Revenge of the Weapons (5.2 and Onwards)

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The use of a chemical weapon was to avoid excessive losses among a force that is incapable of using aether. The protagonists can paint it as a 'horrific' approach to warfare but conveniently it does no such thing when it comes to other traumatic methods of death such as blasting people with fireballs, running them through with swords, afflicting opponents with magical diseases or drowning/crushing them with water and debris as we saw with the fall of Doma Castle.

The use of Black Rose was a sound enough move and the real complication lay in the unintended side effects in the form of a Calamity. The weapon was also only used in response to Garlemald itself being invaded and in an alternative universe at that, so...

It's not even necessarily Varis who would opt to use it since apparently that universe still exists based on the Exarch's continued existence.

Either way, the entire plot felt rather contrived and messy. I wouldn't be surprised if it was wrapped up very quickly to justify diving right into Shadowbringers.

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'Unintneded side effects?' The calamity was intended. Even Varis is on board with the calamities as shown in the parlay scene with him. He knew about them. The empire was made as a tool to bring about calamities by the ascians, and has been waging wars of conquest to help facilitate them. And while your average garlean doesn't know about acian angle, they're still waging wars of agression all over the world. If Garlemald was invaded in the bad future it would be in retaliation of its constant warmongering, Garlemald is NOT the victim in any such scenario. Even the public reasoning for their war is revealed to be an outright lie in SB's latter patches, one that didn't take all that much thought to punch holes in once the characters thought about it critically.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The use of a chemical weapon was to avoid excessive losses among a force that is incapable of using aether. The protagonists can paint it as a 'horrific' approach to warfare but conveniently it does no such thing when it comes to other traumatic methods of death such as blasting people with fireballs, running them through with swords, afflicting opponents with magical diseases or drowning/crushing them with water and debris as we saw with the fall of Doma Castle.

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Black Rose doesn't just kill, though- it stills aether (presumably similar to excessive light aether on the first). This would mean that the aether can't even return to the lifestream, and that does make it a much more horrific approach to warfare.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The use of a chemical weapon was to avoid excessive losses among a force that is incapable of using aether. The protagonists can paint it as a 'horrific' approach to warfare but conveniently it does no such thing when it comes to other traumatic methods of death such as blasting people with fireballs, running them through with swords, afflicting opponents with magical diseases or drowning/crushing them with water and debris as we saw with the fall of Doma Castle.

The use of Black Rose was a sound enough move and the real complication lay in the unintended side effects in the form of a Calamity. The weapon was also only used in response to Garlemald itself being invaded and in an alternative universe at that, so...

It's not even necessarily Varis who would opt to use it since apparently that universe still exists based on the Exarch's continued existence.

Either way, the entire plot felt rather contrived and messy. I wouldn't be surprised if it was wrapped up very quickly to justify diving right into Shadowbringers.

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It was just a mess and, IMO, poorly written and rushed. I'm still not a huge fan of the time travel mechanic they used, either.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

'Unintneded side effects?' The calamity was intended. Even Varis is on board with the calamities as shown in the parlay scene with him. He knew about them. The empire was made as a tool to bring about calamities by the ascians, and has been waging wars of conquest to help facilitate them. And while your average garlean doesn't know about acian angle, they're still waging wars of agression all over the world. If Garlemald was invaded in the bad future it would be in retaliation of its constant warmongering, Garlemald is NOT the victim in any such scenario. Even the public reasoning for their war is revealed to be an outright lie in SB's latter patches, one that didn't take all that much thought to punch holes in once the characters thought about it critically.

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Garlemald is absolutely the victim. They've been manipulated by Ascian scheming, though putting that aside their people have the inability to manipulate aether and were almost wiped out as a consequence of being driven out of fertile lands and into a bleak, harsh wasteland. It was only the presence of ceruleum that prevented their extinction - and with a nudge, they began to conquer and begin claiming more territory for themselves.

