Revelations from Patch 3.56

[Cilia]

Well, a guilt free extermination war? How convinient, and again, lacking the gravitas of actual warfare since we know there is but one outcome for the alliance. By choosing to take the wall, Eorzea has committed to see Shinryu's work and whatever comes by plunging the world into this. You do not fight something like this on the cheap and blameless.

Who said anything about exterminating the Garleans, or being guilt-free and blameless? Genocide is the Garleans' thing - our goal is, at the moment, just to push them out of Gyr Abania.

There are no real survivors in war, just the guilty and the dead. The problem is that, even without the whole Shinryu business, Ilberd still got his war. He forced the Alliance to choose between either laying down their arms and dying for nothing, or holding fast and dying for something. The Empire isn't keen on negotiations, and even if it were the likelihood of them being open to talking things out would reasonably be close to zero since they believe the Alliance launched an unprovoked offense against their fortification. There can be no peace until Gyr Abania is reclaimed or Eorzea is under Imperial heel, and if we have to deal with the war Ilberd foisted on us we may as well do so on our own terms. Other options do exist, but with the Garlean soldier crapping his pants when Zenos did nothing I don't foresee it happening before the end of 4.0.

Yes, by choosing to continue the fight the blame rests on the Alliance's shoulders - but there is no other real option, save to sit around and wait to get steamrolled by the Empire.

We too bear some small responsibility for this. Had we but apprehended or killed Ilberd back in Halatali, none of this would have happened. (I'm still not sure what Yugiri brought Hozan and Doware along for if they didn't cover the exit.) What's done is done though, and all we can do is deal with the consequences of our actions (or lack thereof).

Also, while this is that sort of game, we don't yet know we're going to come out on top. I'd say it's reasonably certain, but not definite.

It's going to be hard selling Ilberd as a coward now that we are going to be living the lie.

He sparked a(n admittedly long smoldering) war and then committed suicide instead of living with the consequences of his actions. That's about as cowardly as it gets.

And again, we were left with no real option, unless you'd prefer being put under Imperial heel without a fight.

[Chewy2nd]

Considering how much SE tends to shy from having any character past 25 in the "main character" slot of a Final Fantasy I figured this was exactly what happened.

After sometime to reflect, I wish that we had gotten a bit more for foreshadowing on Doma. There has been so little mention of Doma/the Far East in the game when compared to all of the buildup they have done for Ala Mhigo that I'm afraid that the Orthard/Doma plot going to end up like the Ul'dah plot in Heavensward, but with a new city and housing district. Everytime I had to back to Ul'dah in the middle of the Heavensward plot it felt awkward and disjointed and ending up being a disservice to both plot threads. Hopefully they will integrate the two threads better in Stormblood.

We'll probably get more of a reason to go to Doma in Stormblood itself, as it stands right now, we're heading beyond the wall. We've had seeds planted for Doma, but the story isnt going there just yet.

[Belhi]

What 3.5 did was set up a war with Garlemald we cant avoid. Ilberd's move was brilliant. Not only did he frame the Eorzean Alliance but the summoning of a primal of that power, even if it was somehow stopped, would never be ignored by the Garleans. One way or another Garlemald was going to make a move after that hence the Eorzean Alliances choice to move pre-emptively.

Honestly there are a lot of reasons for the EA to try and drive Garlemald out of Ala Mhigo. Ala Mhigo gives Garlemald a foothold in Eorzea that gives them much greater access to the rest of Eorzea. Holding Ala Mhigo effectively severs their land access to Eorzea, limiting their ability to move troops and support the remaining castrums. That's ignoring arguments about the ethics of the treatment of subjugated non-citizen Ala Mhigans or the refugee issues the other city states have.

I think Anonymoose is on the right track with why they went with the Yda/Lyse thing but I think they handled it well. It fits pretty comfortably in place. As for Yda being Zenos, I think that is extremely unlikely. They have said Zenos is the son and heir of the current emperor and probably rather young himself. Why would Yda be named the Heir to Garlemald?

[Kallera]

While unavoidable, I'm just going to meet this with no grand expectations of lifting oppression or that we should face this chipper as Alisaie. We are waging a war, end of story. whatever talk of having no choice doesn't amount to beans.

Cillia, you and I clearly have different ideas about...obligations..., so I'll just say I don't agree that "can" means "should" so readily.

[EorzeaHero69]

Checklist of everything awful in 2.56 story:

- WHY did everyone blindly accept Nero? Did we forget about Crystal Tower and trying to kill us?
- WHY were there opinion options to begin with? Even those felt forced "we have no choice" -- actually...
- WHY was Omega so easily released when Nero could have done it the whole time?
- WHY did we bother convening with the Eorzean alliance? What purposes did they serve?
- WHY Shinryu? I mean it was cool to see, but what does a dragon have to do with Ala Mhigo?
- WHY the convoluted Yda / Lyse story? "Oh hey, surprise, I'm someone else!" Is this an M. Night Shyamalan movie?
- WHY do we not even care about going to Doma? Why was it so forced for us to leave this area?
- WHY wasn't Red Mage even slightly brought into the story? The most anticipated job in the game and not even a mention?

I'm not the least bit excited for Stormblood. I honestly couldn't care about it.

