User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 453: A Father's Job, Review and Commentary/@comment-26287497-20150920142614/@comment-24784846-20150920225847

Rave Master Spoilers Ahead

While Zeref and Lucia have similar motives to destroying the world, they do it for entirely different reasons. We know why Zeref wants to destroy mankind. It's because of all the wars. He thinks the world won't change. But Lucia has an entirely different reason to want to destroy the world.

Like Nick said, Lucia wanted to restore the true timeline and then continue mankind in a better way, by raising it new from the ground up. However, it didn't stop there. In Lucia's final battle Haru, he revealed that the world was wrong because of the wrongs done to him. Referring back to his mother's death and him being confined in the darkest prison for 10 years as a child. He blamed his ancestor, Aciela Raregroove. He recites all the bad things that happened in the world because of her. But in reality he was just giving himself an excuse.

So in that sense they are quite the same AND different. I believe that Zeref might think the same thing because of the Ankhseram Curse that contradicts his own thoughts.

@Anon You are aware that Zeref only created an empire because he wants to take down Acnologia. He wants the Fairy Heart to ensure that he will win.