Building a better Alphinaud

[JisKing98]

Naw id rather he just die. Keep his sister though cause shes fine as is.

[Graeham]

I agree with lackluster story writers guild thread but it is not possible to rebuild Alphanaud.

The better story is this. Fourchanalt tells the twins from Sage health knowledge that the Scions eat too much cholesterol and is bad for life. But they ignore this and eat one last burger and die. This makes more drama in storyline because surprise character deaths mean that anyone can die at any moment. After sad scenes, Jullus meets with his twin sister Jullia and explain that they are replacing the twins. This will set up next expansion New Garlemald City starting area where you can join the Garlemald team as Imperial Agent, and new World pvp system where you can pk the Alliance players to permanently remove the souls from the game. This is to collect the Azem pieces to help bring next great rejoining. If you collect all the soul then King Solus will become your friend in Ancient afterlife.

[Slatersev]

If you're talking about democratization, then that usually doesn't have anything to do with the Scions or what views they might have. Usually, all the Scions do is eliminate the local dictator and then, the people themselves are the ones who decide how they want to rebuild.

I'd also argue that such a change doesn't really have anything to do with the settings' uniqueness, either. Because if the complaint is that monarchies are all being turned into democracies and that makes them less unique, then that kind of implies that it's gone form one commonality to a different one.

It's also not even really true. When it comes to nations in FFXIV that have been liberated from oppressor's, only some of them have chosen to become Democracies.

Ishgard ditched Theocracy for a Parliament system where the nobles still make up half the government. Ala Mihgo hated being a monarchy even before Garlemald invaded because there king was an insane asshole. Bozja ditched a corrupt Monarchy for a Democracy.

But on the other hand Doma was restored back to the Monarchy it had been before it was invaded. Same with Dalmasca.

So when it comes to ex Garlemald provinces involved in the story, half decided to try something new, half went back to there original system because they were happy with it.

And in all 5 cases the Scions didn't really force any form of government on them. They were chosen by there respective peoples.

The idea that all the "good" nations are being democratized/homogenized is patently untrue. The vast majority of Nations in either Alliance are some form of Non Democracy with no real intention or push to change.

[KariTheFox]

Alphinaud's "ideas" don't really have anything to do with democracy or how governments are structured either. The problems Alphinaud has with the various societies we've met have more to do with how they treat people they have power over, and how much they use thier power and influence to help those in need (or rather, don't use that power.)

Alphinaud believes that nations should help each other and the downtrodden in thier societies, that isolationism is a bad policy, and that negotiation and diplomacy are preferable to violence and conflict.

[Theodric]

...which in the eyes of some of us, detracts from the setting as we'd rather not see every nation follow a similar trajectory. It's also completely viable for some people and nations to simply want to be left alone to do their own thing. For as much as the game has various characters screech to the high heavens about how a policy of isolation is supposedly a bad thing, I think the game would benefit from a greater range of potential ideals and world views being showcased.

It gets a bit boring when everything is pushed from the perspective of overly idealistic city dwellers and when everything is written in such a way as to mysteriously tie everything to the result that the Scions and their allies are gunning for.

[Raven2014]

The idea that all the "good" nations are being democratized/homogenized is patently untrue. The vast majority of Nations in either Alliance are some form of Non Democracy with no real intention or push to change.

Not to mention the 3 core members are not Democracy either. U'lduar is a monarchy, Galandia is basically a pagan theocracy, while Limsa is ... technically a dictatorship with the leadership elected through a might make right process.

...which in the eyes of some of us, detracts from the setting as we'd rather not see every nation follow a similar trajectory. It's also completely viable for some people and nations to simply want to be left alone to do their own thing. For as much as the game has various characters screech to the high heavens about how a policy of isolation is supposedly a bad thing, I think the game would benefit from a greater range of potential ideals and world views being showcased.

It gets a bit boring when everything is pushed from the perspective of overly idealistic city dwellers and when everything is written in such a way as to mysteriously tie everything to the result that the Scions and their allies are gunning for.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here, since most of the thing you said here doesn't match with what in the game or would make the leadership super stupid. For the most part, every nations we came across were under crisis and had to beg for outside help, it makes no sense what's so ever for them to go back. Not to mention, prior to the conclusion to the 6.0 story the Garlean Empire is a threat. Going solo right after gaining independent seem to be a terrible idea.

- Isghard: they just lost the head of government, with the whole doctrine turned out to be a 1000 years lie. Without fresh respective coming in, the millenia distrust between the classes would come to full blow, and this time there is no longer an external enemy with an existential threat to keep them from killing each others ... not to mention the left over heratic population. An isolated Isghard would go up in flame in a civil war.

- Ala Mihgo: considered Albert triggered the war to drag the alliance in, and thus have them liberated. Even if they kicked the Alliance out and become an isolanist again, they would have a broken country with no resource to rebuild, and still gonna be on the front line against Garmelean.

- Doma: going solo mean they'll be by themselves holding the Eastern against the 12th legion, a battle they already fought and lost. At the very least, Doma would still have to unite with Dalmascans and Borza. At that point combining the Eastern Alliance with the Eorza Alliance make no different from an isolation pov.


You seem to want variety simply for the shake of variety at the cost of logic. The geo-political situation in Eozea make perfect sense. The new leaders may be portrayed as idealists, but it doesn't change the fact their action is exactly the same what the most pragmatic leaders would do assuming said leaders are not stupid.

[MikkoAkure]

...which in the eyes of some of us, detracts from the setting as we'd rather not see every nation follow a similar trajectory. It's also completely viable for some people and nations to simply want to be left alone to do their own thing. For as much as the game has various characters screech to the high heavens about how a policy of isolation is supposedly a bad thing, I think the game would benefit from a greater range of potential ideals and world views being showcased.

