Does Garlemald have enough for full out war?

[NoblePigeon]

It's just one of the many reasons as to why I loathe Cid.

You loathe Cid because he didn't want to work with a regime that thinks its okay to drop moons onto continents to reduce them to molten slag (and yes, I'm aware some people opposed it. The Empire's government then, as a whole did not)? Or used another weapon of mass destruction to try subjugating it, and uses magitek technology only to benefit themselves and their core population, ruthlessly mow down nations that have the nerve to oppose them, and, as we've seen on the Prima Vista, suppress any criticism of their rule?

We've never seen the exact circumstances of him leaving, and we don't know if it's something or the other defectors that went with him was something they took lightly. Maybe they do have some guilt. But you're going to be hard pressed to find crippling, overwhelming guilt to not wanting to serve such a jingoistic regime.

Pinning the deaths of Imperial soldiers on Cid is kind of silly, given that it was the Empire that's sending out these (mostly non-pureblood) soldiers on dreams of conquests of faraway lands.

Yes, you can find nuance in Garlemald's people, and I'm absolutely confident that SE is going to show those, as we've seen in the recent MSQ and Prima Vista. But finding nuance in the leadership that rules over Garlemald is going to be much harder, and that's an important distinction to make. There's not a lot of shades of grey you can make from a regime willing to use brute force and intimidation to achieve deluded goals of world domination. Goals that came well before the Empire became aware of the primals, so the idea that they're trying to unify the world against the primal threat is blatant propaganda.

I'd always be interested in a character that's similar to Regula, and it's a damn shame he died. But unless this character is genuinely interested in reform and does not think its okay to go on a national policy of "join us or die", they are without a doubt going to be relegated to status of a villain, and rightfully so.

[Theodric]

I don't think it's a lack of creativity on the part of the developers. A lot of the game's lore is very well written - it just tends to be the case where the better, more in-depth stuff is hidden away in side quests or the lore book and never ends up being showcased in-game in a way that is truly effective. The Warriors of Darkness and Regula van Hydrus are prime examples. Their motivations were sound and they proved to be very nuanced. Yet when their depth was shown they were immediately killed off and then never mentioned again.

As for the Warrior of Light being clad in plot armour. It's unfortunate - especially since that plot armour now extends to their allies, too. Even minor characters are seemingly safe from harm whenever he is around bar some increasingly rare exceptions. Yet I suppose my biggest concern is that Garlemald is shown to do things that are counterproductive to their own health and suffer the consequences as a result...yet characters such as Lyse do stuff ridiculously stupid like inviting Tempered Beastmen into the heart of their city and manage to escape without meaningful losses or criticism.

You would think that the militarily advanced country would be able to a least win some battles in the game or treat their situation with the gravity that, say, an actual country would with armies encroaching in on them. At this point Alphinaud’s worries seem to be all bluster, and we’ll be at their gates in no time at all with every advantage and ally at our backs, because that’s how war works in jrpg land.

If nothing else, I'd buy Garlemald being weakened if Eorzea was shown to be weakened as well - to a much greater extent. Yet much like Blizzard's beloved Horde, Eorzea conveniently churns out new soldiers and adventurers as needed despite the countless threats that have popped up in recent years that have supposedly been decimating Eorzea. As for JRPG's, there's been quite a few that have thankfully handled war tastefully and realistically.

[Lauront]

Agreed. I meant whoever is driving the stuff making it into the MSQ, not so much the overall body of lore of the game.

[Jonnycbad]

I think Garlemald is actually a smallish nation. Their military is large because conscript other conquered countries' people into their military but there are actually very few full-blooded Garleans in their military btw, mostly officers. Garleans aren't typically great fighters because they can't manipulate aether or use magic to their advantage, limiting them to mostly gunners and armored warriors who use magitek.

[ObsidianFire]

There's also the problem that lots of people skip the MSQ because they're mostly here for the gameplay. Whatever story is told in the MSQ has to be fairly easy to grasp so that when the next major expansion comes around, those people aren't completely lost as to where the broad story is going next. The important part is that the subtle stuff is in the game someplace (as opposed to not being there at all) and the people who are interested in lore are rewarded for taking their time and looking for it.

[VargasVermillion]

The estinian scenario was especially silly when he wasn't even dodging, just standing there doing nothing. Cid i feel had potential to be a great character but his demeanor towards his former nation makes no sense, I believe he mentioned in the ivalice questline that he "doesn't let the love for his nation blind him to the faults" see that right there would make for a good thing to explore and the duality of doing 'whats right' even though most of his own people are against him. There definitely would be some racism towards garleans on the eorzea side because that would make sense but cid is just there, no conflict from anyone and he doesn't even feel slightly guilty at the idea of abandoning his home land and even if he didn't that part of his character isn't explored either, he's an unnatural character to me, more of a plot device.

