flatline wrote:It's curious that some people think that the CS's policy is acceptable and even defensible. If a party of player characters followed the same policy, I'm quite certain they would condemned.
I don't know if it's defensible or acceptable, only understandable and possibly necessary.
All things being equal, I'd prefer a strong human government that accepted D-bees and other nonhumans, as well as mages and such.
But I'd also prefer a dictatorial, Nazi-like human government over an alien government where I'd be condemned to be a third-class citizen or worse.
It's kind of like what happened when I was watching
American History X, and I got to the scene where the black gang and the skinheads played basketball for rights to the area.
As far as I'm concerned, they're all bad people, pretty much equally.
But I found myself rooting for the team that looked more like I do.
Pack associations are an odd thing.
But they're also a survival trait- people without any, died off.
With the Coalition, you have an evil government ruling an average-to-good aligned people. They do some bad deeds to get the job done, and some of these deeds are outright counterproductive in addition to being evil.
On one hand, there's quite obviously a lot of bad stuff going on.
On the other hand, they're responsible for the strong human presence on Rifts Earth, in North America at least.
As a consequence of the Coalition's protection, there are more humans than any other sentient species (with the exception of the Xiticix, who make the Coalition look non-racist and relatively peaceful by comparison).
As a human, I'm glad for that.
On the other hand, you have places like Lazlo.
ALL creatures are welcome, so a human might well find himself sitting at a table where the other inhabitants see him as lunch.
ALL philosophies are discussed, which would include the philosophy of "Dragons should get to eat humans every once in a while, as they are superior, and humans are tasty."
RUE 21
As of 100 PA, nearly 1 million people lived in Lazlo, with another 250k in the surrounding area.
Currently, it's at 2,025,000 people, with as many as 360,000 in the surrounding communities, due in a large part to the CS's activities driving people to join Tolkeen and its territory.
Think about the numbers for a bit.
Because the CS has alienated a lot of people (of all races) via its actions (like the attack on Tolkeen), the population of Lazlo has nearly doubled, and it's STILL less than the number of
humans living in the Burbs, by more than half a million.
And that's just the Chi-Town Burbs, mind you- the people living in the slums outside of ONE CS city (albeit the most populated one).
Say what you want about the benefits of being friendly to non-humans, the numbers demonstrate that the Coalition's tactics (evil or not) seem to be working fairly well in comparison to places like Lazlo.
Moreover, look at who leads Lazlo:
A cyberknight named Thomm, who may or may not be human.
An ancient dragon named Plato. Call me strange, but I don't think that any ancient dragon, no matter what alignment, could ever see a human being as an equal.
Arl Xzyn, apparently a Wolfen, a race that is generally dedicated to world domination, and modeled after a society roughly as brutal as the Coaltion's models.
And a mix of humans (probably mostly mages) and non-humans (who may or may not consider human beings to be on their menu one way or another, and most likely will not consider humans to truly be their equal).
I'm not about dominance- I'd rather people get along as equals.
But if it comes down to the wire, and in a post-apocalyptic setting where paranoia is justified and demons and monsters roam the Earth, if it comes down to somebody being on top, I'm in favor of it being humanity.
That doesn't make it right, only preferable.
For those in the "Why can't humans just live in peace?" camp, just imagine if suddenly THIS world were rearranged, so that people from all parts of the world were present in large numbers in all parts of the world.
What do you think that would be like? Think we'd all just get along?
Personally, I think it would be utter and lethal chaos.
And that's just humans trying to deal with other humans that have relatively minor differences.
Add in mind-warpers, life-stealers, blood-drinkers, flesh-eaters, and lord knows what else, especially with a large number of beings that can disguise and/or hide themselves, and it would be a thousand times worse.