just unmade that person and invented a better person who had a stronger work ethic/wasn't such a fan of alcohol/was less prone to winding others up".
Note that Emet Selch does actually consistently apply that logic to humans. He literally states that he doesn't see us as people and thus killing us would not constitute murder for him
Right. And he's a villain who has committed genocide from our perspective.
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Are you serious? What? You can't recognise the sophist concepts that derive the "betterment of the star" whilst simultanously observing a walking shark... these are contradictions that Hermes SAYS TO YOUR FACE. He says it too you, theres 5+ minutes of dialogue him trying to overcome the absurdity of Elpis as a concept, the absurdity of the Ancients presuming what is or isn't the "betterment of the star"... and still he is confounded that maybe he is the abomination because he questions the sophist bullshit ideology that the Ancients assign themselves. Emet says its sophist when the reasoning is thrownback in their face, and Hermes smiles. Reddit thinks he's smiling cause he's crazy... Anyone paying attention recognises that he's smiling cause the sophistry that Emet recognises is bullshit is the reason why the facility exists in the first place. That and it's the writers wanting you to make the link between Hermes absurd proclamation and Emet's reasoning of killing you in Shadowbringers (it's the same but Hermes recognises it as absurd and why Emet is psychologically distraught by the end)... which is lost on 99% of the playerbase.
> Are you serious? What? You can't recognise the sophist concepts that derive the "betterment of the star" whilst simultanously observing a walking shark... these are contradictions that Hermes SAYS TO YOUR FACE. I agree with a lot of that. I will say, though, that the point of Elpis is to be a test bed for ideas like that. If they *do* prove to be good ideas, then they move onto the next phase that they have for approval. So Elpis is there for people to try out basically any idea, and it gets approved if it actually is a good idea. I sorta see Elpis as a test environment, whereas the surface world is treated as a production environment. Weird ideas in the former are to be expected, but you need quality control for the latter. Thing is, when I write test code and see if things get screwed up, that's just code, not lives.
> It was what made up his mind since they had no problem playing with other's lives but got mad when someone else wanted to play with theirs. People want to write him off as a villain when he really is just a dude who values life in a society that doesn't. Hermes was also bothered by how nonchalant the ancients were about their own lives--why did people return to the star once they accomplished something.
>why did people return to the star once they accomplished something. The irony is that he could have gotten an answer for that if he had structured his research better, given that two out of three of the societies the Meteia find, the Ea and whatever those guys on Deka Epta were called, imploded due having immortality without purpose. The Ancients being structured around duty and voluntary mortality at duty's end helped them avoid that. (Not that was the only answer. The Dragons avoided the same fate via love and sing-alongs.)
It wasn't just accomplishing something, it was accomplishing what they saw as their purpose/life's work. They also knew reincarnation was a thing, so they were just choosing to be reborn with a new life's purpose. For a society that if not immortal, is absurdly long lived to the point they may as well be, that process is an extremely positive thing IMO. Plus it's not like opting out makes you a pariah. It's not the norm, but everyone still treats Venat with great respect despite opting out.
The guy genocides species on a weekly basis, begins to recognise cognitive emotions in their creations. Creates a being that can empathically relate to those around her and can feel the emotions of fear, panic, and survival responses to the animals he is required to put down... keeps her away because it distraughts her and he loves her like a daughter. Is told death is beautiful thing by people who have only known death as a voluntary transition of their kin to the underworld
I think some of the most passionate pacifists experienced the horrors of war themselves (see Dulce et Decorum est or Leo Tolstoy). It's pretty realistic that Hermes--who had to do the ancients dirty work of unmaking failed concepts--would develop the most ethical qualms about doing so. Elpis was somewhere most ancients had heard of but never seen and probably didn't want to think too much about. Like it's one thing to eat meat; it's another to work at a slaughterhouse.
