I see you as the only star in the sky

Since I'm nearing the end of my Stormblood replay I'm gonna say more about this. It is a pretty major theme of Stormblood that Ala Mhigo cannot throw off the imperial occupation alone. If they could, they would have done it already! It's not for lack of trying that they haven't succeeded. Doma is in the same boat. The common people of both regions are skeptical and even hostile to resistance groups not because they're apathetic or cowardly but because they've seen what happened to those who tried before. For a quarter century Garlemald has just been too powerful for any isolated resistance force to stand against alone. There is a reasons we've had refugees from both regions flocking to Eorzea since ARR. Even the Eorzean Alliance has lacked confidence in its ability to hold off Garlemald until very recently (with Operation Archon and the defeat of the Ultima Weapon). There's a reason the leaders of the other Eorzean city-states have been looking east and wringing their hands for decades while the imperials built castrums within their borders because the Alliance couldn't stop them.

I do think Stormblood fumbles some things with regard to Ala Mhigo, in particular a) the tendency to give plot-relevant characters lighter skin/hair/eyes relative to most background Ala Mhigans (and this didn't start with Stormblood but it's still a problem), and imo b) not making Ala Mhigo the endgame hub so that we would spend more time there and it would feel like a real inhabited city, a frankly baffling decision.