A few other musings about Garlemald and its defectors:

Theo, I have no idea where your reading of Cid and Lucia comes from, because neither have done anything even close to what you're holding against them (other than defect, I suppose). And I can't believe that you, who are constantly championing muddied morality, would begrudge Eorzea the chance to defend itself, or a man and woman for choosing what they perceive (and the game actively and obviously portrays) as a lesser evil.* Let's look at this, shall we?

Cid has helped us infiltrate Garlean strongholds and taught us how to use their tech against them, yes, but it's not like he handed us a nuke and we proceeded to wipe Garlean cities off the map - literally all he's done is allowed Eorzea to stave off Dalamud and hold its own against an encroaching power that very decidedly does not have local interests at heart. And it's not like he's expressed any particular hatred for or bloodlust against his own people, he just found their zealous military-industrial complex and lust for conquest disagreeable and left it behind, seeking to atone by saving its next target from nothing less than a local apcalypse (!!).

Lucia, meanwhile, is even less deserving of your scorn. Until Heavensward, she was completely uninvolved in the operations against Garlemald, living in an isolationist city-state that went out of its way to stay out of things. Even when the story brings the Empire to her, she does little more than relate anecdotes. She's really more of person who left her home behind because she didn't like the direction it was headed and went to a place with a more agreeable government and culture.**

But even ignoring all that - we haven't actually encountered any Garlean civilians. We've literally only fought against the invading army! Civilians haven't even been a factor! If we break into Ala Mhigo and there are a bunch of civilian casualties and the game doesn't call anybody out on it, we can then have this conversation, but until then it's a completely moot point.

This game and its situations are plenty interesting without all this hyperbolic whitewashing of Garlemald's actions and hyperbolic vilification of Eorzea's.
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*If they're an evil at all. I don't like throwing around terms like evil, even with Garlemald, but it certainly falls much closer on the spectrum than any place in Eorzea does.
** Yes, yes, I know, Ishgard. But she does chill with the significantly more temperate Aymeric.