A few thoughts about the Federation

[TheHeavenAbyss]

EDIT: I meant Confederacy, not Federation lol

While I enjoyed the story of Stormblood in general, there is a thing that irks me a bit. When we go to Kugane and talk about crossing the Ruby Sea, we are told about the Confederacy, a group of pirates/bandits that tell any ship crossing their waters to pay them a certain price so that they have their safety "garanteed". As in: "pay us, or we'll take your stuff".

Then, when we go there, there's a part where an imperial boat tries to cross and we see the Confederacy asking them to pay the Ruby Tithe. The imperial soldier basically tells them to f*ck off, saying that, if the Federation tries anything against them, the Empire will crush them. The way the scene plays, it's almost like we're supposed to sympathise with the Confederacy. They even talk about how the Empire is ruining their way of life at some point, if I recall correctly.

Now, the Empire has done some really bad stuff, but in this case, I think they're absolutely right in standing up to bandits. These guys are pirates that threathen people who cross the sea into paying their price. Now, I don't have a problem with working together with pirates to destroy the Empire (especially the Confederacy, since it's clear that, as pirates go, they're not the worst), because they have their own interest in ending the imperial influence in that region, but I really don't feel sorry for them.

If the waters were oficially recognized as their territory, then they would have every right to ask people to pay them to cross, but if that were the case, they wouldn't really be pirates, would they?

I'm not a lore expert, but is there anything more to this that I'm not taking into account? Or was it just me that saw that scene as trying to make us feel sorry for the Confederacy?