Fordola Lupis bastard child of...

[Anonymoose]

That said, it was still under his command that much of the original brutal treatment of the Ala Mhigans took place. I would be curious if this was part of a typical 'breaking in' of a conquered culture or if it was just side effect of Garlean views of Ala Mhigans as savages.

Imho, a little of Column A and a little of Column B.

Ala Mhigo was on the marches of the Empire, the last bastion before a corrupted land infested with primals, and its people never fully embraced the Empire or ceased resistance. Baelsar saw a polarized simplification of reality. It's as easy as black and white: the world is at stake; you are either supporting the righteous order of Garlemald or you're as good as actively warring against it. The enemies of order are fit for naught but slaughter.

That explains how he treated the Resistance and beast tribes, and I expect he would probably have spent another 5 years punching the city-states and yelling, "STOP RESISTING. EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE IF YOU STOP RESISTING." The Mission is all that matters, there's no room for people not doing their part, or worse, acting against it. You can lead a chocobo to water, but you can't make him drink. (And if he doesn't drink it's off to the rotisserie.)

I imagine that the best people could hope for if they didn't embrace imperial order was that somehow their settlement was seen as insignificant and somehow had the means to get by despite everything around them being under Garlean control (like, for example, the Qalyana clan of Ananta). If you wanted to be left alone, you had to be unworthy of attention. Most who try will live with very little to show for it.

Therefore, if people under his dominion were suffering, it was likely (in his mind) their own fault. I think, from his point of view, many Ala Mhigans would be clinging to the trappings of a civilization that had been too weak to stand - that had turned on and devoured itself at his whim. They held tight to worthless traditions, false gods, and unearned pride. If you're not willing to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, glorify the ivory standard, earn your citizenship, and do your part to bring honor and glory to your homeland and salvation to the world, what good were you for except keeping the Imperial machine running?

It's like Lieutenant Rasczak's on the authoritarian side of history, lol.

For starters the Empire had 25 and 20 years, respectively, to improve the lives of the citizens of those territories; other than standard Imperial mandates (outlawing even the most basic religious practices, f'ex) and installing barriers on the Daiyu Moon Gates, absolutely nothing about life in the provinces we liberate during 4.0 seemed to have changed. It almost certainly got worse under Zenos, but... nothing suggests Gaius or the former viceroy of Doma did anything to help the citizens of their provinces.

If I read it right, Garlemald just didn't think Doma was worth much. It was on the fringes of the Empire; there are cities that they didn't even bother to conquer juuust beyond Doma, so Doma itself wasn't exactly a march or a fort or a prize. Judging by the scenes we saw, they took over the top tiers of government, instituted the basic civil order they expected, and then stuck Kaien back on top as a paper tiger for 25 years and left them to their fate. Looks like imperial academy students and cannon fodder conscripts were all they bothered with once they the territory under control. Until the rebellion, it wasn't a threat nor was it under threat. It just ... was.