A Timeline of the Garlean Invasion & Its Effects
- At the turn of the 16th century, an engineer attempts to create a smaller version of the stationary steam engine, but chose instead to utilize ceruleum as a fuel source. His creation is weak but portable, and soon has the backing of Garlemald’s military funding. The first magitek engine is born.
- Solus zos Galvus’s becomes a Republican Legatus and begins making reforms to use magitek in the military, pushing for increased spending in military applications of magitek technology.
- The Republic of Garlemald begins invading and subjugating its neighbors in Ilsabard.
- Solus zos Galvus is named Dictator of Garlemald. The first Republican magitek airships launch. The small nation of Dalmasca in Ilsabard’s central mountains falls, securing Garlemald’s control over the majority of the northern territories.
- The northlands of Ilsabard are united under Garlean rule. The Republic becomes an Empire, and Solus zos Galvus becomes the First Emperor. Several influential Garlean Houses, such as House Darnus, are elevated to positions of power in the Senate or military. A new calendar is adopted by the Garlean territories, the years counted according to the Emperor’s reign.
- The Garlean Empire begins its invasion into Othard, attacking Rabanastre and Bozja.
- The Othardian nations summon an unknown primal to stall the Garlean advance.
- Ancient Allagan relics are unearthed in newly annexed Imperial territories. While Garlemald’s engineers were never able to replicate the fundamentals of the Allagan devices, the secrets gleaned from the ancient machina progressed Garlemald’s technology by leaps and bounds.
- Garlean engineers are successful in using ceruleum engines to reanimate a number of these uncovered Allagan machina. Some of these ancient war-machina begin appearing on the front lines.
- The Garleans seize Doma, crushing the last resisting nation in the Far East.
- With the remaining lands of Othard quickly being annexed, Garlemald turns its full attention towards Aldenard and begins attacking the Eorzean city-state of Ala Mhigo, drawing attention away from Baelsar’s ongoing political subterfuge in the region.
- Cid Garlond and Nero Scaeva enter Garlemald’s Magitek Academy, their fiercely competitive rivalry fueling the Imperial military with countless new inventions, many of which would come to be used against Ala Mhigo.
- Ala Mhigo finally falls after Garlean infiltrators incite civil war in the city-state. The small resistance put up by Ala Mhigo’s defenders is put down in the most brutal fashion.
- Sharlayan attempts to negotiate a peace treaty with the Garlean Empire. The Garleans refused to meet the Sharlayan envoy. Negotiations failed, the Forum votes to abandon Sharlayan’s colony in the Dravanian Hinterlands. Preparations are made so that their knowledge does not fall into the hands of the Garlean Empire.
- The Eorzean Alliance is formed by the nations of Limsa Lominsa, Ul’dah, Gridania, and Ishgard - Ishgard boasting the largest military presence of the four. To bolster their numbers, the city-states begin drafting soldiers, mercenaries, and sellswords en masse.
- After amassing their forces in Ala Mhigo, Garlemald pushes south into Eorzea, seeking to lay claim to Silvertear Lake in Mor Dhona, but are thwarted by Midgardsormr and the Dravanians he calls to war. This singular event, later known as the Battle of Silvertear Skies, is the catalyst for almost every major world event to follow.
- In the massive explosion of aether from Silvertear, the first Eorzean primals are summoned from the fears of the Beast tribes. From then on, the tribes learn to summon these primals repeatedly against their enemies. The Echo begins manifesting in countless individuals after reportedly seeing a “starshower” in the sky.
- The XIVth Legion, utterly crushed by the Dravanians, retreats to Ala Mhigo and begins construction on Baelsar’s Wall to keep the beast tribes and their “eikons” at bay.
- Seeking a method to defeat Eorzea’s primals, the Emperor gives the okay for Midas nan Garlond’s and Nael van Darnus’s “Meteor Project,” seeking to use the power of Dalamud as a weapon against Eorzea. Their first test site is Bozja, the largest commercial hub in Othard.
- Dalamud awakens and a beam of energy evaporates the entire city of Bozja, desolating the entire region. Garlemald attempts to coverup this “Bozja Incident” but it is impossible. Fear spreads throughout Othard. Nael van Darnus takes her failure out on the Othardians, worsening conditions there. The first whispers of Far Eastern resistance begin.
