When are we going to infiltrate the Garlean Empire?!

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Even if it is it's not as if Eorzea is a stranger to that sort of mentality. Heck, pretty much every City State thinks way too highly of themselves and if we take PvP into account...they can't even work together sensibly at times. Sharlayan is implied - at least in the AST quests - to be similarly self righteous.

And yet, no single city-state has sought to expand its borders via conquest Just Because (save the Ala Mhigo of a century past, but I'll get to that). Not even Sharlayan, snooty superiority complex or not. That's the major difference. Sure, the others are a petty, squabbling brood, but Garlemald is actively conquering and subjugating and thus makes them a villainous faction that needs to be stopped.

I'm also not entirely sure that life would be much worse under Garlean rule when discrimination, poverty and class warfare plagues...pretty much every corner of Eorzea anyway.

Really? I am. We know exactly what to expect, thanks to Ala Mhigo. See (2) below.

Ala Mhigo would not doubt have continued to try and take over Eorzea if not for Garlemald's intervention.

(1) The Autumn War was a century ago. All evidence I've seen points to Ala Mhigo more or less keeping to themselves ever since.

(2) Look, I don't think Ala Mhigo sounds like it was an especially brilliant place pre-Gaius, but things aren't exactly GOOD under Garlean rule either (forced conscription, routine murder exercises to keep people in line, second-and-lower-class-citizens, etc). Plus it's the foothold of an expansionist-for-expansionism's-sake empire. Whatever Ala Mhigo was, its liberation is a necessary step in culling the ambitions of the Garleans. We can discuss their former Mad King or whatever when the time comes.

Garlemald has committed atrocities, yes, but it's a recent affair. Ishgard has been doing it for a thousand years - yet stands to be forgiven despite that.

Nothing that Ishgard has done has been on the scale of the Garlean expansion. Nothing. Yes, religious fanaticism played out there much like it did in real life; yes, what the first Thordan did was unquestionably an act of war; yes, Ishgardian leadership deliberately perpetrated a false historical narrative that led to the suffering of its own citizens (and plenty of Dravanians besides). However, Niddhog's own crusade against Ishgard is as much to blame (what, you think the state of war could have been sustained for a thousand years if he had not sought to prolong it?), many of the perpetrators of the Ishgardian atrocities are dead and gone, and motions are being made to forgive and move forward.

And speaking of that - factions of both sides are ready to unconditionally lay down the sword and just let it end. Call me when Garlemald is ready to unconditionally pull out and leave.

Look, if you can provide a reason (beyond keeping that war economy a-rollin') for Garlemald's expansion, I'll gain some sympathy to their aims; if you can show an example of one thing (beyond themselves) that they've left better than they found it, I'll join your chorus now. But there isn't one. They've left everything worse off in a campaign that is purely selfish - and, by the way, that's not bad/morally simplistic writing, that's incredibly true to life. Expansionist empires just don't tend to leave the areas they conquer better off for those who live there. We've seen this countless times across history.