I dislike the fact that I can only speak to either Lethungius or the Magistra after I decide with one of them.
How could I get the empire to treat barbarians well if I support a consul which is largely discriminatory towards “barbarians”? My mc is idealist, he wants the empire to be a republic AND treat its inhabitants fairly (including “barbarians”).
How can I do that if I’m forced to choose between Lethungius and the Magistra?
If you mean for the investigation,try Darius.
Otherwise well Politics is about making choices ig.
You are not forced to choose. If you refrain from making personal alliance with either faction, you get on the “try to make them cooperate for the benefit of the Empire” path, so to speak. And even if you do align yourself with a faction personally you are not prevented from making decisions which benefiit the other.
What I mean is that once you choose to meet with either Lethungius or Magistra, you can only meet with one of them later on…
Wait, if I don’t cement an alliance with either of them, I can choose to meet either?
The fact that you can’t meet with both the Legate and the Consul after choosing to deal with one is deliberate. As they state explicitly in their meetings, both of these factions have conflicting goals, and one of the aspects of Shattered Eagle is that there are trade-offs and the MC must live with the consequences of performing one action instead of another.
To grant more power to the foederati barbarians diminishes the remaining republican institutions as they draw their support from both the matrician elite in the capital who make up the Senate and the urban citizenry. That faction wishes for an Empire more responsive to the institutions that represent them, which requires the power base of the Empire to be centered on Kyro and the other urban centers.
Vice versa is also true, in that Legate wishes to shift the power base to the frontiers and foederati tribes which provide military support to the legions, they wish for an Empire to shift focus to be more responsive and representative of them instead of the urban citizenry and matrician class. Having a more decentralized government which delegates imperial powers to the foederati is part and parcel of that, in contrast to the traditional elected institutions such as the Senate which once governed in their own right and seek to prevent the further expansion of said imperial powers at their expense.
Both of these visions cannot feasibly coexist with one another, which is why the Consul and Legate are bitter rivals. It is possible to try and bridge the gap and earn goodwill with the other faction, but they will still feel the sting of having your favored faction enact its goals. Compromise will be possible if the MC plays their cards right, but things may well get worse before they get better.
Thx for the explanation!
Speaking of conflicting interest, at what point would a high relation Cato actually consider reaching out to a barbarian aligned MC?
You’ll see how the story develops there. 
I have a bit of a controversial question.
Does Iudia uses the roman salute in any way?
Not really. When I was writing it, I imagined more of a fist over heart than the historical roman salute.
Found a typo. After My character asks Julia if she’s ok, it says I’m a widower whereas My character is a woman.
I’ll fix that, thanks for pointing it out.
I hope we’ll be able to save the Empress (from herself and illness) cause I’ve grown attached to her
Same. I’ll be sad if she dies from the illness trafically but more sad if you have to depose her because she’s crazy
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can ‘soft kill’ Julia by simply withholding the cure for her disease (whatever cybernetic implant side effect that may be) when you’ve found it.
Good point. I will CRY if you have to do this to stop her from destroying everything. Hopefully you can get rid of the cyber eye.
@Azan So how has life been recently?
Pretty busy, sorry to say. I’m chipping away at my writing goals but it’s been a bit of a slog to maintain the 2k+ words a day I was managing April to July. Hoping to get back into the swing of things more!.
Apologies for being unable to keep up monthly updates, I suppose it was inevitable I’d hit a bit of block at some point unfortunately, though I already have everything outlined out, the main issue is just finding and devoting the time to write all of the branching.
I have 30k w/o code done for Chapter V but it goes a lot less far than you think considering the ways the previous chapter can end. I think it’ll probably end up the longest chapter (though I’m counting that as total word w/o code, it may well be shorter in average play terms) at this rate, which considering that my last was over 60k w/o code is a daunting prospect to consider. 
I am SO pumped for this update but please take your time. Make sure you don’t get burnt out- hopefully this is a fun thing to do and doesn’t turn into a commitment that sucks the joy out of things. Hope you’re doing well!
I appreciate the sentiment! As much as I love and have loved writing Shattered Eagle, it’s far from my day job and my life can get pretty busy, sometimes I get really into the tempo of writing for months on end, and sometimes it can be hard to fit myself into that mindset for a while. Still, it’s my dream to finish this, I’ve always wanted to publish a novel and this has been a true passion project for me. Hopefully the back end of September proves more fruitful!