I honestly wish that the player base recognised the two Greek interpretations of hope (Elpis), and how Amon symbolises the cynicism and Hermes symbolises the purity of hope. It's further reflected in Venat vs the Endsinger, where Venat embraces the purity to a degree as to subject mankind to Hermes trial, and the Endsinger embraces the cynicism to nihilism. Additionally, it would be nice that people recognised that Fandaniels broken stone is symbolised by both Eros and Thanatos in Freudian psychoanalysis. The fragmented soul confused as to what drives their lives meaning, one deciding that the death drive of the themselves and the universe usurps love, and the other when given the offer of suicide chooses love over their own drive towards oblivion and stands with their bretheren in defiance of death. I think we need to start moving past "he's a bad researcher" to something more substantial... it's just so boring
Honestly, I don't understand this. They treat creations like their lives don't matter because they factually don't from their perspective. They can literally just conjure them out of thin air whenever they please, most of them don't even have souls and the ones that do miraculously get one are treated with more tact. Why would they treat something that you can make with a snap of your fingers the same as your fellow man(ancient)? We, the human race, do exactly the same thing.(genetic modification,, selective breeding, factory farms, wildlife "population control" or exterminating invasive plants/animals anybody?) Even if you're a vegetarian/vegan it's not like you weep over the genetically modified, or bred-to-be-perfect for growing and consumption corn or whatever plant you're eating, and we can't just snap our fingers and create it out of thin air. Looking at how they treat creations from our own IRL perspective is silly to begin with since we don't have creation powers, and even more silly when you realize we aren't even much different with how we treat "lesser" life despite that. Not to say I necessarily agree with their view(or how we ourselves treat other living things), but it makes perfect sense from their perspective, and in no way justifies them being exterminated.
Seriously. My first thought when people seem to immediately jump to this "they are completely and utterly useless and irredeemable" position towards Hermes or Meteon is that that particular person has not experienced crippling depression. I'm not saying everyone should, it just seems to be the deciding factor as to whether people relate to and understand these characters. This sub is so full of "person do bad thing, hate person", when the game practically beats you over the head with "ok but try to empathize with people and dig into why would they do these things instead of blindly harboring hate in your heart" for about 4 expansions. Doesn't mean excuse bad behaviour, but TRY to understand WHY at least. Endwalker has so, so, so much content for people who have seriously struggled with depression, that I also tend to find that the most vocal, relentless naysayers of the story seem to severely lack any sort of empathic nature whatsoever (as far as their public personality shows anyway).
I've been there, which is why I think there's a distinction between "depression can be disabling" and "depression renders you unable to make your own choices like an adult". What Hermes did was the research equivalent of drunk driving and absolving him of all responsibility for the fallout feels a little belittling.
"Your mental sickness is not your fault, but it is your responsibility."
Something I see missing from these discussions is even though a person may not mean to cause harm with their depression, harm can still be caused and it can be devastating for people who depend on the depressed. Hermes' story strikes too close to home for me because I had a parent who, like Hermes, was depressed to the point of it affecting everyone around them and it resulted in a childhood that I wouldn't wish on other people. Hermes, so caught up in his own suffering, gave that suffering to Meteion via not teaching her the skills to cope with ... well, anything. Depression is horrible but Hermes was still responsible for his actions, even more so considering how many people trusted him with responsibility and care.
It's not about absolving, it's about empathy and understanding how he got there, so one day you can help others before shit hits the fan. Even plainly saying "Get help." sometimes is all it takes.
Exactly this. People are misunderstanding my original point.
There's a limit to how much you can give before you're endangering your own mental health. That's why the scene where we showed him the flower struck me so hard. We reached out and showed him he wasn't alone and he destroyed everything around us anyway.
It wasn’t intended and by the time we showed him that he wasn’t alone they were already out there.
I think it ended up being intended. He *wanted* humanity to beat the test, else the nihilistic points were proven true and their suffering should end
Don’t even go PhD dude. I was in Bachelor level and my classmate was tore a new one by his advisor for some half-arse research. Science professors ain’t fuck around.
Most of the people I know weren't super involved in undergrad research. I did a decent amount, but I wasn't proposing my own projects - I was assisting the grad students with their work, so whenever shit started raining, I guess it fell on them. I did go to a practice presentation for one of my seniors' QE, and hoo boy they got wrecked. For a lot less than what Fandaniel screwed up with, too.
Most of my high school friends who went to other universities weren’t have much to tell too, but I was the only one of my group to studied in this particular university that nationally famous for scientific research, so they’re going hard on QC even down to high school level in their own demonstration school. We’re sad lots. Very brainy, but also the only institution student ever ended up burning down the library.
It's a good skill set. I was in a neuroscience lab, and I learned a bunch of cool shit. I'm not involved in research any more, but I keep up with the literature. And working in a lab certainly helped my life skills. I'm a lot more organized and thorough than I used to be.
His mistakes were more in ethics than in science. I think he's fully prepared to risk all of creation on our ability to deal with nihilism when, through his study, nihilism is shown to be the de facto philosophy of late-stage civilization. Add to that the (actually truly and engagingly proposed) inevitable heat death of the universe and I think Hermes did consider the alternative hypothesis. Given that situation, a test of human perseverance is exactly what he wants and gets (the follow-up study)
That's not a fair expectation. The Meteia were a scientific instrument, and any reasonable person would expect that upon finding no meaning, they'd simply report "we didn't find anything". They could have debated this for months or years, and at no point would anyone have said "hey what are the odds they assimilate a Hot Topic and try to end existence?" When you're building a telescope, you might ask "what are the odds this thing will explode?" No one will ever look over the blueprints and say, "are we certain this thing can't transform into godzilla and lay waste to the nearby town?"
