Revelations from NA Fan Fest (July 2023)

[MikkoAkure]

I mean, It would be hard for a Garleans single outpost to conquer a whole continent. It just would be hard to even receive supply for the Garlean empire (The same Empire that somehow had 2 internal war in the same year, second one collapsed their empire.)

To be fair, just 1 single legion was enough to threaten the existence of an entire continent in ARR, and they were established in a small handful of outposts and had to generate their own resources and supplies, including ceruleum from behind enemy lines.

The Spanish pulled off the same thing when they conquered the New World.

I just don’t think we’re going to get that storyline because it’s already been done before and I hope the writers are better than the ones for The Force Awakens and don’t just copy the same exact plot from an older, successful story and just paste it in with the serial numbers scratched off. And also because I don’t see the value to the Garleans for taking it over since it’s so far away. They could barely come up with a justification for invading Aldenard and Othard, let alone Tural.

[Cleretic]

I just don’t think we’re going to get that storyline because it’s already been done before and I hope the writers are better than the ones for The Force Awakens and don’t just copy the same exact plot from an older, successful story and just paste it in with the serial numbers scratched off.

It'd actually be even dumber than that, because remember that the two worst-received MSQs are the ones about fighting the Garleans out of occupied territory. (Granted, that's an oversimplification of ARR, but it's still a big part of it.) At least The Force Awakens was copying a story people really liked.

If you asked me for the literal worst idea I could come up with for 7.0 as an expansion, 'fight the Garlean Emprie again' is probably the worst I could do without delving into literal sabotage, because basically the best proof we've got says they're the worst-performing story focuses the game's had.

[Cilia]

While we didn't go to Garlemald proper until Endwalker and it was a smoking ruin by then, there are a myriad of questlines dealing with them, not least of which is Stormblood being wholly dedicated to fighting a war against them.

They've had a presence in every single expansion so far. We keep getting excuses to go check in on them in the MSQ. There's oodles and oodles of Garlean-centric stories. We've learned plenty about them; the content in ancillary material just adds to it.

I, for one, am pretty tired of the Empire, and hope Dawntrail sees us not have to deal with it or if so only sparingly, for once. Let's look forward at the new stuff, not the Imperials we've been dealing with in some capacity or another for a decade, yeah?

[Denishia]

and it would sabotage any efforts to write a following expansion in the cloud-covered regions of Ilsabard because that needs to be at least partially about Garlean occupation and post-colonial recovery, trying to write something that doesn't too closely repeat what has been done before in previous expansions in Eorzea, Ala Mhigo, Doma, Werlyt, Bojza, Garlemand itself, etc...

And that the Garlean Empire itself is dead and defeated as an enemy, it no longer works as a threat except for the successor petty warlords of Bozja and Werlyt. A third time in Tural or Meracydia is treading a path already starting to get worn down if we every do go to Corvos/the rest of Ilsabard.

The more I think on it, the more convinced I am that Yok Tural will have a counterpart of the Garlean Empire either in the current Federation of how to have a giant multi-regional, multicultural empire without the purpose-built instability and oppression - or that the precursor empire on Tural a thousand years ago was the direct equivalent politically of the Garleans and thus the chilling what-if for how the Garleans could be. Thus whatever happens in Dawntrail will have relevancy when the MSQ returns to deal with Garlean characters and affected areas without requiring their physical presence.

[Cleretic]

In all honesty I think Garlemald grew out of being main-story antagonists after Stormblood anyway. There's only so much you can do with 'mechanized Roman Empire' as a straight antagonist in the sort of story the MSQ facilitates, and by the time Stormblood finished they'd... well, kind of drained that well, done everything they could with that particular piece.

That's actually I think to the Empire's benefit, because it forced them to do new things with them in later expansions: Werlyt used them to tell an entirely new kind of story the game hadn't done before, Bozja handed them off to an entirely different writer to play to his strengths, and Endwalker got a whole new life out of, basically, blowing up the entire Empire: that not only threw their standard playbook off the table entirely, but also forces the nation as a whole into an emotional state that we'd never really seen it in: they're a nation defined by declaring themselves superior to everyone else, so knocking everything they value to the ground and watching how they respond to it was, honestly, the best idea they could've had for them.

'But what if there's just entirely functional Legions out in Tural' doesn't just rewind us back to the Garlean playbook that we'd already wrung dry (and again, wasn't very popular among the playerbase when it was fresh), it also throws out all the things that are interesting about the Garleans as they exist now. I don't want to see a Legion out in Tural as an MSQ 'thing', because I can already picture every part of that story playing out, and I don't find any of it all that compelling or interesting. These days, they're just far better suited for--and far more interesting in--side content that can use them in more unusual ways. If you want Garleans, they'd be more interesting to see reassembling their own mess in Corvos, or the focus of a crafting or reconstruction storyline, than they would be in 'let's ransack another castrum'.

While I'm sure we'll find some sort of 'equivalent' in Tural, I don't think they'll be playing any of the same notes in terms of aesthetic, themes or structure. I'd actually expect to see something more akin to Ishgard in Heavensward: a nation that's very much already 'in motion', dealing with conflicts we weren't around to see the start of that heavily inform their current state and outlook, playing an antagonistic role without seeming much larger than the stage we're fighting them on.

