The Coalition States are not the bad guy

[Lenwen]

world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective.

And a Spider eating a fly is not evil, from the Spiders perspective..

But as we have Direct words from KS himself in of all books, "Coalition war campaign" itself .. he bluntly states the CS ARE .. the bad guys Period. That ends any / all debate on yes or no if they are truly the bad guys or not.

When the creator of the entire system itself, flat out bluntly states they are the bad guys we love to hate .. guess what people .. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS !

[Killer Cyborg]

world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective.

And a Spider eating a fly is not evil, from the Spiders perspective..

But as we have Direct words from KS himself in of all books, "Coalition war campaign" itself .. he bluntly states the CS ARE .. the bad guys Period. That ends any / all debate on yes or no if they are truly the bad guys or not.

When the creator of the entire system itself, flat out bluntly states they are the bad guys we love to hate .. guess what people .. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS !

Well, give a direct quote and end the controversy.

[Lenwen]

Slaves, by definition, do not get paid for their labor..

Wrong Slavery by definition is ..

slave
Also found in: Medical, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
slave (slāv)
n.
1. One who is owned as the property of someone else, especially in involuntary servitude.

So in this very instance we can attribute exactly directly to the dogboys situation.

[Lenwen]

world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective.

And a Spider eating a fly is not evil, from the Spiders perspective..

But as we have Direct words from KS himself in of all books, "Coalition war campaign" itself .. he bluntly states the CS ARE .. the bad guys Period. That ends any / all debate on yes or no if they are truly the bad guys or not.

When the creator of the entire system itself, flat out bluntly states they are the bad guys we love to hate .. guess what people .. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS !

Well, give a direct quote and end the controversy.

The Coalition States and Emperor Prosek are the *villains everybody loves to hate, I know I do.

First quote .. following along further down the same paragraph .. we also get this lil gem ..

I've been formulating plans for "our" favorite --> villains <-- for a long time.

So not just once, (could be defended as an accident) but Twice in the very book dedicated to / about the Coalition itself .. we see Kevin Siembieda flat out stated .. Multiple times the Coalition ARE the VILLAINS ..

Debate over.

[cosmicfish]

Wow, there are about a dozen ways you could have easily split that reply to make it easier to read and reply to. Regardless...

There is more than being good guys and being bad guys. Some may view them as a force not identifiable by either extreme.

Yes, there is a scale. I still cannot see how the CS are not solidly on the "evil" side. I am starting to think that (a) we have distinctly different moral codes and that (b) I need to buy more guns.

I don't see it as trying to justify the argument, just to understand that it may not be "evil" to hold opinions that lead to it. It can merely be ignorance.

Who in the CS do think is ignorant, and of what, and why? Dog-Boys were genetically engineered by a technologically advanced state. The average person in the CS might accept propaganda, but the leadership and scientists and probably anyone who interacts with Dob-Boys would know their actual intelligence.

And let me clarify something: The Coalition States can be evil without every one of its citizens being evil, even without a majority of its citizens being evil. If the leadership is evil and the citizens have enough ignorance and whatever else to support them in their evil schemes and evil outcomes, then the net result is evil.

Actually, it would be morally correct within the context of facts they paint, just as we currently paint facts to allow us to enslave cows/goats/pigs.

"Paint facts"? Are you implying that every government in the world is involved in a conspiracy to conceal the intelligence of food animals? The common citizenry may believe (although I doubt it) that Dog-Boys are unintelligent, but your parallel would require that same belief in the very scientists who gengineered intelligence into them!

Now, if the CS were trying to enslave Boogie Men or Orcs instead of black people or dog boys or elves, then there might be some justification, since 2D6 is less than 3D6. Still a problem though since a % of humans will have lower IQs than a % of orcs. Less moral problems if you pick a lower IQ race like Troglodytes as slaves.

Palladium distinguishes between sapient and non-sapient species, the latter of which are denoted as having "animal intelligence". Dividing instead at some average or actual IQ level implies that stupid but sapient people/races are acceptable for slavery, and I don't see how that justification flies. My brother's an idiot, I can't see anyone allowing me to enslave him.

Ignoring your own morality is acceptable and should be encouraged in a role-playing game, since the idea is to emulate the morals of your character and do what they would do, not what you would do.

Ignoring your own morality does not mean ignoring the definitions of the morality you choose to portray. Palladium has defined alignments, and while slavery inexplicably fails to appear in the write-ups I cannot see how it would appear anywhere in the "good" alignments, and I think it would be hard to justify even in "selfish"!

I'm not! Genocide is clearly what the CS was going for!

Page?

And I quote from the Word of Kevin, World Book 11, page 21: Even more ironic is the fact that the tyranny of Nostrous Dunscon would give birth to an even greater nation of tyrants, the Coalition States, with its policies of human supremacy and genocide.

And again from World Book 11, page 21: There, he waged a two year campaign of genocide in an attempt to destroy "every last vestige of the hell-spawned mystics." He nearly succeeded. An estimated 30,000 sorcerers and their "accomplices" were put to death - most scholars outside the Coalition States estimate roughly half were innocent people, for anybody even suspected of being a practitioner of magic was slaughtered.

That's two distinct references to the CS as a genocidal state that do not refer to someone else's opinion nor to rumors or speculation - those are the direct words of the author, some guy named Siembieda. I'm sure there are more, but the lack of pdf's make hunting references a real pain the backside.

That's certainly side-stepping the question. It's not as if mages don't have other places to go. If non-mages want a refuse where they don't have to worry about being 1-hit Fire-Bolted, or worry there might be an invisible Devilkin under their bed, it seems reasonable enough to set aside some land that's mage-free so they can sleep at night.

No, it isn't side-stepping the question. There is a difference between being vulnerable to lethal attack (or accident) and being deliberately hunted down to be killed. At least for the non-mages in Tolkeen there were legal protections and the awareness that many of the mages were themselves at least somewhat vulnerable to the same things - no SDC beings (including most human spellcasters) would tolerate the indiscriminate doling out of MDC attacks.

The burden of making an argument to label a CS act or policy as genocide is upon the claimant. I have gone out of my way to find some of the references to genocide (CWC ad, SoT2 ad, SoT2 text) trying to find out what would lead to this viewpoint, but so far have come up short.

This isn't to say the CS aren't, just that: I may be too unfamiliar with the later SoT books to know where to look for the proper text to support the viewpoint.

Coalition War Campaign, as quoted above, makes a few references to the CS and genocide. There are more if you are willing to accept Erin Tarn as gospel, which I am willing to do simply because she exists in the books for that exact purpose.

Interesting proposal. I would be interested in looking into some stats about this. What do you base it on?

I was basing it on the Coalition War Campaign, the Siege on Tolkeen, and the numerous references to the actions the Coalition takes against "unacceptable" humans in the cities, the Burbs, and anywhere else they have a presence! I can't think of any other group that is so active in North America. Heck, even the Vampire Kingdoms try to keep their victims alive as a food source!

This is something we would expect to see in any major power.

So are you able to exclude justified human deaths from any statistics you find about this?

Well, as you note, these deaths would occur under "any major power", so for this to be an issue we would need to find some organization that simultaneously rivals the CS in body count but also fails to exert "reasonable law enforcement" as part of their function. Who would that be? Again, even the vampires enforce laws.

Perhaps Magestar/NewLazlo/Lazlo/Tolkeen have bigger hearts and let more people in...

So why are people still clamoring to get into Chi-Town, exactly?

Perhaps because these "good guy" magic places aren't necessarily the nicest or safest places to live?

That Chi-Town is in demand when it might be more exclusionary than some towns means that it must have a higher quality of living, one that comes with a higher cost. They have to deal with stuff like farming or irrigation because they can't just magic up bread/wine/milk/eggs or get earth/water elementals to do all their work for them.

Or maybe it is better to live under restrictions in a fascist regime than it is to be in the path of that regime and become either an accidental casualty or even targeted as a sympathizer. It is difficult to ignore the fact that the Coalition itself is a big part of the reason why large parts of North America are so unsafe! I suspect that many of those trying to get into the CS have a combination of ignorance and selfish alignments, and justify what they themselves may recognize as morally wrong as acceptable because they are "just trying to protect their families".

I'll leave that up to anyone who wants to make an argument for NGR or any other nation being better.

I remain neutral on this, I don't think CS is necessarily the best nation.

I'm just bringing up one point to dispute the idea that the NGR is universally better, to show that it isn't.

Then why bring it up? You were not presenting the U-round issue as an isolated example, you said "As for who is better for the world", as if this one point in some way proved it. And no one was saying that "the NGR is universally better", but the point you relatively minor impact of the point you mention implies that they come pretty close to that!

Many perpetrators of genocide have retained selected members of the targeted group, when they are necessary to a particular purpose. I am curious what would happen to the mages of the Vanguard if the rifts were closed and they were the last mages on Earth?

Irrelevant hypotheticals, the CS would change on the path to worldwide domination. This discussion is about what the CS is now, and perhaps what it has been, not where we think it might end up.

Wondering what would happen to the mages of the Vanguard is an "irrelevant hypothetical" but stating that "CS would change on the path to worldwide domination" isn't? I am talking about the CS now - the fact that a farmer allows some pigs and cows to live to suit his own needs does not change the fact that he also kills the majority also to suit his own needs! That is a "now" issue for mages in the Vanguard, who aren't even officially part of the CS anyway!!

I don't agree. I expect there are other people besides the CS who regard magic as dangerous and unpredictable.

Of course, but I thought it was clear I was talking about governments and similar such organizations. The idea that every single sentient being outside the CS loves magic is patently absurd.

Wait so are they doing Civil War before Infinity War?

I think so, but I misspoke - Captain America 3 will be Civil War. Regardless, we know your side in that debate!

Geez, that took forever!

[cosmicfish]

The Coalition States and Emperor Prosek are the *villains everybody loves to hate, I know I do.

First quote .. following along further down the same paragraph .. we also get this lil gem ..

I've been formulating plans for "our" favorite --> villains <-- for a long time.

So not just once, (could be defended as an accident) but Twice in the very book dedicated to / about the Coalition itself .. we see Kevin Siembieda flat out stated .. Multiple times the Coalition ARE the VILLAINS ..

Debate over.

Nicely done.

Incidentally, I just looked at the forward of Siege of Tolkeen 2, and the first page alone seems pretty damning in regards to KS's view of the Coalition. I won't retype the whole thing, but it should be read.

[eliakon]

There is the new CS books in the pipeline that are supposed to talk about this very thing.
I am digging out my preview copy to see if/what it says on the subject

[Killer Cyborg]

world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective.

And a Spider eating a fly is not evil, from the Spiders perspective..

But as we have Direct words from KS himself in of all books, "Coalition war campaign" itself .. he bluntly states the CS ARE .. the bad guys Period. That ends any / all debate on yes or no if they are truly the bad guys or not.

When the creator of the entire system itself, flat out bluntly states they are the bad guys we love to hate .. guess what people .. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS !

Well, give a direct quote and end the controversy.

The Coalition States and Emperor Prosek are the *villains everybody loves to hate, I know I do.

First quote .. following along further down the same paragraph .. we also get this lil gem ..

I've been formulating plans for "our" favorite --> villains <-- for a long time.

So not just once, (could be defended as an accident) but Twice in the very book dedicated to / about the Coalition itself .. we see Kevin Siembieda flat out stated .. Multiple times the Coalition ARE the VILLAINS ..

Debate over.

Nope.
The debate was over whether the CS were "The Bad Guy."
Many of the responses have been, "they're bad guys... just not THE bad guys."
Calling them villains doesn't make them THE Bad Guys.

Another debate has been over whether or not they're evil, and to what extent.
Being a villain doesn't mean that you're necessarily evil, especially in Palladium's alignment scales.

[eliakon]

world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective.

And a Spider eating a fly is not evil, from the Spiders perspective..

But as we have Direct words from KS himself in of all books, "Coalition war campaign" itself .. he bluntly states the CS ARE .. the bad guys Period. That ends any / all debate on yes or no if they are truly the bad guys or not.

When the creator of the entire system itself, flat out bluntly states they are the bad guys we love to hate .. guess what people .. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS !

Well, give a direct quote and end the controversy.

The Coalition States and Emperor Prosek are the *villains everybody loves to hate, I know I do.

First quote .. following along further down the same paragraph .. we also get this lil gem ..

I've been formulating plans for "our" favorite --> villains <-- for a long time.

So not just once, (could be defended as an accident) but Twice in the very book dedicated to / about the Coalition itself .. we see Kevin Siembieda flat out stated .. Multiple times the Coalition ARE the VILLAINS ..

Debate over.

Nope.
The debate was over whether the CS were "The Bad Guy."
Many of the responses have been, "they're bad guys... just not THE bad guys."
Calling them villains doesn't make them THE Bad Guys.

Another debate has been over whether or not they're evil, and to what extent.
Being a villain doesn't mean that you're necessarily evil, especially in Palladium's alignment scales.

So now we are arguing over what level of bad guy they are....."that depends on what the definition of is is...."

[Tor]

I feel like you had a really good time writing all of that.

