A game for 4 year olds

[Kozh]

Again, it's not the same and you're making a false equivalency. Garlemald was destroying lives and cultures on a global scale for no reason. Before now, Eorzea was a backwater fighting regional conflicts between multiple people groups with swords and arrows for 1500 years. Garlemald has been bombing cities from the sky for 60 years to get revenge for something that happened 600 years ago and then expanded beyond that to destroy countries that had nothing to do with them at all.

How is that false equivalency when the core reason of both garlemald conquest and eorzea conquest are the same? Which is expanding their territory. One of the differences is that garlemald conquest was fuelled by survival (and revenge for corvos), while Eorzean city states conquest was fuelled by each thinking their deity is the “right one”, and perhaps for resources too. The Alliance is very recently formed because of Autumn War and later because of the Empire. As for why they didn’t go global scale, it’s not hard to imagine that they’re pretty equal in term of strength hence. Only garlean who was too weak and therefore being pushed back to northern ilsabard.
Do you truly believe that if it was one of the city states who was gifted the power of magitek (or other power equivalent in strength to it), they won’t use it to launch their conquest in global scale?
I very much doubt they use “swords and arrows” only. Even ignoring the use of magic, I’m sure Sil’dih will disagree with you. Also I’m not sure why “swords and arrows” supposed to make it better? War is war.

Going to need a source on this last bit because I don't remember that. In any case, the recent Saints' Wake event had a Gridanian Elezen married to a Moon Keeper Miqo'te. In a world where inter-racial marriages are frowned upon, let alone one between a Wildwood and a Moon Keeper, that's a big deal. But the likely case is that the writers don't care about that plot thread anymore and we won't see racial tensions as much going forward anyway.

It’s from sidequests. Just because they won’t touch it again, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

It would be extremely cheap to the majority of the playerbase who have been around since the very beginning, are deeply engaged with the story, and aren't edgy imperial fans to have Garlemald just say "oops, sorry", put another Galvus on the throne, and keep the empire around.

And do you not think it was extremely cheap that the main Empire, whom we have been fighting against since the beginning, was destroyed of-screen and without our action? Is it not cheap to solve the political problem of ffxiv mainly by having all the opponents died to chaotic forces such as Zenos and Fandaniel? How is the game going “oh look, now the baddies are all gone and their nation wiped. You’re now free to go on new adventures and not think too hard about those guys, congrats ” isn’t cheap? Frankly it’s the same with the Ascian too. This game tends to use the easy way and have our opponents killed instead of living alongside them and having to navigate the conflicts and problems that arise due to that.
I know I’m not the only who think that way, because even Reddit of all places, was baffled as to why the game decided to finish Garlemald that way (back when 5.4 was released).

The empire is gone. Provinces are in open rebellion and the military can't do anything about it. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 10th legions have surrendered in EW and the 10th was supposed to be the last hope for Garlemald so who knows what the state of the others is like. The threat of the military was the only thing that kept the whole engine running and now that's gone and the capital has been destroyed, it's only a matter of time before the rest collapses like dominoes... snip

Yes it does sound bleaks, hence why I was actually discussing garlemald’s rewrite rather than “write garlemald’s future with scraps given by the game”. But anyway, we still have other legions that the game could easily retconned into “well they’re struggling, but still there to protect the capital if needed”. Some people said that there’s no logical way to justify the Empire revival, but imo it’s not impossible. One reason I think that way is because of Final Days and blasphemies. Both happen to everyone, not only to Garlean. They could say that the provinces on Ilsabard was hit hard by blasphemies and so does the rebel army. Now free, those small nations lack military power to properly defend themselves in the case of conflicts. Can also justify it by making those small unnamed nations to be one of the earliest conquered nation of Garlemald, nations with weak military power and facing the same problem as garlemald, which was harsh environment. Therefore they’re also dependent to Garlemald’s economy and technology (magitek and ceruleum)