Oh, and yeah, there's totally gonna be some ancient lost civilization to find evidence of; that's not even a 'Fantasy Americas' thing or even related to the Garleans at all, this development team just really loves throwing ancient ruins at us and isn't about to pass up that opportunity.

[Magikazam]

To be fair, just 1 single legion was enough to threaten the existence of an entire continent in ARR, and they were established in a small handful of outposts and had to generate their own resources and supplies, including ceruleum from behind enemy lines.

To be fair, it has been shown that the empire as a whole put lots of its resources to help said legion until 2.0 when they get stuck in an internal war. On top of that, they did share a direct front line with The alliance for the past 20 years

The Spanish pulled off the same thing when they conquered the New World.

And it took them two centuries to do so with an empire that focused lots of their resources on doing so. We know that Garlean are more focused on conquering the 3 continent b4 expanding somewhere else, plus they had the whole 2 inner war in a single year thing. The two ain't really comparable.

I just don’t think we’re going to get that storyline because it’s already been done before and I hope the writers are better than the ones for The Force Awakens and don’t just copy the same exact plot from an older, successful story and just paste it in with the serial numbers scratched off. And also because I don’t see the value to the Garleans for taking it over since it’s so far away. They could barely come up with a justification for invading Aldenard and Othard, let alone Tural.

Hence why I said they could just have an outpost that could serve in a small part of the story. They don't need to be a big part of the story or the main villain. IDK why you guys go out of you way to try and paint it like we want some main villain Garlean again.

[MikkoAkure]

To be fair, it has been shown that the empire as a whole put lots of its resources to help said legion until 2.0 when they get stuck in an internal war.

It didn't:

Upon occupying the area, [Gaius] ordered the construction of a facility to refine the raw liquid, thereby achieving self-sufficiency for his campaign and ending his dependence on the Garlean motherland.

And it took them two centuries to do so with an empire that focused lots of their resources on doing so. We know that Garlean are more focused on conquering the 3 continent b4 expanding somewhere else, plus they had the whole 2 inner war in a single year thing. The two ain't really comparable.

The Spanish didn't have magitek. Also the only "resupply" Cortes had when conquering the Aztecs and the rest of Mesoamerica was when the Spanish tried to stop him, sent a force from Cuba to bring him back from Veracruz, but Cortes' forces beat them and added them to their conquering effort. The civil war also had no effect on the IVth legion, which completely deserted and held territory in Dalmasca, Nagxia, and Bozja.

Hence why I said they could just have an outpost that could serve in a small part of the story. They don't need to be a big part of the story or the main villain. IDK why you guys go out of you way to try and paint it like we want some main villain Garlean again.

I didn't go out of my way to do anything, I was just making a comment. I don't want Garleans to be the main enemy either and don't even want them present and I don't know who "you guys" or "we" are.

[Rannie]

While we didn't go to Garlemald proper until Endwalker and it was a smoking ruin by then, there are a myriad of questlines dealing with them, not least of which is Stormblood being wholly dedicated to fighting a war against them.

They've had a presence in every single expansion so far. We keep getting excuses to go check in on them in the MSQ. There's oodles and oodles of Garlean-centric stories. We've learned plenty about them; the content in ancillary material just adds to it.

I, for one, am pretty tired of the Empire, and hope Dawntrail sees us not have to deal with it or if so only sparingly, for once. Let's look forward at the new stuff, not the Imperials we've been dealing with in some capacity or another for a decade, yeah?

This all so much though at this point i kinda dont want to hear the words Garlean or Garlemald ever again.. Im so completely tired of them on all fronts.

[Theodric]

This all so much though at this point i kinda dont want to hear the words Garlean or Garlemald ever again.. Im so completely tired of them on all fronts.

That's how some feel about certain other aspects of the story, though they're more than happy to compromise to allow for different personal tastes to be accounted for.

I know quite a few Russian players, for instance, who were delighted upon seeing some Russian influence pop up within Garlemald as of Endwalker. There's also a decent amount of Garlean role-players who are quite eager to see where the nation goes next, particularly in terms of reconstruction efforts.

I do agree that there's little need to have Garleans present in every single expansion, though it strikes me as a tad extreme to do away with them altogether when there's still quite a lot of lingering plot threads to address at some point. Different strokes for different folks and all that, I suppose.

[Iscah]

This all so much though at this point i kinda dont want to hear the words Garlean or Garlemald ever again.. Im so completely tired of them on all fronts.

To be fair, I think we will – and story-wise need to – hear more of Garlemald and the Garleans as they adapt to their new situation and hopefully recover and come to be on better terms with the other nations.

What we don't need is more imperialistic "Garlean legion as enemy force" Garleans, besides possibly furthering/resolving the plot that seems incomplete following Save the Queen. But that's on the other side of the world from where we're going this time, unless they've planned some elaborate new MSQ integration with the new Gabranthian Empire invading Tural from the west or something... but really, even if they were going to pull something like that, it would be better saved for an expansion or two down the track, and a different location. Perhaps it will be when we finally see more of Ilsabard. I don't think we can really go exploring there without coming up against Gabranth's remaining forces somewhere along the line.

But for Dawntrail, in this new and unfamiliar setting, give us a new and entirely different type of antagonist please – even if the writers feel they need a new "evil empire" to crop up later.