Please don't just cut off Garlean Empire trope or take too long with it.

[Cleretic]

Remember that feeling when you realized the Empire technological superiority, its enourmous recources and vastness as you climb Big Freaking Great Wall which they built just to devide continents as well as every time you see capital warships in lead of entire fleets.

I don't, actually. 'Evil empire with fancy tech in an otherwise fantasy setting' is such a well-worn RPG trope that it no longer registers to me unless you do something interesting with it; I legitimately don't remember any responses I had to Empire stuff (outside of them shooting down Shiva but that's for different reasons) until Yotsuyu turned up. FFXIV took until Endwalker to find that 'something interesting', and that something happened to be to blow it up and check out the ruins. Hell, it kinda hurts them that they're not even the most advanced tech force in the game; Allag has been leaving Garlemald in its shadow ever since Azys Lla for me, and Allag isn't even alive anymore.

Yes, the Garleans deserve a nice, fuller wrapup of their story; it'll be interesting to see how they pick back up and rebuild, provided that their answer is not 'more caestrums'. Anyone trying to rebuild the Empire as it was is the worst thing they could do.

But on the other hand, we deserve a break from the Garleans. The Garleans have been a significant part of the MSQ for every single part of it, and the focus of at least one piece of tentpole side content for every single expansion until Endwalker. They're the most pervasive part of the game world by far; at least the Ascians and Scions skipped out a few times. One of the most exciting parts about Dawntrail to me is seeing what this game can be without the overarching story and villains it's had all this time, and the Garleans are a part of that.