- Having witnessed the destruction his magitek inventions visited upon Ala Mhigo and the obliteration of an entire region at the hands of his father, Cid nan Garlond and several of his engineers defect from the Empire. In Eorzea, Cid founds the Garlond Ironworks and readies the Eorzean Alliance for war by creating magitek enhanced weapons and airships.
- Unwilling to divert their forces away from the Dragonsong War and the most recent awakening of Nidhogg any longer, the Holy See of Ishgard withdraws from the Eorzean Alliance, closing its gates to all but the Temple Knights.
- Limsa Lominsa, Ul’dah, and Gridania remain an Alliance in name only. As the Age of Calm settles over Eorzea, the alliance disbands its drafted armies, leaving countless scores of infantry without work.
- A famed Lominsan mercenary leader by the name of Lodewicus the Leal establishes the Adventurers’ Guild, an organization for the displaced sellswords to find work bettering the realm and its smallfolk. The Guild acted as an intermediary, finding capable takers for a variety of tasks submitted by townsfolk-in-need. Thus begins a decade-long time period known as the Age of Adventure.
- The Adventurers’ movement was not warmly received by all. With the flood of new adventurers entering the cities, many smallfolk found their jobs and livelihoods taken over by these hired workers. This compounded Ul’dah’s unemployed Ala Mhigan refugee crisis, heightened tensions with foreign poachers in Gridania, and guilds across the realm reported a noticeable decline in the quality of their goods.
- Imperial Dreadnaughts of the XIVth Legion begin shooting down airships over Eorzean skies. Garlemald increases airship patrols over their annexed nations. Hostilities come to a head when a Highwind Skyways airship transporting several civilian passengers is shot down.
- Between Dravanian attacks and Imperial Dreadnaught patrols, Highwind Skyways suspends all regular airship service indefinitely. Flights become limited to instances of “extraordinary circumstance.”
- Nael van Darnus and her VIIth Legion leave the Far East and occupy Ala Mhigo, driving the slaves there to redouble their military efforts. The VIIth and XIVth Legions harry the city-states, cutting off trade routes in and out of Eorzea. Trade between the East and Eorzea begins to dwindle.
- The newly appointed Elder Seedseer of Gridania, Kan-E-Senna, urges the nations of Ul’dah and Limsa Lominsa to reform the Grand Companies of eld.
- The second incarnation of the Meteor Project comes to fruition in the recently Garlean-occupied Mor Dhona. Dalamud descends upon Eorzea. The XIVth Legion retreats to Ala Mhigo to crush Ala Mhigan resistance there. The VIIth Legion entrenches itself in Mor Dhona, sending out cohorts to attack the city-states.
- The Calamity and the start of the 7th Umbral Era. The calendar Year resets to Year 1. For the next 5 years, the XIVth Legion pushes into Eorzea, creating castrums to prepare for another round of invasion. However, all further aggression halts as First Garlean Emperor Solus zos Galvus’s health sharply declines.
[0005 7th Umbral Era] (~1 y/a)
- Operation Archon. The Eorzean Alliance pushes back in a unified assault on all Garlean castrums, rooting any planned Imperial advance. Gaius van Baelsar, legatus of the XIVth Legion is slain. The empire quickly sends reinforcements to the Eorzean castrums to hold their position.
[0001 7th Astral Era] (~1 y/a)
- Solus zos Galvus passes. A War of Succession breaks out between the Emperor’s youngest son and the Emperor’s grandson. During this War of Succession, the resistance in Doma rebels, taking back several villages from the Garleans.
- The War of Succession ends abruptly with the grandson, Varis zos Galvus, taking control over his uncle. Varis tightens his grip on the East, the Doman rebellion is put down, its capitol is razed, and anyone captured associated with the rebellion is publicly executed alongside their families as an example to Othard’s other peoples.
- Yugiri leads a group of surviving Doman refugees to the island nation of Hingashi (and its cities Kugane and Bukyo) seeking asylum. Hingashi refuses them, fearing they’d face the fate of Bozja and Doma. The refugees then sail to Thavnair. They are also refused there. Yugiri finally turns towards Eorzea, sailing for two months to reach Vesper, whereupon Ul'dah also refuses them aid. The Doman refugees finally settle in a border town in Mor Dhona called Revenant’s Toll.
> The events of Stormblood to come…
