Quote Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams View Post
There is no nation in FFXIV's world that is wholly good or bad. The Garleans are not the only nation that wanted to expand and conquer other territories. Given that they are the only race that is incapable of wielding magic in a world where everyone else can, there's something to be said about the severity of the situation they found themselves in. They viewed their military strategy as one that was crucial to their survival. It was a predator/prey situation and they stopped being prey and chose to fight back.

There were noble souls among them as well as evil ones. The same can be said about all other nations. If 1 or 2 bad apples isn't enough to spoil the other nations, then logically the same must hold for Garlemald. Gridania is arguably a more disturbing nation than Garlemald because over there it's up to the will of spirits whether you get to live there or not, and whether or not any one of those conjurers will bother to heal you. At least in Garlemald they offered people a standard path towards citizenship and you can just go and buy medicine from a store.
Condemning Garlemald's wars of aggression and expansion does not mean you have to support the expansionist policies of other nations in the setting, you could in fact - condemn all of them.

Nothing about thier situation necessitated turning into an imperialist state because we already know they existed as a peaceful republic for generations.