That doesn't excuse everything they've done, though it's hardly a black and white affair - and the only territories they treated with extreme prejudice where those that sought to rebel. In Ala Mhigo's case, its people were happy to try and conquer themselves until they encountered a foe they couldn't beat.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

It was just a mess and, IMO, poorly written and rushed. I'm still not a huge fan of the time travel mechanic they used, either.

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It's rarely handled well in general and is often just a tool to present 'danger' that amounts to nothing in the end. I've said this before, though the game goes to great lengths to have everything wrap up in a neat little bow of convenience for the protagonists at pretty much every point. A few minor characters are sacrificed now and then but there's rarely any lasting consequences. Meanwhile the antagonists tend to have a more compelling struggle with depth and tough decisions to be made, without the plot device that is the Warrior of Light to solve all their issues for them.

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Originally Posted by WrenElessedil

Black Rose doesn't just kill, though- it stills aether (presumably similar to excessive light aether on the first). This would mean that the aether can't even return to the lifestream, and that does make it a much more horrific approach to warfare.

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Makes me wonder if Holy or light more generally does much the same. :)

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Garlemald is absolutely the victim. They've been manipulated by Ascian scheming, though putting that aside their people have the inability to manipulate aether and were almost wiped out as a consequence of being driven out of fertile lands and into a bleak, harsh wasteland. It was only the presence of ceruleum that prevented their extinction - and with a nudge, they began to conquer and begin claiming more territory for themselves.

That doesn't excuse everything they've done, though it's hardly a black and white affair - and the only territories they treated with extreme prejudice where those that sought to rebel. In Ala Mhigo's case, its people were happy to try and conquer themselves until they encountered a foe they couldn't beat.

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For Ala Mhigo, who did they invade in the last century? If you're talking about the Autumn War, that was over 100 years ago, and since then ala mhigo had lived in peace with the rest of Eorzea until the mad king came along, who they deposed themselves only to be conquored by the empire while weakened.

For the empire, sure they have a sad story where they were wronged in the past. And if the empire had reclaimed its old lands with its technology and stopped there, maybe that would be one thing. Instead, they go after lands that never belonged to them expanding wherever they can. 'We'll only treat you badly if you rebel' hardly excuses anything, and treating the people you conqueror with cruelty only incites MORE rebellion anyway. We've seen three provinces with a history of rebelling, with more implied to have resistance forces evne if we haven't seen them rebel directly. (Gyr Abania, Doma, Dalmasca with the first two winning free and the third one being crushed. And we know other provinces have resistances like Nagxia .) Any examples of good garlean rule are vastly overshadowed by negative ones. And even if all of the provinces had been treated well. 'we'll be nice to you if you play ball after we took your lands and sent many of your able bodied youth off to war in other provinces as conscripts' doesn't exactly justify the invasions after the fact anyway.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Why would they drop Diamond for Omega, Diamond is the probably the second most iconic weapon

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I didn't think they would drop them, but have a dungeon for them if only because Ruby and Emerald leading up to Diamond seems a little odd to me given that Diamond was a story boss and the previous two were bonus bosses.

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Originally Posted by Angus-Beef

Omega was already used in FFXIV for the SB raids and the FF7 Omega was a dooms day weapon in the extended universe, so it'll most likely be diamond ruby and emerald weapons and jade or sapphire as a dungeon boss.

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Omega Weapon is different from Omega. Unless you mean the O12S form, in which case I suppose that's close enough to count.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

I didn't think they would drop them, but have a dungeon for them if only because Ruby and Emerald leading up to Diamond seems a little odd to me given that Diamond was a story boss and the previous two were bonus bosses.

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Omega Weapon is a story boss as well

Ultimate Weapon and Diamond Weapon are fought as part of FF7's main story. Sapphire Weapon is killed in a cut scene, and Ruby and Emerald are bonus bosses. Spinoffs add Jade Weapon (in the Before Crisis mobile game) and Omega Weapon (in Dirge of Cerberus). Dirge of Cerberus also retcons Vincent's Chaos form as linked to Omega.