Revelations from NA Fan Fest (July 2023)

[Rannie]

Having anything with them further down the line would be better but i still prefer to be away from them for a while if anything. Ive dealt and heard about them since 1.0. For dawntrail give me something different.

[Cleretic]

There's also a decent amount of Garlean role-players who are quite eager to see where the nation goes next, particularly in terms of reconstruction efforts.

Agreed, Garlean Likers deserve better than to have their storyline regress into 'obvious totalitarian and imperialist bad guys' that they'd basically be forced into being by having a Legion crammed into Dawntrail.

I think that's why the Garlean restoration storyline is both A: inevitable (albeit maybe not immediate) and B: evidently fairly popular, even among people who aren't Garlean Likers; it gives them a new state to exist in, a new story to be part of. I wouldn't be surprised if Dawntrail gives them a break entirely, though: we literally haven't had an expansion without at least one major Garlean component in the MSQ, and it's only with Endwalker that we've managed to have an expansion where they aren't a big part of at least one major patch sideplot.

The Garleans deserve something new... but we also deserve a break from the Garleans. Realistically, Dawntrail is going to give us one of those, we just don't yet know for sure what. Throwing a legion into Tural, however, is providing neither.

Garlean Likers can handle having an expansion of radio silence if that's what happens; if they need a lesson in what it's like to not have their pet setting element be a major part of an expansion, I'm sure the Gelmorra Likers can provide them some advice.

[Lyth]

Garlean reconstruction project? I'm sure that's something that could be put together as part of a crafting and gathering event on the side, at any time over the next couple of expansions. Perhaps this will end up resulting in some apartment buildings and houses in the area, or maybe even set the stage for a transcontinental railroad for when we eventually get around to exploring the rest of Ilsabard. I'm sure if we were to plead the financial case nicely to Tataru, she could consider putting it in the books.

The point that the community here was making is that this new MSQ storyline deserves the opportunity to be explored and expanded on as its own individual concept, and be unfettered to the previous storyline as much as possible.

[Denishia]

A Custom Delivery NPC or a small scale Doman Restoration-style instanced area for the Garleans is inevitable with fan demand, but the second option is doubtful to be in Dawntrail and very likely for 8.0. Which is good, because more legwork on how the Garleans undo the bulldozing damage of the Galvus rule and no longer trying to conquer their neighbors is always welcome. Personally the Garleans themselves, at least the imperial version, holds little interest, but Lapis Manalis was great for the Reaper lore and to have another glimpse into their Repulbic Era. Then we have Elban, the kingdom in this region before the Garleans immigrated (Edge is Russian, and that amuses me), and all the other kingdoms and tribes of Northern Ilsabard that only get their chance to be explored if the Garlemald isn't completely abandoned. I'd want Crystarium and Thavnairan housing wards first, and I think either of those and one in Yok Tural is far more likely to happen before anything in Ilsabard, and I'll be bitter that Ala Mhigo gets dust in comparison. But right now I'm on Custom Delivery 7.0 Jullus watch.

But chances of substantial story in Ilsabard diminish in value if the Garleans are shoehorned where they don't make sense into Dawntrail's Tural setting. Imperial legions trying to colonize a part of Tural is a regression of the Garlean story back to their ARR-SB era plotlines. It steals room for new antagonists to carry the story on into the next ten years and stunts and pigeon-holes the Garleans.

If there's to be any invaders coming from another continent, the pairing that would be fresh and open up the plot in unexpected ways would be between Tural and Meracydia - which is the way to shoehorn in Meracydia if we get another SB situation. Since we know next to nothing about current Meracydia and little about Tural, there's nothing stopping either place from not just contact but conflict. And that it could be in either direction.

[WhiteArchmage]

The Spanish pulled off the same thing when they conquered the New World.

This... uh... irks me, because the Spaniards had the full support from Spain who wanted to colonize as much of the New World as possible, since the rest of Europe had already taken control of Africa and controlled traffic to Asia; the equivalent in XIV would be if Garlemald was sending at least half of its resources to the legion in Tural just because, while they're still dealing with rebellions and war in the Three Great Continents. I don't think Emet would have particularly cared since there were much higher chances to sow chaos much closer to home.

