The Coalition States are not the bad guy

[Killer Cyborg]

I think the Xiticix are something of a side-issue- They're a largely not-possessing-individuality threat as long as so much as one hive exists. Gargoyles, even, they're a species of sub-demons in a large collected aggressive nation.

Kremin! Swamp-Sludgers! Slurmphs!

"Designated as dangerous alien invaders, CS troops have had a standing order to destroy all Kremin on sight. Now, with new evidence of a Kremin invasion*, most people are likely to view them with suspicion and fear. Meanwhile, xenophobes among human and D-Bee alike are likely to side with the Coalition's position that the Kremin are dangerous invaders to be destroyed, and will hunt them down and kill them whereever they are found." -D-Bees of North America.


*A bunch of Kremin rift'd in along with demons who were attacking them. CS starting telling everyone it was a Kremin invasion where their demon slaves revolted. Note, this is after the initial kill order.


Alignment of Kremin? 25% Principled, 25% Scrupulous, 15% Unprincipled, 15% anarchist. 80% good or neutral.

Swamp-Sludgers, somewhat childlikely, mostly neutral and good, shy and cautious aliens. They're known for rescuing lost children and pets, but occasionally take shiny items, food, and tinkets from others. "Most have learned that Coalition and Free Quebec soldiers are D-Bee killers who attack Sludgers on sight."


Slurmphs. Blob/slug aliens. Again, fairly positive alignments. Known for eating and drinking large amounts. Notable to be generally likable and able to befriend almost anyone. "Slurmphs have been targeted by the Coalition Army due to their ugly, inhuman appearance, in a campaign of genocide. Over the last 35 years, the CS has slaughtered hundreds of thousands and wiped them out of Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. Most Slurmphs tend to give the Coalition States a wide berth, and hate and fear the CS."

Not just that they're killed on sight, but hundreds of thousands of them dead and wiped out several large areas of them.

Good finds.

[Shark_Force]

just because they didn't successfully get 100% of the population of tolkeen doesn't mean the CS didn't kill the vast majority of them. based on that definition, the nazis didn't commit genocide either (some got away, some were never in his grasp at all) and yet their actions are exactly what the word was created to describe.

frankly, i think the CS siege on tolkeen probably killed a far greater percentage of tolkeen's citizens than nazi germany ever managed to accomplish percentage-wise in their efforts (well, maybe against gypsys they succeeded... to be honest, i have no idea what the population of gypsies was before and after the war. but they definitely didn't come close to killing all the jews, though they certainly killed a lot of them).

[Killer Cyborg]

just because they didn't successfully get 100% of the population of tolkeen doesn't mean the CS didn't kill the vast majority of them. based on that definition, the nazis didn't commit genocide either (some got away, some were never in his grasp at all) and yet their actions are exactly what the word was created to describe.

I'd say that the word was created to describe what Hitler was attempting.

frankly, i think the CS siege on tolkeen probably killed a far greater percentage of tolkeen's citizens than nazi germany ever managed to accomplish percentage-wise in their efforts (well, maybe against gypsys they succeeded... to be honest, i have no idea what the population of gypsies was before and after the war. but they definitely didn't come close to killing all the jews, though they certainly killed a lot of them).

Let me know if you find any hard numbers.
Or, for that matter, and numbers of Tolkeen's "genocide" against the CS.

[Q99]

Good finds.

Thanks


Aside from those three, D'norr Devilmen- another generally-good species- is high on the 'to be wiped' list because a lot of them study magic (while not being at all innately magical, any that don't study magic are no more magic than you are). Plus they have horns and look kinda devilish, soooo.... even though they're on good terms with many other groups like Natives (who call them 'red horned brothers') and cyber-knights, they're another on the extermination list.

I get the impression some species get added because they're a combination of ugly and easy prey, so you can have troops wipe them out in quantity to show you're 'stopping supernatural threats,' and driving up the numbers, without having to spend the effort against really dangerous foes.


The other species aren't noted to be as singled out, but around 2/3rds list Coalition Soldiers/the Coalition States as an enemy who they hate/fear/avoid.

[Cyber-Knight]

Just a quick comment: Are there more humans living in the CS than in magic communities like Lazlo, New Lazlo, and Tolkeen? Probably. But it's not enough to simply live, particularly if you're living under an oppressive state, one which actively encourages illiteracy and ignorance. What good is life if you're a slave to the state? The CS isn't trying to preserve the human race. They're exploiting a renewable resource, humans, to feed the ambitions of the Prosek family.

[Q99]

Just a quick comment: Are there more humans living in the CS than in magic communities like Lazlo, New Lazlo, and Tolkeen? Probably. But it's not enough to simply live, particularly if you're living under an oppressive state, one which actively encourages illiteracy and ignorance. What good is life if you're a slave to the state? The CS isn't trying to preserve the human race. They're exploiting a renewable resource, humans, to feed the ambitions of the Prosek family.

Most obvious if you look at how they treat the Burbs.

Heck, if you count the Burbs as 'outside the CS,' which is how the CS considers them, then there's probably more outside of it

[Tor]

they can eat almost anything. Bones, rotting garbage, twigs, bark, bugs, compost... all things part of their diet.

They CAN, but WILL they? Humans can eat bugs too, and boil down bones until they can be choked down. These Slurmphs seem to enjoy fresh fruits and beers, I wager they will probably compete for our foods first and only eat rotting garbage as a secondary option if they can't get at our cats.

They are also noted as being exceptionally skilled farmers, and most are noted to be willing to help other farmers with their gardens or crops.

Probably biding their time until they can outbreed us and then push us out of the farming business and then deny us its fruits.

they leave their young to fend for themselves which has got to impact mortality

I dunno, the young are real tiny and mature quickly, they're safely buried and they aren't listed as starting SDC so they would be immune to a lot of predators. As young they can burrow around underground so they could probably go deeper if threatened.

they're like kids, they'll steal the meal you left out, they can't transport your food stores even if they wanted to.

If they can't transport it, that may just mean they break into your fridge, take what they can eat, and then leave the lest scattered on the ground to rot.

Extermination still seems excessive...

Excess is relative to resources. If the CS had the resources to safely create a zoo for all of them to live in where they couldn't come steal people's guns and go on killing spreeswith them, I would say they ought to do that until they could be safely exported to other dimensions. It's what honorable humans do!

But the CS can't spare resources like that! They are fighting for the survival of humanity. Manpower and time is limited. Engaging in genocidal tactics to keep their numbers under control when they are running wild is a sensible form of pest control.

If someone else wants to keep one as a slave, I don't see the CS saying "no, you can't have your D-Bee slave!" and killing the thing. That would only happen if it broke free and started causing trouble (per CWC they kill the thing and then apply the crime to the human responsible for it)

they offered shoot-on-sight orders based on said ignorance.

Same as what they would do with Imps from Dyval. Sure, they don't know they're ALL evil, that half are merely anarchist (the BEST of them SELDOM kill for pleasure and are "not likely" to kill unarmed foes) but enough of them have been observed doing evil stuff for this to be considered a reliable policy for human safety.

Unprincipled/Anarchist was the alignment of the first batch of Kremin, the 'hey we're mostly goodguys' demographics came later in 'Dbees of NA'. The CS formed its policies when it was selfish guys mucking around and this was further complicated by them being seen alongside demons. It is an empathizable mistake for them to not know they are good.

being on an extermination list based on a group appearing neutral-ish seems excessive to me!

As per the above statement about the devil Imps, anarchists can be pretty rough. Even Unprincipled can lie/cheat/torture if they deem it 'necessary' for something, take advantage of unarmed foes, and dislike authority. These combined with their stoic 'this doesn't bother me' attitude when watching battles doesn't combine for a good impression.

They might 'help those in need' but they don't 'always help others', and their 'high regard for life' may mean that even if humans are in need of help, the Kremin won't be willing to kill those attacking humans, perhaps just chase them off in non-fatal ways.

This easily leads to the impression that the Kremin are battlefield generals possibly commanding the creatures who attack humanity, as the CS came to think of demons. Most beings, if they saw demons attacking humans, wouldn't just calmly watch, they would either run away, help the humans, laugh, be frozen in fear, etc. Kremin project an air of being a commander, a calm observer, a sense of "all according to planned".

They have clean nukes, and were attacking a mega-damage city IIRC. They might have possible expected Tolkeen to survive, although i wouldn't bet on it.

I expect that even Chalk, who wanted to wipe the place out, still thought there would be more work after the 3-day missile barrage ended.

Wikipedia has a quote from the guy credited for creating the word in 1943 which was then published in his 1944 "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" (subtitle: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress)

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

Not totally sure when this quote is from though, it might be from ARIOE or possibly from some later writing. He was alive until 1959 so that's 16 years to fiddle with it, if it came from something later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPPCG was introduced in 1948 (5 years after the term was coined) although

Oddly I can't find info regarding enforcement of the law except for 1998 in Rwanda and 2007 in Yugoslavia. This shows that however broad the wording may be, the people who popularized it are not broadly enforcing it except in very extreme circumstances.

Also worth highlighting: http://press.anu.edu.au//apps/bookworm/ ... cker.xhtml

This 2010 article by John Docker says that William L. Patterson said that Lemkin "argued vehemently that the provisions of the Genocide Convention bore no relation to the US Government or its position vis-à-vis Black citizens".

Perhaps D-Bees are similar situation? The letter of the law may not be genocidal in the CS (as it was not in the US of the 1950s) but you had racism among the people, racism among the politicians, and law enforcement looking the other way (or sometimes participating in and covering up) racial killings.

