When are we going to infiltrate the Garlean Empire?!

[Belhi]

Well, we saw Ishgardians committing all sorts of atrocities in the name of their holy war against Nidhogg's brood. They murdered countless innocents in their misguided crusade and to ensure that the truth of the war did not come out. We're still seeing the consequences of all that and things may become even more morally dubious in the upcoming patches. Despite that they're quite clearly not rotten across the board, which can only apply to Garlemald as well if the developers intend them to be anything other than stereotypical bad guys which I firmly believe they aren't.

I don't think Garleans are an evil race but their current rulers most certainly are antagonists. Later we may find a more moderate high ranking Garlean we can work with but right now its bad guys who hold the reins.

I would also point out that in general the people suffering from the actions of the Ishgardians are mostly other Ishgardians. Very few people knew the truth. Further Ishgard's situation is quite different in that it was in a war it couldn't get out of. Nothing short of Nidhogg's death and the Horde's defeat would end the war cause Nidhogg had no interest in every letting Ishgard off the hook even though the one who committed the sin had been dead for a thousand years.

Everything we have seen of Garlemald's expansion has been born out of a hunger for power, hubris and belief in Garlean superiority.

After all, Gaius had some pretty good points and not everybody in Garlemald supported the attempt to bring down Dalamud upon Eorzea. If influential Garleans think that then it stands to reason that many regular Garleans do too. As for conscription? Eorzea, too, does the same thing. Not to the same extent, perhaps, but Ul'dah and Ishgard are notorious for treating the downtrodden and poor terribly and quite a lot of Eorzeans are exceptionally racist.

Gaius did have his good points but he also allowed atrocities to happen under his governance by his own Legion. You really think he had no idea where his conscripts were coming from and what was being done to the populous? If he didn't it completely undermines any credibility he had as a leader.

Also where has Eorzea used conscription? Gridania's forces are the united God's Quiver and Wood Wailers, Limsa Liminsa's armed forces mainly are formed from the former fighters of the various fleets and Ul'dah's Grand company is entirely made up of mercenaries and gladiators originally. The only case you could argue for a country using conscription is Ishgard and even then it doesn't seem extremely common.

Even if they did use conscription in none of the city states forced prostitution government sanctioned and in none of the city states are the governments guilty of taking youths, brainwashing them and having them kill their family members.

Do remember that people in occupied lands don't even have the rights of Garlean citizens.

Actually, we don't know that - and Eorzea, at least, wasn't minding it's own business given that Ala Mhigo sought to conquer the rest of Eorzea. Go back in the past and there's other conflicts too some of which I think are fairly recent. I vaguely recall tension and war between Hyur and Elezen, for example. Though that has seemingly dissolved since that point.

The last major war between the city states of Eorzea was the Autumn war 100 years before the current timeline. No one was trying to invade anyone for a really long time in Eorzea.

When it comes to Garlemald we've only seen and heard one side of the conflict. If the developers follow their current trend then we learn the full story it'll paint both sides in a morally grey rather than morally pure light - and I feel like that would be far more interesting and a better compromise over all.

Eorzea is very morally grey. There is no question of that. The story of what happened leading up to the Garlean invasion of Ala Mhigo showed dark stuff happening.

The difference is Garlemald is the aggressor. There is nothing that changes that. They are the ones attacking and conquering. I think it would be a huge stretch to argue that all the conquered territories the Garleans have taken somehow antagonised Garlemald into having them attack.

If a guy walks up to you in the street who you barely know and have done nothing to and starts swinging their fists at your its pretty hard to argue they aren't the ones in the wrong. It's even harder to argue you are in the wrong for fighting back.

[Frederick22]

"All Garleans are super bad people, nothing will change that and we have to kill them all"

I think you are mistaken here. I agree with Theo, for now we have only seen one part of them. We only saw all their military strenght and brutality, and their Xenofobic emperor.

Lets see some facts. An empire is by all ways, a dictatorship. There no decomacri, the citizens have no rights, they cant do nothing. You really think everyone will be okay with that?
Remember how to Empire started, first it was a republic, shortly after the events of the autum war there was a coup d'état and the old goverment was wiped out. Tell me, you really think this was forgotten? That ow everyone accepts this and like it?
The point is here that we dont know, its mostly possible that lots of people within the empire dont like this at all but they cannot do nothing, probably scared beacuse if they try something they could get market as traitors.

( Germany during 2nd world war was a perfect example )

There more, when the first emperor die, all chaos was brought. It seems the empire was totally separated into different factions. The empire's structure isnt well organized as it seems and seems not to have a back up plan on serious situation.
Another and important thing I notice is that Lucia told us that his parents died on an uprising. What kind of uprising and where? Given that she and her family where pure blood, i doubt they living were on a taken country. The only thing remains is that they were living on the empire's core cities, where mostly for sure most population lives. So there clearly everything there is not shine and roses.

