Quote Originally Posted by No_Nick_Needed View Post
I would not necesssarily say Allag was evil from start to finish, at least not with conviction.
We have heard that they went on a conquering spree under Xande, then declined for centuries and only went back to conquering, when Amon brought Xande back, via cloning. We know next to nothing about those times of not-Xande rule, both before his birth and the in-between period. Maybe the "decline", as seen from Amon's perspective, was them becoming peaceful and giving more rights and privileges to the conquered countries, which the hardliners saw as decadent weakness. Or it could be just a cavalcade of incompetence, with just as much evil intent behind it... we just don't know, but that also means there is plenty of open room for story-telling, if the writers want to explore it.

History does have a tendency to record the wars and catastrophes more than the times of peace and plenty.
There was nothing of Allag before Xande's birth because he was its genesis. As for after Xande, the EE says that the subsequent emperors after his passing continued conquering, it wasn't just Xande who did that. They only stopped when there was nothing left to conquer on the Three Great Continents.

The book goes on to say that after that there was 300 years of peace and prosperity, though we know the empire lasted ~1000 years so only a smaller portion of it was actually peaceful. The empire started to decline after that 300 years. Suicide rates went up, birth rates plummeted, rebellions sprouted where there were bad leaders. And we don't know how good it was for everyone. We already know that the Allagans were prejudiced against Miqo'te and initially kicked them out of Eorzea to Corvos, where they still remain (and before the area had any revealed recorded history of proto-Garleans).

The empire was created and manipulated by the Ascians just like the Garlean Empire, to be lifted up to as great heights as possible, for it to come crashing down with such force that it breaks the world and eats another. Some individuals within the empire may certainly have had good intentions, but the empire as a whole was built for evil purpose and it can't just be pinned on Xande since his descendants perpetuated it, at least for a time.