This refers to a NYT article published 18 December 1951 which I believe is this: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.h ... 838A649EDE although I cannot view more than the abstract of it since I am not a NYT subscriber. It apparently quotes Lemkin as saying it was to "divert attention from the crimes of genocide committed against Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles and other Soviet-subjugated peoples".

I have the impression that D-Bees may be victims of lynching more frequently in the CS than people of darker skin tones were in the 1950s US, but I am not 100% sure of that. If it is true I would like to ground it in some clear text and numerical comparisons, either on the numbers who suffer or on differences in letter of law. Want to make sure we are not white-washing the 'nuclear family' US or black-washing (unfortunatey choice of words but it is the color of their armor...) the Coalition States because we all loves wizards and elves.

It is pretty easy to confuse CS unwritten policies with CS written ones, so we need to be sure we're talking about actual laws against D-Bees (or lack of ones protecting them) rather than non-enforcement or vigilantism with lack of inquiry.

A simpler quote attributed to him:

"the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group."

This of course leads us to ask "how much destruction"? As killing a single person is partial destruction of any nations or ethnic groups they may be a citizen or descendant of. The first expanded definition (not just taking lives, but disintegrating all that other stuff) widens this further. Interestingly though, this expanded definition only focuses on nations, not ethnic groups, unless that is what is meant by "national group".

If "different actions .. disintegrating .. economic existence" qualifies as genocide, then the 'free PPE' Techno-Wizardry is a huge threat to tech-based economies that rely on non-renewable resources.

If the 'destruction of the personal security .. dignity' qualify, then all nations which practise magic are committing genocide against the Coalition States by making humans insecure by summoning supernatural creatures to the planet and interfering with the dignified technology-based approach to life that humans have historically done.

D'norr Devilmen- another generally-good species- is high on the 'to be wiped' list because a lot of them study magic (while not being at all innately magical, any that don't study magic are no more magic than you are).

I dunno about that, compared to the 2d6 PPE of humans, they get triple that PLUS their PE... no wonder half of them are mages. I wouldn't be surprised if the CS just assumes they are Creatures of Magic and that the 1/2 who have not been sensed with magical abilities are somehow hiding it (maybe via that Mystic Invisibility spell in Merc Adventures).

they're on good terms with many other groups like Natives

Many of whom worship supernatural entities and practise magic themselves =/

it's not enough to simply live, particularly if you're living under an oppressive state, one which actively encourages illiteracy and ignorance

I wouldn't say they encourage ignorance, they just realize that reading can be dangerous and should be controlled by the military to prevent the dangers of scroll-terrorism.

What good is life if you're a slave to the state?

May want to ask the Kingdom of Dunscon about that. The CS does not enslave humans, far as I know, unless they are enemy combatants, like those who opposed the CS reclamation of land for humanity in Minnesota. The majority of Dog Boys also seem to think live as slaves is pretty good.

[Q99]

They CAN, but WILL they? Humans can eat bugs too, and boil down bones until they can be choked down. These Slurmphs seem to enjoy fresh fruits and beers, I wager they will probably compete for our foods first and only eat rotting garbage as a secondary option if they can't get at our cats.

Probably biding their time until they can outbreed us and then push us out of the farming business and then deny us its fruits.

That's the thing- You can make paranoid assumptions, but it is simply making paranoid assumptions as justification.

I mean, by the same logic, maybe the Coalition is just luring humans to view them as protectors so they can put them in processing plants and eat them. Making up a story isn't the same as having evidence it's true.

If they can't transport it, that may just mean they break into your fridge, take what they can eat, and then leave the lest scattered on the ground to rot.

They're not described as doing that, more grabbing stuff left in the open, but the odd fridge raid still seems excessive to wipe out a species known for saving children and pets.

Excess is relative to resources. If the CS had the resources to safely create a zoo for all of them to live in where they couldn't come steal people's guns and go on killing spreeswith them, I would say they ought to do that until they could be safely exported to other dimensions. It's what honorable humans do!

But the CS can't spare resources like that! They are fighting for the survival of humanity. Manpower and time is limited. Engaging in genocidal tactics to keep their numbers under control when they are running wild is a sensible form of pest control.

The CS has gone out of their way to spend significant military effort to do so, and Slurmphs are known for being incredible farmers, increasing food supply.

They also do so off coalition-proper land.

You gotta make a whole lot of justifications to do so, and it still leaves the Coalition as a group that uses flimsy justifications for extermination and actively diverting resources to doing so.

What demons or real monsters could those soldiers have been going after rather than hunting down Slurmphs across multiple largely-empty states?

Same as what they would do with Imps from Dyval. Sure, they don't know they're ALL evil, that half are merely anarchist (the BEST of them SELDOM kill for pleasure and are "not likely" to kill unarmed foes) but enough of them have been observed doing evil stuff for this to be considered a reliable policy for human safety.

Even the anarchist demons are known to be violent and often kill people. Not all anarchists are the same, after all, an anarchist human or D-Bee is unlikely to eat me when it's hungry.

The situation between them and any of the specified targets is very different.

Unprincipled/Anarchist was the alignment of the first batch of Kremin, the 'hey we're mostly goodguys' demographics came later in 'Dbees of NA'. The CS formed its policies when it was selfish guys mucking around and this was further complicated by them being seen alongside demons. It is an empathizable mistake for them to not know they are good.

Except they had them on the 'dangerous invaders' list with the first batch, who while neutral, were noted for staying out of conflicts and observing. And seeing someone fight demons should do the exact opposite of making you think they're bad. It should not make you think they're with demons, it should make you think the exact opposite.

It's like seeing a CS force fighting a horde of demons and assume they're in league.

Demonstrating that the CS will jump from 'slightly suspicious' to 'best kill them' is exactly why they're villains. That's a completely non-proportional and, notably, if you applied the same standards in reverse on demon association, the CS are totally demon worshippers fighting a demon slave rebellion.

It sounds to me like they were looking for an excuse just based on Kremin looking to have a tech base and not wanting non-human tech rivals (who are less directly hit by their normal anti-supernatural propaganda since cyborgs *can't* be mages, so people could accept them), so they came up with one excuse for eliminating this non-hostile group, then another. Their interpretation with the demons especially is effectively made from whole cloth.

As per the above statement about the devil Imps, anarchists can be pretty rough. Even Unprincipled can lie/cheat/torture if they deem it 'necessary' for something, take advantage of unarmed foes, and dislike authority. These combined with their stoic 'this doesn't bother me' attitude when watching battles doesn't combine for a good impression.

They might 'help those in need' but they don't 'always help others', and their 'high regard for life' may mean that even if humans are in need of help, the Kremin won't be willing to kill those attacking humans, perhaps just chase them off in non-fatal ways.

So they don't do as much as we'd like and are stoic bastards. Anyone who thinks that is deserving of genocide, is pretty evil. Oh hey, like the CS

This easily leads to the impression that the Kremin are battlefield generals possibly commanding the creatures who attack humanity, as the CS came to think of demons. Most beings, if they saw demons attacking humans, wouldn't just calmly watch, they would either run away, help the humans, laugh, be frozen in fear, etc. Kremin project an air of being a commander, a calm observer, a sense of "all according to planned".

It only leads easily to that impression if one is looking for an excuse to wipe out not-them groups on principle.

They're late-comers, there's been no evidence they're behind attacks/not been seen directing attacks, and they still fight monsters and such often enough. They're military, but they do not come across as a necessarily hostile one.

I have the impression that D-Bees may be victims of lynching more frequently in the CS than people of darker skin tones were in the 1950s US, but I am not 100% sure of that. If it is true I would like to ground it in some clear text and numerical comparisons, either on the numbers who suffer or on differences in letter of law. Want to make sure we are not white-washing the 'nuclear family' US or black-washing (unfortunatey choice of words but it is the color of their armor...) the Coalition States because we all loves wizards and elves.

The Slurmphs and D'norr on their own seems like they'd put things over the top.

Sure, lynchings were way too common and excessive in the '50s, but they aren't near the worst racially-targeting measures in even the US's history. I'm thinking more the US military's treatment of Native American's.

It is pretty easy to confuse CS unwritten policies with CS written ones, so we need to be sure we're talking about actual laws against D-Bees (or lack of ones protecting them) rather than non-enforcement or vigilantism with lack of inquiry.

We've got a number of 'shoot on sight' and 'top of the official extermination list' cites. So those at least are laws.

And most of the D-Bee entries single out Coalition soldiers as ones who are known to attack them, so we're talking about trained people who are supposed to be under orders most of the time, not, like, CS civilian supremicists engaging in lynchings- though I bet there's a number of those too.

I dunno about that, compared to the 2d6 PPE of humans, they get triple that PLUS their PE... no wonder half of them are mages. I wouldn't be surprised if the CS just assumes they are Creatures of Magic and that the 1/2 who have not been sensed with magical abilities are somehow hiding it (maybe via that Mystic Invisibility spell in Merc Adventures).

They're also known to be highly peaceful, and they've been around enough that there's pretty much no chance of being ignorant about many being non-mages.

I wouldn't say they encourage ignorance, they just realize that reading can be dangerous and should be controlled by the military to prevent the dangers of scroll-terrorism.

That sounds like you're describing encouraging ignorance. Plus it's not like they limit their restricted list to magic- most pre-rifts stuff is off limits, remember?

[Alrik Vas]

There will come a time when the CS will adapt or fail. For now, the fact that Uncle Skullhead is a scary man is enough.

