Wouldn't it have been an awesome storyline if we were some how trying to stop the Garlean invasion and destruction of the primals from inside the empire? We could have been a soldier of the army and slowly working our way up the chain of command and foiling the plot of the empire at the same time.

Something along the lines of trying to overthrow the dictator, Solus zos Galvus, by causing a rebellion and feeding information to the three city-states could have been a fun story to watch unfold.