Why do you dislike Garlemald Empire and Ascians?

[Mihana]

I really do dislike the ascians, straight down to the fact that they seem intent on trying to resurrect their own god and step on/kill/corrupt anyone that gets in their way or even seems like an obstacle. Maybe they aren't all bad, but the main ones we've met are. I feel somewhat the same about the Garlean Empire but at the same time I feel like had the Warrior of Light actually had a chance to decide I may have sided with Gaius. Going back to one cutscene in the final battle with Gauis before the Ultimate Weapon you're given the opportunity to answer if you believe in Eorzea or not. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to have made any kind of impact what so ever on the story. But what the guy says rings fairly true and I believe Eorzea might have indeed been perhaps a little safer and better had the nations agreed to surrender.

Of course if Doma's rebellion is anything to show for it may have lead to the destruction of the entire realm.

[Verdan]

[MilesSaintboroguh]

OP I REALLY gotta ask how you went from "people don't dislike Alphinaud" to "why do you all hate the empire and the ascians?" It's a loaded question at best.

[BubblyBoar]

Empire is horrible and genocidal. They are out on a conquest and will kill millions to do it. They are oppressive and down right evil, enough that both Domans and Ala Mhigans were driven from their homes. That alternative that was offered that you want to use to defend the empire? It's utter BS. It was pretty much just "don't defend yourselves and we can end this peacefully." That's not an alternative, that's telling people to surrender or you'll kill them. Not benevolent at all.

[SpookyGhost]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrarian

E: Because I guess I should add to the discussion:

1. The Galreans' goal is to kill beastmen and entrap all the Primals to prevent their resummoning. If you've done Final Coil, Garleans want to do to all the Primals/beastmen what the Allagans did to Bahamut/Merecidians, that's why they're so interested in Allagan technology - to continue what they started. They have... suspect intent - it seems like they want to make Aldenard safe from the Primal threat, but their solution is "the final solution", which historically isn't okay.

2. Ascians are the Dark to the Light, they're the counterbalance - chaos, madness, etc. The Ascians are the representation of eternal evil that is necessary to counterbalance good. There's going to eventually be a heavier focus on that, but for now we just know that they want to create chaos to appease Zodiark through any means necessary. They aren't healthy for Hydaelyn, literally - they are the ones that force beastmen to summon their Primals and drain Hydaelyn of her aether. It's no good.

[Kaedan94]

Let's see... the Ascians are literally trying to destroy the world. They are manipulating leaders, beastmen, and powerful people to go to war, continue war, summon primals to for the purpose of murder and destruction, and generally cause death, destruction and chaos... yeah, really good people...

The Empire is known for treating anyone who isn't among the elite as trash and slaves. Nothing more than resources to be exploited. It's the 1%, only the 1% are allowed to kill, steal and exploit anyone below them.

[uppfinnarn]

Do we really know what ultimately went wrong with the Allagan Empire's methods? Are we 100% confident that Gaius would have failed using similar methods? Or could it be that Gaius was alot more competent than his predecessors and would have succeed where they failed?

The fall of the Allagan empire was entirely their own fault. At the peak of their power, they grew overconfident, and made a fatal mistake - the construction of Dalamud, and the imprisonment of the Elder Primal Bahamut. Without spoiling too much (the details are laid out quite nicely in one of the cutscenes leading up to the Syrcus Tower, and expanded upon during the Final Coil of Bahamut), their attempt to create an infinite source of energy to power their sprawling empire would end up backfiring horribly, and cause the land itself to swallow the entire nation at the heart of the empire, after which the empire emanating from it quickly collapsed.

The one who could (and did) cause a similar disaster wasn't Gaius, but his rival and former colleague: Nael van Darnus. Where Gaius wanted to conquer Eorzea to quench the primal threat, Nael played with powers he did not understand, and wanted to use Dalamud to reduce the land of Eorzea to a smoldering crater - the Meteor Project. This would eventually result in his enthrallment to Bahamut, and his corruption into Nael deus Darnus, shortly followed by the moon falling and Bahamut once again razing an entire nation to the ground.

During this entire time, Gaius refused to have anything to do with the Meteor Project. This is why he and his division went rogue, when the empire started supporting Nael's genocide over his own solution of subjugation. Having watched Nael's every step with disgust, he wouldn't make the same mistake.

That said, he did indeed make a similar one: accepting help from an Ascian, who ended up playing him for a fool and using him to awaken Ultima. The only reason why Eorzea wasn't burned to the ground a second time was because Hyaedalyn herself stepped in, and outright shielded the blast - taking the brunt of the damage herself. Going by how it reduced an entity as powerful as Hyaedalyn to the state it did, it's actually entirely possible that it'd have wiped out not only the entire land of Eorzea, but possibly even multiple surrounding countries as well, or even destroyed the entirety of the planet itself. It's impossible to say without knowing Hyaedalyn's and Ultima's exact strengths, for starters.

