let me join the garlean empire

i want to purge the eorzean filth with my very own rocket hammer

ill change my name to built garlean tough

ill even ditch my grand company



just let me destroy all cat boys

Somewhat ironic to be playing a cat complaining about other cats. But more on topic playing villains is generally a no-no in FF. FF frowns upon people who want to commit genocide and such.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

Somewhat ironic to be playing a cat complaining about other cats. But more on topic playing villains is generally a no-no in FF. FF frowns upon people who want to commit genocide and such.

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Not that I'm suggesting they do it now but I could see a way to have being a Garlean and not being a 'villain'. Like different branches of government that don't agree with each other, you're trying to stabilize within but also the issues others levy against you are usually biased perspectives in some matters. With a need for ideological differences naturally, to help lean on differences. Like I might imagine a sort of Persian lens for Garleans back in their grand days- while the other side (us) would be the Greeks.

Obviously black rose on innocents is uh... really bad.. so you /couldn't/ let players do that and be "I'M NoT a BaD GuY" but pretty much in every government ever there are different agendas and people serving them. Picking a more torn government could produce logical results to this split. Also noting that I don't think it would be fair to say every Garlean wants to or perhaps even is aware of genocide as we see it.

Again not saying they should just out of no where add a faction system, but I think if they had done it from the start. Even with many of the same story points we have now, that you could have people on the Garlean side.

I think most fascinating would be having actual propaganda on each side, such that both sides see each other as evil and the truth being somewhere in-between but not readily or even eventually 'confirmed' in game. Just truly have both sides think they're both the ones in the wrong lol.

Entirely different stories based on which side you're on, some of it being purely fabricated. For example we go back to that black rose, saying we couldn't let players use black rose on innocents because that's just REALLY bad; however, if the Garleans attacked a military base that they had news was going to strike their merchant city, them attacking with an experimental but painless weapon meant to make war smoother, our side might be able to spin that to our players as chemical nefarious warfare upon innocents, and might even place some manipulated evidence to make it even worse all to fire up our side in the war effort. Add some extra deviousness to the mess by adding some of these events to both sides such that both players experience the event in entirely different perspectives, if possible making the truth still there rather than shifting the story to make it impossible to tell and of course making sure not only one side is always wrong in their perspective (so both players feel their story is the truth but little bits of riddles and clues can be found if you looked carefully that might unsettle your belief, or even red herrings).

Since I believe a faction mechanic would benefit a lot from an intelligent alt system under one account, I think this would also add a lot of mystery to the game (of course you could ignore one side, like some in WoW do, but you'd not have to, and there would clearly be some encouragement as the game weaves a very complicated human narrative via an alt system that makes doing it flow and be convenient and rewarding). Not that I think a game has to set out to do this but I also think people really need to practice perspective sometimes, internet providing too many places where you're not challenged on a preconception.. clearly this environment would offer many opportunities to be challenged.

The problem with the Garleans is that they are arguably the most incompetent Empire or Empire-proxy in the history of Final Fantasy (and there are some pretty low bars out there, let's be honest. I mean, good grief - the Shinra Corporation essentially devolves into comic relief once you get out of Midgar, and they're still way more capable than these guys are). So while I like the notion of breaking with the Scions; with the three kingdoms; even with Hydaelyn - whom I am convinced is no less evil than Zodiark - these guys probably aren't a team I want to sign up for.

I would also be in favor of eliminating all catboys, however. I am convinced that the only way you get more Miqo'te are to breed the girls with Hyur males - the cat boys being too metrosexual to do anything but stand in the middle of Ul'dah and pose while whining in shout.

Would be a nice alternate reality scenario.

As Mirron said, it will never happen because that is not what FF games are about, you never play as the 'antagonist', and empires are consistantly the "bad guys" in FF games (FFXI's Aht Urhgan Empire being probably the most benign, and even that is less 'empire' and more just a 'kingdom with delusions of granduer'). It was made clear from even before FFXIV 1.0's release from SE's own wording that the Garlean Empire were the villians and were there to be basically hate sinks. Any sympathetic Garleans inevitably end up working with us anyway or at least cut their ties with the Imperial government.

And about their apparent incompetence, that is by design, as Emet set them up deliberately to be that way as it was his modus operandi - find the most oppressed, put down society or person, intergrate himself into them by possessing a lowly member of that society, provide them with miraculous solutions to their problems, build up their power base until he inevitably ends up leading them, then unleashes them on an unsuspecting world, crushing all opposition and resistance, inevitably resulting in people fighting back. And just when the nation is at the peak of their power, at the pinnacle of their strength and prestige .. oops, he just hapepns to disappear, sending the nation into decline just when they need him as their enemies are howling for their blood at their gates. And the resulting chaos then just happens to cause a Calamity... inevitably resulting in the nation's complete destruction and collapse. And history repeats itself.

Emet specifically set up the Empire to eventually fall in ushering in a Calamity. He had no interest in creating a long-term pax Garlea, they were just tools in the greater Ascian plan and to be discarded like every other "half-dozen nations with Imperial ambitions" he admited he had a hand in creating as well in the past. So they were always doomed.

Of course, with Emet now gone, it remains to be seen how the Empire can change the course of it's destiny, but with Varis dead and Zenos hell-bent on his "hunt" with no interest whatsoever at leading the nation, a new dawn for Garlemald of peace, liberty and stability seems as far away as ever.

^^^^
That is good.
If anyone scrolled past that hop back and read it.

As if the story isn't moving towards putting Gaius or Maxima in charge, and us being honorary Garleans, in the same sense that we're honorary Ishgardians, Ala Mhigans, Domans, and Crystariumians.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

As if the story isn't moving towards putting Gaius or Maxima in charge, and us being honorary Garleans, in the same sense that we're honorary Ishgardians, Ala Mhigans, Domans, and Crystariumians.

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I wouldn’t call that the Garlean Empire then though. It’s like saying Alexandria under Garnet is the same as it is under Brahne. And that was a much simpler takeover than anything else. If you’re siding with rebels (which is what Gaius at least is) then you’re not the empire.

Which is more or less my answer to Shougun too.

as an addendum, id like to destroy all cats, not just catboys
you all should join me in the empire

my first change im gonna make under garlean rule is create more market boards and place them around the world, even in the middle of nowhere

and we offer free food that’s pretty good and very rich in nutrients
we also have a nintendo switch and we play mario party every friday

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

I wouldn’t call that the Garlean Empire then though. It’s like saying Alexandria under Garnet is the same as it is under Brahne. And that was a much simpler takeover than anything else. If you’re siding with rebels (which is what Gaius at least is) then you’re not the empire.

Which is more or less my answer to Shougun too.

