[SPOILERS] Stormblood Ending

[Belhi]

Yeah the Resonant is likely to have side effects. To be honest the Garleans were far darker than I expected this expansion and not only in their treatment of the Ala Mhigans and Domans, which in itself was really, really bad. They were embracing the heritage of the Allagans a bit too eagerly. Human experimentation and testing chemical weapons on people. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a HM for Doma Castle where we go down into the flooded labs where the Garleans were experimenting on Human/Magiteck hybrids.

As for life before the conquest of Doma by the Garleans, that isn't really clear. Yosetsu's life story played out after the Garleans took over. Her hatred of the Domans is that they all let it happen. They were all fine with it. Its all good and well for people to cry out about liberty and justice but many of those people did nothing and just looked away when she was thrown into the pit as a child. From her perspective to talk about Justice is the talk of hypocrites. That's not to say what she did was ok or that she should have been aloud to do it. I am not even sure how they could effectively redeem someone both so reviled and so broken inside. It does however throw context to her hatred that makes it more understandable. It is ironic and possibly a result of her upbringing under Garlean rule but never once does she direct her hatred towards Garlemald. There are several times we see people raised under Garlean rule who seem to take Garlemald as just an unassailable truth.

All that said, we currently have a pretty bias image of Garlemald. We cant be certain that all provinces are as bad and we have dialog that suggests otherwise. I have a feeling it depends a great deal on who governs a particular province. I did consider this method of treatment to be a way of 'breaking in' new conquered territories. Brutal and cruel but effective. If you have gotten people used to living in misery and without hope and then offer them succor, even if you are the source of their previous suffering that hope will trigger a sense of gratitude. Zenos certainly seemed incline to try and drive the people to rebellion but the whole thing started with Gaius. He might have ordered the Black Rose to be destroyed but it was still created under his watch. Gaius though did seem to have a plan to eventually integrate Ala Mhigo into the culture of the empire.

That said guys, I don't think Gaius is coming back. I think it is mainly just wishful thinking.

I do think we will move in the direction of Garlemald for next expansion and I don't think it will simply be as enemies. In the short term however I think we will be dealing with the two liberated nations re establishing themselves and exploring the implications of the Garlean research into the echo. If being a Resonant has side effects I wouldn't be surprised if we find ourselves trying to aid Fordola at some point when those side effects kick in. After all, with something like this they will probably look to Shalayan scholars for advice.

On a side note I am more inclined to think the Au Ra may have a connection to Tiamat and Bahamut again. After all though they made the Au Ra to fight each other, they also ended up lovers and left their children. We have ruins, legends and glowy sacred sites, some pretty decent magics and a war that drove the Rean from the Steppes, all we don't know about and which are not gone into detail. Still, dusk and dawn wyrm, dusk mother and dawn father, enemies then lovers.... Au Ra might end up being Dragon people after all. Its also worth noting we have a story that indicates Au Ra can breed with Hyur too. Real world genetics might not apply but its interesting how the differing spoken races are so genetically compatible.

On another side note since we are mentioning Class quests a bit, I did really like how many of the Class threads picked up stuff established earlier. For example, the Miner quest have you work with the guys in the goblin masks you saw recruiting engineers next to Idlyshire's Aetheryte in 3.X.

I got so many questions now and I haven't even gotten to the EX dungeons or Omega. I am going to need to get a notepad to record them. I think we need another lorebook now guys....