Something tells me the writers never once considered any of this. In fact there are a bunch of things that were never considered.
Sphene is an AI, right? One that needs to make her people happy? So a seemingly viable way of achiveing this is to simply fix the Alexandrians problems. We have possible solutions on to the source to some of these.
The kid in the room suffering from levin sickness. "Oh this is a terrible sickness with no cure! So many people are suffering from this!" Ima stop you right there Sphene. "Hey, Alisae? We have a kid here with lightning aspected sickness. Do you think a porxie would help? We are at the apartments". But no. I guess we cant make her people happy THAT way because reasons...
Crops are failing? Why dont we strike up some form of trade agreement on the condition of peace? We can deliver goods to them and they can deliver goods to us? They dont even need to reveal their electrope secrets. Maybe we can give them the ole mamool ja treatment and find crops suitable for their lightning aspected environment?
You have Endless (basically vampires!) who need life force to sustain themselves? Why dont we see about whether or not we can just get them new bodies instead? Or perhaps we can just harvest the life force of clones? Its my understanding that the soul and life force are two distinct things. So the Alexandrians need life force? Can we supply it? I hear the Garleans are adept at cloning technologies. Is getting the endless new bodies for use or life force extraction a viable solution?
You're worried about people dying outside of the city? How about you just dont let them go outside into the lightning hellscape anymore? I mean... they could always take a train outside the barrier. I know some people interested in putting train tracks all over the continent!
Im sure I missed a good deal more. It just seems that the writers needed conflict to happen to have some form of dramatic climax.