3.56, not 2.56.

[Belhi]

While unavoidable, I'm just going to meet this with no grand expectations of lifting oppression or that we should face this chipper as Alisaie. We are waging a war, end of story. whatever talk of having no choice doesn't amount to beans.

Cillia, you and I clearly have different ideas about...obligations..., so I'll just say I don't agree that "can" means "should" so readily.

Oh this is by no means a good situation Its a mess we have handed to us hand have to deal with. Garlemald isn't going to just let this slide. In there eyes the EA attacked their wall and more serious, summoned a primal. Just the summoning of a primal of that level would cause Garlemald to go high alert. Its summoning and the mess it made is almost certainly the main thing the Garlean leadership would be talking about. If Eorzea was a thorn in the side of Garlemald before, now its an infected wound and quite likely something that cant be left alone anymore.

This isn't a great situation to be walking into but it usually never is. I suspect though that things haven't even truly started. I think that will happen when we see Zenos play his hand.

[LineageRazor]

All in all, I was neither particularly impressed nor disappointed by the conclusion to Heavensward. The Yda-is-really-Lyse thing didn't stir up any emotions, since we never knew the "real" Yda. As far as I was concerned, it was no more dramatic than if she'd decided to get a name change. If she turns out to have a majorly different personality, now - that she was pretending to be ditzy and silly simply because her sister was - that might be one thing, but we haven't seen enough of the true Lyse yet to know for sure. If we go into Stormblood, and Lyse is a very different individual, perhaps then I'll feel a twinge of loss for Yda.

Still don't know for sure whether to accept that Papalymo is dead. We're being beaten over the head again and again with evidence to the fact (the cocoon's dispersal, Yda's tattoos, etc), but years of history with comic books, other Final Fantasy games, and even THIS VERY Final Fantasy game (specifically, Nanamo) prevents me from being fully convinced unless we see his dead body, or at least see his body disperse into Aether (as did Moenbryda's).

While not technically part of this patch, I loved Ilberd's false flag operation. It was executed perfectly, and did a lot to display how cunning the guy could be. His fanaticism earlier on had already given a lot of promise to him as a villain, and this action delivered in spades. I can definitely appreciate how the Alliance grudgingly commits to fulfilling Ilberd's dream because now they have little alternative. Even if the Garleans were keen on diplomacy, it'd be awfully hard to convince them this wasn't a deliberate attack.

The one thing that bugs me about it, though, is that attacking Castrums is old hat. The Alliance attacked, like, five of them all at once during the conclusion of the 2.0 Main Scenario quests - with actual Alliance soldiers, in uniform - and there wasn't any angsting about, "Oh no, now we're doomed to go to war!" It's true that this time around a Primal was summoned at the conclusion which would definitely make the Garleans sit up and take notice, but this moaning and groaning happened BEFORE that Primal was born, before we even knew that that was Ilberd's plan. Is it because this particular Castrum is a gateway to Garlean-controlled territory, whereas the others were just outposts planted at various spots in Eorzea? I suppose that could make a difference...

Gosetsu was amusing, and I definitely loved Yugiri's interactions with Nero (and how he seemed ever-so-slightly unnerved by her, even through his constant arrogant boasting).

[Rocl]

The Castrums we attacked in 2.X were manned by the XIVth Legion. Gaius and his troops were acting independently of the Empire with their attempt at conquering Eorzea, so it didn't have the same oomph as Baelsar's Wall. After Gaius' defeat it sounds like Oriens was staffed by the XIIth Legion maybe? Anyways, it's different definitely I think for a lot of reasons, not the least of which like you said it was attack on the border of the Empire as far as Garlemald is concerned.

The more I think on it, the more I've grown fonder of Yugiri in this little mini patch. Not exactly sure what it is....

[Doluka]

The Castrums we attacked in 2.X were manned by the XIVth Legion. Gaius and his troops were acting independently of the Empire with their attempt at conquering Eorzea, so it didn't have the same oomph as Baelsar's Wall. After Gaius' defeat it sounds like Oriens was staffed by the XIIth Legion maybe? Anyways, it's different definitely I think for a lot of reasons, not the least of which like you said it was attack on the border of the Empire as far as Garlemald is concerned.

The more I think on it, the more I've grown fonder of Yugiri in this little mini patch. Not exactly sure what it is....

Yup, this sums up why there was no fear of the empire directly retaliating for Operation Archon. We were essentially fighting a rogue faction that was operating without being sanctioned by the emperor. Baelsar's wall was under the jurisdiction of Zenos and thus the greater empire as a whole, so in this situation the attack on the wall was an attack on the empire proper. That's why there is a fear of retribution and a preliminary move on Ala Mhigo was necessitated, as successfully taking the region would impede the empire's capabilities.

[Berethos]

Even if the Garleans were keen on diplomacy, it'd be awfully hard to convince them this wasn't a deliberate attack.

Even if they could be convinced (and with spies already aware of the name the Domans have for the Primal, it's possible at least Zenos and perhaps Varis already know) that it wasn't deliberate...

The more ruthless and expansion-minded leaders might not care and use it as an excuse to drum up support for a new invasion.

Once the false attack began I'm not sure the Eorzean Alliance had an out from this situation.