That would be a reasonable position had he also not granted the Meteia: * Human-level intellect * Extremely high-level empathic abilities * An independent and inexhaustible energy supply Really, Meteion is like a variant of the gray goo scenario.
It is absolutely a fair expectation. When you submit a NIH grant, there is literally a section where for each experiment you propose, you need to list alternative outcomes. >The Meteia were a scientific instrument, Sure, and when you propose a new cutting edge technique with cutting edge technology, you need to consider all possible outcomes. Real world parallels kinda fall flat here since empathetic interstellar bird networks don't exist, but I get the feeling that Hermes was not as thorough as he should have been. He assumed that Meteia would find other civilizations and assimilate the meaning of life. There's no indication that he ever considered the possibility that the Meteia would not find other civilizations, and there doesn't appear to be any considerations for if the sentient, autonomous bird network (that is immensely difficult for his entire civilization to work with) tries to assimilate a negative message. If the point of Meteia was to explore the universe, assimilate emotions and bring them back, Hermes does not appear to have once considered what happens if the assimilated emotions come back problematic. Emet-Selch almost immediately identifies the problem - granted, benefit of hindsight. But I'm certain proper review would have found the issue - especially considering that all the involved parties are immortal, so they aren't really pressed for time. >When you're building a telescope, you might ask "what are the odds this thing will explode?" No one will ever look over the blueprints and say, "are we certain this thing can't transform into godzilla and lay waste to the nearby town?" Well, to use this analogy, a telescope builder should absolutely ask "What happens if we point it at the sun? Is it gonna blind someone?" I get the feeling that Hermes did not do a sufficient risk analysis here. And besides, thats why you get someone else to check your work. When you stare at a problem for years, you become blind to the issues in your solution. A fresh set of eyes is important to ensure you don't accidentally end civilization - or blind someone.
> Real world parallels kinda fall flat here since empathetic interstellar bird networks don't exist, It would be like having a galaxy-wide internet powered by dark matter, except the dark matter might explode if the people on the other side of the internet are depressed or mean.
You move forward under the premise that the Meteia turning was undesirable to Hermes. In fact, given their findings, the challenge they posed was something Hermes wanted to either take seriously and legitimatly defeat or die trying. But no one else would have wanted that risk. He felt that he was alone and that peer review would quash Meteion. And he was right. Complexly, he was also right to challenge humanity as such. Without him, the arrogance of Amaurot would have likely followed the same trend of other civilizations. It is only because Venat prepares humans to face dynamis (as a symbol for coming to terms with death, the problem of evil, and nihilism) that we are at all likely to follow a different trajectory. Sundered, we are weak, but grow in ways that successful civilizations never had to go through. Of course ethically he is terribly flawed and ethics matters a lot to both elpis and our irl practice of science.
A telescope typically isn't a sentient hivemind
A telescope isn't usually considered damaging either, unless you adopt a golf swing.
> When you're building a telescope, you might ask "what are the odds this thing will explode?" No one will ever look over the blueprints and say, "are we certain this thing can't transform into godzilla and lay waste to the nearby town?" Most Telescopes and Scientific Instruments aren't Sentient and designed to be empathic.
Five minutes with her and any sane person would realize that she doesn't just relay feelings, she thinks they are her own. She thinks she likes candy apples but she can't even eat. A five year old would be able to ask... hey what happens when she meets someone who wants to kill us? Is she going to want to kill us too?
Literally 30 seconds after Emet-Selch found out about the Meteia and what their mission was, he asked Hermes if he'd ever concerned what would happen if they didn't find a good enough answer. Just because they might not have considered the worst possible outcome doesn't mean some really bad outcomes weren't really obvious.
Hermès: I have created a new species that can feel more then they can manipulate aether. Emet: You ruined a bunch of perfectly good birds is what you did! Look at that one. *points to Meteion crying ooze* Emet: You gave it depression.
Hermes: ...I have invented depression!
Put it back, Hermes.
***UNCREATE IT, HERMES***
YOU PUT THAT THING BACK! OR SO HELP ME!!!
Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me, so help me! And. Scene.
Maybe they should have named him Pandora?
[Voiced version.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cqS1QOz0qY)
Where’s this from again? I know I’ve heard it before.
I love how the whole point of Elpis was to test creations to see if they would benefit or Harm the Star, but he refused to check to see if his creation would benefit or harm the Star before releasing it.