Also, Cortez was greatly aided by enlisting other native tribes (primarily the Tlaxcaltecs) and had been friendly with the Aztecs prior, having Malintzin be his slave/wife/translator, which also let him gather intel and try diplomacy with said other tribes until he stabbed them in the back once Spain had its foot in the continent.

Considering Garlemald's "that's as far as you go, savage" approach to other people... I don't think they'd be able to conquer much except perhaps an outpost somewhere if they're purebloods, and my money's on the legion NOT being primarily purebloods and them ending up absorbed into local tribes.

[MikkoAkure]

This... uh... irks me, because the Spaniards had the full support from Spain who wanted to colonize as much of the New World as possible, since the rest of Europe had already taken control of Africa and controlled traffic to Asia; the equivalent in XIV would be if Garlemald was sending at least half of its resources to the legion in Tural just because, while they're still dealing with rebellions and war in the Three Great Continents. I don't think Emet would have particularly cared since there were much higher chances to sow chaos much closer to home.

Also, Cortez was greatly aided by enlisting other native tribes (primarily the Tlaxcaltecs) and had been friendly with the Aztecs prior, having Malintzin be his slave/wife/translator, which also let him gather intel and try diplomacy with said other tribes until he stabbed them in the back once Spain had its foot in the continent.

Veering way off topic but while the rest of the Americas were conquered with full Spanish support, the Aztecs were initially conquered without support from Spain or even the Spanish colony of Cuba. It was a lot of circumstance, local resentment of the Aztecs, and smallpox. Cortes' own superiors tried to drag him back to Cuba for insubordination.

I agree that there's no point at all for Garlemald being there. My comment before was that if it was, there's precedence for them being able to do typical Garlemald things despite being so far away. Gaius showed that a whole legion can be self-sufficient behind enemy lines and Garlemald is also centuries ahead of every single nation in the world in technology. They have machine guns, gigantic airships, mecha, biological weapons, and their people drove around in cars and lived and worked in sky scrapers in a world where all but a couple other nations are still fielding knights and archers.

[thegreatonemal]

To be fair, I think we will – and story-wise need to – hear more of Garlemald and the Garleans as they adapt to their new situation and hopefully recover and come to be on better terms with the other nations.

What we don't need is more imperialistic "Garlean legion as enemy force" Garleans, besides possibly furthering/resolving the plot that seems incomplete following Save the Queen. But that's on the other side of the world from where we're going this time, unless they've planned some elaborate new MSQ integration with the new Gabranthian Empire invading Tural from the west or something... but really, even if they were going to pull something like that, it would be better saved for an expansion or two down the track, and a different location. Perhaps it will be when we finally see more of Ilsabard. I don't think we can really go exploring there without coming up against Gabranth's remaining forces somewhere along the line.

But for Dawntrail, in this new and unfamiliar setting, give us a new and entirely different type of antagonist please – even if the writers feel they need a new "evil empire" to crop up later.

We're already getting that in bits and pieces now though. I'd be far more interested in the places they occupied now going back to their ways of life after 50 years of oppression. We already know where the Garleans go from here. Rebuilding and bringing magitek, not the military applications of it to the world. I'm just rather tired about hearing about the oppressors so much, they can sit and wait a bit while we do stuff across the pond.

[Denishia]

We're already getting that in bits and pieces now though. I'd be far more interested in the places they occupied now going back to their ways of life after 50 years of oppression. We already know where the Garleans go from here. Rebuilding and bringing magitek, not the military applications of it to the world. I'm just rather tired about hearing about the oppressors so much, they can sit and wait a bit while we do stuff across the pond.

THIS. If nothing else, can the NPCs in Trapper's Den not be brushed aside if we never get the rest of Northern Ilsabard?

And that their cerulean-based magitek wasn't making all the other magic-based tech obsolete but fixing a handicap. The conquest of Ala Mhigo only worked because the country was recently destabilized by a revolution which the Garleans aided to take advantage of the timely weakness. The Garleans doing a lightning fast conquest a la Cortez already happened - 50 years ago in Ilsabard and Othard.