Luckily I've learned to use Notepad. It's a good habit to get into anyway due to browser crashes or loss of text window content from accidental page moves. But more recently, with Chrome no Longer launching, IE has this weird tendency to keep page-upping me to the top of the bracket and I have to either scroll down again or at least do a char input (usually arrow key) to skip it back down. Would not matter so much if occasional but often happens every couple of seconds, increasingly the more text enters the bracket.

The Chapter in this book which begins Drogue's story is called "Incriminating Evidence." Subchapter 1 is "Something to Hide."

Found it, pages 100-101. Nice

Drogue is the exception that proves the rule.

I normally hate this expression, but in this case I begin to see where it originated at least.

Drogue being exceptional indicates (tastes better than 'prove') that the majority (though 'rule' is sometimes synonymous, I avoid due to overlap with game rules) do not act that way, that he is an aberration to his culture.

I do question if we should blame CS culture for Drogue... surely he could've ended up like this in many of the cultures. Could've got up to similar in the FoM.

The Coalition States and Emperor Prosek are the *villains everybody loves to hate, I know I do.

First quote .. following along further down the same paragraph .. we also get this lil gem ..

I've been formulating plans for "our" favorite --> villains <-- for a long time.

So not just once, (could be defended as an accident) but Twice in the very book dedicated to / about the Coalition itself .. we see Kevin Siembieda flat out stated .. Multiple times the Coalition ARE the VILLAINS ..

Debate over.

You're misrepresenting this a bit. He calls them "villains" but to say "the villains" (making them sound like the only or the primary villains) even though a phrase which exists in the first statement, ignores the impact of the second.

"Our favorite villains" indicates the existence of other villains.

Furthermore, villainy can be an entirely subjective thing. Just because the CS can serve a role as villains within a campaign does not make them THE villains of the game as a whole.

I'm sure we could elsewhere find KS describing them as heroes... like perhaps "of humanity".

If "Heroes of Humanity" is some kind of ironic thing then we could also say that calling them villains is ironic.

Wow, there are about a dozen ways you could have easily split that reply to make it easier to read and reply to.

Most of which would inflate my post count.

I still cannot see how the CS are not solidly on the "evil" side.

I think it's less a matter of moral differences and more a matter of how we view the threats the CS has to face.

Who in the CS do think is ignorant, and of what, and why?

The majority of the population and grunts. Illiteracy and propoganda.

Dog-Boys were genetically engineered by a technologically advanced state. The average person in the CS might accept propaganda, but the leadership and scientists and probably anyone who interacts with Dob-Boys would know their actual intelligence.

Intelligence isn't the end-all of mental measuring though. People also assign value to weird unstatted stuff like having a 'soul' or having 'humanity'. I see this in the real world all the time. People of high intelligence are devalued for things like a lack of social skills, being unpopular, 'soulless scientist', etc.

This doesn't necessarily mean that aspects of society who ignore the relevance of intelligence are evil, I can view their priorities of establishing individual value as skewed without thinking they hold malice.

The Coalition States can be evil without every one of its citizens being evil, even without a majority of its citizens being evil.

I think if under 50% of your citizens are evil then your area as a whole should not be described as evil.

If the leadership is evil and the citizens have enough ignorance and whatever else to support them in their evil schemes and evil outcomes, then the net result is evil.

Net results do not have alignments. If I accidentally fall asleep monitoring a nuclear reactor and a meltdown kills millions, the end result is horrible but it isn't evil because I didn't put any ill will into it.

It is true that evil leadership can use good peons to commit destructive deeds though. But I just don't assign alignments to ends, just means.

Are you implying that every government in the world is involved in a conspiracy to conceal the intelligence of food animals?

No, but one might argue that of Japanese and dolphins, and Hindus might suspect other governments of doing that with cows.

More specifically, I think we overlook the intelligence of pigs since we like pork, it doesn't really take a conspiracy to accomplish it though, just indifference. Quickly forgetting what we don't want to hear.

The common citizenry may believe (although I doubt it) that Dog-Boys are unintelligent, but your parallel would require that same belief in the very scientists who gengineered intelligence into them!

Perhaps it is like homosexuals in China: the idea of a disloyal Dog Boy who doesn't want to serve humans is just thought not to exist, so people don't even bother worrying about what to do in that situation if it arises. People, without even knowing it, bury their head in the sand about whether a controversy might come up.

Or maybe, they think rebellious dog boys are a disfunction that will lead to long-term suffering, so they think it's perfectly fine to re-capture them and try to train it out of them.

In modern day, you had homosexuality treated the same way, with the religious blaming it on 'demons' or whatever. This kind of explanation for Dog Boy rebelliousness is actually even feasible on Rifts Earth since there is actually magic spells (and psionic powers) which can alter people's thought process.

A Dog Boy rebels? Tries to be free? One of those nasty Shifters or Mind Bleeders must have gotten to him! He must be rescued and his TRUE nature RESTORED.

Palladium distinguishes between sapient and non-sapient species, the latter of which are denoted as having "animal intelligence".

I've never found that informative since humans are animals to me. I look at the raw attribute, and sometimes 'animal intelligence' rolls can result in higher than human minimums.

while slavery inexplicably fails to appear in the write-ups I cannot see how it would appear anywhere in the "good" alignments, and I think it would be hard to justify even in "selfish"!

That'd be your house rule then. I will not add any other restrictions beyond what alignments actually say.

A principled slave owner would probably treat their slaves really well. They wouldn't attack them unless unarmed, avoid lying to them, never torture them. Not harm them unless they were guilty of doing something (whatever 'innocent' means). Always help them.

It's almost self-solving because someone Principled would probably have a really tough time keeping slaves who wanted to get away. Resistance to their escape would largely have to be passive.

Unless of course you just stick some Zombitrons on them. Nothing evil about that

the tyranny of Nostrous Dunscon would give birth to an even greater nation of tyrants, the Coalition States, with its policies of human supremacy and genocide
..
he waged a two year campaign of [b]genocide[b]

Excellent find. I would say the former is stronger than the latter. The 2nd only tells us that Joseph 1 did genocide as retribution to the attack on Chi-Town, whereas the 1st does allude to Coalition having "genocide policies" alongside its "human supremicy policies"

That said, while this is the first clear and unambiguous quote about CS being genocidal I have encountered in debates about this so far, it does remain a bit vague as to what their genocidal policies are...

In comparing past/present, Joseph's campaign against the entirety of the Magic Zone (which was basically all the magical kingdoms back then) would not necessarily mean that an attack against one kingdom within it would qualify as a genocide, even if you were adopting a scorched earth policy.

When it describes the CS being genocidal now, that might very well refer to say, their policy against (1) Mechanoids (@) Xiticix, and nobody else. So while we do indeed know that they have at least 2 genocidal policies, not knowing what they are, we can speculate as to their nature in favorable -good guy- terms.

There is a difference between being vulnerable to lethal attack (or accident) and being deliberately hunted down to be killed.

Normal humans are being delibertately hunted down to be killed by monsters, that's what happens to them when they are vulnerable to lethal attack.

There are more if you are willing to accept Erin Tarn as gospel

I'm not, but am interested in reading about it anyway.

I was basing it on the Coalition War Campaign, the Siege on Tolkeen, and the numerous references to the actions the Coalition takes against "unacceptable" humans in the cities, the Burbs, and anywhere else they have a presence! I can't think of any other group that is so active in North America. Heck, even the Vampire Kingdoms try to keep their victims alive as a food source!

The civil, sure, not so much with the wild guys. I think the prob is, while we might be swimming in SoT casualty stats (not sure where, guessing aftermath) we probably don't have a huge amount of statistics of who all the others are killing.

Plus I still think we should view it in terms of % scope compared to their size.

If 100 000 humans kill 10 000 people and 100 vampires kill 1000 people, you could say the humans kill 10x as much, but on an individual basis, they're killing 1/100 as much.

maybe it is better to live under restrictions in a fascist regime than it is to be in the path of that regime and become either an accidental casualty or even targeted as a sympathizer

If the CS is not going to be immediately invading Lazlo I can't see that keeping people away from it.

"As for who is better for the world", as if this one point in some way proved it.

No it's more like introducing the point of "better for whom" I guess. You could be a super-literate world-NGR living in a radioactive wasteland or an illiterate CS living in a pristine farmland.

Wondering what would happen to the mages of the Vanguard is an "irrelevant hypothetical" but stating that "CS would change on the path to worldwide domination" isn't?

They both are.

I thought it was clear I was talking about governments and similar such organizations

I was too. Would Archie qualify? The Naruni? Entire towns of people scared of magic who are CS-friendly but not actually part of the CS?

we know your side in that debate!

I don't think it's necessarily the same debate. Marvel's Civil War (or Mutant Registration Program) is all about giving government access to the ID and abilities of masked vigilantes.

The CS does something like this with its psychics (but is not purging them).

As for the others, the CS just wants them out of there. It's more like "Hulk, go away, you wreck buildings" not "tell us your name is Bruce". If Hulk doesn't leave, then they shoot him, because he wrecks buildings.

I just looked at the forward of Siege of Tolkeen 2, and the first page alone seems pretty damning in regards to KS's view of the Coalition. I won't retype the whole thing, but it should be read.

"A clash of Titans" on page 7? Also says it's by Bill Coffin...

Doesn't seem too damning to me...

"an all-out drive to secure a safe place for humanity's next generation"
"it's citizens believe that they are safer under a harsh militocracy"
"their mighty military has never failed them"

[cosmicfish]

Nope.
The debate was over whether the CS were "The Bad Guy."
Many of the responses have been, "they're bad guys... just not THE bad guys."
Calling them villains doesn't make them THE Bad Guys.

Let us read again from the Word of Kevin, Siege of Tolkeen 2, page 15: In fact, for the most part, Coalition Overkill is all about how the Coalition is the bad guy, the aggressor, the oppressor. After all, is it really so hard to believe? Sometimes, folks lose sight of this, perhaps because the Coalition employs such a dazzling array of technology that from a playing standpoint, it's easy to forget that the CS espouses many of the things we have grown to detest in modern society — xenophobia, totalitarianism, overt racism, and genocide.

I am pretty sure that DOES make them "The Bad Guy"! The fact that there are worse creatures and organizations out there does not make them good or not bad, it just serves to indicate whether they are the WORST guys in a space that must be defined then as containing those worse creatures or organizations! In most situations in North America, the Coalition is indeed going to be "The Bad Guy" because in most areas there is no one worse active on any given day. And it appears that Kevin felt it necessary to point it out because people just weren't getting it!

Another debate has been over whether or not they're evil, and to what extent.
Being a villain doesn't mean that you're necessarily evil, especially in Palladium's alignment scales.

Palladium's alignment scales are calibrated to individuals, not groups, which makes things difficult. Nonetheless, it certainly appears the CS commits (as a nation) a great many acts that would fall under "evil", and that most citizens either approve or silently accept. It also appears as if many of these actions have alternatives that they would be less heinous that they choose to ignore, and "unless absolutely necessary" is the only defense for many such actions.

[Killer Cyborg]

Nope.
The debate was over whether the CS were "The Bad Guy."
Many of the responses have been, "they're bad guys... just not THE bad guys."
Calling them villains doesn't make them THE Bad Guys.

Let us read again from the Word of Kevin, Siege of Tolkeen 2, page 15: In fact, for the most part, Coalition Overkill is all about how [b]the Coalition is the bad guy[/b...

THAT should do it.

Another debate has been over whether or not they're evil, and to what extent.
Being a villain doesn't mean that you're necessarily evil, especially in Palladium's alignment scales.

Palladium's alignment scales are calibrated to individuals, not groups, which makes things difficult. Nonetheless, it certainly appears the CS commits (as a nation) a great many acts that would fall under "evil", and that most citizens either approve or silently accept. It also appears as if many of these actions have alternatives that they would be less heinous that they choose to ignore, and "unless absolutely necessary" is the only defense for many such actions.

What it comes down to there is whether you're trying to describe the CS higher command, or the average citizen.
The CS leadership is evil. The average citizen is actually of Good alignment.

[Tor]

Let us read again from the Word of Kevin, Siege of Tolkeen 2, page 15: In fact, for the most part, Coalition Overkill is all about how the Coalition is the bad guy, the aggressor, the oppressor. After all, is it really so hard to believe? Sometimes, folks lose sight of this, perhaps because the Coalition employs such a dazzling array of technology that from a playing standpoint, it's easy to forget that the CS espouses many of the things we have grown to detest in modern society — xenophobia, totalitarianism, overt racism, and genocide.

Perhaps it is "easy to forget" the CS espouses genocide because they did not espouse it in the main book?

CWC making only a vague allusion to there being genocide policies, yet not being told explicitly what they were.

We may grow to detest genocide in modern society, we lament the extinction of endangered species...

But something like the Xiticix makes worrying about the moral implications of genocide a whole other ballgame.

A planetwide genocide of Xiticix isn't even an extinction event since there's probably lots of them left in whatever dimension they invaded from, something we can't say about Earth-native species.

I am pretty sure that DOES make them "The Bad Guy"!

In the context of the 2nd book, yes. Just as Tolkeen is the bad guy in Sorcerer's Revenge. Each book focuses on the brutality of either side in war, not commenting on their status of being good or bad in the greater context of the war or North America

In most situations in North America, the Coalition is indeed going to be "The Bad Guy" because in most areas there is no one worse active on any given day. And it appears that Kevin felt it necessary to point it out because people just weren't getting it!

