Why was Sharlayan abandoned?

[Lihtleita]

once the garlean empire tried to invade eorzea (battle of silvertear skies + the fall of ala mhigo) they got scared and ran

edit: i know they did this to preserve "neutrality" but i still think theyre cowards

[Cleretic]

once the garlean empire tried to invade eorzea (battle of silvertear skies + the fall of ala mhigo) they got scared and ran

edit: i know they did this to preserve "neutrality" but i still think theyre cowards

I'm someone who really like a 'no hidden motives, just raw politics' angle every so often (especially in a setting where sometimes things are secretly weirder than that, it's nice to get confirmation it doesn't always turn out that way), so I honestly really want to just find out that it turns out that Sharlayan are just cowards who 'remain neutral' by running away from conflict.

[Stepjam]

I'm someone who really like a 'no hidden motives, just raw politics' angle every so often (especially in a setting where sometimes things are secretly weirder than that, it's nice to get confirmation it doesn't always turn out that way), so I honestly really want to just find out that it turns out that Sharlayan are just cowards who 'remain neutral' by running away from conflict.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a purely political move. They are currently willing to let the rest of the world burn to stay neutral, so I'm not surprised that they'd retreat from Eorzea to avoid war (even though ironically Ishgard was largely untouched by the Eorzean/Garlean war).