They and the Allagans don't have to be the only "advanced" empire with more-or-less mechanical themed enemies to clutter a dungeon with, whether or not they show up in Tural or not. Considering we've used up most of the good magitek designs from previous FF games (both walkers from VI, the various XII armor and airships, XIII mobs), we either get more from XIII or they start pulling from X. Or, hey, brand-new enemy that isn't 'Imperial Rome with borrowed FF magitek designs'. There's cerulean in Tural- let's see a culture that uses it for magic with crystals instead of just as glowing gasoline.

[Cleretic]

We're already getting that in bits and pieces now though. I'd be far more interested in the places they occupied now going back to their ways of life after 50 years of oppression. We already know where the Garleans go from here. Rebuilding and bringing magitek, not the military applications of it to the world. I'm just rather tired about hearing about the oppressors so much, they can sit and wait a bit while we do stuff across the pond.

Yeah, this is an unfortunate consequence of how FFXIV's been writing its story: it clearly has a lot of sympathy for its oppressed and victims, but the fact that it's had two major villain groups that mainly aim towards total domination and destruction of their opposition--and have succeeded in doing that several times--means that those oppressed voices often get left out of that narrative. If I'm being kind, I feel like people who want to explore Ilsabard to see the remnants of the Empire aren't doing that because they care about the Empire, but because 'the Empire' is the only noun we've got for the area, and if we learned that there was a population in Ilsabard composed entirely out of clones of U.S. President James Buchanan they would instead be clamoring for us to visit the Buchanans, because we all immediately know they're the ones with the more compelling and sympathetic story.

As an aside, I suspect this is also a secret sauce for why Emet-Selch worked so well: his story let them take one of those villain groups based on total domination and destruction and write them with that sympathy for the victim, without taking away that villainous role, so they get to have their cake and eat it too. And they never have to think about the Ascians' victims in this whole equation, because they killed all the people in Skalla, so they don't have a voice in the discussion anyway.

But the truth is, FFXIV doesn't need that problem to exist anymore. The villain groups that created the problem of 'we want to be sympathetic towards victims, but the villains kept completely destroying their victims' are gone now. There's no need to reinvent or reintroduce this problem, we can just have villains who don't commit total genocide before we have the chance to meet their targets!

[thegreatonemal]

Yeah, this is an unfortunate consequence of how FFXIV's been writing its story: it clearly has a lot of sympathy for its oppressed and victims, but the fact that it's had two major villain groups that mainly aim towards total domination and destruction of their opposition--and have succeeded in doing that several times--means that those oppressed voices often get left out of that narrative. If I'm being kind, I feel like people who want to explore Ilsabard to see the remnants of the Empire aren't doing that because they care about the Empire, but because 'the Empire' is the only noun we've got for the area, and if we learned that there was a population in Ilsabard composed entirely out of clones of U.S. President James Buchanan they would instead be clamoring for us to visit the Buchanans, because we all immediately know they're the ones with the more compelling and sympathetic story.

As an aside, I suspect this is also a secret sauce for why Emet-Selch worked so well: his story let them take one of those villain groups based on total domination and destruction and write them with that sympathy for the victim, without taking away that villainous role, so they get to have their cake and eat it too. And they never have to think about the Ascians' victims in this whole equation, because they killed all the people in Skalla, so they don't have a voice in the discussion anyway.

But the truth is, FFXIV doesn't need that problem to exist anymore. The villain groups that created the problem of 'we want to be sympathetic towards victims, but the villains kept completely destroying their victims' are gone now. There's no need to reinvent or reintroduce this problem, we can just have villains who don't commit total genocide before we have the chance to meet their targets!

I sadly see all that. Its gotten so bad that loads of people really try to heap all the garlean racism unto Emet manipulating them. Already got people clamoring for a garlean rebuild while we still can't access Ala Mhigo fully. Even the devs are like "We can fully explore all the city states!" Nah, finish the job Yoshi P