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Well don't get me too wrong, I add the caveat this stuff would work so much better if it was done that way from the start lol. There are certainly a number of issues if we just hoped over, I just think it's a bit boring and not the pinnacle writing could offer if someone is bad because they're bad. The nonredeemable empire with not a single iota of good, bit boring. It's true FF has done that in the past, although you have some more nuance in like FFXII's empire, but I generally don't play FF for the empire is 'scury' narrative.

Our last villain, even though clearly a villain still lol, was one of my favorite FF villains even over say classics like Kuja, Sephiroth, or Kefka, or whatever other mentally broken I'm a bad boy because I'm bad (I'm aware those three are bred weapons, the other villains often share similar issues though, like Edea and why she has her problems). Don't have to be eeevvvilllll (queue spooky ghost voice here lol) to be the bad guy, or even the perceived bad guy.

To force that empires always must be evil as the narrative for all FF seems a bit. . . bleh and hyper-conservative for the growth of the series in general.

So I'm speaking more of an encouragement to SE to try and mess with us, not create simple moral narratives- which I think we need less of these days especially, the great social media echo chambers already do that. Before when we had less social media contact perhaps it was great. Make me hurt lol.

That's why I suggested, if there was ever a company- even if it wasn't SE, that used the faction system that they have propaganda and similar concepts, just like real life would, such that the truth is not always clear even when both factions compare narratives.

Or allow for certain ideologies to speak their pros and cons, as well as not make one 'the good' and the other simply 'the bad', as I said not rewriting things to do it now, but even with our current setup there are many racial issues on our own side, even our own leaders could be doing so much more, yet they've clearly dropped the ball, perhaps in part because they have to due to their people being who they are, but no one bats an eye if we go into the beast tribe and murder everyone but if the Garleans do it OOH NOOOOOOO HOW EVI. Noting of course the ones we kill are indeed tempered, many the ones Garleans kill would also be tempered, the others conquered, but hardly are our own relationships with tribes that great- still so much racial issues beastmen are still not welcome at the door (and Nael being a bit of a madman turned the whole surrender thing into a genocide, with a wonderful parting gift of a freaking moon..., but that goes back to my point on different parts of the government having their own identity). Especially different because when an empire takes over they usually bring services that can improve some facets of life, albeit also at the cost of freedoms (not saying it's all good lol). You see this in real life like I've talked to some people who talk about their past invading empires not in an entirely negative light, mentioning how they brought over schools, roads, and infrastructure that didn't exist before (of course depending on what country we're talking about that can change massively to "yeah they sucked I hate them, they've ruined us" lol).

Just encouraging and see SE capable of a more developed story than "they're bad". They've done it a few times already, I might even note how in their recent FF7 they made a stronger emphasis on how Avalanche is a terrorist group with repercussions for their actions.

Love that stuff, generally not as impressed with the big bad because they big and bad as reality is often not that simple. Doesn't mean I hate those simple stories- wont be the last time we see bred villains, just think the nuanced thought pausing almost painful ones are far more impressive (so I'm encouraging that, rather than 'is bad because is bad' , 'is because is' which I think restricts potential creative future stories).

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Snip.

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I mean, I wouldn't say the Garlean Empire (or even any Empire analog in FF barring I suppose the original one) is all evil without any good. But being an empire inevitably means you're going to be evil. Ignoring the fact that simply that much power isn't maintained by benevolent means, being part of a group with that much power means it's really hard to have a bad guy strong enough to challenge it.

As far as Emet goes I wouldn't say any of those villains are "evil because they're evil". The closest is Kefka but there is still a reason for his being a villain. Edea isn't a villain, you mean Ultimecia, and she too has reasons/justifications for her actions. But I would add as well that having reasons doesn't stop them from being evil either. Emet is still evil, all of them are still evil. The empires, even without being solely evil, are still overall an evil force. Fixing the empire in XIV is about utterly dismantling it, reducing its reach ridiculously, reducing its power ridiculously, creating a brand new culture just about, so on and so forth.

With regards to the Eorzeans versus the Garleans, the Eorzeans don't really just go and kill a Beast Tribe because they're a Beast Tribe, which is what the Garleans do. They fight them when they attack (and to be fair they are justified at times), but the Garleans modus operandi is flat genocide, so it's not really a "both are equally right" kind of thing. If everything was changed from the ground up you could certainly pull it off, but as is the current empire needs to be demolished and whatever is built from its ashes is probably not going to resemble it except somewhat superficially.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

I mean, I wouldn't say the Garlean Empire (or even any Empire analog in FF barring I suppose the original one) is all evil without any good. But being an empire inevitably means you're going to be evil. Ignoring the fact that simply that much power isn't maintained by benevolent means, being part of a group with that much power means it's really hard to have a bad guy strong enough to challenge it.

As far as Emet goes I wouldn't say any of those villains are "evil because they're evil". The closest is Kefka but there is still a reason for his being a villain. Edea isn't a villain, you mean Ultimecia, and she too has reasons/justifications for her actions. But I would add as well that having reasons doesn't stop them from being evil either. Emet is still evil, all of them are still evil. The empires, even without being solely evil, are still overall an evil force. Fixing the empire in XIV is about utterly dismantling it, reducing its reach ridiculously, reducing its power ridiculously, creating a brand new culture just about, so on and so forth.

With regards to the Eorzeans versus the Garleans, the Eorzeans don't really just go and kill a Beast Tribe because they're a Beast Tribe, which is what the Garleans do. They fight them when they attack (and to be fair they are justified at times), but the Garleans modus operandi is flat genocide, so it's not really a "both are equally right" kind of thing. If everything was changed from the ground up you could certainly pull it off, but as is the current empire needs to be demolished and whatever is built from its ashes is probably not going to resemble it except somewhat superficially.

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[edit: some shb spoilers]


For Edea I was talking about when she was possessed lol, as it seems like you should be aware of. Just an aside example of stuff being evil because being evil, she was evil because something evil possessed her. Ultimecia's reason for being evil being in essence ultimate power, that's just pure evil man. Edit: just to be fair (she has some reasons lol), she goes for ultimate power because she wants to persecute instead of be persecuted (but it's a super 180 from protecting yourself to being like "yall gonna die" lol- although I do like the whole sorceress persecution thing, that added a bit of flavor). Perhaps not as good of an example as Kefka, Kuja, or Sephiroth, all three of which are just experiments gone bad (or gone right depending on how you look at it lol). Of course there are other examples like Ex-Death, wasn't trying to go comprehensive was just thinking semi-recent stuff.

