Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Garlemald is absolutely the victim. They've been manipulated by Ascian scheming, though putting that aside their people have the inability to manipulate aether and were almost wiped out as a consequence of being driven out of fertile lands and into a bleak, harsh wasteland. It was only the presence of ceruleum that prevented their extinction - and with a nudge, they began to conquer and begin claiming more territory for themselves.

That doesn't excuse everything they've done, though it's hardly a black and white affair - and the only territories they treated with extreme prejudice where those that sought to rebel. In Ala Mhigo's case, its people were happy to try and conquer themselves until they encountered a foe they couldn't beat.
For Ala Mhigo, who did they invade in the last century? If you're talking about the Autumn War, that was over 100 years ago, and since then ala mhigo had lived in peace with the rest of Eorzea until the mad king came along, who they deposed themselves only to be conquored by the empire while weakened.

For the empire, sure they have a sad story where they were wronged in the past. And if the empire had reclaimed its old lands with its technology and stopped there, maybe that would be one thing. Instead, they go after lands that never belonged to them expanding wherever they can. 'We'll only treat you badly if you rebel' hardly excuses anything, and treating the people you conqueror with cruelty only incites MORE rebellion anyway. We've seen three provinces with a history of rebelling, with more implied to have resistance forces evne if we haven't seen them rebel directly. (Gyr Abania, Doma, Dalmasca with the first two winning free and the third one being crushed. And we know other provinces have resistances like Nagxia .) Any examples of good garlean rule are vastly overshadowed by negative ones. And even if all of the provinces had been treated well. 'we'll be nice to you if you play ball after we took your lands and sent many of your able bodied youth off to war in other provinces as conscripts' doesn't exactly justify the invasions after the fact anyway.