About the Emperor [Major Spoilers for 4.4]

[Alleo]

I'm not asking if the ascians are bad or not, they spread chaos that much is true, I'm wondering how exactly the conflict can end well, since if we kill them all, light wins and we die, if they kill us all, darkness wins and we all die yet again.
Someone is not telling the truth completely.
Perhaps the chaos is necessary to the overall balance.
Yet you claim to talk on a different scale while I talk about individuals? No I used individuals to say that you can't talk absolutes because we have no real idea how the empire as a whole is really ruled nor how each provincies fares. Yet you've decided that that it was my point.
If you want to make the world black and white suit yourself, the truth is that very rarely it happens and when it happens there are no good ppl around, if you catch my drift, because they were killed before.
Now Garlemand is not a real place however, so far each nation in FF14 has been written in a grey area for the most part, I don't see why Garlemand should be delegated to the saturday morning cartoon.

Well solving the Garlemald problem does not necessary mean that we also kill all the Ascian. Maybe we free them of them but dont manage to kill any of them. (I mean we do need a lot to even kill one) I am not sure how this all ends. Because if we truly need Ascians or a balance than that would mean that the conflict would go on forever with always the chance to go south in the future (we are mortals after all and wont live forever). I also dont want them to end this with us killing both crystals because how would that solve the balance problem? (Maybe only if the cause of all of this are only the crystals)

Another example:

You have a xaela tribe that starts with a few individuals that want to conquer and destroy other tribes. It finds other people that were once defeated by other tribes and brings them in for their campaign. The whole new tribe is now created under the banner of destroying any other tribe and how to deal with survivors. Maybe they have rules that state that healthy woman will be used for pleasure and some men for labor work while the weak and old will all be killed. They have rules that only the original tribe members have all the rights and are threated with the respect while the conquered surviors are nothing but slaves. These are the foundations, the construction of this tribe. Now there might be some in the tribe that dislike certain elements but that does not change the foundation of it. Also if for example the WoL was once from this tribe but ran away as a child and now is doing good in the world or even help other tribes it wont just suddenly make the tribe itself good or morally grey. Only when someone takes it, destroys the foundation and rules of this one and built it up completely new can it be free of this evil burden and start new. Then it also wont matter if you have some bad apples left, because the foundation is now based on moral choices.

The same can be said about Garlemald. It does not matter who is the emporer because as long as the foundation, their ideals and believes are still in the old ways they will continue this. We not only need to take out the Ascians but also completely change their foundation. And that is probably (at least in real life) the harder part. Because you will have people that have been raised a certain way, that now have to realize that they were wrong all the time. That have to give up their superior view on the world and people and I am quite sure that some or even many people are not that happy about that. It was already quite easy in Ishgard but we are talking about one city state, Garlemald is a whole empire that needs to change a lot for it to be considered good. But as long as the system stands, as long as they believe in what they are doing is right and as long as they see others as savages, nothing will change, no matter how many good individuals you have. (And again, most of the ones that are good are those that run away from Garlemald, from the system like Cid or Lucia and then you have morally grey characters like Gaius and Regula but those are either death or also against the empire now, Maxima may count as the only good person that is on the empire side but we barely know his view or past, or character and he also working against the foundations of his country even if he does not know the whole situation.)

____

Some other interesting thoughts:

We do know that there are at least some provinces that are threated well. I do wonder if they only exist to show the population in Garlemald how well other nations are threated and therefore are used as a way to say that each one is like that. (Propaganda can do a lot) Thus if one province rebells because they are not threated that good then people might not understand their plight because they might believe that they are well and thus that they deserve the punishment they got. This would also explain why they seemingly can raze whole cities to the ground without a huge backlash. (Again just my speculation)


___

About only one person being evil: Again to rule an empire, to go to war you need the acceptance of the masses. You cant pull this of without the population being behind you. Even an Ascian wont be able to do that. So its still on the people itself that they have believed the lies (which came later) and fought for Solus in wars. They were behind it because to fight other countries you need people that fight. You may try to force them into it at first but that will probably just end in a civil war. Thats the problem with a lot of dictators, that they are quite charismatic and know how to sway the masses. But that just shows that they need the masses to do anything.