As for whether an empire has to be /evil/, at least a pure evil, I would not agree. They've afforded us significant amounts of strength, historically, with a lot of evidence to many features of life gaining great leaps forward, of course at a cost (with the social progress usually being the slowest/worst, but is not always true), but the strength /has/ been needed historically to fight and dissuade off others, as much if we had not had we would have fallen to another anyways, all our countries being basically formed from empire mentality. Japan would be significantly weaker for example if they had not been unified (through their wars, before they were one), and would not be afforded the position it has today without it (being careful not to think just land is power, also people), but that's not to celebrate what it cost- ideally you conquer through peaceful means :p. Might suggest EU is towards a peaceful empire (whether people want to be part seems to depend on country though lol).

The other villains I called bred villains because Kefka was an experiment, like Sephiroth. They're evil because something in their core is off, they're mentally broken. I assume this is how Zenos will be why he is. I know why Kefka is messed up, magitek gone fried his brain. Kind of a Joker like character, bad happens to them so they wish bad on the world. It's not a terrible character, like Joker isn't, but am encouraging more time for the enemies to speak so they don't appear just as the Joker / evil empire/corporation doing evil stuff.

I think dismantling the empire (Garlean) would be a mistake over if you could stabilize and bring some peace within, like if you've already taken over Japan (speaking Japan's history here) and done all that damage why in the world would just throw it out if you can keep it as a strong unit (as it is now). Of course some groups might be unmaintainable, too far from capital and still wanting freedom, but if you can maintain as much power within a far more stable peaceful setting I see no reason why would dismantle it (significant strength comes from that unity). Restructuring- sure, ripping it apart if you have other options just seems like a huge waste of lives cost before and resources.

Garleans fight the beast tribes primarily because of the primals, not simply because killing people is fun- you'd be giving our side too much credit and theirs too little. Of course Nael went for genocide, as his own thing (leader of his own part of the military), but before that they had sent out a surrender request to the tribes, and our side has gone for genocide before too (just not as spectacularly as theirs, and some of it not as recent (like not recent but very horrible stuff might be the copperbell mines or what happened to Sil'Dih)). Most likely the genocide could be argued being pushed by Ascians, since they helped create chaos, and if we removed them from the equation things would become far more 'normal'. Garleans clearly have a serious internal issue, but like our countries of today it would be better to save the internal structure whenever possible rather than going "yeah sorry America, sorry Japan, sorry Iran, sorry China, sorry insert country here, we're just going to nuke you to extinction cause you messed up too much- time to restart from the very beginning". And to those countries you could easily point out moments where they've done wrong, great wrong. One, or a few, of those were traumatically attacked and is a point of significant contention / argument even to this day.

As for Emet I agree he's bad, cause he'll have to kill us all to do what he needs, but I find him one of the most interesting bads- since like we to animals feel superior and use them, he and his race are indeed some ways plainly superior to us, especially depending on how much lying he did about their behavior lol, as well other things they did like invest into saving the world and now are being asked to cancel said investment. That's not to say I'd not stop him if given the chance (got to save your species), but he's not simply a broken experiment looking for UlllTtimmaATtteeEE Poowwaaaa.

I'm encouraging more developed reasons for being bad than "I was borked due to an experiment" "I was possessed by ultimate evil" "I'm just bad bro" "I NEED MORE POWERRRRRR, I WANT TO LIVE FOREVER", etc. Make me hurt or at least pause for the other side. It doesn't need to be always, those other reasons can work (Sephiroth is pretty popular lol), but whenever and as deep as possible (while still being interesting to gameplay and story of course).

Good ol alien being naughty can still make a fun story, I just don't want to dissuade SE from hyper-nuanced / uncomfortable situations where it's not clean cut good and evil.

So a faction system that wasn't simply and wholly 'evil' would be welcomed, that's what I'm encouraging, and to be honest to some small extent done already (obviously not to the point you're supposed to be them / not fight them). With the note that making things playable isn't really something to do out of no where, especially as you'd want more nuance then which is where some of my comments are coming from, as a sort of future/different game desire rather than a 'now' desire, not something I think should just be added willy nilly. As for this game- well to repeat I'm not saying Garleans are blood free (but there are many examples where our factions are not blood free either, we're just not as organized and powerful- especially if our team was without us lol), just that you -could- give them, and certainly SE has in many situations already, a lot of reasons that make them not simply 'evil' or even always wrong. More gray, less black and white. Even if they're very dark shades of gray. I don't like something has to be evil because it has to be.

1. I wouldn't call that Edea though, that was all literally Ultimecia wearing a body suit. And Ultimecia does have motivations, at least as deep as "kill others for my friends" Emet. Ultimecia wanted to defy fate, make up for being persecuted, so on and so forth. It's not the deepest reason in the world, but no villains are.

2. The EU isn't really an empire though. "An empire is a sovereign state functioning as an aggregate of lands and peoples that are ruled over by an emperor-like monarch or oligarchy. The territory and population of an empire is commonly of greater extent" might not cover it entirely, but I don't think you can really call the EU that without really stretching the definition of "oligarchy". I would say an important part is how you add lands to that area as well, as at least every empire that we've actually called that tends to gain lands through hostile takeover. With regards to how good/bad that is at least for me I would say the cons outweigh any pros. Especially as you don't need to take over somewhere to grant them technology/knowledge/trading/resources/etc, but you do if you want to extract wealth from that place while maintaining a power disparity.

3. Sure, but that's still a reason. And in Sephiroth's case he wasn't bred to be evil, just a super weapon. He went evil because his mind snapped. Personally I find it pretty flimsy, but it's not really different from being tempered like Emet.

4. There isn't really any way to maintain control over that large of an area. At best you're just looking at a slow destabilization or cessation of power to other smaller bodies. And again, it probably will not resemble an empire at the end of it, with people being able to voluntarily or not be part of it, and individual areas maintaining large amounts of power relative to what they had. So more of a federation than an empire. But really the rot is pretty much set into the foundation, if you try to just plaster over everything and keep it mostly the same the entire structure will just get worse, again.

5. The Garleans absolutely have a "kill all Beast Tribes" policy. It's why the Eorzeans worry about them learning anyone can summon. Prior to that the Garleans policy is "kill all Beast Tribe, subjugate all Spoken", but if they know that isn't how it works then it could very well be "kill all non-Garleans". They're killing because they can summon Primals, yes, but not every Beast Tribe individual is summoning Primals or tempered. As for the Ascians that's absolutely part of it. The Ascians built the Empire to be a genocidal war machine that would collapse without their help, that's... kind of the point. And again, part of why it needs to be taken apart entirely. That doesn't mean "kill all the Garleans" or "drop a nuke on them", it just means a huge, fundamental restructuring of the government, its economics, trying to change its culture, so on and so forth.

6. Emet is tempered by his own admission. He is absolutely broken, there isn't any fixing that. And his justifications are ultimately wrong (from a might makes right standpoint Ascians clearly aren't more powerful than mortals in a meaningful sense, from a moral standpoint all the people he wants to sacrifice are sentient/sapient, from an intellectual standpoint they can perform feats Ascians haven't accomplished such as the Crystal Tower traveling to the First, so no matter which way you slice it Ascians aren't sitting above the rest) really.