Though I have a thought. People who believe they are doing the right thing, even if it's evil, can be called fanatics. This mentality carries humanism through, even when you're a monster. Like nazi officers who wrote home excited about the good work they were doing, how proud they were to be a part of death camps and asking after their children in the same letters they talk about abject extermination of other human beings.

It's a scary thought, but that's the coalition. They just have the comfort that the majority of those they exterminate don't have much in common with them genetically. It's a thin, nearly non-existent line, but it's the difference between racial survival/supremacy and flat out barbarism.

60 years from now, if the CS still exists, I have serious doubts it will be recognizable to its current citizenship, as far as atrocity is concerned.

[cosmicfish]

Probably biding their time until they can outbreed us and then push us out of the farming business and then deny us its fruits.

I am curious, is this xenophobia your own, or are you just trying to present what you think a "typical" Coalition citizen would say?

But the CS can't spare resources like that! They are fighting for the survival of humanity.

If they have resources to launch a genocidal war against Tolkeen then they have resources to spare - they are just choosing them to allocate them killing humans rather than saving anyone.

As per the above statement about the devil Imps, anarchists can be pretty rough. Even Unprincipled can lie/cheat/torture if they deem it 'necessary' for something, take advantage of unarmed foes, and dislike authority.

I find this amusing, considering that this dim view of selfish alignments easily tips the majority of Coalition military into the "bad guy" zone - in SoT, 55% are specifically identified as falling into three groups comprised of Anarchist and evil individuals. You seem to have just indicted the CS pretty handily!

Oddly I can't find info regarding enforcement of the law except for 1998 in Rwanda and 2007 in Yugoslavia. This shows that however broad the wording may be, the people who popularized it are not broadly enforcing it except in very extreme circumstances.

Or it may simply indicate that actual genocide is at most a once-in-decade event even in a world with hundreds of nations and billions of people!

Perhaps D-Bees are similar situation? The letter of the law may not be genocidal in the CS (as it was not in the US of the 1950s) but you had racism among the people, racism among the politicians, and law enforcement looking the other way (or sometimes participating in and covering up) racial killings.

I think that comparisons between a civilization dealing with strictly internal racial problems and a civilization dealing with strictly external racial problems are going to be tough. The US of the 50's wasn't launching wars against African nations, and the CS has no D-bee's or practioners of magic to oppress among the citizenry.

If "different actions .. disintegrating .. economic existence" qualifies as genocide, then the 'free PPE' Techno-Wizardry is a huge threat to tech-based economies that rely on non-renewable resources.

He wasn't talking about competition, he was referring to an attempt to use economic strength in a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

If the 'destruction of the personal security .. dignity' qualify, then all nations which practise magic are committing genocide against the Coalition States by making humans insecure by summoning supernatural creatures to the planet and interfering with the dignified technology-based approach to life that humans have historically done.

Again, you don't seem to have a grip on what Lemkin was talking about here. The destruction of personal security has to be real not just perceived, and unless I missed something in the books about massive, coordinated, magical attacks on the CS of the last half century, this is perception and not reality. The dignity he was talking about was basic human dignity, like not making starved Jews run around naked so that their fitness for work camps could be assessed.

I wouldn't say they encourage ignorance, they just realize that reading can be dangerous and should be controlled by the military to prevent the dangers of scroll-terrorism.

Well, pg 29 of CWC says that "teaching the peasant masses and illiterate citizens of the CS (even those of the middle and lower levels) how to read, write, mathematics and pre-Rifts history (or any history that differs from the official CS version)" is punishable by at least 15 years in prison, up to the death penalty. If that isn't encouraging ignorance, what is it? Ignorance is quite simply defined as a lack of knowledge or information, and that is a canon list of knowledge and information that CS citizens are specifically denied, and that list covers, well, a ton.

[Q99]

There will come a time when the CS will adapt or fail. For now, the fact that Uncle Skullhead is a scary man is enough.

Though I have a thought. People who believe they are doing the right thing, even if it's evil, can be called fanatics. This mentality carries humanism through, even when you're a monster. Like nazi officers who wrote home excited about the good work they were doing, how proud they were to be a part of death camps and asking after their children in the same letters they talk about abject extermination of other human beings.

It's a scary thought, but that's the coalition. They just have the comfort that the majority of those they exterminate don't have much in common with them genetically. It's a thin, nearly non-existent line, but it's the difference between racial survival/supremacy and flat out barbarism.

60 years from now, if the CS still exists, I have serious doubts it will be recognizable to its current citizenship, as far as atrocity is concerned.

Yea, I don't think they'll be able to keep pushing like they have. They'll both experience the Minion War, a true evil force *and* see other species fighting against it, and then if they try and re-create Tolkeen, they'll again find themselves dealing with humans and all-too-flesh-and-blood D-Bees, ones who perhaps fought against Demons and Devils themselves. The contrast should take it's toll.

It's just not as *stable* a mindset as something more reasonable. It could work within an age of barbarism and actually fighting many monsters, but it couldn't work forever.

[Tor]

You can make paranoid assumptions, but it is simply making paranoid assumptions as justification.

There's logic behind this so I will try to explain.

They eat fresh fruit/vegetables and leaves/rotting garbage/compost
They eat cooked or raw meat.
We are told they love to garden and cook.

If they liked raw meat as much as cooked meat, why would they enjoy cooking?
If they liked compost/leaves as much as fresh fruit, why would they love to garden?

Although it is possible that they like to do these things because it lets them create food for others to enjoy...

As there is no actual mention of that being their motive, it seems more likely to me that they, like us, enjoy fresh plants and cooked meats..

The difference is obviously not as much, it may be a very slight preference compared to "we will only eat this unless we'er about to die" preference with us. But it still seems like a preference exists.

We are also told they love drinking more than eating, and this is clearly the 'alcohol' sort of drinking.

To make this, they will need fresh fruits like grapes, far as I know you can't make alcohol out of rotting leftover foods.

In this area, their preferred food, they are in direct competition from humans over foodstuffs. They also get drunk almost immediately. But even normal food is digested faster than it takes to pass through a human's system.

One major factor lacking here, in establishing how much of a threat they are, is just how much food they do eat. If it says that in WB30, I'm not noticing.

They're not the first race to overlook an important factor like that. We do sometimes see it:
*PF2p304 Ogres 3x that of healthy and husky warrior human
*PF2p306 Trolls 5x that of average human adult

Aside from these two I can't remember anything else. The amount of food that a being requires could be a major factor when considering the effect an increase in their numbers has on other species in the same region.

If the CS is aware of them, I can see reason for them to more highly prize (higher bounty) the kill of a Troll or Ogre than that of a Dwarf or Orc.

I'd figure giants/wolfen and all that also eat massive amounts, and that smaller guys like Gnomes wouldn't eat very much, but it'd be nice to know the exact numbers.

Slurmphs aren't as big as Ogres, so based just on size I wouldn't expect to see more than double human appetite. However: these guys are MDC, they heal fast, they regrow limbs, they breed fast, they leave parts of themself behind whenever they move about (possibly more if done intentionally). I get that a good deal of this is water mass but it has to have some physical component, and that spells calories to me.

Logically you'd expect people to have to eat more when they are healing from injuries (especially limb regrowth), or if they were growing young inside them (enhanced caloric need of pregnant mothers) and it's possible that maintaining a tough MDC body also has very high calorie demands (think of the higher metabolism that muscular people have, who are still softer than these guys)

a species known for saving children and pets.

In this respect the Swamp Sludger certainly sounds better than cat-eating Slurmphs. However the whole "taking your weapons, firing them into crowds" bit really balances that out. The CS probably have more confirmed evidence of stuff like this happening than rescued children/pets. They might write off rumors of the latter as conversationist propoganda.

Slurmphs are known for being incredible farmers, increasing food supply.

Yet it doesn't seem like they're giving it away. Much of it is for their own benefit, and when they sell the rest on the market, they make money for themselves, which they could use to buy up land (or weapons to steal land with) for their own farming interests. All of this as they grow in number more and more and gain more power to battle humans. They're friendly enough now, but who says they'll remain so if they become the majority?

The Slurmphs explicitly can and will eat "rotting corpses". We are not given further details as to their nature. Is it small like "fur covered roadkill" or cats? Or are we talking HUMAN corpses? What if they start offing humans so they can ferment us like the wines they enjoy?

They may not seem too dangerous, but they can whip pieces of themself at us to blind us or make us drop our weapons. They can cause our land vehicles to crash with their subtle slime-skids. If they commit crimes, it would seem very difficult to tell them apart (they do not have any clear identifying features, only 4 beauty variations) and very difficult to imprison them (no bars unless super-thin openings, walls would be ideal)

They also do so off coalition-proper land.

right, because they're kept from doing so

What demons or real monsters could those soldiers have been going after rather than hunting down Slurmphs across multiple largely-empty states?

Hunting them down isn't that time-consuming. They have a lower maximum speed than humans and leave an easy to follow trail. Their need for water means you can rely on them traveling in the direction of some after a given amount of time. Although the downside to this is, it seems like they could hide underwater very easily to avoid detection...

The CS slaughtering them doesn't necessarily mean they were organizing hunts though, they probably just have a kill-on-sight policy for them like the Kremin. The Slurmphs just breed so much, and don't educate their young to avoid the CS, so they probably just come ambling into CS territories and start eating our stuff just like the Sludgers.

Even though these guys can learn OCCs, it makes you wonder: who do they learn them from? Can they gain them on instinct? Do the parents show up again after a year to teach them once they're done their underground burrowing? There's no mention of this. Do they rely on other species to raise them in their stead, like a cuckoo? If this doesn't happen, how are they going to learn morality, to not take from others, to respect land rights?