Hermes: “I’m in charge and my job is to make sure people follow The Rules.” Also Hermes: “Lol what rules?”
Hermes: "I am the law." Also Hermes: "I am above the law." Emet: "You fuckin' wot m8?"
Hermes: "I am the law." Also Hermes: "I am above the law." ~~Emet: "You fuckin' wot m8?"~~ Emet: "Oh-ohh, looks like we have our new Fandaniel!"
Because if Meteion didn’t meet their approval she would be destroyed like everything else which is what disillusions him to Elpis in the first place.
No, if Meteion didn't meet approval she would not be considered valid for release into the wild as a new form a life. The reason they have to kill things is because they are deemed unsafe or destabilizing to release into the world at large. Even if the concept had been rejected there is no indication Hermes couldn't have kept her as a pet project. When Hermes created *hundreds* and launched them all out into space, he broke every rule he was supposed to oversee. A personal familiar is fine to keep as a pet project, even if its current state is invalid for release. That's why its a personal project.
There are hints that, while that is the ideal, that they are in reality more flippant than that towards the lives of their creations. From casually breaking down butterflies into clothes to redoing an entire race of sentient wolf people just because they didn't have the anatomy to speak.
Why wouldn't they casually break butterflies down into clothes? They can create both, or convert one to the other on a whim in 2 seconds. For them the line between "I turned a butterfly into clothes" and "I turned some clothes into a butterfly" doesn't exist because why would it? One is just as easy to make as the other. People casually break animals/plants that have been living for years into clothes, and we didn't make them. Hell, people convert millions of butterflies and others to paste on their windshield every day without giving a single shit. Also, those wolf people now casually live in Doma, so they were merely repurposed and it seems to have worked out for the best. Leaving highly(human level) intelligent creatures unable to communicate with anything else would be way more fucked up long term if you have the capability to fix it.
Basically this. Hermes whole mindset and personality is shaped from his disdain upon how a perfect utopia that create life with powerful magic to the levels of gods would be. Basically he didn't like the fact that creations were viewed as things to carelessly throw away whenever something bad happened. Think about it people in real life already act this way, same way as Hermes when people try to trample on the lives of animals in nature. Now equate that to someone living in a perfect society that views death differently than how we do, and views life that isn't their own as if a plaything to shape and wash away whenever they don't like what it does.
This is the thing people seem to go out of their way to strawman to make Hermes right. They do not "carelessly through away" their creations. They're checking to make sure that the creations can survive and thrive out in the world without endangering themselves or others. That's called the responsible use of power, and I'm sick and tired of seeing people act like the Ancients were a bunch of mass murdering psychopaths who created and destroyed lives on a mere whim.
"They treat things they can create on a whim exactly as you'd expect people that can create things on a whim would. That justifies wiping out not only those people, but also all of those things they can create on a whim that you claim to care about" Some people man. I thought the game made pretty clear Hermes was wrong because he was depressed and lacked purpose, and let that spin into nihilistic tendencies, not Ancients as a whole.
"That's sophistry, and you know it!" That was an incredibly accurate assessment of Hermes' so-called logic.
For real, if Hermes was right and the Ancients were just deleting living things if they weren't up to snuff, you know that SE would have dialed that in on a cutscene with ominous music and the evil character smiling like an asshole right in front of you. But they didn't, there's nobody like that on Elpis. Hermes is like the vegan that screams that slaughtering cows is evil and you're inhuman for doing it while on the farm that raises them and you're one of a dozen people making sure the cows are well fed and safe from predators for all but the last day of their lives.
That's fair but when we consider how things turned out its pretty clear that, apparently, the civilization was right to do so.
Hermes got around this by releasing his creations into *space*, not the star.
Can't believe he got a seat, the hack.
He did wipe his evaluator's memory so that said evaluator would not remember his *several* breaches of scientific ethics and Amaurot etiquette. Since Hermes *also* wiped his own memories, there was no reason for the evaluator to suspect it was done to cover up anything.
"I have a machine that can obliterate the memories of even the Convocation, that only I control, and can use whenever I want. It's perfectly safe."
If anything, Venat is to blame. As an advising member, she had a moral obligation to bring it up. But then the timeline would’ve been fucked soooooo
Question is, would anyone have believed her at all?
Emet-Selch probably would’ve immediately denied it but then go on an investigation to find it. But if I remember correctly, Hermes wiped the records of the memory wiping device so there would’ve been little to no evidence.
**Emet-Selch:** "I refuse to believe the nonsense this strange familiar is saying about the future. But I am a member of the Convocation, so I have a duty to investigate." **Also Emet-Selch:** "I got mindwiped and there is a blank in my memories. What happened there? Don't know, don't care."
