Revenge of the Weapons (5.2 and Onwards)

[Melichoir]

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.

Their tactics when dealing with conquered territories is actually a pretty age old one and is most likely a tactic that has played out in all places of the world (Including our own City States of Eorzea). It essentially breaks down to this - Citizenry of a conquered nation can fall into two camps broadly: Those that are in league with the conquerors, and those that reject the conquerors. For a conquering nation to ensure stability overtime and bring that territory into the fold (which is what Garlemald is seeking to do), they will have to rout any and all objectors while rewarding and uplifting supporters with the long term goal of replacing the resisting population with the supporting population. Garlemald seemed to be doing this in the case of Ala Mhigo, as well as Doma. People who fell in line behind the empire were rewarded broadly (if not left alone). Objectors to the new Garlemald rule were persecuted and treated terribly. This of course created a schism in Ala Mhigo, as people hated the supporters and saw them as traitors. But as the story points out - those supporters of the Garlemald empire did so because they viewed the mad king as so much god awfully worse and did not see any real leader to take his place. For them, The empire was a good thing and would bring stability to their nation. If it meant giving up a few traditions and practices, that was worth the price.

While I dont think the story does the best job at explaining this, the empire isnt super black and white where theyre nothing but evil slavers to all but the garlemald people. Even the reasoning behind Garlemalds expanse was predicated on (or atleast to the public it was) eradicating a practice which destabilizes the environment. It's literally an argument against WMDs as that is what a primal akin to. In any case, what theyre doing isnt anything new, nor are they an exception. the Garlemald people were victims of this same system, so its no suprise they would use it too. And our own citi states are no innocent actors. Theyre self interested actors. We may disagree with Garlemalds views, but those are ideological. Uldah, Limsa, and Gridania also have sketchy history of doing some pretty inhumane crap. Varis even points this out, and it isnt to much a stretch that Eorzea is defending itself from Garlemald out of self interest and preservation and not so much some greater need for the moral good.

TLDR - Its all a bit sketch. Garlemald is not a great empire, but we the player shouldnt be sitting here and being like "Oh theyre pure evil and were oh so good." The conflict is more about a difference in view point rather than morality.

[TheMightyMollusk]

It should be noted that the only Garlean territories we've really been through so far were both overseen by Zenos, who was deliberately treating the populace like crap in order to foment rebellion so he'd have someone to fight. Yotsuyu's vengeful hatred for Doma certainly didn't help.

[Bright-Flower]

Omega Weapon is a story boss as well

In what game?

[Pepsi_Plunge]

I don't think we get Omega Weapon, because after what we've seen in the SB-Storyline the FFXIV Version of Omega Weapon is essential the already seen (and fought) evolution of Omega. Omega was trying out different forms and after he concluded that the humanoid form (Omega M and Omega F) was not his answer to the perfect form, he went and became Omega Weapon.

It's basically the same story as in FF X, where Omega transformed into Omega Weapon through his anger. (which makes Omega Weapon the SSJ-Form of Omega ^^)

[jameseoakes]

In what game?

Dirge of Cerberus

[Lauront]

Their tactics when dealing with conquered territories is actually a pretty age old one and is most likely a tactic that has played out in all places of the world (Including our own City States of Eorzea). It essentially breaks down to this - Citizenry of a conquered nation can fall into two camps broadly: Those that are in league with the conquerors, and those that reject the conquerors. For a conquering nation to ensure stability overtime and bring that territory into the fold (which is what Garlemald is seeking to do), they will have to rout any and all objectors while rewarding and uplifting supporters with the long term goal of replacing the resisting population with the supporting population. Garlemald seemed to be doing this in the case of Ala Mhigo, as well as Doma. People who fell in line behind the empire were rewarded broadly (if not left alone). Objectors to the new Garlemald rule were persecuted and treated terribly. This of course created a schism in Ala Mhigo, as people hated the supporters and saw them as traitors. But as the story points out - those supporters of the Garlemald empire did so because they viewed the mad king as so much god awfully worse and did not see any real leader to take his place. For them, The empire was a good thing and would bring stability to their nation. If it meant giving up a few traditions and practices, that was worth the price.

While I dont think the story does the best job at explaining this, the empire isnt super black and white where theyre nothing but evil slavers to all but the garlemald people. Even the reasoning behind Garlemalds expanse was predicated on (or atleast to the public it was) eradicating a practice which destabilizes the environment. It's literally an argument against WMDs as that is what a primal akin to. In any case, what theyre doing isnt anything new, nor are they an exception. the Garlemald people were victims of this same system, so its no suprise they would use it too. And our own citi states are no innocent actors. Theyre self interested actors. We may disagree with Garlemalds views, but those are ideological. Uldah, Limsa, and Gridania also have sketchy history of doing some pretty inhumane crap. Varis even points this out, and it isnt to much a stretch that Eorzea is defending itself from Garlemald out of self interest and preservation and not so much some greater need for the moral good.