I see the statement you quoted as only applying to their role in Coalition Overkill, nothing more.

[Shark_Force]

the average citizen (of the CS and most other places) is actually probably selfish.

as noted, most governments do bad things at some point, and yet manage to avoid offending their citizens to the point where they get replaced. to be a good alignment, you pretty much have to have a policy of not standing idly by while that sort of thing happens. that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go sharpen your trusty steak knife and declare war on your own government, but they should be doing something, even if it's just talk about how the policies should be changed.

so far as we can tell, there isn't a lot of evidence of people having any problem whatsoever with what the CS is doing, though. in fact, their approval rating by all appearances is extremely high. nobody seems to consider it unacceptable that they just marched in and stole all of IHA's factories and inventory without warning (and probably killing people, and iirc kidnapping a number of them as well), for example.

if the majority of their population was legitimately good, people would be talking about these things, there would ultimately be no hiding it, and the government would be facing a revolution. not necessarily to be replaced by d-bee loving wizards or anything, but some of the stunts they've pulled would just not fly if the majority of their population were legitimately scrupulous or principled.

[Killer Cyborg]

Just as Tolkeen is the bad guy in Sorcerer's Revenge.

Got a direct quote on that?

[Killer Cyborg]

the average citizen (of the CS and most other places) is actually probably selfish.

as noted, most governments do bad things at some point, and yet manage to avoid offending their citizens to the point where they get replaced. to be a good alignment, you pretty much have to have a policy of not standing idly by while that sort of thing happens. that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go sharpen your trusty steak knife and declare war on your own government, but they should be doing something, even if it's just talk about how the policies should be changed.

so far as we can tell, there isn't a lot of evidence of people having any problem whatsoever with what the CS is doing, though. in fact, their approval rating by all appearances is extremely high. nobody seems to consider it unacceptable that they just marched in and stole all of IHA's factories and inventory without warning (and probably killing people, and iirc kidnapping a number of them as well), for example.

if the majority of their population was legitimately good, people would be talking about these things, there would ultimately be no hiding it, and the government would be facing a revolution. not necessarily to be replaced by d-bee loving wizards or anything, but some of the stunts they've pulled would just not fly if the majority of their population were legitimately scrupulous or principled.

As far as the CS population knows, what the CS is doing is "fighting evil enemies who want to devour humans' bodies and souls."
Why would any good aligned person have a problem with that?

[Tor]

Haven't found a direct one so far but I think the "Blitzkreig" section (page 101) kind of insinuates it. Talking about Cyber-Knights objecting (leading to SoT4 schism). Like

"all participants, innocent civilians included, will be obliterated"
"evacuation is out of the question"
"its own people must be sacrificed"

When accompanying criticism of the CS for pushing Dog Boys into wars without choice, it mirrors how Tolkeen disregards its citizens.

[cosmicfish]

I think it's less a matter of moral differences and more a matter of how we view the threats the CS has to face.

The ends justify the means? Evil is situational?

Intelligence isn't the end-all of mental measuring though. People also assign value to weird unstatted stuff like having a 'soul' or having 'humanity'. I see this in the real world all the time. People of high intelligence are devalued for things like a lack of social skills, being unpopular, 'soulless scientist', etc.

Can you indicate either what such measures of "peoplehood" Dog-Boys fail to meet, or else how the leadership and scientists and psionics in the CS fail to recognize that they in fact met said measures?

This doesn't necessarily mean that aspects of society who ignore the relevance of intelligence are evil, I can view their priorities of establishing individual value as skewed without thinking they hold malice.

While I agree that this is possible in general, I disagree that slavery is such a value, especially when the slaves were handcrafted to be such.

I think if under 50% of your citizens are evil then your area as a whole should not be described as evil.

I think that is an awfully generous criterion. Only 1800 or so Germans were tried for the crimes of the Nazis out of a population of 90 or so million, and the Nazis are our gold standard of real evil. I guess they weren't evil though! Good old ignorant Nazis! Knuckleheads, what were they thinking?

It is true that evil leadership can use good peons to commit destructive deeds though. But I just don't assign alignments to ends, just means.

Which is funny because it is the means that are the most damning.

No, but one might argue that of Japanese and dolphins, and Hindus might suspect other governments of doing that with cows.

More specifically, I think we overlook the intelligence of pigs since we like pork, it doesn't really take a conspiracy to accomplish it though, just indifference. Quickly forgetting what we don't want to hear.

Are you trying to convince me that the proper term for farming is "slavery"? There is a difference between "high animal intelligence" and "sapience", in genuine, verifiable, biological ways. Those differences do not exist between Dog-Boys and humans, even the dumb ones.

Perhaps it is like homosexuals in China: the idea of a disloyal Dog Boy who doesn't want to serve humans is just thought not to exist, so people don't even bother worrying about what to do in that situation if it arises. People, without even knowing it, bury their head in the sand about whether a controversy might come up.

Or maybe, they think rebellious dog boys are a disfunction that will lead to long-term suffering, so they think it's perfectly fine to re-capture them and try to train it out of them.

In modern day, you had homosexuality treated the same way, with the religious blaming it on 'demons' or whatever. This kind of explanation for Dog Boy rebelliousness is actually even feasible on Rifts Earth since there is actually magic spells (and psionic powers) which can alter people's thought process.

A Dog Boy rebels? Tries to be free? One of those nasty Shifters or Mind Bleeders must have gotten to him! He must be rescued and his TRUE nature RESTORED.

And how many thousands or millions must know that none of this is true because they belong to the military or scientific or political elite? And what portion of the power and influence does that faction have in deciding the actions of the society as a whole?

I've never found that informative since humans are animals to me. I look at the raw attribute, and sometimes 'animal intelligence' rolls can result in higher than human minimums.

Then in your non-canon interpretation I guess Mr. Ed is non-fiction. In canon, in Palladium games, "animal intelligence" is a real thing.

That'd be your house rule then. I will not add any other restrictions beyond what alignments actually say.

A principled slave owner would probably treat their slaves really well. They wouldn't attack them unless unarmed, avoid lying to them, never torture them. Not harm them unless they were guilty of doing something (whatever 'innocent' means). Always help them.

It's almost self-solving because someone Principled would probably have a really tough time keeping slaves who wanted to get away. Resistance to their escape would largely have to be passive.

Unless of course you just stick some Zombitrons on them. Nothing evil about that

Wow. Just... wow. Slavery doesn't count as "harming an innocent???" And nothing evil about using zombitrons???

That said, while this is the first clear and unambiguous quote about CS being genocidal I have encountered in debates about this so far, it does remain a bit vague as to what their genocidal policies are...

But is not even slightly vague that they exist.

In comparing past/present, Joseph's campaign against the entirety of the Magic Zone (which was basically all the magical kingdoms back then) would not necessarily mean that an attack against one kingdom within it would qualify as a genocide, even if you were adopting a scorched earth policy.

When it describes the CS being genocidal now, that might very well refer to say, their policy against (1) Mechanoids (@) Xiticix, and nobody else. So while we do indeed know that they have at least 2 genocidal policies, not knowing what they are, we can speculate as to their nature in favorable -good guy- terms.

Sure, because Erin Tarn is a noted Mechanoids/Xiticix-rights activist. Seriously, the entire context of the books from which those quotes came is about the war between the CS and Tolkeen, claiming that this is all about the Mechanoids and Xiticix goes beyond speculation.

Normal humans are being delibertately hunted down to be killed by monsters, that's what happens to them when they are vulnerable to lethal attack.

No, it really isn't. Being vulnerable to attack does not mean that said attack occurs. Modern humans are quite vulnerable to bullet wounds, yet the vast majority go their entire life without ever being shot. There are areas where non-mages are being hunted down, that does not diminish that it is NOT a practice in most populated areas whereas mages being hunted down IS a practice in the Coalition.

There are more if you are willing to accept Erin Tarn as gospel

I'm not, but am interested in reading about it anyway.

Read away, then, and speculate why they bothered to include her and how reliable her information is overall.

The civil, sure, not so much with the wild guys. I think the prob is, while we might be swimming in SoT casualty stats (not sure where, guessing aftermath) we probably don't have a huge amount of statistics of who all the others are killing.

True, but we also don't see them committing acts of genocide, or changing the political landscape of the entire continent through warfare.

Plus I still think we should view it in terms of % scope compared to their size.

If 100 000 humans kill 10 000 people and 100 vampires kill 1000 people, you could say the humans kill 10x as much, but on an individual basis, they're killing 1/100 as much.

If you want to define per-capita evil, that's fine. I would not be surprised if humans were per-capita less evil than many supernatural predators that can only exist by consuming the living. Not sure if that is relevant to anything, but go with it. I am curious, how do you think the CS fares per-capita compared to non-CS humans?

maybe it is better to live under restrictions in a fascist regime than it is to be in the path of that regime and become either an accidental casualty or even targeted as a sympathizer

If the CS is not going to be immediately invading Lazlo I can't see that keeping people away from it.

Anyone want to take bets on when "The Siege of Lazlo" occurs? Going back to Siege on Tolkeen 2, the immortal Kevin states outright that the CS is built on and sustained by continued conquest, anyone not thinking Lazlo is in their sights is dreaming.

"As for who is better for the world", as if this one point in some way proved it.

No it's more like introducing the point of "better for whom" I guess. You could be a super-literate world-NGR living in a radioactive wasteland or an illiterate CS living in a pristine farmland.

"for the world" would seem to encompass both.

Wondering what would happen to the mages of the Vanguard is an "irrelevant hypothetical" but stating that "CS would change on the path to worldwide domination" isn't?

They both are.

Then why counter a dismissed argument with one you yourself dismiss? And again, the point is that the existence of the mages of the Vanguard does not disprove in any way the persecution and extermination of mages by the CS right now.

I was too. Would Archie qualify? The Naruni? Entire towns of people scared of magic who are CS-friendly but not actually part of the CS?

Well, Archie is an organization of one giant brain and one human and a ton of robots, so I am not sure that really counts. And the Naruni are certainly an organization, but they hardly have much of a presence on Earth and while they have no native ability to use magic, I don't see any indication that they especially fear it. And I am not sure that distinction between CS-friendly towns and the CS itself is all that meaningful here.

I just looked at the forward of Siege of Tolkeen 2, and the first page alone seems pretty damning in regards to KS's view of the Coalition. I won't retype the whole thing, but it should be read.

"A clash of Titans" on page 7? Also says it's by Bill Coffin...

Actually it says "By Kevin Siembieda & Bill Coffin", but I'm sure Kevin had little role in the series of books he'd been planning since launching this game.

"an all-out drive to secure a safe place for humanity's next generation"
"it's citizens believe that they are safer under a harsh militocracy"
"their mighty military has never failed them"

Nice cherry-picking! Here's some more:

The moment the people begin to question the wisdom and power of their leaders and begin to wonder about their motives, actions and philosophies, is the moment those same leaders begin to lose control over the people. The moment they lose control, the very foundation of the Coalition's military society begins to crumble. The Coalition High Command can not let that happen, and while they are on watch, they will do - everything - in their power to prevent that.

Thus, we have the Coalition War: Siege on Tolkeen, a vicious campaign of utter destruction that pits the Coalition against a much smaller, weaker power that has never overtly challenged the CS or made moves against it. Certain individuals within Tolkeen may have, but the nation as a whole has never sought conflict with its massive, technologically powerful neighbor, which makes the Coalition's aggression all the more questionable, its heroics all the more hollow.

Hopefully, as the smoke clears from the battlefields of Tolkeen, the soldiers of the Coalition will recognize their crimes and strive to prevent them as their society soldiers on into the future.

[cosmicfish]

The average citizen is actually of Good alignment.

Got anything to back that up?

[cosmicfish]

Perhaps it is "easy to forget" the CS espouses genocide because they did not espouse it in the main book?

Not being in the main book does not make it non-canon!

But something like the Xiticix makes worrying about the moral implications of genocide a whole other ballgame.

A planetwide genocide of Xiticix isn't even an extinction event since there's probably lots of them left in whatever dimension they invaded from, something we can't say about Earth-native species.

You keep coming back to the Xiticix despite the fact that all of the references I am giving are from a series of books that describe the Coalition completely outside of its (or anyone else's) interactions to the Xiticix.

In the context of the 2nd book, yes. Just as Tolkeen is the bad guy in Sorcerer's Revenge. Each book focuses on the brutality of either side in war, not commenting on their status of being good or bad in the greater context of the war or North America

Except that the quotes I gave are not describing the Coalition in a manner limited to the war. Indeed, most of the quotes are about the Coalition as it has been before the war, discussing the long build up to it, discussing the way the Coalition leadership uses war and conquest to maintain fear in the population and thereby control it. This is not a temporary madness, it is decades of policy and practice.

I see the statement you quoted as only applying to their role in Coalition Overkill, nothing more.

Then I suggest reading it again. I see nothing to indicate that it is intended as such.

[cosmicfish]

As far as the CS population knows, what the CS is doing is "fighting evil enemies who want to devour humans' bodies and souls."
Why would any good aligned person have a problem with that?