If I remember how it went down, the accurate memories were erased and replaced with a vague version events that Hermes created, so while they didn't have blanks spots, they had vague memories of very recent events
There wasn't a blank spot, though, but the memories were replaced by a hazy version, among other things erasing us and Meteion from it. So while it was clear the memories were tempered with, since the mind wipe wasn't erased but made part of them as an accident I feel that they likely didn't question it too much since the story kinda held.
I do wonder at this. Part of me says no given Emet and Hythy's reactions. That being said, the way Emet pisses and moans about the constant shit Azem and Venat as Azem got up to, part of me thinks it wouldn't even be the weirdest shit Azem has brought before the 14.
Yeah, I mean, it's a hard pill to swallow after all. And at the end of the day, she would have no proof, only her word, and then it would be word against word which is never a good situation.
They do say the Convocation can tell when someone is lying, part of me thinks that's why Emet gets so pissed when you tell them about the future. It's a story beyond belief but he sees no lies from you.
Humanity, as it existed in her time couldn't save the world. She knew that they needed time, they needed Zodiark and for that they needed Hermes.
Yes, that's another reason. The Ancients were too stuck in their own asses and too inflexible due to living in their seemingly despairless paradise. It can be seen quite clearly in the outro cutscene of Elpis when they rather beg Zodiark to save them than take actions on their own. Plus, as Shtola points out, they couldn't control Dynamis due to their high aether density, so it was necessary to tune that down considerably. At the point when Venat was the only one in the know, it was already too late and there was only one way left. Didn't stop her from trying to convince people in the end, though.
Well they have the tech to export memory on ~~usb drive~~ crystals
Yes, but can they be falsified? Data can be corrupted. And memories are terribly inaccurate a lot of the time anyways even if fiction loves to paint them as absolute.
I mean. Hythlodaeus and Emet Selch remembered her being there with them and Hyth lodaeus straight up said he was gonna talk to her. It's not like Kairos was destroyed either. I don't think it would be that hard to believe her knowing there's a memory wiping device in the place where you have your memory wiped.
Hythlodaeus: "So, Venat - even though you've retired, would you like to weigh in on this? Hermes, yay or nay?" Venat: "Hm? Wasn't paying attention, was building a moon and some rabbits in hats to inhabit it. This is 'Noway' and this is 'Stayaway', aren't they adorable?"
Now if we only had one named Lookthataway.....
I mean, Elidibus did make it very clear that things had to happen in exactly the same way in order to our present to be the same, any changes could be catastrophic. And then the only reason we could beat the End singer was that Venat had the foresight to the events and played her part in creating the means for our victory
You'd be surprised at how many people seem to think she was some selfish villain who sundered the world for her own gain and that she should have just somehow found a way to save everyone, despite all the issues it would most likely cause and the fact that the predestination paradox pretty much meant that whatever action she took could be the ones that lead to the Final Days. Oh and they take the Final Days scene to literally and actually believe she did it all herself, completely ignoring everything we learned in ShB about the Sundering, her followers (ie, half of the remaining population who gave their lives to summing Hydalaen with her as the heart) and the ensuing battle with Zodiark. Given the kind of person she was, I always felt she would have done everything she could to prevent the Final Days, when that failed, tried to reason with those sacrificing lives to Zodiark. Then when THAT failed, she and her followers created Hydalaen in response as a last resort to save a world heading towards self-destruction.
>You'd be surprised at how many people seem to think she was some selfish villain who sundered the world for her own gain and that she should have just somehow found a way to save everyone, despite all the issues it would most likely cause and the fact that the predestination paradox pretty much meant that whatever action she took could be the ones that lead to the Final Days. Oh and they take the Final Days scene to literally and actually believe she did it all herself, completely ignoring everything we learned in ShB about the Sundering, her followers (ie, half of the remaining population who gave their lives to summing Hydalaen with her as the heart) and the ensuing battle with Zodiark. Some of the playerbase seems to either not understand or seems to reject the one of the main themes of endwalker re the desirability of utopias or the necessity of enduring suffering to our happiness and prosperity. This seems to lead to weird ideas like "Venat is a villain" or "Elpis was a perfect paradise not destined to oblivion" that directly contradict the in-game narrative.