TLDR - Its all a bit sketch. Garlemald is not a great empire, but we the player shouldnt be sitting here and being like "Oh theyre pure evil and were oh so good." The conflict is more about a difference in view point rather than morality.

It is also worth noting Doma and Ala Mhigo got the short end of the stick for reasons, whereas other provinces saw life go on as before (and I'd imagine, improve in some cases.) In Doma's case for summoning a Primal, in Ala Mhigo's for its generally bellicose attitude, which meant the Empire would really need to crush any potential flames of revolt early on. Although the writers have made it so that the Empire was being led by its nose to serve the Ascian agenda (which in turn has its own underlying logic, also resolving, IMO, to a conflict in POV, i.e. between immortals and mortals who they view as existing at their world and people's expense), Garlemald is far from uniquely bad or oppressive... and a lot of the lead up in SB to ShB made me think they were perpetrating last minute changes on some characters, like Varis and Elidibus, as well as the Empire's raison d'etre, hence the rather forced writing. Like you said, the city-states have their shadier elements too and more often than not use the WoL to do what they can't really accomplish.

Varis, at least up until that parley, was interested in preserving his people above all else, and it does not seem illogical to me to surmise that he was in a situation where to turn on Emet-Selch or Elidibus would simply mean his death, whilst they ploughed on with their plan, since they could simply possess his body if need be. It's a pretty similar position to that which Thordan was in: he had inherited a conflict that had no easy resolutions, being waged under false pretenses but with stakes which were, nonetheless, very high. Only I think Varis was given the full truth in very recent terms, whereas Thordan was probably aware all along. Makes little difference, either way.

I'm just hoping Garlemald will still be salvaged as a city-state after all is said and done, rather than destroyed outright.

[Avidria]

I dunno anything about any of those weapons, but I would enjoy more of Gaius.

The use of a chemical weapon was to avoid excessive losses among a force that is incapable of using aether. The protagonists can paint it as a 'horrific' approach to warfare but conveniently it does no such thing when it comes to other traumatic methods of death such as blasting people with fireballs, running them through with swords, afflicting opponents with magical diseases or drowning/crushing them with water and debris as we saw with the fall of Doma Castle.

The use of Black Rose was a sound enough move and the real complication lay in the unintended side effects in the form of a Calamity. The weapon was also only used in response to Garlemald itself being invaded and in an alternative universe at that, so...

I've got a couple thoughts on this, that kinda split apart here, but... I don't see Black Rose on the same level as the kind of warfare Eorzea and Garlemald are usually stuck in the middle of. War is ugly in itself, whether you're shooting someone or blasting them with magical fire. What's horrific about Black Rose, imo, is that it's a large scale aetheric weapon that kills indiscriminately - if it got used on a battlefield, it would kill everyone regardless of what side they're on. I'm not sure how far its effects would go on non-humanoid life without the boost from the rejoining, but it probably still would've been pretty bad for more than just the people. With or without the influx of light from the first, it still had the potential to be devastating, and in the wrong hands, catastrophic even if not on a cataclysmic scale.

As for magical diseases being used in warfare, I definitely don't see how the narrative paints that as anything but horrific. What was done to Sil'dih was monstrous, and what happened in Nym was horrific. The people making decisions in Ul'dah and Mhach of their time were both guilty of committing atrocities. Magic wasn't seen in a good light after what some of those fallen civilizations did for very good reason.

Also, I didn't think Garlemald itself actually got invaded - unless I missed that? I thought they were just being pushed back - pushed back from their own invasion, no less.

I am curious, though, to go back a ways... what experiments were the Sharlayans doing, and where do we learn about them? I honestly don't remember much about them other than what we see in the AST questline. <.<

[Bright-Flower]

Snip.

I'm not saying it's not a realistic approach to reward those that support the new regime. Just that doing this doesn't actually justify said invasion on its own. Maybe down the road we'll get a look into provinces where the people are happy with the empire, but from what's been shown to us directly, the negative seems to greatly outweigh the positive.

I'm not saying the Eorzean Alliance and friends are perfect. There's certainly gray morality on their side. Corruption in Ul'dah, Limsa shooting itself in the foot with its local beastmen, etc. It's definitely not perfect. And pre SB, there was a certain level of gray morality with the empire.