7. I mean, Emet's reasons for being evil are "I want to sacrifice people for my friends" mixed with "I'm evil because I was broken due to a Primal". If you boil down any villains motivation down to simple lines it's pretty easy to make them shallow.

8. I would argue that black versus gray versus white is usually very meaningless as outside of Saturday Morning Cartoons nothing is absolutely evil for no reason or absolutely good for no reason, which is how people usually use those terms. If we aren't arguing in terms of absolutes then the Garleans very much so are black in pretty much any meaningful sense, as they are an organization created by fundamentally broken individuals to exert their power over a larger scale and create as much chaos and destruction as possible, all for the end goal of sacrificing all life on the planet and other shards for their god and select chosen people. That's... not exactly justifiable in any way, and while the Garleans certainly aren't entirely to blame as the Ascians certainly have a hand in it all, there are plenty of people who go along with it. You can't run an empire comprised of the unwilling.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

1. I wouldn't call that Edea though, that was all literally Ultimecia wearing a body suit. And Ultimecia does have motivations, at least as deep as "kill others for my friends" Emet. Ultimecia wanted to defy fate, make up for being persecuted, so on and so forth. It's not the deepest reason in the world, but no villains are.

2. The EU isn't really an empire though. "An empire is a sovereign state functioning as an aggregate of lands and peoples that are ruled over by an emperor-like monarch or oligarchy. The territory and population of an empire is commonly of greater extent" might not cover it entirely, but I don't think you can really call the EU that without really stretching the definition of "oligarchy". I would say an important part is how you add lands to that area as well, as at least every empire that we've actually called that tends to gain lands through hostile takeover. With regards to how good/bad that is at least for me I would say the cons outweigh any pros. Especially as you don't need to take over somewhere to grant them technology/knowledge/trading/resources/etc, but you do if you want to extract wealth from that place while maintaining a power disparity.

3. Sure, but that's still a reason. And in Sephiroth's case he wasn't bred to be evil, just a super weapon. He went evil because his mind snapped. Personally I find it pretty flimsy, but it's not really different from being tempered like Emet.

4. There isn't really any way to maintain control over that large of an area. At best you're just looking at a slow destabilization or cessation of power to other smaller bodies. And again, it probably will not resemble an empire at the end of it, with people being able to voluntarily or not be part of it, and individual areas maintaining large amounts of power relative to what they had. So more of a federation than an empire. But really the rot is pretty much set into the foundation, if you try to just plaster over everything and keep it mostly the same the entire structure will just get worse, again.

5. The Garleans absolutely have a "kill all Beast Tribes" policy. It's why the Eorzeans worry about them learning anyone can summon. Prior to that the Garleans policy is "kill all Beast Tribe, subjugate all Spoken", but if they know that isn't how it works then it could very well be "kill all non-Garleans". They're killing because they can summon Primals, yes, but not every Beast Tribe individual is summoning Primals or tempered. As for the Ascians that's absolutely part of it. The Ascians built the Empire to be a genocidal war machine that would collapse without their help, that's... kind of the point. And again, part of why it needs to be taken apart entirely. That doesn't mean "kill all the Garleans" or "drop a nuke on them", it just means a huge, fundamental restructuring of the government, its economics, trying to change its culture, so on and so forth.

6. Emet is tempered by his own admission. He is absolutely broken, there isn't any fixing that. And his justifications are ultimately wrong (from a might makes right standpoint Ascians clearly aren't more powerful than mortals in a meaningful sense, from a moral standpoint all the people he wants to sacrifice are sentient/sapient, from an intellectual standpoint they can perform feats Ascians haven't accomplished such as the Crystal Tower traveling to the First, so no matter which way you slice it Ascians aren't sitting above the rest) really.

7. I mean, Emet's reasons for being evil are "I want to sacrifice people for my friends" mixed with "I'm evil because I was broken due to a Primal". If you boil down any villains motivation down to simple lines it's pretty easy to make them shallow.

8. I would argue that black versus gray versus white is usually very meaningless as outside of Saturday Morning Cartoons nothing is absolutely evil for no reason or absolutely good for no reason, which is how people usually use those terms. If we aren't arguing in terms of absolutes then the Garleans very much so are black in pretty much any meaningful sense, as they are an organization created by fundamentally broken individuals to exert their power over a larger scale and create as much chaos and destruction as possible, all for the end goal of sacrificing all life on the planet and other shards for their god and select chosen people. That's... not exactly justifiable in any way, and while the Garleans certainly aren't entirely to blame as the Ascians certainly have a hand in it all, there are plenty of people who go along with it. You can't run an empire comprised of the unwilling.

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1. I'll give it to you that I only know FFVIII via a friend and videos on theroies it's all fake after the death scene lol (honestly hated the magic system >.>), she just stuck out from how my friend told me (and when I said Edea I was thinking the lady behind the mask). Maintain point on the other three I brought up though, and that there exists more, like Ex-Death.

2. "an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress." via google. Formerly especially. Obviously the supreme authority part is probably where significant issues would still come in lol, I was using the word loosely though. It's fair to say there are significant cons to the empire ordeal, I just want it to be clear there have been significant gains as well. Of course you could have charity, here have some tech, sort of deals.. but that seems like asking a lot from us humans lol. Even our charity is usually bundled through means of power of some sort. Watch what we do in other countries, or what China is working on. . XD

3. It is a reason indeed! To be clear I'm not calling any bred villains terrible stories just that I want to encourage SE to do other types too (well and that I find the villains with more depth than being bred evil or getting revenge are far more interesting, but that doesn't mean being simpler reasons for action has to mean not good). I'd still call Sephiroth bred villain since he'd have not snapped if it weren't for the science part, like Kefka or Kuja (well Kuja literally bred lol). You can split the hair if you'd like but close enough to the intent of what I was meaning, and wasn't meaning it like "these stories suck" just wanting SE to have as much creative freedom as possible and not think "empire always bad no matter what circumstances".

4. Eh... with technology, which Garleans have, I think that's not quite true. Certainly in the old days of real world though that was 10,000% true. Sail that boat for one month to make it to an entirely different situation than the one you just got news about, good ol days.... lol.

5. Isn't ANYONE that summons a primal is to be killed? Similarly they should be aware that people can summon them, potentially, due to Othard long ago. Also the Dalamud project was thwarted, in part, by within the Garleans own ranks iirc (like the XIVth legion), which was to kill all the beastmen (and a boat load of us too lol). Showing that strife within the government I mentioned a few pages back, Gaius didn't want to kill the city-states/beastmen, being a symbol that we've not need to destroy all of Garlean (we just REAAAALLLLLYYYYYY need a new leader haha). He did want to rule us, but until proven, by beating his weapon lol, why would they believe we can handle our own? Primals take a lot of power to defeat, besides ourselves there naught much to take care of them on our own side.