Even the anarchist demons are known to be violent and often kill people. Not all anarchists are the same, after all, an anarchist human or D-Bee is unlikely to eat me when it's hungry.

Although it's true that having the same alignment doesn't guarantee identical behavior, I see no reason to think Anarchist Dyvalians are necessarily more inclined to violence than we are. If they do it more often, it is merely due to being stronger and there being fewer consequences to them to act on impulse. An Anarchist Human has to worry about getting killed, they can't bio-gen / teleport / morph / fly to escape consequences as easily.

I'm no so sure that a Slurmph is unlikely to eat us if they get hungry though. Maybe they just cut us up into cat-sized chunks and wait for us to ripen in the sun before chowing down. Instead of killing us directly, consciously or intently, they can just get blackout-drunk and have no moral consequence attached to any violence they infilct. It need not even be direct violence: maybe like how a drunk might spit or curse, a Slurmph will throw slime in people's eyes or under their tires so that they walk into traffick or drive onto sidewalks. Sabotage city defenders so that an invading Brodkil can rip us apart, us deprived of slimed Vibro-Blades and hard-to-handle laser rifles.

What a Slurmph might contribute in lowering food production time: don't they add burden back by making a mess so people need to clean up their tools to be able to grip them?

seeing someone fight demons should do the exact opposite of making you think they're bad.

The CS likely has had experience with observing LLWs losing control of their Shadow Beasts, Shifters losing control of their demons, Necromancers losing control of their Vampires. Thus the "they were in league but lost control or were betrayed" approach. The NGR isn't changing their instincts just because Brodkil and Gargs are not going at it. Now will Nemo think highly of the Naut'Yll for clashing with Splugorth.

So they don't do as much as we'd like and are stoic bastards. Anyone who thinks that is deserving of genocide, is pretty evil.

The CS is not interpreting it that way though, they're interpreting it as them being monster-wrangler generals. Koschei (Mystic Russia) spend a lot of time on strategy/plotting/management/smithery yet they are still the most hated demon among the Warlords because of how it is perceived they are masterminding things. This is how Death (Africa) behaves too.

Makes me curious about the timeline regarding when the CS put the kill-order on the Kremin and when the NGR participated in the air-raid aspect of the Gathering of Heroes. Either via their allies or via studying Tarn's writings (albeit I am unclear just how involved she ended up being or what she may have written about it, or if she encountered any of the horsemn at all) or some other intelligence, the CS could learn to be more way of seemingly 'pacifist, fight only in self defense' guy who grimly appear on the edge of battlefields and don't try to help you.

It only leads easily to that impression if one is looking for an excuse to wipe out not-them groups on principle.

Not at all. In the heat of battle there is often a 'with us or against us' vibe. Unless someone is demonstrating clear actions that they are allied (damaging your enemy, putting themselves at risk to prevent you harm) you're going to view them as a potential threat. They're not YOUR reserve troops... so maybe they're the reserve troops (or the leaders) of the enemy.

They're late-comers, there's been no evidence they're behind attacks/not been seen directing attacks

Directions can be given subtly in the age of modern technology (scrambled radio), telepathy, or invisible messengers. The CS would not rely on needing evidence to establish commander/obeyer relationships. They would have to get in the habit of extrapolating these things based on less direct evidence. This also happens a lot in spycraft.

I'm thinking more the US military's treatment of Native American's.

In this case the CS are the natives and the Slurmphs are the outlanders though =/ I'm thinking more like a rat population.

Who's to say the majority of the deaths are from killing adult Slurmphs anyway? What if they kill the uneducated youths who just go around wildly eating food? The ones who haven't yet learned to farm or interact civilly with other species? What if these psychics are sensed out and dug up by Psi-Hounds as food for Psi-Stalkers? They might just seem like high-PPE plus bonus ISP wormlets at that point.

most of the D-Bee entries single out Coalition soldiers as ones who are known to attack them

Soldiers who may not even be CS citizens. Possibly newbie grunts serving a term to get themselves and their families accepted, and more violent than actual CS citizens because they have been victims of D-Bees on the dregs of society, eager to get revenge, prove themselves.

They're also known to be highly peaceful, and they've been around enough that there's pretty much no chance of being ignorant about many being non-mages.

To disprove them being Mystic Invisible you'd have to capture them long enough for such a spell to expire. You'd also have to verify they don't have a Diabolist-created Permanence Ward on them to know that it would expire.

If creatures seen with magic half the time don't have it, maybe the CS figures they just haven't reached their supernatural life stage where they develope magic yet. Or even if not perceived as CoMs, they have a strong impulse to learn magic so those who haven't are predicted to eventually succumb to its temptations due to some kind of mental defect. Those melonheads are horny for magic! Some are also joining the FoM and being aggressive/forceful. The ones who went to Tolkeen are clearly following suit, surely it's only a matter of time before those who went to Lazlo do as well.

That sounds like you're describing encouraging ignorance.

Not at all. CS citizens can still be very skilled when taught in person or via video.

most pre-rifts stuff is off limits, remember?

Aliens and wizards have brought all kinds of lies, they are capable of creating illusions. The CS must assure that any claims of history are properly vetted for accuracy. They are responsible teachers. Reckless rumor-mongers like Erin Tarn create the 'clickbait' of Rifts Earth, spreading anything on the grapevine as canon, often without vetting it for accuracy. She instills people with a dangerous sense of certainty that they know the world when they do not.

The CS empowers people with a valuable sense of doubt. The capabilities of an individual to assess reality are limited, much better to let the scientific minds at the head of the CS do so collectively, to rely on their expertise which has kept you safe.

Pre-Rifts materials are full of all kinds of dangerous things. Instructions on dangerous magic might be hidden in innocent-seeming children's tales like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. They may give a false sense of comfort with dangerous beings like elves or goblins, making them seem like allies when the CS knows members of both races have hurt humans.

There is also stuff like 'The Anarchist's Cookbook' which could be used to create bombs and hurt people. The CS wants to limit exposure to dangerous stuff like that, keep Demolitions creation to the military, so that the people who have access to it are verified as stable and held accountable to monitoring and proper safety training.

It's not like the CS is dedicated to keeping all pre-Rifts material banned forever, they just need to protect people from it until they can properly go through it all and see what is true and what is safe to transmit to them. Obviously they can't be transmitted in their original written forms since paper allows scrolls to be transported too easily.

The CS will get around to making videos of everything in order of importance once it has the time and resources. No doubt this will begin once they have safely taken back Earth for Humanity. Until then, the study of Pre-Rifts material must be minimal, because time and resources need to be spent on more important tasks.

In the mean-time, citizens should just turn over all pre-Rifts material to the CS who will safely stockpile it and keep it from being dangerous in the wrong hands. The CS will organize it and preserve it so when the time comes and it is time to study these things, they will be able to do so with far more accuracy and trustworthiness than rogues like Erin Tarn have done. They will not rush to judgement, to gain fans, like Tarn has done. They want to be responsible scholars.

People who believe they are doing the right thing, even if it's evil, can be called fanatics.

Nothing wrong with Fanatacism

I am curious, is this xenophobia your own, or are you just trying to present what you think a "typical" Coalition citizen would say?

Both. People accept that good-aligned humans can do net-bad things yet somehow I'm to think that the good alignments some D-Bees have will prevent them from harming us?

If they have resources to launch a genocidal war against Tolkeen then they have resources to spare - they are just choosing them to allocate them killing humans rather than saving anyone.

The Coalition War on Tolkeen is not genocidal. They just contained a genocidal general or two doing genocidal front-line atrocities without approval from upper management.

It may be costly in resources in the short-term, but it is in the interest of human safety, both for CS and surviving independent cities, to get rid of a hot-bed of Shifters.

The CS has already seen exactly what happens when this is allowed to go on, when the army of winged demons were summoned by accident in the Great City and killed many of its citizens and then came and attacked the Burbs. They have seen how this power corrupts people, when it led the arrogant Federation to attack who they thought were their inferiors.

this dim view of selfish alignments easily tips the majority of Coalition military into the "bad guy" zone

I don't agree with that. The majority of the Coalition citizens are 'good and selfish' which is better than "unprincipled and anarchist" (selfish). I expect this applies to CS citizens in the army as well. I can accept that warriors may gravitate to less-good more-evil alignments, but we may see this in more armies than the CS. We certainly see it in Headhunter Techno-Warriors.

in SoT, 55% are specifically identified as falling into three groups comprised of Anarchist and evil individuals.

I would like if anyone recalls a book/page for this so I can review the context in which this is presented.

it may simply indicate that actual genocide is at most a once-in-decade event

The UN's Genocide Convention came into effect 1951, so more like there seems to be a 34 year gap where it wasn't applied to anything. I could be ignorant of more applications that are not written about on Wikipedia during that interim and if so, I can amend this criticism.

The incredibly broad definitions of genocide allow you to apply this to all kinds of things. For example, the Korean War, which was still ongoing and didn't end until 1953.

What the lack of genocide-calling shows is that, even if the definition is super-broad to allow the UN cart-blanche to call whatever they want a genocide, they have still been reserved in using that freedom to label something a genocide, likely because unless something is so super-bad that it reminds you of Nazis, people will find it odd that you're calling it a genocide and look into why you have such a broad definition to allow it.

