Would you have chosen a starting area where you could join the Empire?

[KariTheFox]

Again, I'm not really on board with a Garlean start on any level, but with the story start we have it's actually not an especially feasible framework for a fresh Garlean refugee. You'd have to put in a fair bit more legwork to plausibly get a Garlean character to the same place as everyone else.

In order to squeeze what you'd need into the first 15 levels, you'd either end up with something incredibly rushed feeling that moves at a breakneck pace - and not in a good way imo. OR... an incredibly long and indepth questline that would be far and away better than any other starting experience, a huge expenditure of writing and assets for something that ultimately is just going to fold back into the MSQ anyway. I'd prefer the developers spend that time and energy on something else.