That implies a level of ignorance that I cannot see the government maintaining. The military is too large and there are going to be way too many personal accounts over the years to conceal what is happening from a bulk of the populace. Selfish alignments seem like the norm not only for the CS but indeed for any population not explicitly denoted as being largely good.

[cosmicfish]

Haven't found a direct one so far but I think the "Blitzkreig" section (page 101) kind of insinuates it. Talking about Cyber-Knights objecting (leading to SoT4 schism). Like

"all participants, innocent civilians included, will be obliterated"
"evacuation is out of the question"
"its own people must be sacrificed"

When accompanying criticism of the CS for pushing Dog Boys into wars without choice, it mirrors how Tolkeen disregards its citizens.

Except for one big difference - the CS started this war. Everything that the CS is doing, from their treatment of the Dog-Boys they created to the murder of good-aligned "undesirables", is their choice to do, without pressure, from a variety of options (most of them less-evil). Tolkeen in book 3 is desperate, fighting a defensive war against a massive and implacable foe, a war that they did not start and which promises (literally!) the most total annihilation their enemy can accomplish! Comparing the actions of Tolkeen in this moment to those of the Coalition across a century is like drawing equivalence between a serial killer and the victim who shoots back in self-defense, simply because they both committed an act of violence with a gun.

[Tor]

I think it's less a matter of moral differences and more a matter of how we view the threats the CS has to face.

The ends justify the means? Evil is situational?

We have the resources to neutralize many threats through non-lethal means like taser, pepper spray, plain old outnumbering/tackling, joint locks, etc. We also have nice armored cars to transport prisoners in, and nice prisons to put them into so they can't begin hurting people as soon as we stop holding them down.

A lot of people do not have these resources, this would be the case of many villages out there. For them, only a lethal solution may be reliable to secure their populace when dealing with a threat, even though someone wealthier may have the resources for non-lethal subdues.

For that reason, yes, evil is situational. If some mental patient is swinging around a knife (or a vibro knife) and you had the means to subdue them non-lethally, you could consider it evil to use lethal force instead. But I wouldn't consider it evil to use lethal force if you did not have other options.

Can you indicate either what such measures of "peoplehood" Dog-Boys fail to meet, or else how the leadership and scientists and psionics in the CS fail to recognize that they in fact met said measures?

I would say that their failure to recognize any existing people-quality that might be there is evident by how they are treated and loved. I can't quantify what it is, as I don't have first-person experience thinking in these touchy-feely terms, I tend to just default to considering IQ and raw processing power.

I disagree that slavery is such a value, especially when the slaves were handcrafted to be such.

Cept as others pointed out, the CS did not add obedience, dogs already evolved this, they just enhanced the IQ/dexterity/strength/etc. Is the CS obligated to try and make dogs less obedient so they can be freer?

I think that is an awfully generous criterion. Only 1800 or so Germans were tried for the crimes of the Nazis out of a population of 90 or so million, and the Nazis are our gold standard of real evil. I guess they weren't evil though! Good old ignorant Nazis! Knuckleheads, what were they thinking?

The amount of people tried for a crime is not necessarily an accurate estimate of how many people are committing the crimes. Particularly when numbers reach higher amounts and it becomes hard to collect evidence.

I also do not know how many Nazis were evil and how many were simply selfish and scared to disobey, thinking they would be shot for treason. I don't consider cowardice necessarily to be evil.

Have to keep in mind that this all started with them "reclaiming" the Rhineland, which doesn't seem like very much of an evil act. But by the time it snowballed into invading other nations, a lot of these guys were already in, and nobody could speak out against it for fear of sanction/murder.

Are you trying to convince me that the proper term for farming is "slavery"?

I don't see why the noun 'slave' should be limited to a particular species, so yes. I am a slaveowner to 2 dogs and 1 cat.

There is a difference between "high animal intelligence" and "sapience", in genuine, verifiable, biological ways.

So far as we know.

Per Underseas, Dolphins/Orcas are our equals, modern science does not acknowledge that, so the void of our current knowledge is Palladium canon.

how many thousands or millions must know that none of this is true because they belong to the military or scientific or political elite? And what portion of the power and influence does that faction have in deciding the actions of the society as a whole?

I don't know enough about Chinese or CS society to estimate that. I don't think belonging to the elite necessarily means that people know better though. Having a high access to information does not necessarily mean that you will be presented with the correct information or know how to sort it out.

Then in your non-canon interpretation I guess Mr. Ed is non-fiction.

Pretty sure Mr. Ed would be created as a mutant animal, and they roll a base of 3D6 which is then adjusted for size levels.

In canon, in Palladium games, "animal intelligence" is a real thing.

It has no statistical relevance as far as I have seen, it is only put as a side mention to the attribute sometimes to explain the rough levels.

Wow. Just... wow. Slavery doesn't count as "harming an innocent???"

Not necessarily. You could for example, enslave a non-innocent, however non-innocent is determined. Like say for example, a guy is going around serial-killing for no reason, you could enslave him.

nothing evil about using zombitrons???

That would depend on the context. If you use it to pacify Mr. Serial Killer, that doesn't seem evil.

But is not even slightly vague that they exist.

True. But I would say "this is not an evil genocide" if we were talking about wanting to completely wipe the Xiticix off the face of the earth. I might allow for Genocide against Vampires to have some more moral discussion attached to it, but am thinking a lot of people would similarly see a genocide against vampires as similarly non-evil, a self-preservation tactic against supernatural alien invaders who, if not completely obliterated, will replicate at ridiculous speeds and overwhelm us later.

Sure, because Erin Tarn is a noted Mechanoids/Xiticix-rights activist.

I don't recall specifically what Erin has said about CS and genocide which is why I would like to read it before commenting.

the entire context of the books from which those quotes came is about the war between the CS and Tolkeen, claiming that this is all about the Mechanoids and Xiticix goes beyond speculation.

The Coalition War Campaign is not solely about Tolkeen. The CS is mentioned as developing genocidal policies in response to the FoM invasion. That is not necessarily about (or just about) wizards, but also about supernatural invaders from other dimensions like demons/deevils/vampires who may have been used to attack them. While doubtful the Xiticix were, they are recognized as enough of a threat to be included in CWC statements.

Normal humans are being delibertately hunted down to be killed by monsters, that's what happens to them when they are vulnerable to lethal attack.

No, it really isn't. Being vulnerable to attack does not mean that said attack occurs. Modern humans are quite vulnerable to bullet wounds, yet the vast majority go their entire life without ever being shot.

I think it's a mistake to compare our world's trends with Rifts, which experiences much more conflict and danger.

Consider what a single Alu demon could do to a town with no MD defenses. Those things a first level Shifter can easily pluck into our world to dominate others and then lose control of. Those things already teleporting here to commandeer our dimensional nexus for their war.

speculate why they bothered to include her and how reliable her information is overall.

I have found enough errors to question her reliability, even in RMB does say that Traversing is the best overall world description that exists out there. Doesn't mean much for her accuracy regarding particulars. Especially if she's writing about people who put her on a wanted list and oppose the policies of her home city.

we also don't see them committing acts of genocide

It's unclear what, if any, acts by the CS are considered genocide by Palladium. We know that Karl was prepared to launch a campaign of genocide, we know that extreme officers like Drogue and his flunkies brought the option to the table, and we know they started doing it without authorization from Karl, but since it was unauthorized I do not consider that the Coalition States itself did this thing.

We might as well say that the Coalition States are creating Psi-X aliens because Desmond Bradford is part of the CS. Never mind that it's secret and unauthorized and being covered up.

how do you think the CS fares per-capita compared to non-CS humans?

I honestly don't know, it could vary a lot based on whether we're talking Psyscape or Pecos Empire or all these little wilderness communities...

Anyone want to take bets on when "The Siege of Lazlo" occurs? Going back to Siege on Tolkeen 2, the immortal Kevin states outright that the CS is built on and sustained by continued conquest, anyone not thinking Lazlo is in their sights is dreaming.

I think the Federation of Magic would be a priority first.

The CS would target intermediary places like New Lazlo and Magestar first, and while doing so, Dunscon would be guerilla warfare all over their supply lines and stuff.

I think the CS sees the value in allowing Lazlo to stay around a bit and fight Xiticix, and that it would make more sense to go after guys like Dunscon first.

Possibly Dweomer, even though it seems less evil, it seems a bit easier to find than the City of Brass, I'll take 'in an indestructible castle in another dimension' over "we have some illusion walls" any day. Psyscape also seems pretty easy to access. Sadly the 2 better guys might get hit first when they could've been helping take out Soulharvest.

If Nxla is still growing his empire, odds are that is going to reach critical mass before Lazlo is anywhere near being on the table.

why counter a dismissed argument with one you yourself dismiss?

I guess it wasn't necessary, I suppose it's fun to engage in speculation too even while seeing it as fruitless the further we go.

the existence of the mages of the Vanguard does not disprove in any way the persecution and extermination of mages by the CS right now.

No, more like it relates back to how they didn't back then, and the Vanguard (not to mention their psychic agents who might well infiltrate Psi-Bat or Psi-Net) and the RCSG are a means to gradually acclimitize the CS to limited magical use in a highly regulated fashion in the long term.

I am not sure that distinction between CS-friendly towns and the CS itself is all that meaningful here.

If we can't include CS friends, we're to look for CS-neutral or CS-enemy folk to find people who share their views?

Actually it says "By Kevin Siembieda & Bill Coffin",

I know, I should've phrased it better, should've said "says it's also by Bill" instead of "also says it's by Bill"

The moment they lose control, the very foundation of the Coalition's military society begins to crumble.

Military's gotta stay organized!

a much smaller, weaker power that has never overtly challenged the CS or made moves against it. Certain individuals within Tolkeen may have, but the nation as a whole has never sought conflict with its massive, technologically powerful neighbor, which makes the Coalition's aggression all the more questionable, its heroics all the more hollow.

Couldn't we also say the same thing about Afghanistan? It never declared war on the US as a whole, as a nation, but individuals within it may have.

Perhaps the Coalition is justified in attacking Tolkeen because it harbor's anti-CS terrorists and does not bring them to justice as other respectable nations do?

Overkill came out August 2000 so it's obviously not a commentary on that situation, but those events do lead to stimultation to analyze it by that comparison.

The average citizen is actually of Good alignment.

Got anything to back that up?

KC might've been thinking of "In game terms, the average citizen of the Coalition States if of a good or selfish alignment" from CWCp46 under "The Average Coalition Citizen".

Based on that vagueness, would anyone find it disagreeable to say "Unprincipled" is the average? That's also what I'd expect is the average of our modern society.

Other interesting catch phrases:
*47: "CS soldiers as the villain"
*48: "Coalition Soldiers as Good Guy Player Caracters

Also worth considering is "CS soldiers who are truly creatures of evil (15%)"

This sounds to me like the CS military is 85% good/selfish, a majority, like the average citizen.

Perhaps it is "easy to forget" the CS espouses genocide because they did not espouse it in the main book?

Not being in the main book does not make it non-canon!

I didn't say anything about whether it was canon.

I just wonder if KS is right to describe that we "forgot" the CS is genocidal when, unless we can find evidence of the term's use to this effect in earlier groups, he may actually be introducing it as a certainty in his reminder.

You keep coming back to the Xiticix despite the fact that all of the references I am giving are from a series of books that describe the Coalition completely outside of its (or anyone else's) interactions to the Xiticix.

I do this because the statements about the CS as not necessarily about Tolkeen itself. "Overkill is all about how the Coalition is the bad guy .. the CS espouses many of the things we have grown to detest .. racism, and genocide" This is a generic statement, it is not Tolkeen-specific, so the genocide espoused by CS could be in regard to the Xiticix.

Lenwen also brought up CWC statements about genocide which has made mention of Xiticix. Plus... are we forgetting that the Xiticix Gambit was part of the SoT ?

the quotes I gave are not describing the Coalition in a manner limited to the war. Indeed, most of the quotes are about the Coalition as it has been before the war, discussing the long build up to it, discussing the way the Coalition leadership uses war and conquest to maintain fear in the population and thereby control it. This is not a temporary madness, it is decades of policy and practice.

All this was discussed in CWC where they were also described as mostly non-evil optional good guys.

I see nothing to indicate that it is intended as such.

You have to look in the greater scope, taking into account CWC solidying the CS, civilian and military, as evil. As being either villains or 'good guys'. They can play either role. Overkill focused on the villain role, that doesn't make it their prime role.

That implies a level of ignorance that I cannot see the government maintaining.

You underestimate gullibility

The military is too large and there are going to be way too many personal accounts over the years to conceal what is happening from a bulk of the populace.

Personal accounts do not need to be 100% concealed. Those that slip through may pass as stories, but ones people are skeptical of due to inability to locate evidence.

If we look at that Shadows of Evil thing about the Sgt letting the D-Bees go, fondling the Yeno dad's cheek, leaving the concentration camp intact: that's the kind of epic civilian-swaying story you'd expect to get out, right? Except as soon as Drogue got wind of it, he could probably just find someone else to blow it up, and so in the end, the concentration camp gets destroyed anyway. What proof remains to convince the populace of the rumors of the mercy act?

Selfish alignments seem like the norm not only for the CS but indeed for any population not explicitly denoted as being largely good.

If selfish were the norm it would have just said that, instead it is "good and selfish" so there has to be a significant number of good people, I'd expect more than there are evil ones, otherwise they'd say the average citizen is "selfish or evil".