Broad definitions like this and them surviving in the Coalition States could actually be used as propoganda tools. When any death of a human or destruction of a human resource can be labelled a genocide, you can push a "they're starting genocides against us, we must wipe them out first" rhetoric.

The US of the 50's wasn't launching wars against African nations

US allies were:
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprisal_operations
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

Admittedly the US was too involved with Asia to deal with Africa, but that's more like threat-prioritization. Like how CS isn't currently attacking Lazlo.

He wasn't talking about competition, he was referring to an attempt to use economic strength in a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

It is possible to mask an attempt to destroy competition as competititon. That the phrase 'friendly competition' exists shows that it is not inherently so.

you don't seem to have a grip on what Lemkin was talking about here. The destruction of personal security has to be real not just perceived

"Dignity" is hardly a real physical resource, so it already includes intangibles. That said, the CS has already had their personal security destroyed by attacks against the Burbs and then on Chi-Town not to mention maurauding monsters around North America attacking them and attacking humans they're trying to rescue. They can acknowledge that some of these may come under their own power or vua random rifts, but mages are compounding this problem.

Shifters started with "Summon Lesser Being" but not "Protection Circle". Now in RUE they start with 'Dimensional Portal' but not 'Close Rift'. That says something about priorities. Chameleon/Concealment/ShadowMeld/TimeSlip ..Call Lightning. Sounds a heck of a lot like there's an entire class of spellcasters out there who want to hide and lob lightning bolts and demons at us with impunity, not make the world a better place. Perhaps even link to an alien intelligence and summon them too, for the sweet power boost.

The CS has no reliable means of discerning who is a Shifter and who is a Ley Line Walker, far as I know. Plus LLWs can all learn these spells too. That all Shifters know them means they must be very widespread and easier to find compared to other magic only randomly possessed by people with spell selections.

For there being so many mages out there with bad intentions, low priorities, the mages of other classes seem remarkably unconcerned with being told apart from them. Instead they just live together, implying they're completely okay with this kind of reckless behavior. Sure, some places ban Necromancy. Big whup. They're not even the main problem, skeletons/mummies/zombies just do as they're told. They're not the same level of predators that shifters summon.

unless I missed something in the books about massive, coordinated, magical attacks on the CS of the last half century, this is perception and not reality

WB16 (Federation of Magic) p28 "around 60 PA, Alistair Dunscon returned" p29 "Immediately after his return, acts of terrorism and magical guerilla warfare had been leveled at Chi-Town and CS outposts throughout the Mid-west." No mention of it having stopped. Even RMB in present-day had been subject to this for decades. They didn't start to get Psi-Hounds until 17 years later. That's a whole generation of kids being born and reaching adulthood while being subject to terrorism with nowhere near the countermeasures the CS has now.

The dignity he was talking about was basic human dignity, like not making starved Jews run around naked so that their fitness for work camps could be assessed.

You think the Federation of Magic didn't do stuff like that? They're allied with the Splugorth, you think their slaves do much better? Rare pampered ones maybe but for the most part they're being fattened up as dragon chow or doing mining or something. Tolkeen was part of this Federation. Them pulling out and abandoning Nostrous can be seen as a wise move not to make an immediate enemy of the CS, or (like what Alistair did to Tolkeen later) letting their magical rivals weaken themselves so they can be the top dog. Neither is endearing or inducing of forgiveness for the part they played prior to that. It didn't seem like a big moral gambit considering how low they sunk once more, if they had ever climbed higher than the Great City to begin with.

pg 29 of CWC says that "teaching the peasant masses and illiterate citizens of the CS (even those of the middle and lower levels) how to read, write, mathematics and pre-Rifts history (or any history that differs from the official CS version)" is punishable by at least 15 years in prison, up to the death penalty.

Notice "and" not "or". Is there any indication that teaching mathematics alone is punishable by this?

As indicated earlier, teaching reading/writing/history gives the unprotected masses too much vulnerability to scrolls and being misled by lies or bad research. The government is controlling this for their safety.

If that isn't encouraging ignorance, what is it?

Banning the internet or social media. The CS has both of these, don't they? It's just image/audio based.

Ignorance is quite simply defined as a lack of knowledge or information, and that is a canon list of knowledge and information that CS citizens are specifically denied, and that list covers, well, a ton.

Just because you don't allow all information right away to everyone doesn't mean you're promoting ignorance. It's all about the order you introduce it to people in. It should be done carefully so that people have the tools to process information.

The CS might hold, for example, that children should be taught logic before they can celebrate Christmas, so they know Santa is just a game and that if a guy really did magically come down your chimney on flying deer, he's probably a dangerous wizard and you should jam a fire-poker into his neck.

Or: they might teach them about the dangers of mishandled e-clips (and how they can explode if overloaded) far in advance of teaching them how to fire guns powered by them.

Humans can become literate in the CS, this is just restricted to a class of people who are well-prepared to handle the responsibility and burdens that come along with it. People who absolutely need to know it, since it is such a huge security risk, since it allows people untrained in magic to cast ANY spell if the appropriate paper-thin scroll is snuck in. It's cheaper to buy a Scroll of Dimensional Portla than it is to pay someone to teach you to cast it.

[cosmicfish]

I am curious, is this xenophobia your own, or are you just trying to present what you think a "typical" Coalition citizen would say?

Both.

To be honest, I think this answer explains why this thread is going nowhere. I think your opinions on these issues not only clash with many on the board but also the principal authors of the game as well. More on that later...

People accept that good-aligned humans can do net-bad things yet somehow I'm to think that the good alignments some D-Bees have will prevent them from harming us?

Good-aligned humans are doing net-bad things because (a) they are being led astray by evil leaders, (b) they are kept ignorant of the truth, and (c) because there are more than enough genuinely evil of them to take the lead on committing the actual evil while the selfish ones go with the flow and the good ones either rebel, quit, or change alignment. To the extent that there are D-bees out there that meet similar criteria, you have a point, but these races don't generally have identified leaders in the game, seem pretty aware of what is going on, and are not shown operating in cahoots with the evil ones - indeed, they are often fighting them to everyone's benefit.

If they have resources to launch a genocidal war against Tolkeen then they have resources to spare - they are just choosing them to allocate them killing humans rather than saving anyone.

The Coalition War on Tolkeen is not genocidal. They just contained a genocidal general or two doing genocidal front-line atrocities without approval from upper management.

That there was a general who was worse than the rest does not mean that the war itself was not genocidal. Indeed, pg 7 in SOT 1 explicitly says:

"And we are not just talking about the normal casualties of war, the Coalition Army has made it clear in both words and deeds that this is a war of genocide. There will be few, if any prisoners taken or people allowed to live. All practitioners of magic and nonhumans, their supporters, sympathizers and defenders shall be exterminated!"

In case you are wondering, that is in the second chapter in the SoT series, and is in the voice of the authors - this is not Erin Tarn or some disgruntled soldier speaking, this is Kevin telling the players and GM's what is going on!

It may be costly in resources in the short-term, but it is in the interest of human safety, both for CS and surviving independent cities, to get rid of a hot-bed of Shifters.

I have yet to see anything in the books that supports this premise.

The CS has already seen exactly what happens when this is allowed to go on, when the army of winged demons were summoned by accident in the Great City and killed many of its citizens and then came and attacked the Burbs. They have seen how this power corrupts people, when it led the arrogant Federation to attack who they thought were their inferiors.

Describing the lies dreamed up by totalitarian dictators and sold as truth to a unwitting populace does describe anything other than propaganda.

this dim view of selfish alignments easily tips the majority of Coalition military into the "bad guy" zone

I don't agree with that. The majority of the Coalition citizens are 'good and selfish' which is better than "unprincipled and anarchist" (selfish). I expect this applies to CS citizens in the army as well.

I disagree, in no small part because the good members of the Coalition populace are powerless, kept ignorant of reality and of what evil acts they are supporting. The fact that they are good is irrelevant if they are unwittingly committing evil acts/

in SoT, 55% are specifically identified as falling into three groups comprised of Anarchist and evil individuals.

I would like if anyone recalls a book/page for this so I can review the context in which this is presented.

I posted it before and you've responded to it (at the time, you were okay with Anarchist), but it is in CW on page 48. I did screw up, however - it is 45%, not 55%, but the paragraphs in question are only describing three common types of evil/Anarchist CS soldiers and give no guidance on the rest.

it may simply indicate that actual genocide is at most a once-in-decade event

The UN's Genocide Convention came into effect 1951, so more like there seems to be a 34 year gap where it wasn't applied to anything. I could be ignorant of more applications that are not written about on Wikipedia during that interim and if so, I can amend this criticism.

No, genocide really is rare, with only a few documented cases in the 20th century.

The incredibly broad definitions of genocide allow you to apply this to all kinds of things. For example, the Korean War, which was still ongoing and didn't end until 1953.

What the lack of genocide-calling shows is that, even if the definition is super-broad to allow the UN cart-blanche to call whatever they want a genocide, they have still been reserved in using that freedom to label something a genocide, likely because unless something is so super-bad that it reminds you of Nazis, people will find it odd that you're calling it a genocide and look into why you have such a broad definition to allow it.

The fact that the UN has not called more things genocide (despite your repeated attempts to do so) shows that you are not interpreting the definition of genocide correctly. The Korean War was a war of conquest, and conquest itself is not genocide. You are choosing to interpret genocide in a manner that makes it meaningless because that allows you to rationalize your support of a fictional group that is repeatedly called genocidal. You can say that blue and green are the same color all day long, the best you can prove is that you yourself are colorblind.