It gets a bit boring when everything is pushed from the perspective of overly idealistic city dwellers and when everything is written in such a way as to mysteriously tie everything to the result that the Scions and their allies are gunning for.

On the contrary, I think it's more interesting to have the countries themselves undergo their own "character growth".

There's been conflict with the Garlean Empire at the center of the game's setting for the better part of a century and for the period of the whole game's existence for us players. In almost any other setting and even with experiences in our own world last century, the Garleans having been brought to nothing mostly by their own hand and at the mercy of their victims would have no "right" to self-determination and be split up by their enemy and bits portioned out as war reparations. Instead, the Eorzean Alliance says they need to rebuild themselves without international oversight. The leaders of Eorzea realize the world is not some zero-sum game where you need to take from your neighbors and make everyone your country in order to prosper and be safe, and international cooperation builds everyone up together. Now the Garleans need to pick themselves up out of the ruins and build their country back up while having to navigate that world while managing the ruins of their country and a regime change and it will be interesting to see where they go from there. If SE decides to even continue that storyline...


Some other countries have already gone through lighter versions of this.
Limsa Lominsa in 1.0 was solely a pirate nation and a parasite in Eorzea until Merlwyb took over and they're still going through growing pains. Merlwyb rules with might as a benevolent dictator supported by her old worst enemies, but that could change at the next Trident unless she makes herself dictator-for-life.

Ul'dah's monarch herself tried to establish a regime change on her own volition, but ended up being used to remove someone else's political enemies and secure Monetarist rule. That showed that even the best intentions can fall flat and democratization can fail in this setting. The city-state is still ruled by those with their own self-interests in mind ahead of those of Eorzea as a whole.

The ruling class and the church in Ishgard ruled based on a lie to keep up a forever war and with the war gone and the lie revealed, the rulers had no ability to control the armed and angry majority. Ishgard could have ended up a lot worse with a guillotine in the Hoplon.

Ala Mhigo had to build itself back up after being occupied for 20 years and a civil war against the previous royal before that. With the entire ruling family dead except for 1 guy who wants nothing to do with it, what did you expect to happen?

Doma on the other hand kept its monarchy because the previous royal family was benevolent, well-liked and supported, and more importantly has someone from the royal family who is still alive and willing to rule.


All that in mind, it does not make much sense to me for the surviving populace of Garlemald to decide to nominate an emperor considering they had 2 civil wars that completely destroyed the city and brought the country to ruins over whose royal butt is going to kiss the throne.


Not everything has gone the Scions' way and it's been a lot of effort to get to where we're at even now. Not all countries, even the main 3, are democratic. There are still different ideas on how to rule, but the majority of the known countries are now allied due to necessity in order to survive the empire, so now their thoughts more or less align and they're friendly with each other. It also makes sense to change your government when your old one ends up getting wiped out with no one specified to replace them. Especially so when the old government killed their own citizens and in one case brainwashed them and fed them to each other. No need to use Alphinaud as a scapegoat, as much as I don't like him.

[Theodric]

'Logic' went out the window the moment the game bent over backwards to proclaim that genocide is perfectly acceptable so long as it benefits the protagonists and the one responsible is a 'mOmMy GoDdEsS'. Or when it decides that a pair of sixteen year olds with very little life experience should be in a viable position to lecture characters twice their age.

I was also referring to more than just Eorzea. It isn't at all unusual for different people to have different personal tastes and yet any depth or grit that exists in the setting is at risk of being eroded away. The decision to declare piracy in the pirate city a thing of the past is an excellent example. I liked the pirate flair of Limsa Lominsa and yet it's set to be no more moving forward. Neither WoW or ESO decided to randomly strip away piracy from the locales that thrived off of it. So, certainly, the people who are indifferent and want everything wrapped up in a neat little bow will continue to be happy and deflect from such examples whereas those of us who would prefer something with more variety will continue to press for such.

I want the world to feel like an actual world. Not something where everything ends up catering to the same handful of characters at every turn. I'm not sure why some of you pretend as if everything doesn't go the way the Scions want when all is said and done when they now have most of the leader figures across two different worlds at their beck and call.

I also suspect that the same posters who have made it crystal clear that they dislike Garlemald and all it represents would gleefully jump at the opportunity to rid it of the chance to persist with an Emperor. To push it in a different direction despite it not exactly being difficult for the writers to just...install an Emperor that isn't interested in war and conquest. Or perhaps even being bold enough to do as much in order to maintain the looming threat of invasion in the background.

[Raven2014]

'Logic' went out the window the moment the game bent over backwards to proclaim that genocide is perfectly acceptable so long as it benefits the protagonists and the one responsible is a 'mOmMy GoDdEsS'. Or when it decides that a pair of sixteen year olds with very little life experience should be in a viable position to lecture characters twice their age.

Oh so now you just want to reach. Should have realize that's your intention all along when you said:

A shame such a vision isn't limited to Eorzea and is being projected onto Etheirys as a whole.

Which I did wonder why. My bad for thinking you were trying to raise a logical point.

Gotta ask my dude, are you sure it's not YOU who are doing the projection here?

[Theodric]

Not really sure what you're getting at, in all honesty. Other than the usual strange attempts to gatekeep what people are 'allowed' to like and push for within the setting.

Though if being cordial is not your cup of tea then I suppose we have nothing further to say to one another.

It's not like asking for more variety in terms of what the story embraces is 'controversial'. It's...a fictional setting. One that is meant to appeal to a broad range of players from many different backgrounds, countries and belief systems. As such, it only makes sense to actually reflect that variety in a way that is meaningful. Other MMO's accomplish it to various degrees of success.