Would you join the Empire if you could? Ave imperium!

To be honest, I gave this some very serious thought and came to only one viable conclusion:

Only thing that would make me join the empire is if I could become a Legatus and then help Cid become Emperor.

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Originally Posted by Aicasia

The empire is full of rapists, so no thanks.

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That's "therapists", Mr. Connery.

Anyway, depends on the context. The Garleans' agenda is more "big picture" stuff, of course kept under their rule because they don't trust people to take care of themselves. Gaius is not a bad guy per se, and while you can say that yes, the empire is the bad guys of the story, the writers have presented them as either the lesser evil (1.0) or in a dark shade of gray with some of the stuff seen in 2.0.

On the upside you get access to magitek and it may even encourage some level of competition between player factions. On the downside you'd be likely to become a raid boss and have to put up with the likes of Nero.

It has been a while since the game's release, so now that more people have cleared the entire story, I would like some second thoughts on this.

One of my most disappointing moments was in the Praetorium, Gaius asked me if I believed in Eorzea, I said no. He acted like I said yes. What a shame.

if you actually read the story as you play you would know the empire is pretty vile.
You would also know the vast majority of "imperials" you fight are slave soldiers taken from conquered countries

and there's the whole storyline about the guy who hates the empire because they raped and abused his mother and sister to the point they committed suicide to get away

the garlean empire is kind of a cross between nazi germany and the persian empire. It's almost evil to the point that the only thing that makes sense is some dark primal has control of their top leaders and is manipulating them behind the scenes

you can also trace almost every horrible thing that's ever happened to eorzea in recent history directly to them.

There would be no Epic story then. You would not have the drive to increase your power. You would be a mindless soldier, and probably be stuck protecting lame outposts. There is a reason you are an adventurer and not really tied to a country. If you were a true soldier for Ul'dah you would probably never leave the walls or vicinity, never reach past level 30, because you would have an in game job. Then if you chose to switch you would be branded as a deserter and probably executed. Being an adventurer grants you the freedom to fight for your country or a country with out being part of it. You fight for the world. And even if the Garlean leaders have the right mentality they are obviously wrong because Hydalin says so. You know the magic crystal that tells you what to do. If the crystal was ok with the empire there would be no story or drive. It would just be "Craft more and carry on".

Join the guys that caused the Primal problem and just invaded a land for the sake of having it? Yeaaaah, no. That seems really stupid.

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Originally Posted by FyeyaHerald

Also, talk to the imperial soldiers in some of the quests; they talk about their childre

Then tell me they're all rapists.

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Rapists aren't people that have no families or kids. They're not loners that are easily distinguished from everyone else.

This is the worst line of thought. The other person may have over generalized the imperial troops, but this is worse. BTW, in general the Empire is very evil and the troops help commit those atrocities.

I'd consider joining the empire if Square had the ability to paint them as anything other than the heartless empire; Aside from a few one liners from a few stray imperial troops, who shouldn't even be on the front lines if that's their way of thinking, every person you meet seems ruthless and mostly evil to their core.

Square has always been good in being able to write an impressive villain, but they're not very good at trying to write a world that doesn't turn out to be incredibly heavy-handed or black/white at the end.

If I could join the empire, I probably would. The only thing Dalamud did to Eorzea was make civilians incredibly lazy and worthless. Perhaps the tyranny of the Empire would make them do something with themselves.

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Originally Posted by Ehllfhire

Do you not know how vile and evil they are? its like saying would you join the Nazi's during ww2?

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damn, where do i sign up for the empire