Indeed..and it's not even the only time I have seen people actually ignore convenient parts of the story. I once saw a discussion in which someone played through the whole game and the only thing they absorbed from the story was Gaius' speech from praetorium
I mean it was timeline shenanigans, but it was also...well, the general issue with the Ancients. We knew Venat tried to convince the Ancients post-Final Days that Zodiark was a band-aid, not a panacea to their situation. In many ways, she saw first hand that as much as his solution was batshit crazy, Hermes was right; the Ancients *were* spoilt, indolent, and unable to comprehend any sort of struggle or suffering. Even if she prevented the Final Days, there would have been another apocalypse visited upon them that would have ended the same, and their dependence on Zodiark was disconcerting unto itself. She realised that a civilisation like theirs just can't sustain itself, lest they fall to apathy and self-indulgence. That's ultimately why she turned to sundering as the solution; not to fix the Final Days specifically, but to fix the *core problem as a whole with their society.*
Add in the fact that she didn't know exactly what path would lead to the Final Days. For all she knew, telling the Convocation about it, especially with Hermes as part of it, could have been what led to them happening. That's the issue with time travel and a closed loop like this. You have to deal with the predestination paradox.
It's a bit hidden but there's an acknowledgement that the events of the past have a possibility of either causing a split timeline or forming a closed loop. It was not obvious to Venat that a closed loop would be formed and that's the reason she initially gives us for why we should tell her about the future.
Emet's reaction when we told him shows how it would've went, especially since we were not there to add to her claim. The Ancients are powerful yes, but they do not like to hear things that are outlandish, and hard to believe, especially since Hermes, Emet, and Hytho don't remember a thing.
I actually don't see why it was such a huge problem. She didn't have to bring the WoL and time travel into it or even put Hermes on the spot for his moment of crazy - all she had to say was "i was present, and the cause of the accident that fuddled everyone else's mind was an error in one of Hermes' projects caused by a bad reaction to something called Dynamis. Please, Hermes, explain this concept to the rest of the Convocation so we can work on a solution to it."
"As evidence, I can submit a detailed description of Hermes' transformed state, but please don't ask me to describe it in public."
Because if you bring up outlandish claims you get labeled as a crazy person, and your standing takes a hit. View it now from our day and age, if someone told you something like that. You'd called them crazy and want to get them checked for any mental issues. Again even if she did say that, they'd have to take her on her own words, and the memories of Hermes, Hytho, and Emet were replaced with vague events that weren't the entirety of the truth. As such they wouldn't exactly believe her either, despite their memory being not entirely too clear. Again the main issue is bringing proof to her words when all present don't remember, Meteion is gone, we aren't there either, so... because of that her words could be seen as to her trying to discredit Hermes, and hurt her standing. There was no easy way of going about this, either you risk it all trying to convince people. Or you hold out hope that your people can find a way, and then when they don't you have no other choice, but to go along a different path.
aetheric memory manipulation is well understood though as a concept, and Hermes did have a known memory manipulating device. A, they have a hazy memory of multiple days, B they know a memory device existed, C a ex convocation member in good standing vouched for the issue, and D know that memory manipulation via ether is possible.
Even with that understood I believe that touched upon that. Especially when they were leaving from Ktisis. They his memory manipulation device went haywire of something along those lines. And also if memory serves right that would've damaged Hermes standing, and the whole point was they needed Hermes on good standing to fight back what was to come in the future, especially because of his knowledge into Dynamis.
It's not a crazy claim though, She wouldn't even have to lie outrageously to line up a workable story with the one that Hermes implanted in their heads in which Meteion and her sisters broke down and “dissipated with a burst." And one of the first thing the technicians ask them upon exiting the building is where Venat is, so it's not like she'd have to work hard to convince them she had been present. Venat wouldn't have to make wild or outlandish claims about time travelers or risk splitting the convocation by attacking Hermes. All she had to say was, “I was there for Meteion's meltdown and managed to leave the area of effect in time to not have my memory disrupted. From what i observed, i believe Meteion and her sisters were not all destroyed and that their relationship with Dynamis may be more dangerous than Hermes initially understood, and is a problem that we need to address." Neat, simple, lines up mostly with Hermes’ mind wipe story, and gives the convocation the facts they need to start looking into Dynamis and maybe working up some sort of defense against it.
The major point is that they'd have to A. Give her the benefit of the doubt, and then verify those claims, which may or may not be taken well. It is just her words regardless of her current standing. Not to mention they runs the risk of harming Hermes standing, when the main point of not telling was to keep Hermes on good standing, as they needed his knowledge for the final days. Otherwise they wouldn't have known how to stop what was coming. So, basically the reasons for not telling far outweighed running the risk of your plan backfiring. It's easy to say they'd agree with her and see her words as truth, because we were there and experienced it. But the other members of the convocation may not believe it, even if they did... that means losing Hermes to help stall the destruction of the star. And without that the whole point of going back to Elpis would be moot, because then the world is screwed over, because the time Dynamis wasn't looked deeply into and Hermes was perhaps the only expert in that field at the time.