Except for one big difference - the CS started this war.

I don't agree with this. Perhaps if we view it in the short term. But if you look back far enough, Tolkeen was a member state of the original Federation of Magic and the Federation invaded Chi-Town, so really, THEY started it.

Everything that the CS is doing .. is their choice to do, without pressure

No pressure except that Tolkeen is a haven for dangerous people who could prey upon innocent humans.

Sorcerer's Revenge page 49 "Tolkeen's current leadership has never been very discriminating about the kinds of individuals it allows into its borders"

Isn't Freehold a kingdom of dragons led by guys who split their souls into animalistic predatory shadows which slowly turns them evil the more they do it? Are we thinking this is the worst evil Tolkeen shelters under its inclusive boundaries?

Tolkeen in book 3 is desperate, fighting a defensive war against a massive and implacable foe, a war that they did not start and which promises (literally!) the most total annihilation their enemy can accomplish! Comparing the actions of Tolkeen in this moment to those of the Coalition across a century is like drawing equivalence between a serial killer and the victim who shoots back in self-defense, simply because they both committed an act of violence with a gun.

Serial killer is inapt to describe them, they are expanding a secure place for humans to live in. Magic cities full of monsters get in the way of that.

Tolkeen is parked close to Chi-Town the same way the Great City was. Invading them was not an absolute guarantee. If Robert Creed had stopped letting miscreants into his town, maybe got rid of the demons/shifters, allowed a CS embassy, things could've gone smoother.

I still think the CS is open to diplomacy with magical nations if they will make concessions. Cordoba I think is evidence of this, they are willing to engage in talks and trade even though they have dwarves and techno-wizardy.

It's just that: however big the concessions were originally when they sat down to talk with Nostrous, they are going to be WAY huger now, with way more strict controls and concessions.

I expect that if Tolkeen had been willing to join the CS, they could've been offered a similar deal as the Vanguard were: get out, don't come back, go live elsewhere further from humans you might endanger, take your demons with you, we will protect the normal civilians you leave behind and allow your d-bee refugees to live in outskirts/burbs as second-class non-citizens.

[flatline]

Quoting the full sentence was not necessary, as portions were unrelated to what affected my interest. I was not addressing "unfortunately for them" (no comment on that, too vague) or "my characters usually happen to fall into those categories" (also no comment, I believe you). If the point of your post was to comment on the categories your characters fall into or to comment on the good fortune of certain believes, I found both disconnected from something I could make world-based commentary about.

I don't see how what your statement encompassed was altered here. You're still talking about the CS either way, same circumference.

By quoting just the snippet, you made it look like I was saying that the CS were bad guys because they treat certain kinds of people badly. But what my post was saying is that the CS are considered bad guys by certain types people because the CS treats those types of people badly. That's a very different statement.

Intentionally or not, you totally misrepresented what I said and I don't appreciate it. People will see your post, see the out of context quote of a partial sentence attributed to me, and may believe that I made the argument that the CS are absolutely bad guys when in reality I did no such thing.

--flatline

[Lenwen]

I swear some people .. You find a direct quote from Kevin himself directly stating the CS ARE THE VILLAINS .. (here is a hint, he created the entire game if he calls them the villains .. that means yes they are thee bad guys .. )

And they want to "goal post move" an say oh no .. it does not say "bad guys" ..

BHAHAHAAHAHAHA shut up .. when the creator himself STATES .. THEY ARE THE VILLAINS .. THAT MEANS THEY ARE THE BADGUYS ! !

seriously ? Get over yourselves .. (yes I am aware I will get a "board warning for this)

[Nightmask]

Jeepers Creepers Tor. I feel like you had a really good time writing all of that. Some of your points seem solid, others seem like you're splitting hairs just to write. Which is fine with me. Fine effort! I shall respond to questions/points directed at me.

Aside from the CWC mention of being "ready" for genocide and the Overkill's descriptor of the issue coming to the forefront along with the new breed of officers (ie Drogue bringing tools capable of inflicting it) would anyone know what explicit mentions exist that genocide actually began? Just wanting to know where to look. One of the later books?

To see the ONLY EVIDENCE EVER (I'm capitalizing for those who believe the CS is often referred to in the books as genocidal) of the CS engaging in genocide see Seige on Tolkeen 5: Shadows of Evil, in which we learn the following (paraphrased for brevity, humor and copyright). General Drogue is a bad person (we actually learned that in earlier books). He used to have lots of friends, a "new generation" of "cutthroat" coalition officers who believed the "ends justified the means," and who we know from this book and previous ones were constantly at odds with the rest of the Coalition Brass, who frowned upon their tactics and attitudes. He got his butt handed to him by Tolkeen in the Sorcerer's Revenge. He became a laughingstock.

The Chapter in this book which begins Drogue's story is called "Incriminating Evidence." Subchapter 1 is "Something to Hide." What's to hide? His loss, for one--but more to the point, and the subject matter of the rest of this portion of the book: Death Camps. The book is explicit. While the half dozen camps "may seem" like something the CS would like, they were never sanctioned. They are a black mark. The soldiers who operated the camps must remain silent lest they face court martial and/or loss of citizenship (the worst punishment of all!). Drogue is trying to get rid of the camps before any other CS general discovers their existence.

But they did exist. The CS' culture has created its own monster (more monstrous than the CS already tends to be). However, Drogue is the exception that proves the rule. The CS is not genocidal.


Indeed, the Burbs are evidence of this. Which leads me to your other two comments.

Man, you're wrong on so many levels I can't begin to describe it. The books explicitly state that the CS's goals is the extermination of ALL non-humans and magic-users without exception, meaning genocide is their goal. There is no evidence that they CS isn't genocidal because they've already shown that they are in fact genocidal. The Burbs certainly aren't evidence that they aren't, and what you quote certainly isn't. The only' too far' part of what happened in Tolkeen with the death camps was the active torture of the victims of their genocidal war first, it ran the risk of making the victims look sympathetic to the masses if they ever found out unlike just nuking them or 'simply' slaughtering them.

[stuff about necromancers and monsters outside the Burbs]

I figure you're just splitting hairs for fun here, and I understand we pretty much agree, but to be clear (at least for the sake of others):
I'm just saying that there's lots of bad stuff out there. So much so that the occasional CS spring cleaning of a Burb neighborhood, while heartless and cruel, is far preferable, even to DBs, than living in the Magic Zone, or almost anywhere else, despite the presence of places like Lazlo, the Baronies, or Dweomer. Perhaps after the brutality of the Siege on Tolkeen (primarily Drogue's brutality), there are lots of refugees going to those places. But many thousands if not millions (are there numbers on this somewhere?) of DBs have already reached the walls of the CS mega-cities. They aren't running away. They chose to set up shop there. They are "safe."

Our standards, pre-apocalypse, are pretty high. Post apocalypse, I guess avoiding nightmare horrors is worth the risk of an encounter with an overzealous cop with an MD pistol.


Which brings me to one last point. To whoever, earlier in the thread, compared Prosek to Hitler, please remember the following: Hitler invented an evil that did not exist. Many people believed that certain segments of the population were somehow inherently flawed, inherently evil. But those segments of the population were the exact same in every meaningful way as those that hated them. Hitler invented, or used, a feeling of oppression, a feeling of threat and defeat, in order to mobilize people to commit horrible atrocities against other people exactly like them.

Prosek is living in a world where if humans, whatever their alignment and morality, do not fight back, they will be destroyed in as horrible a way as a GM can devise (depending on the age and sensibilities of the players). Prosek's world is a truly hideous nightmare. He has to invent almost nothing to convince people of the threat. Unfortunately, people are dumb, and trusting, and might let the an untrustworthy magic user in the door. So they get a little more fear thrown on top, to get rid of the last shred of trust. That's Prosek's real sin. But, again, despite this, even he hasn't gone NEARLY as far as Hitler did. Drogue didn't even get the chance.

Rifts Earth is NOT such a nightmare anymore, it's not Chaos Earth it's an Earth where nations and city/states have been able to form all over the place so it's a world fairly past the nightmare and waking up. Prosek is also explicitly stated to actively admire Hitler and simply thinks his methods were flawed but intends to make no such mistakes in his campaign of genocide with the eager backing of his uneducated citizens. It's also ridiculous in the extreme to try and downplay what Prosek and the CS has done by saying he wasn't gone as far as Hitler when he's definitely taken things at least that far if not farther. When you've been actively engaging in the murder of innocent beings for decades wholesale you're as blood-soaked and genocidal as it gets. The CS is just as evil as Splugorthian Atlantis, an example of 'He Who Fights Monsters' as they've descended into evil and no longer have any goodness about them if they ever had it in the first place.

[Killer Cyborg]

I swear some people .. You find a direct quote from Kevin himself directly stating the CS ARE THE VILLAINS .. (here is a hint, he created the entire game if he calls them the villains .. that means yes they are thee bad guys .. )

No, it doesn't.
It just means that they're "bad guys."
Again, read the thread.

[Killer Cyborg]

The average citizen is actually of Good alignment.

Got anything to back that up?

KC might've been thinking of "In game terms, the average citizen of the Coalition States if of a good or selfish alignment" from CWCp46 under "The Average Coalition Citizen".

Bingo.

[Killer Cyborg]

As far as the CS population knows, what the CS is doing is "fighting evil enemies who want to devour humans' bodies and souls."
Why would any good aligned person have a problem with that?

That implies a level of ignorance that I cannot see the government maintaining.

Then read the books.

RMB 49
Emperor Prosek...and his advisors are cruel manipulators and exploiters of the people. They are as evil and demonic as anything that crawled out of a rift. However, this does not mean that every person who is a member or citizen of the Coalition is just as efil. Most have no idea about the government's indiscretions and lives. The majority believe their propaganda and think of their lives as fruitful, good, and happy. Sure, everybody has their complaints and concerns (especially the poor), but few think of the CS as evil or maniacal.
The Coalition soldier is no different...most see themselves as heroes. Champions of humanity and the front line against the ever-encroaching forces of evil and monsters from the Rifts!

Just for one of MANY examples where KS directly talks about the alignment and mindset of the Coalition citizens, and the effectiveness of the CS propaganda.

[Shark_Force]

the average citizen (of the CS and most other places) is actually probably selfish.

as noted, most governments do bad things at some point, and yet manage to avoid offending their citizens to the point where they get replaced. to be a good alignment, you pretty much have to have a policy of not standing idly by while that sort of thing happens. that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go sharpen your trusty steak knife and declare war on your own government, but they should be doing something, even if it's just talk about how the policies should be changed.

so far as we can tell, there isn't a lot of evidence of people having any problem whatsoever with what the CS is doing, though. in fact, their approval rating by all appearances is extremely high. nobody seems to consider it unacceptable that they just marched in and stole all of IHA's factories and inventory without warning (and probably killing people, and iirc kidnapping a number of them as well), for example.

if the majority of their population was legitimately good, people would be talking about these things, there would ultimately be no hiding it, and the government would be facing a revolution. not necessarily to be replaced by d-bee loving wizards or anything, but some of the stunts they've pulled would just not fly if the majority of their population were legitimately scrupulous or principled.

As far as the CS population knows, what the CS is doing is "fighting evil enemies who want to devour humans' bodies and souls."
Why would any good aligned person have a problem with that?

that explains some things.

it doesn't explain why new kenora/IHA and wilks are enemies of humanity when NG is not. it doesn't explain why the guy who teaches people about history and free thought is an enemy of humanity. it doesn't explain why the guy who wants to uncover the technology of the golden age and share it to everyone is an enemy of humanity. it doesn't explain why the d-bees they interact with every day in the 'burbs without said beings attempting to devour anyone's body or soul are enemies of humanity.

certainly, no good aligned person should have a problem with killing vampires or demons or even xiticix (which are not strictly evil). and if those were the only sorts of enemies the CS made for themselves, no problem.

but principled and scrupulous are not generally speaking alignments where you can say "oh, well, yeah, that was a horrible cruel unjustified thing to do, but i'm okay with that as long as it doesn't happen *too* often and good stuff is also being done."

again, this doesn't necessarily mean that they should be plotting revolution. it does mean that to fit into the "good" alignment category they should be objecting to such things in some way or another, whether that be secretly hiding a rogue scholar in your house, pushing for law reforms that permit greater personal freedoms, stating an opinion that other human nations and organizations should not be treated as enemies of the state, etc. if most people are good, then there should be a lot of actions the CS has taken which are very *un*popular, and the government should not enjoy total support like they do.

on the other hand, the quote actually says most are good or selfish. this is much more believable. and, frankly, is much more like real life. most people you meet are not going to be the equivalent of principled or scrupulous.

(on a side note, i would not consider a race with a common alignment of "any" to have an equal distribution of each alignment. it says they can be any, not that each is exactly as common as the others; most likely there will be more in the middle than there will be at either end).