6. Maybe controversial but I honestly believe he would have done what he would have done either way, so long as the tempering didn't cause him to lie to us. I believe that the tempering might have actually been a feature rather than a consequence of Zodiark, to forever prevent creation magic going haywire again. Ensured order through some loss of freedom (on a far less extreme scale it might be like if we give up some freedoms for enhanced security, which happens all the time). As the superiority thing they're entirely superior to us in might, and they may as well be in emotions and intelligence too, given what we know about them. In comparison if someone said we HAD to kill all the dolphins or monkeys on the planet to survive we'd do it in a heart beat. The might difference is clear, the emotional/intelligence seems potentially feasible given Emet didn't lie when talking to us. On top of that many of us are just fragments of what we were once, so in that way he's trying to repair the damage. I'm not saying I'm on board with him killing everyone, but if he saw us as monkeys and I see that possible, like if type III aliens came down and saw us they might potentially think we're really fancy ants lol. With their creation magic they really are a bit like gods, rather than just some regular Joe mortal.

7. Well I definitely kept calling him the bad guy lol, I never said he was good- but did give him credit for being a very dark shade of gray vs say like Ex-Death or the created evils which I called bred villains or maybe you might call them Jokers (like the recent joker movie, as again I'm not trying to say bred villains are terrible villains, I just really like seeing gray). Even in bred villains you can feel sympathy, like Joker movie, but like when Emet says 50% volunteered, that none of us could save the world like they did, their might and glory were so great we are basically ants, I'm like "yeah.. lol.. sounds like it... I agree we sound like ants man.. I still can't let you kill me, but I feel really small down here".

8. Yeah see that's where I don't agree because you're taking some parts of Garleans and applying it to the whole. Part of the reason why the dalamud project failed was due to the XIV legion- rather than massacre us they wanted to conquer and ensure we don't mess everything up later with primals, I'm not saying Gaius is a little sweet heart but Ultima weapon was to be the tool to keep primals down and ensure we don't mess it all up. It makes sense they don't trust us to handle our own affairs when they know how insanely dangerous the primals are (and they are), and it was up to us to be like "hey knock it off we can handle it, watch we just destroyed your toy". It also makes a lot of sense that they feel uncomfortable trusting us to handle such insanely dangerous matters (if we fail, oh man stuff is going to go really south- a well functioning team of ultima weapons would have likely been far more reliable). Imagine if two primals are summoned in far off corners at the same time, we'd have to let one go wild for a short period of time- in fact I hope SE does that story point in the future to show just relying on us is not that great. Of course you could just say whatever Gaius does right will be messed up later anyways by the Ascians, but the point is to say the Garleans are not just one person. If one part of the US government does something horrible it does not make us all horrible, it doesn't even make the whole government horrible. In such an example too you can find situations where parts of the government strongly disagree with other parts, or the people if they're in loop. There is still too much corruption to be like "if Gaius was successful it would have been better" since one command from daddy or daddy in cloak and it all goes up in flames anyways, so don't get me wrong on that, but if we can help Gaius take back Garlean I think Garlean has a lot of hope.

Which again to all the above I don't want to suggest Garleans done no wrong, just that I encourage SE to continue what they've done for quite a few times and not make something have to be evil because some previous games did it. Like we have quite a few stories of our city-states messing up big time, especially if you go in the past and not with our current leaders with Sil'dih or Copperbell being quite short thoughts of "oh.. nice..." (although even with our current setups you could point out sketchy stuff). That's where we go away from black and white and into gray. Cheering for that. We obvious have to take care of the Ascians and Zenos, but Garleans, and the empire? Eh... There are probably a few places that need to be released because it's impossible to maintain relationship as it is, but I could see arguing many places being able to adjust into a new leadership, especially with better representation (Gaius + friends). Noting empires don't need to be kings / queens and Garleans can offer a lot in terms of leadership, I'm sure you can argue they've already done that (with too much chaos obviously, serious costs), but under more peaceful terms I bet you could argue a significantly better and graceful empire.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Which again to all the above I don't want to suggest Garleans done no wrong, just that I encourage SE to continue what they've done for quite a few times and not make something have to be evil because some previous games did it.

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Considering how FF14 is basically a collection of homages I don't think you can ever expect them to incorporate an existing element from another Final Fantasy game... but do something super different with it.
That's just not what this game's aim is.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Considering how FF14 is basically a collection of homages I don't think you can ever expect them to incorporate an existing element from another Final Fantasy game... but do something super different with it.
That's just not what this game's aim is.

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Like all FF they have some homage, but each also has its own liberties. FFXIV is no different. Yoshida has in essence said it's a FF on its own and that it pays respects to other FF games. It's not simply other FF's greatest hits in different colors.

1. I mean, I wouldn't say Exdeath is evil for evil's sake either though. That's kind of my point. I'm disagreeing with the fundamental divide you're placing between the two. Evil isn't just nature, it's nurture too.

2. The "single authority" is the big issue, yes. And again why the EU isn't one. It's a lot of power concentrated in a small location, and in all instances of something being called an Empire it's forcibly taken. I suppose you could theoretically have huge countries completely cede all power to a lone individual voluntarily but that seems to stretch belief a bit. As for whether people would do it voluntarily I believe people help each other all the time.

3. Empires inevitably are bad though again. If you have an entire continent under one person's power that... really, again, isn't a voluntary thing. The closest we've had to that would be Cocoon and Spira, both of which didn't really have rebels but were doing it through religious and social control, so it just looked nice on the surface. As for the rest again I don't really find them to have any less depth than Emet.

4. Is it? The Garleans have been maintaining that control via... violent conquest and dealing with insurrections brutally. Like... the technology doesn't help them except make it easier to put people down.

5. I mean, we didn't kill Ysayle. Eden arc has us literally summoning multiple Primals too. The issue isn't "summon Primal = execution", it's "summon Primal = tempered = lose all sense of reason = execution", because once tempered they can't be reasoned with in any way. And the issue isn't if someone did summon a Primal, it's that they can summon a Primal at all that leads to the Garleans killing them. Gaius didn't want Meteor not because he thought Beastmen should be spared, but because it was a waste of potential resources to use, which is the key difference there. He still had every intent to take everyone over and rule them, it really isn't meaningfully different. It's just classic "rule over all" versus "destroy all" villain stuff. And like I said, it isn't "kill all Garleans" it's "dismantle the Empire". Though this is also not really addressing again that the Empire wants to kill anyone who can summon, not anyone who does summon. It's why they try to commit genocide on Beastmen, and why again the reveal of "anyone can summon" is kind of a worrisome thing for the Eorzeans (and a big difference in terms of policy, as even knowing for instance the Sylphs can summon the Gridanians (the most xenophobic of the city states) still works with them). Lastly Gaius should know we beat Primals, as we beat three of them up to that point and in the past the Eorzeans had bested Primals before, so clearly it wasn't some sort of noble "protect the weak Eorzeans because they can't handle Primals" thing, nor was it about power, in the end we bested him, in his weapon, but he still saw us flawed in belief. That's where the issue lay, and ultimately why there wasn't any recourse except fighting him off.

