Tales from the Dawn #4: "A Question of Death" (Jullus)

[KariTheFox]

Once again, it doesn't really make sense for resource poor and inhospitable Garlean Republic to be the target of constant aggression and taking of resources. It'd cost more in resources to send an army up there than could possibly be extracted (this is before the advent of the magitek revolution, so cerulean stores are not factor.)

Oppurtunistic raiders and bandits, attacking farmland and other small villages because the Republic can't secure its borders? Sure, but I just can't imagine them being under attack by other standing militaries, it's just not economical.

[Theodric]

Once again, it doesn't really make sense for resource poor and inhospitable Garlean Republic to be the target of constant aggression and taking of resources. It'd cost more in resources to send an army up there than could possibly be extracted (this is before the advent of the magitek revolution, so cerulean stores are not factor.)

Oppurtunistic raiders and bandits, attacking farmland and other small villages because the Republic can't secure its borders? Sure, but I just can't imagine them being under attack by other standing militaries, it's just not economical.

Again, Quintus explains the Garlean plight at length during the MSQ's:



Combined with the lore book entry, which reveals that the Garleans were reduced to living in conditions that almost caused them to go extinct it's really not a stretch to believe they were continually persecuted.

Here's a snippet from the entry in question:



If not for the presence of ceruleum, they would have perished - and given how they were treated, they were never under any obligation to priortise the needs or wants of outsiders.

Add in the presence of Ascians manipulating them to further their own ends and the situation is even bleaker.

...and again, had they been able to lean on a 'Warrior of Light' to solve all their problems then their hands would never be bloodied in the same way. Equally, if the Eorzeans did not have a 'Warrior of Light' then they, too, would have resorted to ever increasingly drastic measures in order to perpetuate the continued survival of their loved ones.

Even Alphinaud in the screenshot above does not deny that such things are a 'necessity' at times.

[KariTheFox]

The quote from Quintus only makes my point for me, why would another nation send a military to Garlemald to extract "paltry scraps" from them. Armies need to eat and use a lot of resources travelling, and securing supply lines into Garlemald would be particuarly difficult without magitek.

It seems likely that Quintus is referring to small scale raiders from the north, stealing from villages and farmlands oppurtunistically over the years, and extrapolated this out to propagandized paranoia and mistrust of all foreigners.

And the lorebook entry says thier populatiom was low because of the harsh conditions and difficulty of food production - nothing about being continually persecuted.

[Theodric]

The quote from Quintus only makes my point for me, why would another nation send a military to Garlemald to extract "paltry scraps" from them. Armies need to eat and use a lot of resources travelling, and securing supply lines into Garlemald would be particuarly difficult without magitek.

It seems likely that Quintus is referring to small scale raiders from the north, stealing from villages and farmlands oppurtunistically over the years, and extrapolated this out to propagandized paranoia and mistrust of all foreigners.

...?

That isn't what the lore is stating at all, though I suppose this is a good point to simply agree to disagree. It's also not 'propaganda' if, for almost eight hundred years, one's people are at risk of freezing to death and nearly dying out due to low population numbers after being cast out of fertile territory where they could happily work the land and reap a bountiful harvest through honest means.

There's also this, again from the lore book, detailing raids on the capital from the north:

[KariTheFox]

You'll notice the last recorded raid on the capital was in 937 (by nomadic raiders, I might add, like I had been saying), and the magitech revolution in 1513.

That is a period of over 500 years where the Garleans were apparently constantly on the brink of death and starvation - but could also field a standing military and be involved in numerous conflicts. Something isn't adding up.

[Theodric]

You'll notice the last recorded raid on the capital was in 937 (by nomadic raiders, I might add, like I had been saying), and the magitech revolution in 1513.

That is a period of over 500 years where the Garleans were apparently constantly on the brink of death and starvation - but could also field a standing military and be involved in numerous conflicts. Something isn't adding up.

I'm really not sure what, exactly, you're struggling to grasp. Garlemald is repeatedly described as an inhospitable wasteland. It's cold. Even colder than Coerthas after freezing over in the aftermath of the Calamity. There are a great many references to the fact that the Garleans have been forced on the defensive at every turn both before and after becoming an Empire. They're not obligated to roll over and allow themselves to be wiped out - and their distrust of outsiders is completely understandable given all they've been through across multiple generations.



The Ishgardians were locked in a bitter war with the Dravanians over the course of a thousand years so I'm wondering why it's apparently such a stretch to accept that the displaced Garleans were locked in similar bitter struggles after already being actively persecuted...?

[Cleretic]

I'm really not sure what, exactly, you're struggling to grasp. Garlemald is repeatedly described as an inhospitable wasteland. It's cold. Even colder than Coerthas after freezing over in the aftermath of the Calamity. There are a great many references to the fact that the Garleans have been forced on the defensive at every turn both before and after becoming an Empire. They're not obligated to roll over and allow themselves to be wiped out - and their distrust of outsiders is completely understandable given all they've been through across multiple generations.



The Ishgardians were locked in a bitter war with the Dravanians over the course of a thousand years so I'm wondering why it's apparently such a stretch to accept that the displaced Garleans were locked in similar bitter struggles after already being actively persecuted...?

What Kari's saying (and something that isn't refuted by any of your choices of quote) is that while Garlemald has absolutely been pushed to the barest edgest of habitability, it just doesn't square that they were actually at constant war after that point. They end up in present-day Garlemald sometime around six hundred years before the game's present day (by nomadic raiders rather than outright organized armies), and it's definitely been an existential fight to live there for them, but there is no actual evidence that there was a literal fight to live. The only thing that comes close is Quintus, and Quintus isn't exactly citing sources; seriously, we went there, what was even there to fight them over aside from ceruleum that people didn't even have use for for most of that time? I assume it's combustive, sure, but... so is fire magic, and everyone else had that. Without magitek that wasn't rediscovered yet (remember that Allag was mostly a curio until Solus dug up their stuff and the Seventh Calamity blew some holes in Eorzea), would that have been worth going all that way for?

The Garlean cultural identity is absolutely one of a cornered dog forced to get violent, and nobody is arguing that such an outlook wasn't historically justified, but it's just that: historically justified. The Ishgardians and Dravanians were confirmably at war for a thousand years, we have proof, but Garlemald at constant war over a little over half that same period? There's not actual evidence for it, and there's not much logical explanation for why they would've been; only the rhetorical allegations of an old man desperate to win an argument after he'd lost everything else.

You ever find evidence of the Garleans at brutal war with Corvosians in the 1200s 6AA I'll be happy to believe it, it's not even the longest war in the game's history, but as it stands that evidence just doesn't exist.