[Killer Cyborg]

the average citizen (of the CS and most other places) is actually probably selfish.

as noted, most governments do bad things at some point, and yet manage to avoid offending their citizens to the point where they get replaced. to be a good alignment, you pretty much have to have a policy of not standing idly by while that sort of thing happens. that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go sharpen your trusty steak knife and declare war on your own government, but they should be doing something, even if it's just talk about how the policies should be changed.

so far as we can tell, there isn't a lot of evidence of people having any problem whatsoever with what the CS is doing, though. in fact, their approval rating by all appearances is extremely high. nobody seems to consider it unacceptable that they just marched in and stole all of IHA's factories and inventory without warning (and probably killing people, and iirc kidnapping a number of them as well), for example.

if the majority of their population was legitimately good, people would be talking about these things, there would ultimately be no hiding it, and the government would be facing a revolution. not necessarily to be replaced by d-bee loving wizards or anything, but some of the stunts they've pulled would just not fly if the majority of their population were legitimately scrupulous or principled.

As far as the CS population knows, what the CS is doing is "fighting evil enemies who want to devour humans' bodies and souls."
Why would any good aligned person have a problem with that?

that explains some things.

it doesn't explain why new kenora/IHA and wilks are enemies of humanity when NG is not.

Presumably because those places are sympathizers, or have been infiltrated by evil/demonic forces, and so forth.
Seriously, it's not hard.
Look at all the crap people believe today about Obama being a secret Muslim, or about ACORN orchestrating the Occupy Wall Street movement from behind the scenes, or about the Koch Brothers secret moon base*, and so forth.
Look at how willing the US population is to take the government's word of "that guy we killed was a terrorist" or "that place we bombed was a terrorist training camp."

Then add in a world where there are people and entities that can shapechange, possess, mind control, and otherwise work behind the scenes.
Then take away the First Amendment.
Then replace all media with specific unified propaganda.


*Okay, I made that last one up. But I've heard the others tossed about a LOT.

[Wise_Owl]

Somewhat Obligatory at this point;

Wait, do our caps have skulls on them?

To add two tiny things to the conversation; I have a feeling if the Coalition was say, a group of Genocidal Elves devoted to defending Elves from marauding menaces, including purging those invaders known as 'Humans' they would be seen alot less sympathetically by alot of people. That they are a large human technological empire in the area of the former US seems to make alot of people more sympathetic to them than the text really warrants. Though many also forget that as far as the CS is concerned, every one of us, with our literacy, knowledge of ancient history, and failure to adhere to CS doctrine, would be a criminal probably best 're-educted' or disposed of with a swift shot to the head.

The moral relevancy angle is always an interesting one. But one not applies usually to say Vampires or the Splugorth. I mean in the later case, is human slavery really 'bad'. I mean it's basically like having an Ant farm for them. Splyncryth blinks his eye are you've been dead for centuries and your entire civilization is gone. He's just in the business of buying and selling animals . Also isn't there a Vampire kingdom whose residents recieve extensive health-care, protection and so forth in return for donating a small portion of blood to sustain the vampire population? Libertarian jokes about taxes not-withstanding, sounds pretty 'moral' to me .

The thing about the CS is this, sure there are the bugs. But there are also the Cactus people. And elves. And Zambrak and humans from other worlds and humans who are psychics and mutations and Dog-boys and so forth and so on. The genocide is a non-justifiable response. There decisions are actually economically and politically negative in their affect on their people.

[Jorick]

Man, you're wrong on so many levels I can't begin to describe it. The books explicitly state that the CS's goals is the extermination of ALL non-humans and magic-users without exception, meaning genocide is their goal. There is no evidence that they CS isn't genocidal because they've already shown that they are in fact genocidal. The Burbs certainly aren't evidence that they aren't, and what you quote certainly isn't. The only' too far' part of what happened in Tolkeen with the death camps was the active torture of the victims of their genocidal war first, it ran the risk of making the victims look sympathetic to the masses if they ever found out unlike just nuking them or 'simply' slaughtering them.

I think you're wrong. Drogue s always painted as taking things too far. Even his military tactics, while eventually accepted, were frowned upon by other generals. No one knew/knows about the Death Camps. The Death Camps WOULD BE a shameful, but Drogue is disliked because he's brutal.

Rifts Earth is NOT such a nightmare anymore, it's not Chaos Earth it's an Earth where nations and city/states have been able to form all over the place so it's a world fairly past the nightmare and waking up. Prosek is also explicitly stated to actively admire Hitler and simply thinks his methods were flawed but intends to make no such mistakes in his campaign of genocide with the eager backing of his uneducated citizens. It's also ridiculous in the extreme to try and downplay what Prosek and the CS has done by saying he wasn't gone as far as Hitler when he's definitely taken things at least that far if not farther. When you've been actively engaging in the murder of innocent beings for decades wholesale you're as blood-soaked and genocidal as it gets. The CS is just as evil as Splugorthian Atlantis, an example of 'He Who Fights Monsters' as they've descended into evil and no longer have any goodness about them if they ever had it in the first place.

I can agree with some of this. The CS' culture leads them farther and farther down a dark path that they do not have to follow. Drogue is an example. Joseph Prosek, in the upcoming books, is another (though he uses magic for his power hungry nefarious purposes).

However, even Plato of Lazlo made a plea to the people of Lazlo to allow the genocide of the Xiticix (because otherwise all is lost). Any day, as happens in the minion war, armies of horrors can pour out of the Rifts. That there has not been a "demon plague" in over a hundred years does not mean one couldn't happen tomorrow...oh look it did. The Federation of Magic is a cesspool of true nightmares, some of which are extinction level events. The Vampire Kingdoms are expanding. The Splugorth may be expanding (probably not but no one in their right mind trusts them), and have mercenaries and gangs in every city that isn't walled by the CS (and possibly Lazlo is free of them as well). And these are just selections of the threats that exist on one continent.

Outside the "domain of man" people die like flies unless they have some control over some significant power. The Burbs provide protection. The Burbs may occasionally resemble the Jewish ghettos, but they are not the concentration camps. When the CS systematically combs the Burbs for DBs and puts them in mass graves, then they are committing genocide. As long as they let the DBs live in the Burbs, which they clearly do not have to do and are capable of preventing, then they are not (yet) at Nazi level atrocity.

I'm happy calling the CS "evil" in general. They are designed to be "evil" in this fictional world, using evil tropes and doing really bad things to people. I think, however, that the Siege on Tolkeen series is Kevin going out of his way to make them less disgusting than the Nazis.

Now that many veteran soldiers have gained a distaste for brutality, and are about to essentially align with many different kinds of people (good and bad) to stop the Minion War (and Xiticix--some of their tactics there are horrible, according to the preview, and not in relation to what they do to the bugs), perhaps a significant enough portion of the CS population, including generals and other influential folks, will start feeling differently about their country's basic principles, and the states wont go much further down the dark path.

That potentiality is why Cosmo Knights (et al.) would not feel it necessary to destroy the CS. That potentiality is why the CS is not an ultimate evil. In this fictional world/universe there are lots of forces, ever present and aggressive, that will never understand or desire anything less than the pain and complete destruction of everything else.

[Shark_Force]

Presumably because those places are sympathizers, or have been infiltrated by evil/demonic forces, and so forth.
Seriously, it's not hard.
Look at all the crap people believe today about Obama being a secret Muslim, or about ACORN orchestrating the Occupy Wall Street movement from behind the scenes, or about the Koch Brothers secret moon base*, and so forth.
Look at how willing the US population is to take the government's word of "that guy we killed was a terrorist" or "that place we bombed was a terrorist training camp."

Then add in a world where there are people and entities that can shapechange, possess, mind control, and otherwise work behind the scenes.
Then take away the First Amendment.
Then replace all media with specific unified propaganda.


*Okay, I made that last one up. But I've heard the others tossed about a LOT.

okay, and now let's stop and ask ourselves: how many people have you met that *actually* believe those things, compared to how many you've met that *don't* believe those things? are there people pushing for those things to be told and believed? how much effort do you imagine has been expended into advertising to dispel those beliefs?

i mean, i'm from canada, so maybe i'm just not seeing the constant commercials running to keep most people from thinking obama really is a secret muslim, and so on, in the US. but i'm guessing that mostly isn't the case. a few people believe crazy things, and then there are the overwhelming majority who do not believe those things.

now factor in that if a significant portion of your population are good aligned, some of those are going to be people in the know. people who can't stand by quietly letting you commit murder against innocent people while still being good. people who know other people and are going to mention these things. people that are good friends with other people, and are known by those people to not just be good upstanding citizens, but the kind of people who will go out of their way to help you when you need it.

or, if you make a specific effort to keep the good-aligned people out of any positions of privilege or power, that is going to be visible as well.

plus, it matches up with reality a heck of a lot better. most people are simply neither good nor evil. they aren't going to consistently put the needs of others as equal or above their own (good), but they also aren't going to be happy to inflict harm on others for fun or profit (evil). far more people will be somewhere around the unprincipled and anarchist alignment levels than there will be at either extreme.

[Killer Cyborg]

Presumably because those places are sympathizers, or have been infiltrated by evil/demonic forces, and so forth.
Seriously, it's not hard.
Look at all the crap people believe today about Obama being a secret Muslim, or about ACORN orchestrating the Occupy Wall Street movement from behind the scenes, or about the Koch Brothers secret moon base*, and so forth.
Look at how willing the US population is to take the government's word of "that guy we killed was a terrorist" or "that place we bombed was a terrorist training camp."

Then add in a world where there are people and entities that can shapechange, possess, mind control, and otherwise work behind the scenes.
Then take away the First Amendment.
Then replace all media with specific unified propaganda.


*Okay, I made that last one up. But I've heard the others tossed about a LOT.

okay, and now let's stop and ask ourselves: how many people have you met that *actually* believe those things, compared to how many you've met that *don't* believe those things?

In my social circles, few people believe the FOX News propaganda.
But when I had a job that took me to Verizion buildings across Southern Illinois, I was shocked to discover that every single person that I talked to there was a hardcore Fox News believer. They're the ones where I got those two right-wing examples.
One of them was a guy who first heard about Occupy Wall Street because I talked about the footage of the cops pepperspraying the woman, and the fact that there were all these protestors and all this stuff on YouTube, but nothing on the national news, and I explained what they were gathering for... but within a year, he thought that it was all just a bunch of rape and people pooping in cop cars, and that Acorn was behind it.
Just like his co-workers believed.

In my more liberal circles, nobody believes that crap.
Instead, they believe different crap.
And if they couldn't google-search facts on the internet, then they'd believe a LOT more crap than they already do.
Most people believe most stuff that the news tells them. They just get their news from different sources.
In the CS, there aren't different sources.
Rifts Wikipedia is brought to you by the CS.
Rifts Fox News is brought to you by the CS.
Rifts MSNBC is brought to you by the CS.
And so forth.

now factor in that if a significant portion of your population are good aligned, some of those are going to be people in the know.

I tend to think that a significant portion of the US is Good aligned.
But that doesn't change what they believe.

[Lenwen]

I swear some people .. You find a direct quote from Kevin himself directly stating the CS ARE THE VILLAINS .. (here is a hint, he created the entire game if he calls them the villains .. that means yes they are thee bad guys .. )

No, it doesn't.
It just means that they're "bad guys."
Again, read the thread.

Default setting is Rifts Earth North America.

As in .. THATS .. the area the game is focused up (in case you were unaware of that) Having stated such..

The Coalition are THEE "Bad guys" of the default setting..

Irregardless of how you want to imply this or that, or goal post move Killer Cyborg.

[eliakon]

As there is now a bit of discussion on what this thread is about....

I saw there was a pretty big posting from 5 years ago, and as I am getting back in Rifts, this is a topic I am going to be visiting in my new campaign.

So when I was younger and played Rifts, the Coalition States were pretty much always a bad guy in our storyline. Our band of mix magic/technology and human/D-bees were warriors of the light, and we fought evil and oppression where ever we found it. The CS was the embodiment of this evil. Not only did we never work for them, we actively worked to overthrow them and institute a newer, friendlier government. However this was from the perspectives of 14-18 year olds.

As I am much older now and a former Army solider, I have to say I look at the CS much differently. I don’t see them as the bad guys, for the world is not black and white. There are sure some very evil people running the CS, and their policies on magic and D-bees is very harsh if not overly aggressive. But as a whole the world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective. The CS is the only reason why humans actively have a fighting chance on North America. No other city/nation has the sheer resources to actively protect large groups of humans from multiple threats.

I am pretty sure that the Original Poster was explicitly talking about is the CS bad or is the CS just seen as bad by some people, but they are really not bad.
It was not a question of "is the CS the worst guys"
It was not a question of "is the CS the ultimate bad guy of the setting"
It was simply is the CS bad.

[Killer Cyborg]

I swear some people .. You find a direct quote from Kevin himself directly stating the CS ARE THE VILLAINS .. (here is a hint, he created the entire game if he calls them the villains .. that means yes they are thee bad guys .. )

No, it doesn't.
It just means that they're "bad guys."
Again, read the thread.

Default setting is Rifts Earth North America.

As in .. THATS .. the area the game is focused up (in case you were unaware of that) Having stated such..

The Coalition are THEE "Bad guys" of the default setting..

Not at all. There are plenty of Bad Guys in North America.
Region doesn't have anything to do with it.

[Killer Cyborg]

As there is now a bit of discussion on what this thread is about....

I saw there was a pretty big posting from 5 years ago, and as I am getting back in Rifts, this is a topic I am going to be visiting in my new campaign.

