[Lore Guys!] Garlean Race Question & Hidden Castrum in Coerthas

[StrangeBard]

Yea sorry I had no way of accessing a map of Eorzea at the time and once I had I realized my mistake. Though this does bring up an interesting question on my end. Why is Ishgard consider the Empire to not be a threat if they have a Castrum sitting either right next to or in their territory? It seems to me that it would be best to take precautions against something like that so that Ishgard isn't unprepared for the possibility of a two front war. From what I saw in the 2.4 story *spoilers if for some reason you haven't done the 2.4 story or heard about it already* it looked almost as though they were more worried about a dead dragon than the neighboring Catrum.

[Anonymoose]

they seem to have a camera more or less where there third eye is, suggesting they can see through it to an extent.

They what?

<flips open images> What!? How did I miss this!? Everybody but Rhitahtyn... very interesting.

Now I'm going to sit here and wonder for far too long why Nael van Darnus has one, but it's pretty much entirely covered.

...hm.

[finiteHP]

Moreover, the enemies turn out to be from the 3rd cohort, implying the came from Castrum Oriens, originally, lol.

I noticed today that the troops outside Castrum Meridianum are also 3rd cohort, so they could have come from there as well.

[Toranja]

It is not in the best interest of the Empire to attack Ishgard.

[Enkidoh]

Yea sorry I had no way of accessing a map of Eorzea at the time and once I had I realized my mistake. Though this does bring up an interesting question on my end. Why is Ishgard consider the Empire to not be a threat if they have a Castrum sitting either right next to or in their territory? It seems to me that it would be best to take precautions against something like that so that Ishgard isn't unprepared for the possibility of a two front war. From what I saw in the 2.4 story *spoilers if for some reason you haven't done the 2.4 story or heard about it already* it looked almost as though they were more worried about a dead dragon than the neighboring Catrum.

I can't remember where I saw it mentioned so don't take this as gospel, but I do recall reading that Ishgard had signed a neutrality treaty with Garlemald behind the Alliance's back, thus forcing Ishgard not to participate or associate with any military action undertaken by the other city states, hence their continued isolation, their no-shows at Carteneau and Operation Archon, and their stubborn refusal to even acknowledge the Alliance.

Although I have no evidence for this actually being true, it does make sense though, especially when one remembers that Garlemald's whole reasons for invading Eorzea in the first place strikes a chord with Ishgard - the submission of the beast tribes and the destruction of the Primals.

On the surface, Garlemald just appears as any other big warmongering Empire out to bring other sovereign nations under their jackboot, but to the Garleans themselves, they're fighting a noble battle to destroy the Primals and the beastmen who worship them. Ishgard's theocracy has been fighting against beastmen (the Dravanians/dragonkin) for a thousand years - they're basically fighting the same war locally as the Garleans believe themselves to be fighting on a global scale.

And when you remember that following the disaster at Silvertear Lake Gaius actually attempted to bring Eorzea peacefully under the Empire semi-autonomously in return for assisting hunt down and destroy the beastmen, this rings even more true.

But as I said, this is all speculation, so until concrete proof is shown, it's just theorizing on my part.

[lololink]

I can't remember where I saw it mentioned so don't take this as gospel, but I do recall reading that Ishgard had signed a neutrality treaty with Garlemald behind the Alliance's back, thus forcing Ishgard not to participate or associate with any military action undertaken by the other city states, hence their continued isolation, their no-shows at Carteneau and Operation Archon, and their stubborn refusal to even acknowledge the Alliance.

Although I have no evidence for this actually being true, it does make sense though, especially when one remembers that Garlemald's whole reasons for invading Eorzea in the first place strikes a chord with Ishgard - the submission of the beast tribes and the destruction of the Primals.

Not really, they are even helping revenant's toll because it's a wall against the garlemald invasion ( that annoyed them in 1.0 by taking Dzemael )

[Phyllo]

The castrum is not mistake, there are concept art for the maps from the v1 time that showed how they'd change and that castrum was shown to be located a little north to the falcon's nest or whatever that place was called.
I'll look for the documents and post em here.

Found it! http://ffxivmaps.com/2.0/

It's the one at the very bottom, you can see they had already planned to have a castrum here.
Besides there's no way this could be the one in western thanalan, this one is west of the central highlands, if it was this one, it should be way more to the south west, behind the mountains that are above the fury's gaze, where we would not be able to see it.

[Anonymoose]

you can see they had already planned to have a castrum here.

Now we're talkin'. Evidence! I'd forgotten all about these previews after the complete maps came out in ARR (and it looks like they changed a lot from these plans to actual implementation). Very strange. Do you think we're going to find a Castrum exactly like Marinum in every way in the Western Highlands, or do you think they scrapped it and moved that base to Marinum? You'll noticed that Marinum's Warp Gate is attributed to Northern Thanalan in those previews, attached to a prototype Meridianum that was heavily changed before release. Then again, it does seemingly refer to the Western Highlands as "Empire Area," there, lol.

[Phyllo]

Well, personally I think this castum is too close to the highlands to be In the coerthas either but there is one thing that has been bothering me, what if that shape was just their usual way? Building towers using mountains or rocks around to make them unreachable, the only way to get in would be those warp gate contraptions.
If so, it would not be surprising to see a second castrum marinarum up north in the western highlands, and maybe another cape Westwind like checkpoint to protect its entrance.
Who knows, maybe when we'll get to Ala Mhigo we'll see a third one.

For know I cannot say, but as it made me curious, I'll go check Meridianum, see if the preatorium's shape is similar.

[lololink]

So it might have been a remain of an old plan of having a garlean base there that was cancelled ?