When any death of a human or destruction of a human resource can be labelled a genocide,

It absolutely, explicitly, uncontrovertibly cannot.

The US of the 50's wasn't launching wars against African nations

US allies were

Then look into their actions and compare them to the CS.

Admittedly the US was too involved with Asia to deal with Africa, but that's more like threat-prioritization.

You honestly believe that the only thing keeping the US from eradicating the population of Africa was a more urgent need to fight in Asia?

He wasn't talking about competition, he was referring to an attempt to use economic strength in a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

It is possible to mask an attempt to destroy competition as competititon. That the phrase 'friendly competition' exists shows that it is not inherently so.

You still aren't getting this. There is zero evidence of the kind of "mask" you mention, it does not exist in the books, you just created the idea. And "unfriendly competition" is where you break norms and/or laws to increase market share and/or drive your competition out of business (which accomplishes the same result), but it is only genocide if you are using business practices not only to drive them out of business but to drive them out of existence - for example, by eliminating their financial holdings to make unable to resist exile to concentration camps or stop them from having the political influence to stop their own destruction. For example, the Third Reich stopped doing business with Jews, forbid some non-Jewish businesses from working with Jews, and (on Kristallnacht) the specific destruction of Jewish properties and businesses. That's the difference.

you don't seem to have a grip on what Lemkin was talking about here. The destruction of personal security has to be real not just perceived

"Dignity" is hardly a real physical resource, so it already includes intangibles.

And yet there are still lines that are commonly accepted. The point of "dignity" in the definition is that one of the characteristics of genocide is to treat the targeted minority as less than human (human, in this case, because there are no real-world sentient non-humans). The members of the CS feel as human as is possible.

That said, the CS has already had their personal security destroyed by attacks against the Burbs and then on Chi-Town not to mention maurauding monsters around North America attacking them and attacking humans they're trying to rescue. They can acknowledge that some of these may come under their own power or vua random rifts, but mages are compounding this problem.

The Burbs are not part of the CS. Neither the Burbs nor the CS have seen any significant attack nor any significant collection of attacks in decades. They attack preemptively, as has been noted and referenced by many on here already. The possibility that mages may be making things worse ignores that they may also be making things better, and regardless "possibility" is a poor rationale for genocide.

unless I missed something in the books about massive, coordinated, magical attacks on the CS of the last half century, this is perception and not reality

WB16 (Federation of Magic) p28 "around 60 PA, Alistair Dunscon returned"

That was 45 years ago. I stand by "last half century" as a reasonable approximation.

p29 "Immediately after his return, acts of terrorism and magical guerilla warfare had been leveled at Chi-Town and CS outposts throughout the Mid-west." No mention of it having stopped. Even RMB in present-day had been subject to this for decades. They didn't start to get Psi-Hounds until 17 years later. That's a whole generation of kids being born and reaching adulthood while being subject to terrorism with nowhere near the countermeasures the CS has now.

Congratulations, you have just suggested a possible cause for a war on the "T"FoM. And nothing else. Can you imagine how even the Jewish-friendly parts of the world would react if Isreal decided that Palestinian attacks had to stop... so they decided to destroy Turkey?

The dignity he was talking about was basic human dignity, like not making starved Jews run around naked so that their fitness for work camps could be assessed.

You think the Federation of Magic didn't do stuff like that? They're allied with the Splugorth, you think their slaves do much better? Rare pampered ones maybe but for the most part they're being fattened up as dragon chow or doing mining or something. Tolkeen was part of this Federation. Them pulling out and abandoning Nostrous can be seen as a wise move not to make an immediate enemy of the CS, or (like what Alistair did to Tolkeen later) letting their magical rivals weaken themselves so they can be the top dog. Neither is endearing or inducing of forgiveness for the part they played prior to that. It didn't seem like a big moral gambit considering how low they sunk once more, if they had ever climbed higher than the Great City to begin with.

That was all almost a century ago, and ignores everything since!! That is about as relevant as the Kaiser to discussions of modern political struggles!

pg 29 of CWC says that "teaching the peasant masses and illiterate citizens of the CS (even those of the middle and lower levels) how to read, write, mathematics and pre-Rifts history (or any history that differs from the official CS version)" is punishable by at least 15 years in prison, up to the death penalty.

Notice "and" not "or". Is there any indication that teaching mathematics alone is punishable by this?

Seriously? The next section of crimes indicates that "owning pre-Rifts books, maps, films, videotapes,
and recordings of any kind is against the law", you think that the CS is going to find someone and say "well, you have pre-Rifts books, maps, films, and recordings... but no videotapes. Okay, you're free to go!" The English language is indication that teaching mathematics alone will be punished.

As indicated earlier, teaching reading/writing/history gives the unprotected masses too much vulnerability to scrolls and being misled by lies or bad research. The government is controlling this for their safety.

Can you give any reference to this in the books that is not simply stating CS propaganda?

If that isn't encouraging ignorance, what is it?

Banning the internet or social media. The CS has both of these, don't they? It's just image/audio based.

So does North Korea. The internet and social media are just tools for transmitting information, same as books or movies or anything else. It is the control of the content that encourages ignorance.

Ignorance is quite simply defined as a lack of knowledge or information, and that is a canon list of knowledge and information that CS citizens are specifically denied, and that list covers, well, a ton.

Just because you don't allow all information right away to everyone doesn't mean you're promoting ignorance. It's all about the order you introduce it to people in. It should be done carefully so that people have the tools to process information.

Do you have any evidence that this process exists in the CS?

Humans can become literate in the CS, this is just restricted to a class of people who are well-prepared to handle the responsibility and burdens that come along with it. People who absolutely need to know it, since it is such a huge security risk, since it allows people untrained in magic to cast ANY spell if the appropriate paper-thin scroll is snuck in. It's cheaper to buy a Scroll of Dimensional Portla than it is to pay someone to teach you to cast it.

Wow.

[Killer Cyborg]

People accept that good-aligned humans can do net-bad things yet somehow I'm to think that the good alignments some D-Bees have will prevent them from harming us?

Good-aligned humans are doing net-bad things because (a) they are being led astray by evil leaders, (b) they are kept ignorant of the truth, and (c) because there are more than enough genuinely evil of them to take the lead on committing the actual evil while the selfish ones go with the flow and the good ones either rebel, quit, or change alignment. To the extent that there are D-bees out there that meet similar criteria, you have a point, but these races don't generally have identified leaders in the game, seem pretty aware of what is going on, and are not shown operating in cahoots with the evil ones - indeed, they are often fighting them to everyone's benefit.

I don't think that we have enough info to know whether the CS' actions are NET bad in the long run.
Look at the Roman Empire.
They did a lot of evil things.
But in the long run, did humanity net out ahead or behind because of them?

[Tor]

I think this answer explains why this thread is going nowhere. I think your opinions on these issues not only clash with many on the board but also the principal authors of the game as well.

Xenophobia is a feeling, not an opinion. Differences in fear response do not prevent conversations from going places.

The principal author of the game exploring the idea of playing CS soldiers as good guys and calling them Heroes of Humanity in an upcoming book?

Good-aligned humans are doing net-bad things

I said "can" because I am not convinced that the good citizens of the CS are actually doing a net-bad thing. They have improved North America and stabilized it against encroaching monsters and Chaos.

the Coalition Army has made it clear in both words and deeds that this is a war of genocide

Wars usually have at least 2 sides. Perhaps the CS has made it clear that they are being targetted with genocide and are responding in kind.

As armies are composed of people, I am curious who in the Army's words are making it clear. I would say Drogue's deeds make it a war where genocide has come up, which I guess could be described 'of genocide' even if that is not the prime motivation.

All practitioners of magic and nonhumans, their supporters, sympathizers and defenders shall be exterminated!

followed by "Despite this, the people of Tolkeen have answered yes, and dig in"

So it's like "genocide against the enemy who refuses to flee and opts to fight back" which is like... war. The CS doesn't have enough resources to bother with the expense of taking a bunch of prisoners (particularly dangerous magic ones) when the odds are so narrow.

I have yet to see anything in the books that supports this premise.

Look at all the military recruits it netted them! All the combat experience gained! However, it was clear that Tolkeen was harboring some terrorists against the CS even if they were not directly engaged in overt action against them at the time. The premise is supported by magic-gone-wrong events close to Chi-Town in the past, with what happened in the Great City, winged demons killing Burbites, followed by the ruler arrogantly trying to conquer them. They are preventing a repeat of this.

Describing the lies dreamed up by totalitarian dictators and sold as truth to a unwitting populace does describe anything other than propaganda.

I'm not repeating propaganda. "Summoned by accident" is what Kev said. Joseph I thought the winged demons were intentionally summoned to attack Chi-Town. If I were repeating propoganda I would've said that. I do not fault him for his assumption though, considering the atmosphere at the time.

the good members of the Coalition populace are powerless, kept ignorant of reality and of what evil acts they are supporting

I don't agree with that, why this stereotype? They could simply be 'good with twisted principles' like Doc Feral.

(at the time, you were okay with Anarchist), but it is in CW on page 48. I did screw up, however - it is 45%, not 55%

ah okay I know what you mean now. I think I said I was okay with Unprincipled though.

genocide really is rare, with only a few documented cases in the 20th century.

I am talking about "what the UN has decided to call genocide" versus "what the UN definition describes as genocide". They do not match up. There are plenty of events which fit that ridiculously inclusive definition which were not charged as genocides by the UN.

The fact that the UN has not called more things genocide (despite your repeated attempts to do so) shows that you are not interpreting the definition of genocide correctly.