So when I was younger and played Rifts, the Coalition States were pretty much always a bad guy in our storyline. Our band of mix magic/technology and human/D-bees were warriors of the light, and we fought evil and oppression where ever we found it. The CS was the embodiment of this evil. Not only did we never work for them, we actively worked to overthrow them and institute a newer, friendlier government. However this was from the perspectives of 14-18 year olds.

As I am much older now and a former Army solider, I have to say I look at the CS much differently. I don’t see them as the bad guys, for the world is not black and white. There are sure some very evil people running the CS, and their policies on magic and D-bees is very harsh if not overly aggressive. But as a whole the world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective. The CS is the only reason why humans actively have a fighting chance on North America. No other city/nation has the sheer resources to actively protect large groups of humans from multiple threats.

I am pretty sure that the Original Poster was explicitly talking about is the CS bad or is the CS just seen as bad by some people, but they are really not bad.
It was not a question of "is the CS the worst guys"
It was not a question of "is the CS the ultimate bad guy of the setting"
It was simply is the CS bad.

The discussion diverged from there.

[Jorick]

As there is now a bit of discussion on what this thread is about....

I saw there was a pretty big posting from 5 years ago, and as I am getting back in Rifts, this is a topic I am going to be visiting in my new campaign.

So when I was younger and played Rifts, the Coalition States were pretty much always a bad guy in our storyline. Our band of mix magic/technology and human/D-bees were warriors of the light, and we fought evil and oppression where ever we found it. The CS was the embodiment of this evil. Not only did we never work for them, we actively worked to overthrow them and institute a newer, friendlier government. However this was from the perspectives of 14-18 year olds.

As I am much older now and a former Army solider, I have to say I look at the CS much differently. I don’t see them as the bad guys, for the world is not black and white. There are sure some very evil people running the CS, and their policies on magic and D-bees is very harsh if not overly aggressive. But as a whole the world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective. The CS is the only reason why humans actively have a fighting chance on North America. No other city/nation has the sheer resources to actively protect large groups of humans from multiple threats.

I am pretty sure that the Original Poster was explicitly talking about is the CS bad or is the CS just seen as bad by some people, but they are really not bad.
It was not a question of "is the CS the worst guys"
It was not a question of "is the CS the ultimate bad guy of the setting"
It was simply is the CS bad.

Perhaps, more correctly, it is not "is the CS bad?" But rather "Is the net result of CS actions good?"

The OP doesn't argue that the CS acts in a good way and is run by good people. Rather, the situation is such in the area/planet that the actions of the CS, though overly aggressive and promoted by bad people, is in fact a net good. Because the world isn't black and white. On the world of Rifts Earth, gray gets very very dark.

[Jorick]

As there is now a bit of discussion on what this thread is about....

I saw there was a pretty big posting from 5 years ago, and as I am getting back in Rifts, this is a topic I am going to be visiting in my new campaign.

So when I was younger and played Rifts, the Coalition States were pretty much always a bad guy in our storyline. Our band of mix magic/technology and human/D-bees were warriors of the light, and we fought evil and oppression where ever we found it. The CS was the embodiment of this evil. Not only did we never work for them, we actively worked to overthrow them and institute a newer, friendlier government. However this was from the perspectives of 14-18 year olds.

As I am much older now and a former Army solider, I have to say I look at the CS much differently. I don’t see them as the bad guys, for the world is not black and white. There are sure some very evil people running the CS, and their policies on magic and D-bees is very harsh if not overly aggressive. But as a whole the world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective. The CS is the only reason why humans actively have a fighting chance on North America. No other city/nation has the sheer resources to actively protect large groups of humans from multiple threats.

I am pretty sure that the Original Poster was explicitly talking about is the CS bad or is the CS just seen as bad by some people, but they are really not bad.
It was not a question of "is the CS the worst guys"
It was not a question of "is the CS the ultimate bad guy of the setting"
It was simply is the CS bad.

Perhaps, more correctly, it is not "is the CS bad?" But rather "Is the net result of CS actions good?"

The OP doesn't argue that the CS acts in a good way and is run by good people. Rather, the situation is such in the area/planet that the actions of the CS, though overly aggressive and promoted by bad people, is in fact a net good. Because the world isn't black and white. On the world of Rifts Earth, gray gets very very dark.

[Nightmask]

As there is now a bit of discussion on what this thread is about....

I saw there was a pretty big posting from 5 years ago, and as I am getting back in Rifts, this is a topic I am going to be visiting in my new campaign.

So when I was younger and played Rifts, the Coalition States were pretty much always a bad guy in our storyline. Our band of mix magic/technology and human/D-bees were warriors of the light, and we fought evil and oppression where ever we found it. The CS was the embodiment of this evil. Not only did we never work for them, we actively worked to overthrow them and institute a newer, friendlier government. However this was from the perspectives of 14-18 year olds.

As I am much older now and a former Army solider, I have to say I look at the CS much differently. I don’t see them as the bad guys, for the world is not black and white. There are sure some very evil people running the CS, and their policies on magic and D-bees is very harsh if not overly aggressive. But as a whole the world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective. The CS is the only reason why humans actively have a fighting chance on North America. No other city/nation has the sheer resources to actively protect large groups of humans from multiple threats.

I am pretty sure that the Original Poster was explicitly talking about is the CS bad or is the CS just seen as bad by some people, but they are really not bad.
It was not a question of "is the CS the worst guys"
It was not a question of "is the CS the ultimate bad guy of the setting"
It was simply is the CS bad.

Perhaps, more correctly, it is not "is the CS bad?" But rather "Is the net result of CS actions good?"

The OP doesn't argue that the CS acts in a good way and is run by good people. Rather, the situation is such in the area/planet that the actions of the CS, though overly aggressive and promoted by bad people, is in fact a net good. Because the world isn't black and white. On the world of Rifts Earth, gray gets very very dark.

You don't get good results from evil actions, except by accident or in spite of the bad actions. Any seeming good on the part of the CS is in spite of their stated goals and explicit actions, which are uncategorically evil.

[Nightmask]

Man, you're wrong on so many levels I can't begin to describe it. The books explicitly state that the CS's goals is the extermination of ALL non-humans and magic-users without exception, meaning genocide is their goal. There is no evidence that they CS isn't genocidal because they've already shown that they are in fact genocidal. The Burbs certainly aren't evidence that they aren't, and what you quote certainly isn't. The only' too far' part of what happened in Tolkeen with the death camps was the active torture of the victims of their genocidal war first, it ran the risk of making the victims look sympathetic to the masses if they ever found out unlike just nuking them or 'simply' slaughtering them.

I think you're wrong. Drogue s always painted as taking things too far. Even his military tactics, while eventually accepted, were frowned upon by other generals. No one knew/knows about the Death Camps. The Death Camps WOULD BE a shameful, but Drogue is disliked because he's brutal.

I can't be wrong because the CS's stated goals and practices are clearly with the goal of genocide in mind (it's patently impossible for them to remove all non-human life from earth without performing genocide, and their war with Tolkeen was clearly genocidal), there is no ambiguity in that regard. In regards to Drogue, you might want to check the 'Even Evil Has Standards' tvtrope, the other generals were just as committed to genocide in the war as Drogue, they simply had issue with him keeping death camps to torture and experiment on captured Tolkeenites rather than simply killing them. It's no different than a criminal in prison going 'yeah I'm a murderer but at least I'm not a child molester like you!', both are still quite evil but the one evil is considered especially vile.

Rifts Earth is NOT such a nightmare anymore, it's not Chaos Earth it's an Earth where nations and city/states have been able to form all over the place so it's a world fairly past the nightmare and waking up. Prosek is also explicitly stated to actively admire Hitler and simply thinks his methods were flawed but intends to make no such mistakes in his campaign of genocide with the eager backing of his uneducated citizens. It's also ridiculous in the extreme to try and downplay what Prosek and the CS has done by saying he wasn't gone as far as Hitler when he's definitely taken things at least that far if not farther. When you've been actively engaging in the murder of innocent beings for decades wholesale you're as blood-soaked and genocidal as it gets. The CS is just as evil as Splugorthian Atlantis, an example of 'He Who Fights Monsters' as they've descended into evil and no longer have any goodness about them if they ever had it in the first place.

I can agree with some of this. The CS' culture leads them farther and farther down a dark path that they do not have to follow. Drogue is an example. Joseph Prosek, in the upcoming books, is another (though he uses magic for his power hungry nefarious purposes).

However, even Plato of Lazlo made a plea to the people of Lazlo to allow the genocide of the Xiticix (because otherwise all is lost). Any day, as happens in the minion war, armies of horrors can pour out of the Rifts. That there has not been a "demon plague" in over a hundred years does not mean one couldn't happen tomorrow...oh look it did. The Federation of Magic is a cesspool of true nightmares, some of which are extinction level events. The Vampire Kingdoms are expanding. The Splugorth may be expanding (probably not but no one in their right mind trusts them), and have mercenaries and gangs in every city that isn't walled by the CS (and possibly Lazlo is free of them as well). And these are just selections of the threats that exist on one continent.

Outside the "domain of man" people die like flies unless they have some control over some significant power. The Burbs provide protection. The Burbs may occasionally resemble the Jewish ghettos, but they are not the concentration camps. When the CS systematically combs the Burbs for DBs and puts them in mass graves, then they are committing genocide. As long as they let the DBs live in the Burbs, which they clearly do not have to do and are capable of preventing, then they are not (yet) at Nazi level atrocity.

I'm happy calling the CS "evil" in general. They are designed to be "evil" in this fictional world, using evil tropes and doing really bad things to people. I think, however, that the Siege on Tolkeen series is Kevin going out of his way to make them less disgusting than the Nazis.

Now that many veteran soldiers have gained a distaste for brutality, and are about to essentially align with many different kinds of people (good and bad) to stop the Minion War (and Xiticix--some of their tactics there are horrible, according to the preview, and not in relation to what they do to the bugs), perhaps a significant enough portion of the CS population, including generals and other influential folks, will start feeling differently about their country's basic principles, and the states wont go much further down the dark path.

That potentiality is why Cosmo Knights (et al.) would not feel it necessary to destroy the CS. That potentiality is why the CS is not an ultimate evil. In this fictional world/universe there are lots of forces, ever present and aggressive, that will never understand or desire anything less than the pain and complete destruction of everything else.

Uh no, Cosmo Knights would certainly consider destroying the CS a good thing, but there are other threats like the Xiticix that would need to be taken out first (and those aliens are a case of 'they're impossible to communicate with and will kill us all without exception so must be stopped to the last egg', since they're an active threat everyone has no choice but to kill them all). You're definitely drawing a conclusion from the Tolkeen war that is simply not supported by the facts, it's not even remotely making the CS look less evil than the Nazis nor would there be any reason for Kevin to try and make a group deliberately patterned after the Nazis and whose leader admires what Hitler did look anything but just as evil if not moreso than the Nazis. The entire thing is to show the depths of evil the CS embodies, to the point of turning on and trying to conquer by military force Quebec when they finally seceded even though it was a human-dominated nation they'd been allied with for decades and would never have been a threat to them. While Rifts Earth covers all shades from White to Black (although too many of the White are written as Lawfully Stupid and worthless) the CS is not grey, it's as black as it gets.

[eliakon]

As there is now a bit of discussion on what this thread is about....

I saw there was a pretty big posting from 5 years ago, and as I am getting back in Rifts, this is a topic I am going to be visiting in my new campaign.

So when I was younger and played Rifts, the Coalition States were pretty much always a bad guy in our storyline. Our band of mix magic/technology and human/D-bees were warriors of the light, and we fought evil and oppression where ever we found it. The CS was the embodiment of this evil. Not only did we never work for them, we actively worked to overthrow them and institute a newer, friendlier government. However this was from the perspectives of 14-18 year olds.

As I am much older now and a former Army solider, I have to say I look at the CS much differently. I don’t see them as the bad guys, for the world is not black and white. There are sure some very evil people running the CS, and their policies on magic and D-bees is very harsh if not overly aggressive. But as a whole the world seems a much better place because of the CS from a human perspective. The CS is the only reason why humans actively have a fighting chance on North America. No other city/nation has the sheer resources to actively protect large groups of humans from multiple threats.

I am pretty sure that the Original Poster was explicitly talking about is the CS bad or is the CS just seen as bad by some people, but they are really not bad.
It was not a question of "is the CS the worst guys"
It was not a question of "is the CS the ultimate bad guy of the setting"
It was simply is the CS bad.

Perhaps, more correctly, it is not "is the CS bad?" But rather "Is the net result of CS actions good?"

The OP doesn't argue that the CS acts in a good way and is run by good people. Rather, the situation is such in the area/planet that the actions of the CS, though overly aggressive and promoted by bad people, is in fact a net good. Because the world isn't black and white. On the world of Rifts Earth, gray gets very very dark.

If the CS by doing evil gets some good....
But if more good could have been done by NOT doing evil....
Then the CS is in the way of that good.
Yes sure they have made things marginally better for some people....but if they were not busy destabilizing North America then things would have been even better for more people. That is not a net good, that is a net evil.

