What was Ishgard doing?

[Taelia]

We've all been through the Battle of Cartenau, an epic fight between Garlemald and the united nations of Eorzea. Something I missed.. what was Ishgard doing, now? Busy fighting dragons, surely.
But would they just idly stand by and "mind their own business" while the Garlean threat is that obvious, having conquered two continents already and took a good bit of Eorzea while at it?
Anyone knows more?

[Anonymoose]

But would they just idly stand by and "mind their own business" while the Garlean threat is that obvious

This is a question on a lot of minds. They joined the restoration of the Eorzean Alliance in 1562 and then, as soon as they saw the Garlean advance halt, dropped out to go do their dragon thing and locked the gates. Why not rejoin when the Empire resumed the march? It seems to be that their war against the dragons has stretched their resources too thin. They couldn't even reclaim the Dzemael Darkhold (a fortress built by one of their highest noble families, abandoned mid-construction when the high aether concentration wore the veil between realms too thin and Batraal came through) without the help of the Grand Companies.

Makes you wonder if something more sinister is afoot, though. Final Fantasy has a thing for large cities, nobility, and religious leaders being antagonists; and Ishgard is Jeuno with a pope. Hmmmm...

[Ichi]

It is possible that they have been even busier with the dragons than we could imagine. I think their resources are stretched pretty thin right now. If you notice there is an entire region to the Northwest of Eorzea left unexplored that seems to be populated by Dragonkin. I believe Ishgard has been fighting to maintain Coerthas and unable to mount an insurrection into Dragon territory. I believe that is where we will come in come the expansion.

While im on the topic of unexplored areas on the world map. We also havent gotten to see the top half of La Noscea on the other side of the volcano. also we don't have much on the region of Ala Mhigo and further Northeast the Garlean Empire itself.

As i love speculations on lore particularly, I'll also point out that Eorzea looks a lot like Africa "the cradle of civilization" (alright i know Africa is not that but it's where the first homo sapiens came from). Eorzea is a logical starting point. Relative to the possible size of the rest of the planet... we probably could speculate forever and not be too far off.

[NoloeTazier]

It is possible that they have been even busier with the dragons than we could imagine. I think their resources are stretched pretty thin right now. If you notice there is an entire region to the Northwest of Eorzea left unexplored that seems to be populated by Dragonkin. I believe Ishgard has been fighting to maintain Coerthas and unable to mount an insurrection into Dragon territory. I believe that is where we will come in come the expansion.

While im on the topic of unexplored areas on the world map. We also havent gotten to see the top half of La Noscea on the other side of the volcano. also we don't have much on the region of Ala Mhigo and further Northeast the Garlean Empire itself.

Hopefully Northern La Noscea will be Mount O'Ghomoro and a Volcano zone. And I don't want to spoil too much about Ishgard, but you can learn a lot by talking to NPCs. They've been busy since the destruction that Dalamud brought upon Coerthas. Lots of castles.

[Catapult]

My personal speculation is that the Archbishop of Ishgard, being engaged in a religion that sees dragons as a mortal enemy, knows more about their foe than the average individual.

Enough to purposefully threaten with exile out a theologian who proposed the dragons may have a primal they revere like a god.

If he had an idea of what was going on, that could be reason to bunker down... just speculating here, mind you.

[StianGold]

Well i dont know so mutch of the story of Isghard but somenthing i know is that they left the Alliances.

[Meliae]

if you do the quests in Coerthas area you learn that they have been busy with dragons and who have been infiltrating into Ishgard and killing people. so it seems the war with dragons is at point of no return.

[Malistaire]

The NPCs also mention LOTS of in-fighting between the main houses. It's probably safe to say that they haven't gotten involved because there is a power play of sorts going on internally. My current class is level 38 and doing every quest in Coerthas because the lore and story are fascinating. No FATE grinding for me (at least until my next class)!

[Saikou]

Spoilers for Coerthas Quests ahead.

You learn that the Ishgardians are very proud and do not believe that the problems of other nations are of concern to them. You can make a lot of inferences about why Ishgard didn't get involved with the war against The Garleans and the attempts to stop Dalamud's fall. There is a lot of one-upmanship among the High Houses of Ishgard, only a handful of whom have holdings in the part of Coerthas we have access to. In dealing with them, we find that they take their guardian deity, Halone, very seriously. You find out that Ishgard proper is actually called "The Holy See of Ishgard." This same title is used for Vatican City IRL. Ishgard is ruled by a High Priest. One quest seems to indicate that Ishgard's war against Dragon-kind, called The Dravanians, has been going on for at least 3 generations. I don't know how this interacts with the timeline and when Ishgard joined the Eorzean Alliance to keep Ala Migho in check.

[Saikou]

Most of Ishgard is singularly focused on the war against the dragons, which they see as a holy war to which outsiders have no business interfering in. Indeed, one quest has a high ranking Knight of Ishgard saying, in no uncertain terms, that it would shame Ishgard to hire sellswords or adventurers to help their cause. And yet, for gameplay purposes, the High Houses that become indebted to you will offer guildleves at specific locations of Coerthas just like any other region of the game. This may be for game mechanics more than to follow the lore, as the Knights guarding the gate of Ishgard proper are adamant that they will be taking your head if you try to enter the city without permission.