I find this to be one of the more interesting conundrums of the read. Are The Consult evil since they didn't pursue saving themselves directly or are they not at fault for the effects of the IR driving them to pursue any solution that they think could work? Seems much easier to change yourself, but something must be blocking that avenue ( the gods don't ever forgive? ). Even if not for moral considerations, the act of self change is massively more efficient ( the shortest path? ) than murdering 75 million people - even with TNG at the helm, that is one long fucking path to take, and the damn thing may have a timer to boot? Still seems implausibly impossible to pull off, could even still be so with nukes. We survived a ( forget the exact term ) mega volcanic eruption 60,000 years ago which was considered virtually impossible to survive, but we did it because we were, well, everywhere.