[Jorick]

Uh no, Cosmo Knights would certainly consider destroying the CS a good thing, but there are other threats like the Xiticix that would need to be taken out first (and those aliens are a case of 'they're impossible to communicate with and will kill us all without exception so must be stopped to the last egg', since they're an active threat everyone has no choice but to kill them all). You're definitely drawing a conclusion from the Tolkeen war that is simply not supported by the facts, it's not even remotely making the CS look less evil than the Nazis nor would there be any reason for Kevin to try and make a group deliberately patterned after the Nazis and whose leader admires what Hitler did look anything but just as evil if not moreso than the Nazis. The entire thing is to show the depths of evil the CS embodies, to the point of turning on and trying to conquer by military force Quebec when they finally seceded even though it was a human-dominated nation they'd been allied with for decades and would never have been a threat to them. While Rifts Earth covers all shades from White to Black (although too many of the White are written as Lawfully Stupid and worthless) the CS is not grey, it's as black as it gets.

So Lazlo should have joined Tolkeen? Should they have all grouped together to wipe the CS from the map? Everyone's joining together to do so with the Demons. Was Lazlo wrong to not do so against the CS?


EDIT: Also read Siege on Tolkeen 2: Coalition Overkill starting at page 16 (Chapter entitled A Rising Evil) re. Drogue's rise to command and intentions relative to the expectations of the rest of the CS military.

[Nightmask]

Uh no, Cosmo Knights would certainly consider destroying the CS a good thing, but there are other threats like the Xiticix that would need to be taken out first (and those aliens are a case of 'they're impossible to communicate with and will kill us all without exception so must be stopped to the last egg', since they're an active threat everyone has no choice but to kill them all). You're definitely drawing a conclusion from the Tolkeen war that is simply not supported by the facts, it's not even remotely making the CS look less evil than the Nazis nor would there be any reason for Kevin to try and make a group deliberately patterned after the Nazis and whose leader admires what Hitler did look anything but just as evil if not moreso than the Nazis. The entire thing is to show the depths of evil the CS embodies, to the point of turning on and trying to conquer by military force Quebec when they finally seceded even though it was a human-dominated nation they'd been allied with for decades and would never have been a threat to them. While Rifts Earth covers all shades from White to Black (although too many of the White are written as Lawfully Stupid and worthless) the CS is not grey, it's as black as it gets.

So Lazlo should have joined Tolkeen? Should they have all grouped together to wipe the CS from the map? Everyone's joining together to do so with the Demons. Was Lazlo wrong to not do so against the CS?

EDIT: Also read Siege on Tolkeen 2: Coalition Overkill starting at page 16 (Chapter entitled A Rising Evil) re. Drogue's rise to command and intentions relative to the expectations of the rest of the CS military.

Yes Lazlo should have joined with Tolkeen, because the CS was engaged in a war of genocide against a peaceful nation/state and WILL eventually kill all of them too, and nothing I said should give anyone reason to think I said they should wipe the CS off the map but they had every right to try to defend themselves against the unprovoked efforts of the CS to kill every man, woman, and child in their city/state simply because they existed. If that required breaking the CS they had every right to do so in order to ensure the continued survival of their people, because the CS was the deadly monster killing all before it and not Tolkeen.

If you need an RL parallel, when Japan attacked the US do you think the US had no right to defend itself from such unprovoked aggression? That it had no right to fight all the way to Japan and put an end to their threat however they had to? Because the CS was way worse than Japan, because Japan would have 'just' enslaved the US whereas the CS was ONLY interested in killing everyone in and associated with Tolkeen or otherwise non-human that they came across. When you want to talk about threats to the peaceful survival of everyone on Rifts Earth the CS is one of the threats NOT one of the protectors. Their goals as as genocidal as the mechanoids, only where the Mechanoids target all humanoid life the CS targets all non-humans and magic-users human or otherwise.

[Jorick]

Yes Lazlo should have joined with Tolkeen, because the CS was engaged in a war of genocide against a peaceful nation/state and WILL eventually kill all of them too, and nothing I said should give anyone reason to think I said they should wipe the CS off the map but they had every right to try to defend themselves against the unprovoked efforts of the CS to kill every man, woman, and child in their city/state simply because they existed. If that required breaking the CS they had every right to do so in order to ensure the continued survival of their people, because the CS was the deadly monster killing all before it and not Tolkeen.

The way I interpret the canon is thus: Lazlo is the the foil for the "bad guys" in North America. Where the CS and The federation behave in certain ways, Lazlo behaves the opposite way. This is not just a plot point, but a device. Kevin, and other writers, use Lazlo to demonstrate the correct course of action. Lazlo is seemingly devoid of moral ambiguity, other than the footdragging caused by trying to figure out what the most good course of action is. As a foil, their conclusions are held up, by the authors, against the conclusions of others as "the right thing to do." Assuming this is the case then Lazlo's actions during the Siege are indicative of the author's intentions to paint the CS as different than other evils.

If you need an RL parallel, when Japan attacked the US do you think the US had no right to defend itself from such unprovoked aggression? That it had no right to fight all the way to Japan and put an end to their threat however they had to? Because the CS was way worse than Japan, because Japan would have 'just' enslaved the US whereas the CS was ONLY interested in killing everyone in and associated with Tolkeen or otherwise non-human that they came across. When you want to talk about threats to the peaceful survival of everyone on Rifts Earth the CS is one of the threats NOT one of the protectors. Their goals as as genocidal as the mechanoids, only where the Mechanoids target all humanoid life the CS targets all non-humans and magic-users human or otherwise.

I'm not sure how this is a parallel to Lazlo's actions during the Siege. Lazlo was never attacked.

I don't want to get into real life examples too deeply, but yes I think the US has a right to defend itself. I'm not so sure it has a right to drop nuclear weaponry on civilian targets. That is an evil act. Yet, doing it also does not make the US evil. No, "however they had to" I disagree with. But I do think morality and war are far from simple. Especially among humans in the real world.

As to the CS' genocidal goals, please please read Coalition Overkill again. General Drogue is the perpetrator, with others turning blind eyes. General Drogue only gets the go ahead because of the failure of the Coalition tactics as they normally are (e.g. Not Genocidal). Jerico Holmes' description in the same book is also good. General Drogue Fails almost immediately because of the Sorcerer's Revenge. However, unfortunately, by that point in the war, both sides have become so bloodthirsty that it's hard to tell the difference between war-time aggression and genocide (like carpet-bombing Berlin, which is some number of steps below dropping nukes on purely civilian populations).

[eliakon]

One thing I would like to point out about General Drogue is that his actions were extreme yes....but that there is a lot of other text citations to support the claim that the CS was genocidal before. His camps may have been overboard by CS views....but that does not mean that the CS was not genocidal, simply that what was going on at those camps was excessive. And we don't know if it was the killing, or the torture that was not condoned. For all we know the CS is perfectly fine with mass exterminations (There is support for this in the CS Saviors of Humanity book) but that they think that it should be done quickly and cleanly with no torture. That doesn't make them less genocidal, just 'nicer' when they murder their victims.
Certainly though when the CS has already engaged in genocidal actions (Campaign against the FoM is explicitly called genocidal) and they have the stated goal of exterminating Tolkeen and everyone who lives there then it seems to fail the logic test to say that they are not really genocidal.

[Jorick]

One thing I would like to point out about General Drogue is that his actions were extreme yes....but that there is a lot of other text citations to support the claim that the CS was genocidal before. His camps may have been overboard by CS views....but that does not mean that the CS was not genocidal, simply that what was going on at those camps was excessive. And we don't know if it was the killing, or the torture that was not condoned. For all we know the CS is perfectly fine with mass exterminations (There is support for this in the CS Saviors of Humanity book) but that they think that it should be done quickly and cleanly with no torture. That doesn't make them less genocidal, just 'nicer' when they murder their victims.
Certainly though when the CS has already engaged in genocidal actions (Campaign against the FoM is explicitly called genocidal) and they have the stated goal of exterminating Tolkeen and everyone who lives there then it seems to fail the logic test to say that they are not really genocidal.

Again, Please read Coalition Overkill. It's pretty explicit. The first portion of the book can be taken to be the perception of non-CS folks. When the book actually starts talking about the feeling, choices and behavior of the Coalition Officers the picture is much different. Even in the face of the blood-boiling that war causes, the anger and violence that it breeds, the average Coalition Officer is upset about the turn the war has taken. They are upset because this kind of thing has not happened before. It's not how they see the CS. Was it inevitable? Perhaps. But it wasn't the expectation, even for higher ups in the military who were supportive of the war. Even Karl finds it distasteful (though he permits it and figures who cares really?)...but he still hides it from the citizenry.

The Camps are not even known of by ANYONE besides Drogue and his flunkies. The distasteful thing is Drogue's "scorched earth" tactics (like carpet bombing, or dropping napalm? worse?).

If I could quote the entire chapter I would. It's explicit. Drogue is compared, by Kevin, to the Nazis. The rest of the Coalition is not. And, indeed, in most wars, horrible, evil things are done, even by the "good guys" (to say nothing of the relatively "bad guys"). Genocide, the systematic killing of civilians so that an entire population ceases to be, is not the goal of the CS (removing them, or even just their power centers, from the "domain of man" is--they didn't hit the Burbs first, for instance).

[Nightmask]

Yes Lazlo should have joined with Tolkeen, because the CS was engaged in a war of genocide against a peaceful nation/state and WILL eventually kill all of them too, and nothing I said should give anyone reason to think I said they should wipe the CS off the map but they had every right to try to defend themselves against the unprovoked efforts of the CS to kill every man, woman, and child in their city/state simply because they existed. If that required breaking the CS they had every right to do so in order to ensure the continued survival of their people, because the CS was the deadly monster killing all before it and not Tolkeen.

The way I interpret the canon is thus: Lazlo is the the foil for the "bad guys" in North America. Where the CS and The federation behave in certain ways, Lazlo behaves the opposite way. This is not just a plot point, but a device. Kevin, and other writers, use Lazlo to demonstrate the correct course of action. Lazlo is seemingly devoid of moral ambiguity, other than the footdragging caused by trying to figure out what the most good course of action is. As a foil, their conclusions are held up, by the authors, against the conclusions of others as "the right thing to do." Assuming this is the case then Lazlo's actions during the Siege are indicative of the author's intentions to paint the CS as different than other evils.

I've no idea how you could come to that conclusion. Lazlo was not being used to demonstrate the 'correct' course of action, NOBODY other than Tolkeen was (at least before they slid into darkness as well from fighting the monsters in the form of the CS ) engaging in the correct course of action. The rest were all acting contrary to their interests or stated goals (like the Federation of Magic's goal of destroying the CS) because the CS was designated winner and anything and anyone that would have otherwise gotten involved and brought about their loss were glued to idiot balls in order for them to stay out and leave it as just a fight between the CS and Tolkeen even though realistically that would have never happened.

If you need an RL parallel, when Japan attacked the US do you think the US had no right to defend itself from such unprovoked aggression? That it had no right to fight all the way to Japan and put an end to their threat however they had to? Because the CS was way worse than Japan, because Japan would have 'just' enslaved the US whereas the CS was ONLY interested in killing everyone in and associated with Tolkeen or otherwise non-human that they came across. When you want to talk about threats to the peaceful survival of everyone on Rifts Earth the CS is one of the threats NOT one of the protectors. Their goals as as genocidal as the mechanoids, only where the Mechanoids target all humanoid life the CS targets all non-humans and magic-users human or otherwise.

I'm not sure how this is a parallel to Lazlo's actions during the Siege. Lazlo was never attacked.

I don't want to get into real life examples too deeply, but yes I think the US has a right to defend itself. I'm not so sure it has a right to drop nuclear weaponry on civilian targets. That is an evil act. Yet, doing it also does not make the US evil. No, "however they had to" I disagree with. But I do think morality and war are far from simple. Especially among humans in the real world.

As to the CS' genocidal goals, please please read Coalition Overkill again. General Drogue is the perpetrator, with others turning blind eyes. General Drogue only gets the go ahead because of the failure of the Coalition tactics as they normally are (e.g. Not Genocidal). Jerico Holmes' description in the same book is also good. General Drogue Fails almost immediately because of the Sorcerer's Revenge. However, unfortunately, by that point in the war, both sides have become so bloodthirsty that it's hard to tell the difference between war-time aggression and genocide (like carpet-bombing Berlin, which is some number of steps below dropping nukes on purely civilian populations).

Dropping nuclear weapons on civilian targets isn't an inherently evil act, in an all-out war like WWII it was necessary in order to save lives overall on both sides of the war. We've just worked harder since then to make it less socially acceptable. The CS however has no problems doing so since their goal is the killing of everyone without exception.

As far as Coalition Overkill goes, YOU need to be rereading that and everything else regarding the CS. Seriously, you simply don't have a leg to stand on claiming the CS's stated policies and actions aren't the total genocide of all non-humans and magic-users on the planet because those are EXACTLY what the CS's goals are. There is no ambiguity, no wiggle room, no 'it's simply rogue elements', it's exactly what the CS desires and actively works at accomplishing. There is no room to claim otherwise. The CS went to war with Tolkeen with the explicit purpose of killing EVERYONE and tried nuking them first so they wouldn't have to get their hands dirty or lose resources killing them the old-fashioned way. It was a war of genocide, they wanted nothing from Tolkeen but the death of everyone and there is NO room to claim otherwise.