No it doesn't, laws often get enforced selectively.

The Korean War was a war of conquest, and conquest itself is not genocide.

That's how I see the Siege of Tolkeen, a war of conquest.

You are choosing to interpret genocide in a manner that makes it meaningless because that allows you to rationalize your support of a fictional group that is repeatedly called genocidal.

Please desist with your mind-reading-based accusations, psychics are 2nd-class citizens.

My interpretation of genocide in Palladium Books is a meaningful one: the one in Dimension Book 2, which says the CS are not genocidal xenophobes, and Dimension Book 3, which gives the CCW definition.

I only address the UN one because people keep bringing it up as gospel. People have posted the criteria. The criteria are too inclusive. They specifically allow the Korean War if all you need is

1) any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

North Korea invaded South Korea. I see that as intent to destroy a national group via conquering the nation.

Killing / serious bodily harm happened to that fulfills A and B.

It absolutely, explicitly, uncontrovertibly cannot

Sure it can, you just speculate that the motive of the person doing it was based on some kind of group-bias, suddenly, genocide. It's like suddenly the term is based on not how much harm is done to a given group but the context in which an ill act was done.

You honestly believe that the only thing keeping the US from eradicating the population of Africa was a more urgent need to fight in Asia?

Don't move the goalposts, you said 'launching wars against' not 'eradicating the population'.

There is zero evidence of the kind of "mask" you mention, it does not exist in the books, you just created the idea.

I did not create the idea of masking an effort to destroy competition as friendly competition. I believe a more popular term for this is "industrial espionage".

Pretty sure that happens in Rifts North America. Didn't Northern Gun try doing it to Naruni?

"unfriendly competition" is where you break norms and/or laws to increase market share and/or drive your competition out of business (which accomplishes the same result), but it is only genocide if you are using business practices not only to drive them out of business but to drive them out of existence

If you drive a corporation out of business, it ceases to exist as an entity and you have killed the culture of that corporation.

by eliminating their financial holdings to make unable to resist exile to concentration camps or stop them from having the political influence to stop their own destruction

If you drive someone out of business so they don't have money to buy food, you make them unable to stop their own starvation, same thing, fits under the definition.

the Third Reich stopped doing business with Jews, forbid some non-Jewish businesses from working with Jews, and (on Kristallnacht) the specific destruction of Jewish properties and businesses. That's the difference.

The first 2 sounds like boycotts, the rest industrial espionage. Just a super-extreme version of it, but the UN requierments don't require it to be on the scope of what the Reich did. That's the main problem with them, no scope minimums.

yet there are still lines that are commonly accepted. The point of "dignity" in the definition is that one of the characteristics of genocide is to treat the targeted minority as less than human (human, in this case, because there are no real-world sentient non-humans). The members of the CS feel as human as is possible.

In the case of Rifts though, we can't use "less than human" as a measuring stick because of the other races. I would dare say that many dragons have made humans feel "less than dragon" and many mages have made mundane muggles feel "less than wizard". The common thread is 2nd-class othering, which the CS was victim of, Nostrous Dunscon was very clear about that.

The Burbs are not part of the CS.

But they were full of innocents, humans and D-Bee alike, and even if they were not allowed in Chi-Town, the Coalition States army still protected them and wanted to avenge them and remove the dangers to them.

Neither the Burbs nor the CS have seen any significant attack nor any significant collection of attacks in decades.

Source? Alistair Dunscon has been engaging in terrorism for the last 40 years or so against Chi-Town and other outposts. This may be so par for the corse that they don't bother to name any particular events, it's just a constant stream of fear and destruction that they deal with as best they can.

That was 45 years ago. I stand by "last half century" as a reasonable approximation.

That's when it STARTED. It wasn't a 1-time thing. It isn't described as having stopped.

Congratulations, you have just suggested a possible cause for a war on the "T"FoM. And nothing else

Wrong, because Tolkeen still harbors these terrorists, it gives them a close north-western launching point.

Can you imagine how even the Jewish-friendly parts of the world would react if Isreal decided that Palestinian attacks had to stop... so they decided to destroy Turkey?

I imagine they would have to provide convincing proof that Turkey was harboring terrorists and engaging in dangerous behaviors, which Tolkeen was.

That was all almost a century ago, and ignores everything since!

Ignores what? In what way has Tolkeen improved? Look at the requests made by Chi-Town to the Great City. Was Tolkeen willing to abide by them? Have they voluntarily excluded supernatural beings? Nope. Have they stopped the demon-summoning? Nope, still plenty of shifters having a laugh. Have they tried to regulate the use of magic? Have they invited the CS to establish an embassy and military presence there?

Tolkeen may have made some trade ouvertures, but they did not respect the requests the CS made to the Federation of Magic back when Tolkeen was a member of it. They would have copies of those requests and should know that more controls are expected of them if they want the CS to be comfortable considering any kind of pact with them.

We like to assume Lazlo is all peaceful too, but it doesn't seem like they've made any effort to abide by the requests either. Harnessing a rift for energy instead of closing it? Letting a dragon lead the place? Plato should realize that stepping aside might be in his city's best interests here. Tolkeen's king should've cut ties with the City of Dragons and asked them to relocate. They're dragons, they can go teleport, maybe live in Atlantis or something until they can set up somewhere with fewer humans, like the Arctic, or under the ocean, or another dimension.

you think that the CS is going to find someone and say "well, you have pre-Rifts books, maps, films, and recordings... but no videotapes. Okay, you're free to go!"

Okay now, going to CWCp29, am seeing you left out the bolded heading of the part I contested.

Teaching the peasant masses and illiterate citizens of CS mathematics is not illegal as a whole. It is listed as a subversive activity if a rogue scholar or rogue scientist does so.

If it was someone else, like an approved business manager teaching math, there wouldn't be the problem. The issue with letting rogue scientists do this stuff is they are rogues, they are not regulated and the CS does not know for what purpose they are teaching math. It may be as a prerequisite to build some kind of weapon. They may offer free tutelage to win trust and seduce the peasantry into more dangerous things as time goes on.

In the 2nd bold, I think the case with "and" is to emphasize that it means pre-Rifts recordings and not all recordings.

Can you give any reference to this in the books that is not simply stating CS propaganda?

CS propoganda has never talked about scrolls as far as I know. The reference is the 'Create Scroll' spell itself. A world where this exists makes reading a weapon.

It is the control of the content that encourages ignorance.

I don't think controlling content necessarily encourages ignorance. If anything, it allows the government to prioritize introducing more useful information to the public, which would actually make them more informed.

Do you have any evidence that this process exists in the CS?

Do you have any it doesn't? I would say "Christmas" and "Holocaust" are examples. Clearly they are allowed to discuss some pre-Rifts things within the CS military. It's all about keeping it to people who are reliable. Christmas is dangerous to children if EVERYONE knows about it. What do you think Nickodemeus is up to?

[Jefffar]

Again, a reminder about posts with excessivly broken down quotations from multiple different posts. These clutter the screen and make your own posts difficult to read.

Instead of trying to refute ever sentence individually, look for a paragraph by paragraph break down or ideally refutethe entire post as a complete thought. This makes your post easier to read and understand, thus making your argument more persuasive.

[Pepsi Jedi]

What I find funny is all the talk of Genocide and using that as a defining characteristic of an evil group of people. Genocide against Dbees and or mages (Though that wouldn't be genocide, but I get what people are trying to say). Thing is, noone has any problem what so ever with killing of demons. Any demon. All demons, all the time.

It's perfectly ok for 'Forces of light' to fight armies of demons because they're demons. They invade our world. They enslave our people if they're lucky. Rape and kill them if they're not. Eat them sometimes. Killing every last one and they're heroes. Why? Well we all know Demons are bad right? Thats what we've been told. That's what we've seen. Demons=bad. Thus ok to kill um all and be heroes.

*looks around* How is that OK, but the CS's doing any different? DBees invaded our world. They enslave humanity. They rape and eat humanity, they kill them. All the time.

But.. it's "Evil" when the CS kill them.

But it's perfectly "Ok" When other factions and heroes of light, commit genocide on Demons and Devils.

Now. Some of you are going to say "Not all DBees are bad. There's some good ones that only want to help. Some are just lost here on earth" Yeah there are, but how is one supposed to tell the difference until they try and bite your head off? After 200 years of aliens and Dbees preying on humanity, are you going to stop and ask a Dbee if he wants to play nice? Are you going to trust him if he says yes? No. You're going to lump him/her in with the others. The ones that have preyed on humanity for generation after generation after generation.

Just like Demons and Devils and what not. Are all of them bad? No. How do we know? They're optional player characters. I'm playing one right now in an HU Game. They're not all bad but noone has a problem with lumping them all together and killing them all and being 'heroes'.

It's just bad when the CS lumps creatures together and does it.

There seems to be a double standard here.

The double standard is extended if the CS is "bad" like the Demons are (aka the "real bad guys in the game"). Which therefore means it's ok to kill all CS?

Some people do that. Not too long ago I was in a PBP Game where two of the players were like that. They played magic users and were just jonsing to go after and kill CS troops. Any CS troops. Any that they came across. The gear resold well and they justified it as "We're playing mages. The CS hates us and might kill us so we kill them first' I warned the GM of the guys were idiots IC and such in that nature my char would react very badly. They played it all slapstick for a long time till my char finally told one of them to shut up. He decided it'd be a good idea to get mouthy with the 8 foot tall Debee bristeling with weapons and a less than pleasant attitude to -start- with. So my char went to kill him. The other player tried to cheat three different ways in one melee round. Lost, and 'quit the game' when I rolled to vaporize his head. His slapstick partner left the game as well.