6. If he would have done what he did then he was just as unreasonable before being tempered as after, so that honestly doesn't change anything. Security vs freedom is certainly something to debate, but not really related to most of this. They aren't superior to us in might (every clash of Ascians versus us ends in the Ascians being beaten, even when Hades powered up with the dead and went pseudo-Primal he wasn't able to win), and he isn't doing it to survive. He's doing it to erase sacrifices willingly made, because he wants to have his cake and eat it too. That's not noble, that's childish. As for emotional differences I don't think we can say, but again intellectual we can. We did things the Ascians didn't predict. We constantly do things the Ascians can't count on. If they are stronger than us, smarter than us, then that's simply bad writing. That Hades has a warped perspective, something we know from his being tempered? Then it makes sense.

7. I would still call him full evil, not dark grey, because there isn't anything grey about "killing billions of innocents for the sake of a small group". As for if humans would volunteer, again, I think you underestimate them. Honestly we have no idea if it even was given Hades is, again, a very biased source.

8. Again, the Eorzeans have successfully fought off Primals. If Gaius wanted to help he could have offered an alliance. He could have exchanged tech. He could have done any number of possible actions. He wanted Eorzea for the Garlean Empire. Stopping Primals is their justification for their actions, but it's not their primary motivation in what they do. Their actions are literally designed to create more desperate people to summon more Primals, that's how the Empire was designed. If you want to stop people from summoning Primals putting them between a rock and a hard place isn't the method. As for the Empire the issue is, again, the Empire as a whole, regardless of any individual components, is still doing certain things. It's quite justified to say the government as a whole is flawed without saying that means every individual in it is, which again is not something I have been saying.

9. I mean, I wouldn't call it an empire then. If every individual state within that group has representation and they have some degree of autonomy that isn't an empire, that's a federation again. And it isn't evil because previous games did it, there are very good reasons empires are evil which I already went over, and you really can't have anything that can accurately be called an empire without that. With regards to the city states messing up I wouldn't say the city states are the same as the Scions, so them being grayer is kind of moot.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Like all FF they have some homage, but each also has its own liberties. FFXIV is no different. Yoshida has in essence said it's a FF on its own and that it pays respects to other FF games. It's not simply other FF's greatest hits in different colors.

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Yes, it does it's own thing. But when it DOES incorporate elements from other FF games it has a clearly established interest in importing those elements fairly straight.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

As if the story isn't moving towards putting Gaius or Maxima in charge, and us being honorary Garleans, in the same sense that we're honorary Ishgardians, Ala Mhigans, Domans, and Crystariumians.

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I agree with Maxima (he seems to be more towards peace) but no I would not want Gaius anywhere near a powerful position..that guy would have blown up Eorzea with Ultima if we had not stopped him..who knows if he does not suddenly change his view again if it fits him.

Joining the garlean empire.....


No <3

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I agree with Maxima (he seems to be more towards peace) but no I would not want Gaius anywhere near a powerful position..that guy would have blown up Eorzea with Ultima if we had not stopped him..who knows if he does not suddenly change his view again if it fits him.

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Honestly I’m not sure his view has changed, just his circumstances. He’s out targeting Ascians and such after all, but eventually that’ll be done. Who knows what he will do after. Given he’s the XIVth legatus I feel it will be important to XIV as a whole.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Yes, it does it's own thing. But when it DOES incorporate elements from other FF games it has a clearly established interest in importing those elements fairly straight.

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Sure, but that doens't mean it's a recolor of other FF. It can take something and build on it (building can include reconstruction). They don't have to of course, and sometimes that can make people upset if they do. Like lets take SMN or BRD as examples where they mixed it up and that made some people upset. (SMN being a personal example since I wasn't a fan of the new vision of SMN that used the new lore to fit in the world space, but they've changed that so eeeey lol- I like it a lot more now).

So sure, but also no lol. I hope you can agree that they entirely can use old stuff and keep it the same, but they can also totally use old stuff and make it new. That's something they've done both ways. So if you see it's likely they'll do something again because they've done it before, sure, but if you say they HAVE TO DO IT- then no, no they don't.

Especially since Yoshida is a contrarian and if a bunch of people tell him he has to do something I think you're just going to increase your chance he shows that he doesn't lol.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

1. I mean, I wouldn't say Exdeath is evil for evil's sake either though. That's kind of my point. I'm disagreeing with the fundamental divide you're placing between the two. Evil isn't just nature, it's nurture too.

2. The "single authority" is the big issue, yes. And again why the EU isn't one. It's a lot of power concentrated in a small location, and in all instances of something being called an Empire it's forcibly taken. I suppose you could theoretically have huge countries completely cede all power to a lone individual voluntarily but that seems to stretch belief a bit. As for whether people would do it voluntarily I believe people help each other all the time.

3. Empires inevitably are bad though again. If you have an entire continent under one person's power that... really, again, isn't a voluntary thing. The closest we've had to that would be Cocoon and Spira, both of which didn't really have rebels but were doing it through religious and social control, so it just looked nice on the surface. As for the rest again I don't really find them to have any less depth than Emet.

4. Is it? The Garleans have been maintaining that control via... violent conquest and dealing with insurrections brutally. Like... the technology doesn't help them except make it easier to put people down.

5. I mean, we didn't kill Ysayle. Eden arc has us literally summoning multiple Primals too. The issue isn't "summon Primal = execution", it's "summon Primal = tempered = lose all sense of reason = execution", because once tempered they can't be reasoned with in any way. And the issue isn't if someone did summon a Primal, it's that they can summon a Primal at all that leads to the Garleans killing them. Gaius didn't want Meteor not because he thought Beastmen should be spared, but because it was a waste of potential resources to use, which is the key difference there. He still had every intent to take everyone over and rule them, it really isn't meaningfully different. It's just classic "rule over all" versus "destroy all" villain stuff. And like I said, it isn't "kill all Garleans" it's "dismantle the Empire". Though this is also not really addressing again that the Empire wants to kill anyone who can summon, not anyone who does summon. It's why they try to commit genocide on Beastmen, and why again the reveal of "anyone can summon" is kind of a worrisome thing for the Eorzeans (and a big difference in terms of policy, as even knowing for instance the Sylphs can summon the Gridanians (the most xenophobic of the city states) still works with them). Lastly Gaius should know we beat Primals, as we beat three of them up to that point and in the past the Eorzeans had bested Primals before, so clearly it wasn't some sort of noble "protect the weak Eorzeans because they can't handle Primals" thing, nor was it about power, in the end we bested him, in his weapon, but he still saw us flawed in belief. That's where the issue lay, and ultimately why there wasn't any recourse except fighting him off.

