Shed some Garlean light?

[Anonymoose]

Nice catches! My notes just say "1522 and allusions to it," so I kinda glazed over the contradictions relatively unnoticed, lol.

The ARR bonus disc has a few typos due to the time crunch and the fact that you can't hotpatch a Bluray, so that'd be my first suspect for the broken piece.

In its time, Rise and Fall made the claim that Garlemald was a remote Republic up until roughly fifty years ago and that cleared the fact check. Short version, Solus, a popular and successful Legatus, helped transform the Republic's military (with the aid of the father of Darnus) using resurrected Allagan machina modified to run sans magick. The popularity from this (and his victories on the battlefield) catapulted him from Legatus to Supreme Commander (aka Dictator). He then conquered Ilsabard and transformed it into the Garlean Empire, which then moved on Othard.

The Gubal Library piece (naming conventions) is something that Koji has been trying to get out for a while, either here in the forums or in the game itself. It's likely that this piece wasn't written hastily and is thus accurate. Here, we see the title ZOS already exists for Emperor. I'd wager that 1522 was the official transformation of The Republic of Garlemald to the Garlean Empire.

Between 1522 and 1557, we know Galvus conquered the remaining Ilsabardian nations, as well as the eastern continent of Othard, but which fell how quickly is a little murky. 1552 may be a typo that mixes the important dates of 1557 and 1522 and not actually be important at all, so I wouldn't take it as a given (yet) that the narrative need fit that date in at all.

A big reason for my hesitation to fit the conquest of Othard to that date is that the Empire faced primal(-like?) entities in Othard and wanted to avoid doing so again so badly that they moved on Mor Dhona (Eorzea's aetherial epicenter) immediately after they had a foothold in the realm, then and refused to move on Eorzea for ten years after the assault failed and primals were summoned by our beast tribes. Either they didn't effortlessly steamroll across Othard in five years, or they lost everything they could afford to lose. To be sure, either way, it took a heavy toll on their resources, but I'm presently inclined to the former assumption because if 1552 was the start of the Othardian campaign and it cost them everything, how did they recoup to move on Ala Mhigo and officially start the Eorzean campaign so quickly?

[Nefariousronin]

Either they didn't effortlessly steamroll across Othard in five years, or it just cost a hell of a lot to do it. I'm inclined to the former, at the moment (though either way it took a heavy toll on their resources).

That's sort of my concern at the moment. A whole five years to conquer a continent while combating Primals. While, we don't really know how large Othard is, in the scale of things, we do know that they didn't entirely wipe out the continent and occupy. They left some villages and remote places untouched, knowing they were of absolutely no threat to their conquest.

"As part of our research leading up the Rise and Fall of the White Raven, we learned that a few cities on far eastern shores held out against the Empire and Garlemald didn’t feel that they were enough of a threat to claim them."


We're given such abstract history and dates for a large part of this world, it would be nice if it was put into concrete perspective. Since this does directly effect Au Ra and backstories of said Au Ra, it'd be beneficial to know exactly when instead of giving a giant year-gap where it maybe happened. Typos or not via the bonus disc.

[jomoru]

While its traditional wisdom to say "never fight a war on multiple fronts" that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Rome had multiple campaigns of conquest active at the same time, since the Garleans are heavily based on the Romans its not unreasonable to assume they were fielding multiple campaigns at the same time. Further keeping with the Roman Model the Legions of Rome were far more independent from eachother than modern military forces, with the most extreme end of that periods where various Legions fought eachother for the imperial throne.


Luvia is extremely famous for her brutal campaigns outside Eorzea, while its possible these were done over 15 years ago she doesn't seem that old? I know it can be hard to read age on characters but we see her sister and she does not look like someone who'd have to be in her 40s.

The Situation in Ala Mihgo was both an act of strategy but also a stroke of luck on the part of the Garleans. It was something that had to be seized at the time even if they were not entirely prepared. Five years pass between this conquest and Silvertear.

Silvertear was such a pyric victory for the Garleans that only now have they been able to replace their battleship 15 years later.

So my theories are as follows: First each of hte legions acts independently of each other, jockeying for position beneath the emperor. I am basing this both on the Roman ideal and the ease with which the 7th legion went rogue. Gaius struck early in Ala Mihgo while other legions were conquering elsewhere. He may even have been using much of his legion elsewhere using only a small portion to claim Ala Mihgo in its extremely weakened state. This explains the five year gap between Ala Mihgo and Silvertear.

The time period given for the first Primal summoned in Eorzea is between the Fall of Ala Mihgo and SIlvertear. if its closer to Silvertear, I will argue this shows once more that the Garleans are acting before they are ready for mass conquest. It was in fact an act of despiration. If Silvertear is a poorly planned act of despiration throwing things at the situation that the Garleans could ill afford to lose this both explains why they need to take more time to prepare for actual attacks on Eorzea and the political fallout of Gaius.

Now as I said earlier there seems to be some political bickering between the various Legions. We know that the pyretic victory at Silvertear is enough of a fuck for Gaius that Nael is able to take over operations more or less. So we can assume this is another massive delay in the efficency of the Garlean military machine. One that is fairly rare.

Between the politics and the setbacks in Eorzea the situation there has become the Garlean equivalent of Vietnam, one the former emperor had little will to support thus why Gaius was practically acting on his own in the ARR storyline.

The Domans from the Ninja quests do not seem to be extremely old. They seem to be functionally early mission types. We know they were there and active enough for the first Fall of Doma based on the Ninja plot.

So in short I believe the Othard campaign was still active and much more effective than the clusterfuck that has been the slow and hampered process of conquest in Eorzea.