Gaius was no fool, and that particular piece of history would most likely not have repeated itself had he not been stopped. That said, he did make a crucial mistake and almost ended up destroying the very thing he attempted to protect, due to a certain Ascian concealing the truth behind the Ultima Weapon from him. If this was a lapse of judgement on his part, or simply Lahabrea being very good at deceiving people is debatable.

[Krylo]

(Warning: Lots of ARR spoilers and a couple of relatively early HW spoilers)

Genocide with a cause.

Not really. They want to murder all the beastmen to prevent the summoning of primals but this is wrong in at least three separate ways.

Firstly: Not all beastmen summon primals. The Brotherhood of Ash, The Nonmind, the Untempered Sylphs, and the Zundu tribe all hate the summoning of primals and other factions of the beast tribes see it as unnecessary or overly aggressive and not for the good of their people. There's also Goblins and Mamool'ja who haven't summoned a primal at all, as far as we know. Only the tempered and the desperate agree with the summonings.

Which brings us to the second issue: Garlean invasion is what caused the greater portion of the Amalj'aa to become tempered and the initial summoning of Ifrit, directly caused the summoning of Ramuh, and indirectly led to the summoning of Leviathan. Ifrit happened during/shortly after the invasion of Ala Mhigo when the Amalj'aa summoned him in defense of themselves. He's cited as one of the reasons the Garlean invasion stopped after taking Ala Mhigo instead of continuing at that time. His summoning also tempered a number of the Amalj'aa and led to the current state of affairs with them. Meanwhile Garlean aggression pushed the Sahagin inland where they got into territory disputes with Limsa and resulted, along with some Ascian interference, in the summoning of Leviathan. And the Garlean presence in the Twelveswood is entirely what caused the Tempered Sylphs to call upon Ramuh for protection.

So the Garlean Empire caused three primals. The Lominsans, on the other hand, managed to cause another primal summoning all on their own--Titan. Titan was summoned because of Lominsans moving into land that had been promised to the Kobolds in a peace treaty with the beastmen tribes. The Kobolds seeing Lominsan invasion of their land and being unable to parley over it (as that Lominsans tend to have a 'kill on sight' thing going with Kobolds and Sahagin) they were left summoning their Primal to retain their lands.

Aggression from outside forces is what has caused most primal summonings. The only exceptions: Vundu and Gnath which seem to have been entirely Ascian meddling with previously mostly peaceful groups, and the Ixal which I'm not clear on why they summoned Garuda.

Which only leaves the third point: The genocide of the beast tribes won't stop primal summonings--anyone can do it. The Ascians nearly convinced the exiled Ala Mhigans to summon Rhalgr against the Garleans and bandits. Louisoux nearly summoned the twelve as primals--holding back on a full summoning only because of what it would do to the Aether of the world. The Moogles summoned Good King Moggle Mog as a primal. Shiva is a primal summoned by human hands. Bahamut was summoned by Dragons. etc. etc.

So basically the Garleans want to murder a bunch of innocent people while causing even more problems with the very thing they're claiming to want to stop.

[Juz10y0]

Ascians: Manipulative, seem biased to their god and if you don't believe him in you perish, have bad motives(to me), and want to kill Hydaelyn whom even *SPOILER* was friends(? Acquaintances?) with.

Garleans: Mistreat their own, easily corrupted by outside sources (aided from the Ascians), want to conquer all until just the Garleans existed (Seemed you had to join, or be stomped.), and had the wrong way of going about protecting the people(see Allagan Empire).

[lvlagmarink]

You wrote it like the npcs are really doing nothing for the whole story and when there are actually few they have done to their sake and yours.. merylweb went into sahagin territory when they were about to summon leviathan, or even the operation archon which the alliance tried to hold off garlean from that castrum asdf all across the eorzea.. We, as the warriors of light has echo, which is being considered so holy unimaginable power that could exceed anyone.. So those losers need a hero like us to sacrifice ourself for their deeds, from the fiercest battles in eorzea history to finding a missing child went into dangerous aetheric zone.. As much as they are count as errants, the good deeds for the betters.. A true hero doesnt need all the luxury in the world supposedly, because they arent supposed to aim for them as reward.. That's pretty much what's there to the lore of being good and bad..

And believe it or not, the npcs have all the brains to decide things to progress, while we cant even speak nor make decisions for own cause because we are depicted as silence stupid muscle men who need brains to tell us what to do..