6. If he would have done what he did then he was just as unreasonable before being tempered as after, so that honestly doesn't change anything. Security vs freedom is certainly something to debate, but not really related to most of this. They aren't superior to us in might (every clash of Ascians versus us ends in the Ascians being beaten, even when Hades powered up with the dead and went pseudo-Primal he wasn't able to win), and he isn't doing it to survive. He's doing it to erase sacrifices willingly made, because he wants to have his cake and eat it too. That's not noble, that's childish. As for emotional differences I don't think we can say, but again intellectual we can. We did things the Ascians didn't predict. We constantly do things the Ascians can't count on. If they are stronger than us, smarter than us, then that's simply bad writing. That Hades has a warped perspective, something we know from his being tempered? Then it makes sense.

7. I would still call him full evil, not dark grey, because there isn't anything grey about "killing billions of innocents for the sake of a small group". As for if humans would volunteer, again, I think you underestimate them. Honestly we have no idea if it even was given Hades is, again, a very biased source.

8. Again, the Eorzeans have successfully fought off Primals. If Gaius wanted to help he could have offered an alliance. He could have exchanged tech. He could have done any number of possible actions. He wanted Eorzea for the Garlean Empire. Stopping Primals is their justification for their actions, but it's not their primary motivation in what they do. Their actions are literally designed to create more desperate people to summon more Primals, that's how the Empire was designed. If you want to stop people from summoning Primals putting them between a rock and a hard place isn't the method. As for the Empire the issue is, again, the Empire as a whole, regardless of any individual components, is still doing certain things. It's quite justified to say the government as a whole is flawed without saying that means every individual in it is, which again is not something I have been saying.

9. I mean, I wouldn't call it an empire then. If every individual state within that group has representation and they have some degree of autonomy that isn't an empire, that's a federation again. And it isn't evil because previous games did it, there are very good reasons empires are evil which I already went over, and you really can't have anything that can accurately be called an empire without that. With regards to the city states messing up I wouldn't say the city states are the same as the Scions, so them being grayer is kind of moot.

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1. Ex Death is a collection of evil spirits sealed in a tree made manifest- he's a demon of evil. How are you arguing he's not evil for evil sake? His nature is evil, like literally he's evil incarnate.

2. Certainly seems the issue is that you feel taking land is bad, and I wouldn't say it's the most peaceful option but I think it's a nature of life in historical context (and that there are many examples where being under an empire led to many increases in the development of your area, leading to a better life than previously possible). Even outside of empire situations we still regularly work to take power to secure our own interests (US, China, etc, etc- not saying it's always one direction relationships but neither are all empires, who've often offered things that wouldn't be readily be attainable otherwise). I find it unlikely to suggest some non-utopian society that wouldn't do that, at least while there is power to grab and not great powers cementing a relationship like we have now. Not saying your idea for peace is bad, just think it sounds like a Utopian thing (which would again come back around to I'm encouraging gray over white and black, so say for example Ul'dah is a freaking mess and it has multi-point structure to it's government through the syndicate and the Sultana lol).

Or Limsa with it's competition (called Trident, it's a multi-pronged race) to become admiral, who happens to have sweeping powers for 7 years, give or take a few if an admiral decides to stretch it out cause they can, making large changes to the nation, 'city-state', during that time, which seems a lot like another form of government you're against (sweeping powers, one person, combative and sailing might makes the winner, stealing, etc)- especially when setting a back drop of history to it (+ with competition yet what is in effect a king / queen). Is Limsa evil? Because of the current leadership they're not supposed to steal except from Garleans (privateering), which is good lol, but that's only very recent history- and due to their government structure could easily change at the next winner of the competition (unless she forces a change in the structure itself). If I had to choose a Persian like government structure (during their empire) or just being constantly stolen from Limsans, or even being part of Limsan's political structure where it seems to welcome a bit of chaos (even when they have rules it's said they see rules as more like guidelines), I'd be like god please Persians come bring me some taxes to pay, infrastructure, technology, stability, extra culture, and protection.

Technically speaking if you go by wiki (and some other sources) Thalassocracy, what Limsa is, is an empire at sea- so yeah :p. Just happens for the moment they've a peaceful ruler. Noting the word can be used to refer to naval supremacy, of course- but that's not a statement on structure and just military and or commercial status. So it would be less of a stretch to suggest a leader with final authority (as is the admiral position) and those 'under' them exhibit symptoms of an empire like structure, especially when they have historically gone about imposing themselves on others, and when referencing a word that also describes sea based empires is united in the same sentence as discussing the governmental structure of the place. (In game excerpt says Limsa is as a traditional thalassocracy, and then goes on to discuss the ruler- context here heavily leans to reading the word as it has traditionally been used as it is in context of government structure and in context of a sole leading ruler).

[Limsa Lominsa is a traditional thalassocracy, with power lying in the hands of the ruling party and its leader, the Admiral. Its economy is driven by shipbuilding, fishing, and blacksmithing, but the majority of wealth comes from the lucrative shipping industry.]
(excerpt I'm referencing)

In the lore book it also has a diagram of power with Admiral at the top. Can talk about if they don't listen to those below then they might get challenged out via combat/another Trident, but so too are kings challenged out of office (often through death lol). And not all 'kings' / 'emperors' serve for life, in such the case of elective monarchies or other interesting variants of that. Which is all to we sort of already have an empire, a sea based one, that happens to be taken care of by a good ruler. Don't think it's evil. Limsa sort of like those illegal pirate websites that go legit lol, which I think is an example of what could happen to the Garleans.

3. When you read about the Aztec Empire, Persian Empire, Roman Empire, or whatever other empire, all you read is evil? They brought significant development, stability, and quality of life to those they ruled, and yes there was some cost but there are many references to people being happy to have an empire cover their back, bring them roads and other pieces of infrastructure that would be exceptionally unlikely to bring otherwise. In a historical context it seems a bit off to just label them all evil. A lot of good, and bad of course, can be levied towards an empire. Also noting technically an empire doesn't have to always conquer to get people to join as that happened quite a bit where they just be like "please take me in", of course once in you'd not get out so easily (but that's true for other organizations too).

