Quote Originally Posted by Melichoir View Post
Snip.
I'm not saying it's not a realistic approach to reward those that support the new regime. Just that doing this doesn't actually justify said invasion on its own. Maybe down the road we'll get a look into provinces where the people are happy with the empire, but from what's been shown to us directly, the negative seems to greatly outweigh the positive.

I'm not saying the Eorzean Alliance and friends are perfect. There's certainly gray morality on their side. Corruption in Ul'dah, Limsa shooting itself in the foot with its local beastmen, etc. It's definitely not perfect. And pre SB, there was a certain level of gray morality with the empire.

Where it all falls apart for me is the revelation that Solus was an ascian, the reason for their conquests is all based on a lie, and that best case scenario for the empire if they won would be eventually having the survivors sacrificed to Zodiark along with the rest of sundered life. The conflict is no longer about the the empire enforcing its version of order to prevent primals and Eorzea saying 'no we'd like to keep our freedom and find our own way to handle it.'

There's some gray morality with the ascians themselves now. But that doesn't directly inovlve the empire, that's the question of 'is it worth it to sacrifice current life to bring back those long gone.' The conflict of the empire vs Eorzea, the empire's stance has been defanged. It's all a lie, and if they actually won they'd only be serving another power inadvertantly that's ready to sacrifice them to their god. It's not about politics anymore, but preserving life as we know it.