[ObsidianFire]

The estinian scenario was especially silly when he wasn't even dodging, just standing there doing nothing. Cid i feel had potential to be a great character but his demeanor towards his former nation makes no sense, I believe he mentioned in the ivalice questline that he "doesn't let the love for his nation blind him to the faults" see that right there would make for a good thing to explore and the duality of doing 'whats right' even though most of his own people are against him. There definitely would be some racism towards garleans on the eorzea side because that would make sense but cid is just there, no conflict from anyone and he doesn't even feel slightly guilty at the idea of abandoning his home land and even if he didn't that part of his character isn't explored either, he's an unnatural character to me, more of a plot device.

Cid's characterization makes way more sense if you see his cutscenes in 1.0. Pretty much everything you just described is part of his character arc there. For better or worse, almost none of that gets brought up in ARR and forward. Well... some of it is in the Pratorium cutscenes, but those are almost always skipped over by people...

The thing with Cid is that he got a front-row seat into how bad messing with technology can go. His dad, Midas nan Garlond all but abandoned him to work on the Meteor Project which ended with Dalamud nuking Midas and the entire Garlean city of Bozja from orbit. That woke him up to the reality of his situation in Garlemald and he decided he didn't want to keep developing magitek that was only used for war. His goal since then has been to prevent what could be the next Bozja incident which is why he keeps sealing powerful technology away. He's essentially a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project, saw the atomic bomb dropped, was horrified about the whole thing and then wasn't able to stop it from happening again. I wouldn't be surprised if he was blaming himself for not being able to halt the 7th Umbral Calamity and he's been trying to make up for that along with everything else.

[Theodric]

WoW is a pretty dated game yet made effective use of phasing technology. Even without it, though, we don't need to see entire settlements and cities wiped off of the map. We just need to see consistency and less nonsense like Estinien dodging bullets from countless soldiers whilst standing still and disabling a cannon. By all means, he should have destroyed the canon - but since he only showed up as a cameo in the first place he might as well have been injured to better justify him wandering off again. That way Estinien would have had his moment of glory and Garlemald wouldn't be shown to be a hollow threat.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I also think that too much is being made of Cid "selling secrets."

There are basically two ways that we can interpret Magitek: (a) that it's monumentally powerful, and depicting the advantage given to Garlemald by possessing it simply isn't being "allowed" for story purposes; or (b) that it's not nearly as much an advantage as one might assume and that Garlemald, for all its bluster, owes much of its dominance to cleverly taking advantage of circumstance rather than sheer brute force.

At this point, I think there's more evidence for (b); at any rate, as the game goes on, (a) has ended up creating a serious level of dissonance with itself and what we see onscreen. The truth could obviously lie somewhere in between - for instance, that the world was conceived with the idea that Garlemald's Magitek makes them an Empire of such might that the whole of Eorzea would struggle with a single legion, but as the story went on this was quietly retconned as it became more convenient for them to be something of a paper tiger - but it's ultimately sort of moot.

The reason I mention Cid is because...well, what exactly has his introduction of Magitek done for Eorzea that could be considered harmful to Garlemald? Certainly, there are a number of small conveniences, and it seems to benefit airship technology in particular, but in a military sense? Remember, we actually see Black Magic totaling a Reaper, and it's not like we need Magitek to beat Magitek in any of the Garlean dungeons or encounters. There's actually not a whole lot of evidence that Cid has been providing the sort of technology that could hurt those he cares about back in Garlemald, and if we take Magitek as more of an alternative to the magics employed by the rest of Hydaelyn rather than the sole secret to Garlean dominance, his decision to leave his fatherland behind to escape its narrow application for technology that he loves becomes far less of a sin.

[CaesarCV]

One of the interesting aspects regarding the Garlond Ironworks in Eorzea is actually that they're fairly limited in what they can do. Since they're bereft of the sort of large magitek manufacturing equipment and facilities common in Garlemald, they have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to replicate Magitek with the fairly limited technology of Eorzea. That's part of why Eorzean airships tend to rely on wood and sails rather than the steel, ceruleum spewing engines of Garlean airships. And to be fair, Cid isn't there to provide a 'fighting chance' to Eorzea. His goal is to promote much more peaceful uses of the technology. He's a deliberate counter to people such as Nael, who utilize technology and knowledge recklessly or for the pursuit of power.