fate of emperor varis at the end

[Edax]

I typically dislike this option when it comes to debate, but we may simply have to agree to disagree on the subject of Black Rose and the validity or invalidity - from the Garlean perspective specifically, I would note - of choosing to deploy the weapon. I personally do not believe Eorzeans have truly grown beyond the atrocities committed in their past. Reaching an accord with them would, in my opinion, be begging for a knife in the back somewhere down the line. Given their track record, they're honestly just as bad as the Empire in a lot of ways. Neither side could ever really trust the other. There would most likely be a dangerous amount of friction on both sides almost from onset. For these reason as well as others outlined further below, I suspect the a not insignificant portion of the Garlean population could indeed be influenced to view the use of Black Rose as a viable and warranted military action.

I do not see Eorzeans exterminating cities. You may look down on them, but I have yet to see the leaders of Eorzean debate whether to kill every last man, woman and child in the city of Garland. But this is what the Garleans are debating, the death of every man, woman and child of the cities on the other side of the world. Eorzea is not in much of a position to put a "knife in the back" of the Empire given the vast amount of distance between them, that's like arguing that the British could never negotiate with the American Revolutionaries because this would result in "a knife in the back" to the British Empire somehow. The Colonials and British were equivalently "bad".

As for the Garleans thinking they're being oppressed? No one said they currently feel that way. A major part of Garlean history is that they were abused horribly by the other sapient races prior to their discovery of ceruleum and subsequent invention of magitech. So horribly, in fact, that they lost nearly all of their lands and found themselves driven into a virtually uninhabitable region. If I'm not mistaken it was implied somewhere that a significant portion of their population was lost as a result. Considering this, it could easily be said that much of their current mindset (or at least that of the dominant faction) was likely shaped by those experiences - and in all probability having Emet-Selch on hand at the Empire's inception to do more than a little gaslighting. It's not hard to behave irrationally when so much of your racial history - and comparatively recent history at that - consists of suffering loss after loss on account of an inborn disability putting you at significant disadvantage. The Garlean Empire is not that old, after all. It is very likely that some of the people living in it today remember the "good old days" of barely managing to eke out a living in the harsh landscape their forbears were driven to.

Anywho, an unhealthy combination of imperial propaganda, the aforementioned gaslighting, and their actual history being one rife with shocking levels of abuse and suffering make it very easy to picture them being lead to believe the "savages" from outside Garlemald would seek to oppress, demean, and potentially even destroy them all over again. Whether or not the Alliance would actually do this is secondary to how easily the Garlean populace could be given the impression that this very thing would happen in the event of any outcome where the Empire doesn't come out on top. Desperate people will do some pretty insane things.

You know, I'm sure some Americans were horribly abused by the British, but I don't see these as legitimate reasons to go to war with several nations and gas civilian populations. If they want to exterminate the world, they they'll sacrifice their Empire to do it because no one will think twice on returning the favor. So I'll repeat, I'd save the Empire, but I wouldn't escalate the war to do it. Even a certain insane German dictator who was gassed several times in his life was absolutely terrified that the British would gas Berlin so he would NEVER provoke the British by escalating the war to that level despite being desperate.