( If anyone saw Avatar: the last airbender will notice that this is mostly the same case. On the begining we all thought that the fire nation was the tipical evil canocical tipe of country, but on the 3rd book we see something very different on the inside of the nation. )

[Belhi]

/snip

I think you misquoted me a bit:P

I didn't state it in my above post though I probably should have but in other posts I have stated that I suspect there are more moderate factions within Garlemald but that Garlemald's leadership as it is today makes it an antagonist for us. I don't think that Garlemald is misunderstood as an aggressive power. The Garlean people aren't inherently evil but their current administration, it's expansionist policies and the way it treats conquered territories are.

I don't mind and hope we eventually see Garlean allies to the WoL. However I was mainly arguing against what I perceived to be Theodric's defence of Garlemald as an aggressive power.

The crimes I listed against Garlemald are quite valid. I don't think all Garleans are responsible for that any more than I think that all Garleans approve of it. Regardless its the reality of the Garlemald we have to deal with in relation to their intentions towards Eorzea. Until we can find moderates with the power, influence and willingness for us to be able to work with them Garlemald is our enemy.

[Theodric]

I'm not sure it's wise to paint the leadership of Garlemald as 'evil'. Driven and heavy handed, certainly, but we do not yet fully understand their reasoning for acting the way that they do and seem to be working towards trying to 'save' Hydaelyn as a whole in their own way. They may very well be misguided, yes, but real world morality is always a dubious thing to apply to fantasy settings as they're not often the same. Magic, for example, as well as Primals, don't exist in the real world - so anything to do with them is by design going to be very morally grey on any side.

The persecution of the Beast Tribes is dubious, I'd agree - but at the same time Eorzeans themselves have done the exact same thing. The destruction of Doma? Again, dubious, but we don't know all the details. How many innocents were slain during the uprising, I wonder? Perhaps the situation was triggered by Domans committing atrocities only to be stamped down by the same forces they saw as scattered and ready to be exploited. It's also worth noting that many Domans willingly sided with Garlemald and that Garlean life may very well be better in many ways. If nothing else it's certainly more advanced in terms of technology.

Though at this point I feel like Doma was destroyed - off screen no less - purely for the sake of the FF6 reference. It was quite quickly forgotten and seemed more like a plot device to get the Au Ra to come to Eorzea. They could have simply decided to travel to the place in bulk due to some other event or decision though...

[Frederick22]

I'm not sure it's wise to paint the leadership of Garlemald as 'evil'.

The Emperor is evil, no question of that.

[Belhi]

I'm not sure it's wise to paint the leadership of Garlemald as 'evil'. Driven and heavy handed, certainly, but we do not yet fully understand their reasoning for acting the way that they do and seem to be working towards trying to 'save' Hydaelyn as a whole in their own way. They may very well be misguided, yes, but real world morality is always a dubious thing to apply to fantasy settings as they're not often the same. Magic, for example, as well as Primals, don't exist in the real world - so anything to do with them is by design going to be very morally grey on any side.

The persecution of the Beast Tribes is dubious, I'd agree - but at the same time Eorzeans themselves have done the exact same thing. The destruction of Doma? Again, dubious, but we don't know all the details. How many innocents were slain during the uprising, I wonder? Perhaps the situation was triggered by Domans committing atrocities only to be stamped down by the same forces they saw as scattered and ready to be exploited. It's also worth noting that many Domans willingly sided with Garlemald and that Garlean life may very well be better in many ways. If nothing else it's certainly more advanced in terms of technology.

Though at this point I feel like Doma was destroyed - off screen no less - purely for the sake of the FF6 reference. It was quite quickly forgotten and seemed more like a plot device to get the Au Ra to come to Eorzea. They could have simply decided to travel to the place in bulk due to some other event or decision though...

Forcing women into prostitution and brainwashing youth and having them kill their own family members is a bit more than heavy handed. Dropping a moon onto a continent is a bit more than heavy handed. I would definitely call the current garlean leadership evil. Regardless of their goals, their methods are unnecessarily cruel and brutal and frankly wreckless.

As for the beast tribes, some of them, such as the Sahagin, are a lot more substancial than we see and the Ixali engineering was more advanced than the Eorzean city states prior to the introduction of Garlean knowledge. The Amal'jaa were actually allied with Ul'dah when they fought Sil'dih. Regardless while the city states and the beast tribes have fought each other a lot, Im not aware of any time in lore where any of the city states outright tried wiping them out. Infact the main time we have seen a genocidal war with the current city states was Ul'dah's war against Sil'dih were they used the zombie dust to turn their enemies population into undead. Even then the current ones aren't and the most important issue is what is happening now. Prior to Garlemald turning up the city states were trading with the Beast tribes.

Also Im not aware of a lot of examples of Domans actually working with the Garleans. Infact the only example I know of was the antagonist of the 30-50 NIN quest and he was seen as a traitor for selling out his village for power.

The main reason I'm arguing this point with you isn't that I don't want to see a deeper story for Garlemald, but that much of your speculation ignores established fact in game and fills in blanks with things that have nothing that supports it. The Garlean leaders as they exist now aren't good people.

Also I'd point out, since you bring Shinra up, that Shinra remained an antagonist all through FF7. The only time they actually side up with the protagonists they then turn around and betray them the very next thing. This is ignoring that most of the problems in FF7 were caused by Shinra in the first place. Rufas fell a long way before he really started holding a protagonist role by Advent Children.