Where it all falls apart for me is the revelation that Solus was an ascian, the reason for their conquests is all based on a lie, and that best case scenario for the empire if they won would be eventually having the survivors sacrificed to Zodiark along with the rest of sundered life. The conflict is no longer about the the empire enforcing its version of order to prevent primals and Eorzea saying 'no we'd like to keep our freedom and find our own way to handle it.'

There's some gray morality with the ascians themselves now. But that doesn't directly inovlve the empire, that's the question of 'is it worth it to sacrifice current life to bring back those long gone.' The conflict of the empire vs Eorzea, the empire's stance has been defanged. It's all a lie, and if they actually won they'd only be serving another power inadvertantly that's ready to sacrifice them to their god. It's not about politics anymore, but preserving life as we know it.

[Bright-Flower]

It is also worth noting Doma and Ala Mhigo got the short end of the stick for reasons, whereas other provinces saw life go on as before (and I'd imagine, improve in some cases.) In Doma's case for summoning a Primal, in Ala Mhigo's for its generally bellicose attitude, which meant the Empire would really need to crush any potential flames of revolt early on. Although the writers have made it so that the Empire was being led by its nose to serve the Ascian agenda (which in turn has its own underlying logic, also resolving, IMO, to a conflict in POV, i.e. between immortals and mortals who they view as existing at their world and people's expense), Garlemald is far from uniquely bad or oppressive... and a lot of the lead up in SB to ShB made me think they were perpetrating last minute changes on some characters, like Varis and Elidibus, as well as the Empire's raison d'etre, hence the rather forced writing. Like you said, the city-states have their shadier elements too and more often than not use the WoL to do what they can't really accomplish.

Varis, at least up until that parley, was interested in preserving his people above all else, and it does not seem illogical to me to surmise that he was in a situation where to turn on Emet-Selch or Elidibus would simply mean his death, whilst they ploughed on with their plan, since they could simply possess his body if need be. It's a pretty similar position to that which Thordan was in: he had inherited a conflict that had no easy resolutions, being waged under false pretenses but with stakes which were, nonetheless, very high. Only I think Varis was given the full truth in very recent terms, whereas Thordan was probably aware all along. Makes little difference, either way.

I'm just hoping Garlemald will still be salvaged as a city-state after all is said and done, rather than destroyed outright.

I'm hoping 6.0 will handle the empire well. Though part of me worries the msq will largely be us helping the 'good' garlean faction (populares etc) fight the 'warmongering' garleans and there will be as little gray morality as Stormblood. But Shadowbringers was better than I thought it'd be, the lore revelations made the empire less interesting and compelling but made the ascians more so than they had been before, maybe they can manage to pull off the empire plot well. But Zenos being back is not a good omen for me. Really wish he'd stayed dead.

[Melichoir]

I've got a couple thoughts on this, that kinda split apart here, but... I don't see Black Rose on the same level as the kind of warfare Eorzea and Garlemald are usually stuck in the middle of. War is ugly in itself, whether you're shooting someone or blasting them with magical fire. What's horrific about Black Rose, imo, is that it's a large scale aetheric weapon that kills indiscriminately - if it got used on a battlefield, it would kill everyone regardless of what side they're on. I'm not sure how far its effects would go on non-humanoid life without the boost from the rejoining, but it probably still would've been pretty bad for more than just the people. With or without the influx of light from the first, it still had the potential to be devastating, and in the wrong hands, catastrophic even if not on a cataclysmic scale.

As for magical diseases being used in warfare, I definitely don't see how the narrative paints that as anything but horrific. What was done to Sil'dih was monstrous, and what happened in Nym was horrific. The people making decisions in Ul'dah and Mhach of their time were both guilty of committing atrocities. Magic wasn't seen in a good light after what some of those fallen civilizations did for very good reason.

The weapon on paper is very pragmatic. It cant be effectively defended against, covers a wide area at low cost, easy to deploy (relatively) with (supposedly) low risk to the users, and was ultra effective and psychologically horrifying.

Problem ends up that yeah, it really is that horrifying and uncontrollable. Real world reference, its why Bio and Chem Weapons are considered violation of the Geneva Protocols and will land the leader of a country that employs them as a war criminal. Theyre that bad and caustic a weapon that most nations willingly agree to not employ them in conflicts.

Also, I didn't think Garlemald itself actually got invaded - unless I missed that? I thought they were just being pushed back - pushed back from their own invasion, no less.

IIRC, What happened with the Garlean people through out history was essentially they were at a perpetual disadvantage due to their people being unable to use magic. As a result, they had invaders from neighboring countries come in often enough and enslave/displace the garlean people because said invaders could magic BTFO them with impunity. Im not 100% sure about the following, but they did develop magitek as a way to get equal footing, reclaimed their own homelands, then expanded outwards to deal with the primal menace after all that.