Also we do not jump to conclusion. We have (even before this patch) known that the empire has done quite some horrible stuff (even one calamity) and these things cant just be pulled of over decades without a folk behind it. They are not in any way neutral, just for all the war crimes they did, do they not deserve that one. It was just always the question if their view had any merrit to it and now we know that it was all just lies. This might be extreme but if Garlemald as an empire is still neutral then any empire in our world was neutral too. Because there are people in each one that are good thus the empire itself cant be bad right?

About Eorzea: As Cilia has stated, its not in any way a good argument to use the wrong doings of another country to argue about another. Especially if none of the actions are even on the same level. None of the city states (minus old Isghard) have in the last few decades done anything as horrible as Garlemald did. And the only one that might have a truly bad system was the old isghard because their system was also based on a lie. And what did we need to do with it? Exactly, change it so that its built on a new foundation. The system behind the other states are not built just on lies or to be evil and create chaos. They are built with certain aspects in mind, for example Uldah where you are in power if you are wealthly. But being rich does not necessarily mean that you are bad. The bad thing is that this system can be missused by horrible people but on itself its not horrible.

Maybe better example: If you have a country that is built on a system that one rules it but the foundation of its creation is peace and prosperity and that the king has to rule in a way to get that then its a good system. The foundation was done with good in mind. Now you have a kingdom that from the start was created to gather the strongest so that they can conquer the neighbors and to rule them all, then it was created with a bad idea from the start. You may have a new good ruler in the bad system but to truly change the foundation you would need a new one thus the destruction of the old system.

Anyway this will probably be my last post about this matter. Most have been said by others and me.

[Kallera]

My take on the emperor is this: were he the world conquering hawk the rumors made him out to be there is a lot more he could be doing, as was pointed out many times in 4.0. I think where he may possibly stand is one where he would like nothing more than to free the nation of the Ascian’s lies and amibitions, but would balk at the idea of dismantling the and relinquishing holdings that have been won in Ilsabard. Note that this says nothing on what he thinks of Eorzea, but that he hasn’t attacked even given the oppotunity and reason now finally says something important...

Or I could be wrong and he’d be happy to wreck his grandfather’s legacy if it meant the Ascians’ plans are ruined, I think that would be short sighted, and a real problem for the possible racial fallout for the Garlean people, but eh.

Of course the wuestion could be sidestepped altogether... an Ascian caused disaster going off over there would probably throw everything into flux.

[Jyera]

My current interpretation is that Solus Galvus was born mortal, and human, and since we know Ascians can be 'made' the way the WoD were in a sense, this man made a sort of Devil's Bargain and instigated the founding of the empire. What I don't know and can't guess right now is why.

At any rate, I don't think that the Solus we just saw is a sockpuppet, nor was the Solus recorded in lore.

[Dreggit]

I don't really have much to add to the table but a serious question of mine is wether or not FFXIV will close its story on the final eventual confrontation of the Acians or if they will drawl out a then completed story.

I wish I had more to offer the Lore board

[LineageRazor]

I don't really have much to add to the table but a serious question of mine is wether or not FFXIV will close its story on the final eventual confrontation of the Acians or if they will drawl out a then completed story.

I wish I had more to offer the Lore board

In all likelihood, they will begin a new story. While the Ascians and Zodiark are serious business, they aren't the only problems the world has. The new story may not have the same level of consequence that the Ascians, with their Calamities and Floods and Rejoinings do, but this isn't Dragonball Z. Every new threat doesn't have to be an order of magnitude more powerful than the previous.

[Remedi]

PPl asked Yoshida bout this and barring rewriting of the story, they already have the general direction of the story planned (as in probably expansion themes and a small idea of region) and how the ascian plot will end. He said that however that won't be the complete end.
OFC this can be changed along the way

[Zohar_Lahar]

What i really want to know is: how far in advance was Solus's true nature planned? Was this something that came up with 3.x/4.x or is this something going all the way back to the game's reboot?

[Remedi]

Hard to say atm, I kinda remind reading somewhere that he was fixated in restoring his youth and his youthful appearance might be a nod to that, it's probably something they thought of recently to make his character more involved into the story or actually making him a real character more than just a figure of history.
I did had a feeling of him being wasted by having him off-screened

[Jyera]

Hard to say atm, I kinda remind reading somewhere that he was fixated in restoring his youth and his youthful appearance

Whoa, really? If you can find your source for that, I'd be so jazzed for it!

...given what he looks like with his younger face on, I'm not sure I blame him... o//_//o

[Remedi]

Sadly it's just a memory, perhaps it was even from the Tanaka vision, so it's not something I would consider a fact or anything.