A little confused about the first "easy" territory

[FlyinJ]

So I came here to meet and ally with the mercenary king, but the Veil killed him. It seems my only options are to help the empire which gives me positive Empire reputation with no negatives, or to help the rebels which lowers Empire reputation but there don't seem to be any positives to doing so?

Why would I want to help the rebels if all I get is negative Empire rep with no positives?

[FhqwhTODD]

so you don't accidentally join the empire if you don't want to?

[FlyinJ]

Originally posted by Gottkaiser Fhqwhgod:

so you don't accidentally join the empire if you don't want to?

Is there some point where the reputation with the empire hits a certain positive where I join them?

It seems that to progress the main quest in that territory I need to do things for the Empire that gives me positive rep with them (like killing the beast that was hunting the priestess)

[Cat]

It's a choice of two evils with that one I feel, if you talk to the knight near the entrance of the area, he'll tell you the rebels are no more than thieving thugs now and their noble cause is nothing more than an excuse to grab power, but the cultists are no better in their "purification" of the people of the empire.

It's implied that siding with the rebels does free the area from control though, so if you're going in for making Avy all about freedom from rulers and gods, they might aid in a potential ending in that regard, but I honestly don't know so that's speculation on my part. Like you said there seems to be no positive aside from getting negative rep if you want it. So I have to assume the rebels will lead to something down the line.