4. Isn't that how we maintain control these days as well? Even under other government forms of insurrection is regularly warded off with extreme force, even the minor forms are usually heavily handled. I'm not saying it's good to destroy things, just seems like a regular function that isn't even unique to empires.

5. It is significantly meaningfully different from genocide to I want to make them part of the machine. He certainly saw us an uncivilized, but he wasn't, from what I read, thinking "aww yissss pure slavery baby" and was more like "join the superior nation and stop summoning nuclear weapons, I don't want to kill you (but I will if I have to, lol)". Still going to have to say no thanks, but I don't see Gaius as evil in that situation (still the villain of course). If someone was playing with nukes and I didn't trust them to handle their own I'd be concerned too (primals being easily equate-able to nukes, probably worse than nukes, not something you want people running around with, even optionally). Also important to note that not all the primals summoned on our side were because of the big mean Garleans. Limsa caused the kobolds and Sahagin to freak out as they were needing land to feed their own people (for farming) since their ships were destroyed.

6. We won because we were super charged on all that light warden stuff, which I would like to remind made us a walking -unstable- bomb. We could have flattened the entire town by farting wrong and going full warden. In the Independence Day movie when they kill the alien ship with the nuke that doesn't make humans stronger than the aliens. Ascians are stronger than us, especially when we have to resort to wild things like that. Noting that Lalafellbrehabro was weak due to all his body hopping, and the other Ascians have not been pure Ascians (only fragments). Ascians are stronger, and certainly when I said us I don't mean just WoL, I meant all of us as races (Garleans/Eorzeans etc). Strength doesn't mean one gets to live and the other die, but say that to the animals we harvest- they've brains and seem to have, at least some of them, a clear social structure yet we still go for it because yum. If Ascians are so mighty just at existing, and not even need some blessing from a mother to do it, then it might suggest they see us as animals. Intellectually I'd just say they have to be dumb sometimes so we can actually win, just a feature of having to be the bad guy lol. He's clearly smarter than us at many things, intelligence is usually better described as different types of intelligence but if we talk about technology or history then that hat would clearly go to him.

7. I think we'll just have to pause on this one because I don't think you'll ever see the relationship of man vs animal and be apply that to something else. Animals clearly have some social structure, memory, fear of pain, desire for more than just food, at least some of them, yet we still kill them for our pleasure (food, and sometimes literally just their death is the pleasure). I'm not saying we've no right to fight for our life, like animals their's, but at least personally I could see him seeing us like animals- his people being able to overcome so much more than us with their insane powers (and us, the WoL, being some extreme exception to the rule of 'our' people, his people not being an extreme exception, they're regularly mightier). As I said before if tier 3 civilization came down we'd look pretty silly, made worse if a tier 3 civilization say came down when we were in the early cave days. Really fancy animals in comparison then (so like we see to most animals, they to us). We have some animals we make general exceptions to, like if they're going to go extinct, but we even say our environmental impact we slowly act and have lost a lot of species to anyways (some would go just because that's how nature is, but some are due to us). That's where I also said if for whatever reason we 'had' to kill all of an animal, even an intelligent one like monkeys or dolphins, we'd do it in a heart beat as a society in general and most of us would not be like "yeah just kill us, it's fine, monkey virus wins" (of course coming up with some silly scheme where we had to or else we all die would take some work lol, clearly we don't have to right now and so doing so would be not good- 'ideally' we keep our planet healthy and ourselves too). Even our exceptions tend to have their own exceptions like Japan and dolphins or whales. It'd be nice to be the aliens that go around peacefully, but seeing what we do to our own fairly intelligent species on our planet- I can easily see a situation where that flips against our benefit. Hope there are no mean aliens out there. . .

8. Ye thats why I said he's not a sweetheart lol. He could have worked with us. . . had some nice meeting, Gaius is significantly flawed of course but I don't see him as pure evil (Like Ex-Death is just evil lol, which is why I'm confused you even brought up nurture with him.. cause he's just made of evil spirits, like a devil of some sort). As mentioned before though not just the Garleans cause primals to exist, Limsa did it too (so even if the Garleans left us alone wouldn't stop us from having primal issues, and if we failed to handle it then Garleans would have to handle it because there is really no one else left past us the WoL). And internally it should be fair to say not everyone is thinking their purpose as a Garlean is to cause more primals and that they want to stop primals, like Gaius. Like mentioned before they have a serious internal issue though, Ascians and Zenos need to go.

9. Federation would be far more ideal but I was literally thinking Gaius (or whoever not Zenos / Ascian influenced) is emperor lol, has advisors but is still emperor (like ancient China or whatever other empire you'd use as example). There have been a few emperors in history that accomplished a lot and are remembered quite fondly, and of course there are many forms of government that are not empires that are the opposite and remembered very poorly. I don't think empires have to be thought of as evil, some of the best social equality of ancient times was during the control of an empire. We're going to disagree on that but it seems a shame for historical reasons and for a potential ideological view point of the game (which I'm not saying "go out and conquer people" but that I'd love for the game to allow a Garlean to defend themselves, example all the good they've accomplished, along with obviously all the terrible horrible things we're already aware of). When I say us I include city states so them being grayer is not moot, but if you see yourself not part of a city state then I can include them separately from the usage of the word us. Like I said Limsa played a heavy role in enraging kobolds and sahagain, instead of an olive branch we've got them separated out in their own area due to our racism (or city states if you refuse our includes them).

Which again isn't me saying they should 180 any scripts, just that they've clearly very obviously made a lot of effort into nuance of their story already, as you can examine from the history of our city states not being lily white, or that the Garleans have had a few chances to shine through all the muck they carry around, basically every part of this game has some to a strong level nuance- besides Zenos lol. Just seems like such a shame to say something has to be viewed through a certain light when history seems to be able to say something different on many occasions. Especially so when they've done so much work already on telling a story that's deeper than evil vs good, like to the extent I really hope Zodiark and Hydaleyn do not end up being simply evil spirit vs good spirit, not a heaven vs hell (ultimate evil vs ultimate good). Still can point out the terrible things of an empire, but there are good, like how they show in other different forms of government like terrible situations in Ul'dah and we're no empire- we're just full of corrupt money grubbers lol. You can have someone bring a lot of prosperity to the lands and still be a conqueror, not every emperor salts the lands they visit- not every feature of an empire is evil (or at least entirely so, a new, 'admiral', a new emperor, could do a lot for Garleans), it's gray, sometimes.

I want to play as garl also not because of anything except their height and they look better than highlander males where highlander males look like they are from the neanderthal period hahaha

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CrispyUnicycle

i want to purge the eorzean filth with my very own rocket hammer

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Hell, the Garleans could buy me with the rocket hammer alone. I'm not sure how I'd Fell Cleave something with a blunt hammer but I'm sure I can figure out a way to make it work.