au where emet-selch subconsciously adds functional elpisflowers to amaurot and WoL asks about it somewhen in there and emet-selch doesn't remember it and is initially dismissive but it lingers in his mind as a bit of a ??? because he recognizes it as being part of his own magic sustaining amaurot, but he does not remember this and no matter what the others chose, he has always remembered. And when all the aether's getting thrown around sometime at the end of the Dying Gasp it clicks.
posts from @thelasthomelydrg tagged #shadowbringers spoilers
also:
Just leaving this here for when I need to weep in an expansion's time.
saving this to dunk on him in an expansion when he gets all on his dignity like an offended cat about the idea he'd do this
okay so obviously the correct answer to "my people are more deserving of life than yours because we were more magically/technically advanced" is "fuck you, the sophistication of a life form does not indicate its value" and also "fuck you, why should your standard of value matter more than someone else's," and some extra "fuck you"s thrown in for good measure,
....but also, how delicious is it that Emet-Selch has to admit that, while he doesn't know it, a bunch of very fallible mortals, in some of the worst circumstances imaginable, beyond the edge of all hope, managed to pull off a feat he considers impossible
speaking of which, I don't think I've made enough of the fact that, in a kind of terrible way, you could argue that G'raha and the folks from the timeline of the Eighth Calamity did in fact make the same choice as the Ancients.
minds capable of creating a machine that could traverse time and space and span the rift are minds capable of figuring out some other miraculous solution besides "we stay in the dead-end universe timeline and send our technomagical marvel back to save the lives of a specific group of people who have already died."
the distance between "a bunch of our friends gave up their lives to make this slim chance at salvation work, and we're willing to doom the rest of life in this timeline to correct what we perceive as the last, ultimate loss which doomed us" and "a bunch of our friends dedicated their lives to making this slim chance at salvation work, and we're willing to doom the rest of life in this timeline including ourselves to correct what we perceive as the last, ultimate loss which doomed us" is very, very small.
it's only the "including ourselves" that puts any distance between them at all
the Ancients decided that other life was worth sacrificing to right a grievous wrong (not in the initial sacrifice to summon Zodiark, but in the plan to bring their world back)
the Sons and the Ironworks workers and G'raha decided that all life was worth sacrificing to right a grievous wrong
Though we be beyond salvation, those who came before may yet be saved.
We will forge a crossroads, and pave the way for a different future. By the wisdom of our forebears we will prevent this Calamity from ever having come to pass.
They're the same they're the same they're the same we're all the same.