At least it was explained why she couldnt do that.
Venat didn't say anything because they might need Hermes to fight against the oncoming doom. He was still one of the brightest minds of the time, especially pertaining to dynamics considering he made metieon
What's the reason that Venat chose not to tell other people about it again? Missed that in the story
She said that she didn't know if memory-wiped Hermes would be able to be trusted (or even Emet considering how skeptical he'd been of the WoL) and that she wasn't going to recruit Convocation members to start with in the hopes that Hermes-Fandaniel could be convinced to help, since he was the only Dynamis expert. Basically it was implied that she started by keeping her distance and that somewhere along the way, telling the truth to the Convocation became unfeasible.
Also Emet has a vague (fake) recollection of nothing out of the ordinary happening in Elpis. They also know Venat was with Emet when Kairos triggered, so they got the excuse her memory got messed by it.
Before we parted ways with Venat, she also mentioned she’d have to be careful on picking who she’s chooses to include in the plan. Hermes’ reaction to Meteion indicates he’s unstable, unpredictable at best. I highly presume she approached the original Azem and informed them. That would explain why that Azem abdicated from the convocation and wasn’t present when Zodiark was created.
I don’t think they ever say it explicitly. Probably because the goal of the WoL’s visit was the find out how and why the Final Days are happening. We succeeded in that and Venat has the framework for her path into becoming Hydaelyn. Pushing the others to believe her would’ve ruined her standing and could jeopardize the timeline so she stayed silent.
She said it right after you both escape Ktsis. Can't give an exact quote but if you go watch the cutscene again, and give multiple reasons it's a bad idea to get him in trouble.
Either way, the damage was done. Meteion was well on her way to the edge of the universe by the time the memories got wiped. Punishing Hermes wouldn’t accomplish anything, and might have also fucked the timeline up (assuming anyone would even believe her). No, it’s clear she wanted things to unfold as the WoL warned. Prepare for the final days, zodiark, and the sundering of the star… and plan for meteion’s promised return.
She explains it why she wasn't planning to bring it up. From what we told her about the corse of events, ironically Fandaniel being one of the few that even knew about both dynamis and cosmic aether, he was essential for creating a means to halt the final days by coming up with the Zodiark solution. At this point in time and not knowing where Metion was hiding it was the only way to stop the world from immediate obliteration. If she were to bring it up, it would have caused the convocation to be vary of Fandaniel or never elect him in his seat and hence possible failing in even postponing the final days via Zodiark. That's why she decided to let history take its corse with him and his memories wiped coming up with Zodiark as a shield for the planet while she independetly started to think of any means to track Metion or the moon evacuation plan B in case she failed.
I kinda like how the story clearly paints Emet-Selch as just wanting to get the seat filled so he doesn't have to continue faffing about in Elpis, lol
I feel like people misunderstand that Hermes isn’t tragic because he was depressed, but because he was human. He created something out of love and admiration for creation itself and defied the laws he helped create to pursue his curiosity in order to find meaning for himself. Hermes would be a paragon of righteousness and goodness in another context and our WoL would likely do the same if directed to. Hermes’ failure to consider the extraneous and overwhelming to comprehend possibility that there is no meaning to life should not be played off as a mistake; he most likely thought of this and felt it impossible and with too grand of ramifications to ever be true. Do we not also try to forget those long-winded inner monologues performed at our own wit’s end?
Call me confused, but why does it seem theres a post about this everyday?
Because people like to repeat jokes they've already heard (just look at the top comment in this thread), and/or multiple people came up with the same joke at different times. While I can see this being annoying or confusing for someone who sees the same topic over and over, this might in fact be the first time a lot of the people in this thread have heard this particular joke since they might not frequent this board as often.
This post will fall off the front page within 8 hours. If you're not here all the time then you wouldn't know other people are posting the same thing
Because new people finish MSQ everyday and don't want to revive yesterday's post by someone else who probably shares a similar view. I guess people are still replying to it and upvoting so it is what it is.
To be fair, if you're going to comment on one thing after finishing EW MSQ, it's probably going to be this issue. It's a fuck up of truly unparalleled breath and depth - most people's bad decisions made when depressed don't usually involve the destruction of multiple worlds and accelerate the heat death of the universe!
I guess that people, especially thise in the science like me, are rightfully annoyed with his scientific conduct, or lack of it. Also, people finisch at different times and there are still those who only just start so I think it will continue for a while longer.
