Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
I could see that happening and it reminds me of a particular plot point in FF7. Shinra were antagonists for much of the game's vast plot and despite the organisations Mako Reactors literally bleeding the planet of vital energy it was a Shinra weapon that proved powerful enough to breach the barrier blocking access to Sephiroth's lair. In short, without Shinra the main party and everybody on the planet would have been screwed. Interestingly enough once Sephiroth was defeated Advent Children and other 'expanded universe' content pretty much had Shinra turn itself around and become something of a 'protector of the planet' - mostly because it was the wise and pragmatic approach from a business perspective.

So I'm hoping we'll see similar scenarios play out where Garlemald is concerned - they've got access to some very powerful technology after all and it'd be pretty cool to see it in action and used to destroy something that is a threat to both Garlemald and the Warrior of Light. We sort of saw this already when Gaius used Ultima to consume Garuda, Ifrit and Titan. Though the reasoning wasn't exactly pure.
I don't know if I would use Shinra as an example as most of the things they helped with only happened largely because of Shinra's actions in the first place. It is fair to say Shinra had eventually turned itself around by Advent Children but it was a long path to get there and they fell along way and were pretty humbled before they turned around. I would also argue that Ultima isn't a great example either since it was reckless use of technology not fully understood that blew up in Garlemald's face and if anything we have seen has told us is that trapping Primals isn't necessarily a good fix and can be potentially catastrophic. One of Garlemald's biggest vices is recklessly messing with tech they don't understand or underestimate the risks of in the pursuit of power. Its that error which has lead to many of Garlemald's biggest disasters, including causing the 7th calamity.

I point to Ishgard as a parallel. Ishgard is a powerful military nation with a number of strong disciplines and has much about it worth saving. But there has been and to some extent still is a lot of bad stuff too which has dictated much of Ishgardian policy. Frankly Garlemald might end up requiring a political shift on the same scale. I'm not saying defanging Garlemald as much or turning them all into hippies but making them more moderate and less focused on conquest and domination.