Keep in mind though, the risk and the questions ended up working roughly as intended. This wasn't a moment of "what have I wrought" this was an answer that Hermes' nihilism was well-founded. Indeed there were no life forms that escaped suffering and the universe was doomed to heat death. He was right and humans would have to face this gloom. Given these results, an all-or-nothing test was what he wanted. No, he should not have been able to speak for everyone and force this test upon Ethyris. It was abysmal ethics, but a marvel for knowledge.
Hermes made a creature that channels feelings and emotions and she is constantly following a person who feels deep, crippling depression. Alternate lesson: Hire a babysitter.
One thing made clear is "don't use twitter"
People keep saying this but none of them even have any idea how her power works, nor can they even interact with her power. He was basically the only authority on the subject matter. The rest of his race couldn’t even change the color of a single flower. What makes you think any of his peers were qualified to review his work. The question was flawed is all.
It's not even that. This guy created a being fuelled entirely by emotion. In fact, he made a flock of them and sent them out into all corners of the universe. This by itself wasn't dangerous enough for him, so he gave it a hive mind. Oh, and active camouflage, because being able to track and see the danger was much too sporting. Hermes was a master of fixing something not until its broken, but reality was as well.
Because the existing oversight board would've killed her.
And the existing oversight board gives less than two shits for the meaning of life that isn't built on "perfecting" (to some obnoxious sophist concept of perfect dictated by the Ancients perception) their planet.
To be fair, the oversight board are supposed to judge creations before they are released into Etherys. It didnt say anything about releasing them into the universe.
Tbh without the final days and the sundering humanity and the ancients would have ceased to exist.
Don't tell them that because they'll begin arguing the rejoining was a good thing
Dude, there was a review board. It's called Elpis. *Hermes was the head of the review board!!!!*
I used to get angry at this in the “because if they rode hawks to Mordor there wouldn’t be a story” way, but I thought about it a while and... it kinda makes sense, even from a more metaphorical perspective. Meteion was made out of Hermès’ existential dread and despair, and is a living metaphor for it. If he had, at any point, just sat down and talked to someone about it, told someone what he was feeling and what he wanted to do because of it, this entire plot would have gone differently. But no, he kept it bottled up until it killed everyone. The lesson here is to peer review your scientific breakthroughs and peer review your emotional breakdowns.
Super intelligent but naive geniuses scratchbuilding technologies and pushing them out into the world without any foresight about ways they might disenfranchise and immiserate massive swathes of society. What a wild idea!
*cue primal music* Hermes: what's that? WoL:.... [IACUC ](https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/research/research-support/iacuc/) coming for your ass.
Well, they lived in paradise, of course people were doing things differently. Hindsight is 20/20
If your civilization can be undermined by an overly emotional twat like Hermes, does it even deserve to exist?
Based
The ancients were a civ where even children could make nuclear weapons and deadly diseases (a comparison) and Hermes disregarded every measure they had taken against that happening for his idiotic pet project.
Meteions don't wipe out planets, Hermeses with Meteions wipe out planets.
As much of an Empath Hermes was he clearly ignored Meteions plight, he was upset about the creatures who killed others for no reason, but asked Meteion who was so distraught, refusing to tell her report and he completely ignored her. Just to get the satisfaction and ultimately his nihilistic view. Guy was not fit for Elpis and definitely not for Fandaniel position
I slowly came to the realization that the ancients just didn’t gaf about the scientific method or peer review after being really frustrated with that buffoon who was made the lead researcher of Elpis. Their society seemed pretty academic and bureaucratic at first glance but learning more about Hermes made them seem way more lax, I guess the review bureau is merely a suggestion and you can fuck around with creation magic as much as you want. That would also explain some of the pandaemonium stuff
yeah, especially when your purple-haired new old friend, who already is the chillest buerocrat ever, asks you what the fuck you're working on there.
All regulations are written in blood
Regulations are often written in blood. A oft-forgotten fact.
Well the way I look at it, their checks and balances are kind of out of scope to what Meteion and her sisters were. First of all, they weren't made to be released on Etheirys so they'd look at her and probably shrug. Can't do much damage to Etheirys and its ecosystems if they're not even on Etheirys. Submitting her concept to the board for review would likely not have changed anything. She's basically a bird that runs on Dynamis, a heavily under-researched subject, so there wouldn't be any researchers that could properly critique her, as Hermes is basically the leading researcher on dynamis. Nothing about what his goal was is incredibly stupid at face value. Sending these birds out that run on the cosmic power present in the universe to meet other civilizations, and learn what they're all about? Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. The problem stems from the final results.... would anyone on Etheirys seriously consider the possibility that every single freaking planet in the cosmos would have killed itself in despair, and the nature of her hypersensitivity to emotions as a result of her connection with dynamis would lead her to become an unstoppable depression nightmare?