So yeah. You do see that. There's people in these fourms that talk about playing Rifts and when ever their party needs money or something they just go find a CS Unit and destroy it. Steal the gear for resale, and the CS never retaliates or anything. They treat the CS as loot pinyata's. That's partially a player problem but also a GM problem if he lets such things happen.

Over all though, my point is that many players 'do' just lump the CS as 'bad" like demons and therefore in their games it's 100% ok for those folks to kill the CS with impunity and zero retaliation. (in their games)

[Pepsi Jedi]

There seems to be a double standard here.

No, there really isn't.

Demons and vampires and Xiticix are (with extremely rare exceptions) presented in the game as being either monolithically evil (in a way that even the CS is not), and/or as preying on humanity. We don't have "good demons" or "neighborly Xiticix" or "vegan vampires"... and when we do they are presented as being so rare that their appearance is absolutely astonishing, their circumstances are generally given is essentially unrepeatable, and when they are revealed they are generally protected by forces of good. And we have abundant good and neighborly and (tragically) vegan D-bees and wizards and such.

The real issue is due diligence - at what point has one individual taken adequate steps to verify that killing another is justified? A good individual tries their hardest to ensure that the killing is justified - it may not be possible in the heat of battle, but outside that they will use their best knowledge and effort to avoid killing or harming an innocent. An Unprincipled individual weighs the cost of that diligence against their own needs and compromises - they won't deliberately kill an innocent but won't go to great lengths to avoid it, either. An Anarchist won't deliberately kill an innocent but won't spend any real effort to avoid it, relying on snap judgments because more effort is not worth their time. An evil individual kills innocents for any of a dozen reasons, and are the only ones to do so regardless of their knowledge of their innocence - the exceptions are Aberrants, and they will do all but kill and believe that they are actually good!

The other issues you mention are the same struggles that PC's face in every single game, as do members of other groups on Earth. That D-bee might be waiting to kill you? Sure, but if they don't attack immediately odds are pretty good that they aren't going to, so you can wait and observe and collect more data rather than just vaporizing them... unless you are the CS, of course. Xiticix or demon flying overhead? Odds are probably less than one in a billion that this creature is going to operate outside the bounds of "evil", so it is not unreasonable to go ahead and take the shot unless you see something that solidly sways your opinion... and every "good" group on Earth will agree with your decision.

That is the issue, that is why the CS stands alone on this. If D-bees and wizards possess human-ish distributions of good and evil then arbitrarily killing them is no more justified than arbitrarily killing humans under the same circumstances. If you would give a human a trial, or at least an opportunity, then a wizard or D-bee deserves the same.

That's the thing though, there are good demons. You can play one. Are they numerically rare? Sure but they exist. You point out that ther Xit's aren't neighboorly, which is true, but are they evil? No. They're just living and existing the way that they live and exist. They're no more 'evil' than the hive of wasps that build a nest out side your back door and sting you if you unknowingly come out and get too close. The Xits are just existing as they know how. They live, breed and expand. When they brush up against threats, they eliminate the threat. Not unlike humanity. Do humans see them as evil because they kill humans? Sure. "Earth" is humanity's planet and they're 'invaders'..... Just like every other DBee. Still it's easy to argue that the Xits aren't evil at all. Any more than a honey bee is evil or a wasp is evil, or a termite is evil.

You speak of due diligence in determining if a creature/race is 'evil'. Again I point you all back to the reality of the situation of Rifts earth. The way humanity was brought low. How natural disasters on the scale that haven't been seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs ravaged the planet. After that happened, demons and aliens of every night mare poured out of rends in space time and invaded the planet. How after not a few hours, or a few days, or a few weeks or months. Not after a few years, but after a few CENTURIES of predation on humanity, by monsters of every stripe were humans finally, finally able to band together to start crawling up out of the dark ages. You're talking about generation after generation of 'knowledge' of the Dbees and such being 'evil'. How a dbee ate your grand maw. Or killed your 4 brothers, or wiped out the entire settlement except for one person. Generation after generation after generation of not the 'possibility' but the certainty of such happenings.

The due diligence of the CS have been done generations ago. The CS crawled up out of the dark ages after 200 years of due diligence of Dbees being dangerous and deadly to human kind. They werer almost destroyed by a magic 'nation' comitting war on them and only through 'luck' and heroic effort of a select few, did they manage to pull out.

Can people think for themselves? Sure, but you're talking about going against 300 years of firmly held dogma, and 'fact' that's still very much backed up in day to day interaction. All those monsters and things didn't go away. They're still out there. Tolkeen used armies of demons that they'd sprung from demon prison to fight against humanity. Now in Megaverse in flames literal interdimensional armies of demons and Devils are pouring into rifts earth, trying to turn it into a new version of hell.

Can a DBee be a good guy? Sure. Are you going to risk your life and the lives of everyone you know on that flip of a coin? Heck, that's assuming it's 50/50. It's really not. Your'e talking about trying to roll a natural 20 on a die, to trust some sort of Dbee or demon not to kill everyone in the town/city/what have you. After 300 years of seeing, and hearing them do it.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Okay so here is my question.
Can anyone find a defense for the Good Alignment to be allowed to commit genocide?
Under what circumstances can Selfish do so? What alignment do they have to be to allow it?

If we know this then we can look at the CS empire as a whole and decide what alignment it could be (My money is on Aberrant Evil)

It's a matter of perception. Are you 'evil' if you use bug spray to kill a nest of hornets that build on your deck, killing every one of them?

Most would say 'No I'm not evil they're just bugs, they were in my space and a danger to me and my kids"

How's that any different from what the Xit's do when they find humans?

or the CS do for Dbees?

It's a matter of perception. Humans see nothing wrong what so ever with killing colinies of millions of fireants or bees or wasps, etc. Is it genocide?

[Mack]

This is why many of the CS leadership (such as Gen Kashbrook in Lone Star) have an Aberrant alignment. They have a moral code, but it doesn't extend to perceived threats (such as d-bee invaders).

[Jefffar]

This is why many of the CS leadership (such as Gen Kashbrook in Lone Star) have an Aberrant alignment. They have a moral code, but it doesn't extend to perceived threats (such as d-bee invaders).

With the differentiation between them and the good aligned Doc Feral of TMNT being they still recognize DBees as sentient beings but ruthlessly persecute them anyway wheras Doc Feral does not recognize he is harming truly sentient life.

[Mack]

This is why many of the CS leadership (such as Gen Kashbrook in Lone Star) have an Aberrant alignment. They have a moral code, but it doesn't extend to perceived threats (such as d-bee invaders).

With the differentiation between them and the good aligned Doc Feral of TMNT being they still recognize DBees as sentient beings but ruthlessly persecute them anyway wheras Doc Feral does not recognize he is harming truly sentient life.

Fair point.

[Nightmask]

This is why many of the CS leadership (such as Gen Kashbrook in Lone Star) have an Aberrant alignment. They have a moral code, but it doesn't extend to perceived threats (such as d-bee invaders).

With the differentiation between them and the good aligned Doc Feral of TMNT being they still recognize DBees as sentient beings but ruthlessly persecute them anyway wheras Doc Feral does not recognize he is harming truly sentient life.

Which should still get him an Aberrant alignment, since his refusal to accept his victims as sentient beings doesn't make him good anymore than some evil alien intelligence should be considered good if it's nice to his minions while considering all other life just animals. Heck does anyone think someone RL who routinely tortures animals and/or experiment on them is a good person? Hard to classify someone who does that as good and Feral's way beyond that, his victims can actually plead with him in English to stop torturing them and beg not to be killed by him (well the ones he didn't render mute so they couldn't).

[flatline]

Good and Evil are always a matter of perception. Trying to make absolute claims about either is pointless.

(finally back from vacation and loving having a keyboard again!)

--flatline

[eliakon]

Good and Evil are always a matter of perception. Trying to make absolute claims about either is pointless.

(finally back from vacation and loving having a keyboard again!)

--flatline

In the real world that may or may not be true (there is an entire branch of Philosophy that does nothing but analyze this very subject)

But in the game as written it isn't true. There is explicitly defined good and evil, that are detectable, testable, and can even be used for things....it would be like saying that relativity or gravity are matters of perception.

[flatline]

Okay so here is my question.
Can anyone find a defense for the Good Alignment to be allowed to commit genocide?
Under what circumstances can Selfish do so? What alignment do they have to be to allow it?

If we know this then we can look at the CS empire as a whole and decide what alignment it could be (My money is on Aberrant Evil)

It's a matter of perception. Are you 'evil' if you use bug spray to kill a nest of hornets that build on your deck, killing every one of them?

Most would say 'No I'm not evil they're just bugs, they were in my space and a danger to me and my kids"

How's that any different from what the Xit's do when they find humans?

or the CS do for Dbees?

It's a matter of perception. Humans see nothing wrong what so ever with killing colinies of millions of fireants or bees or wasps, etc. Is it genocide?

I'm not convinced that genocide is absolutely a bad thing. If we had the means to totally wipe out fire ants in the wild and have done the necessary research to demonstrate that there would be no negative side-effects, I'm all for it. And no, I don't think that's evil.

But don't kill bees. They're too important as pollinators.

--flatline

[flatline]

Good and Evil are always a matter of perception. Trying to make absolute claims about either is pointless.

(finally back from vacation and loving having a keyboard again!)

--flatline

In the real world that may or may not be true (there is an entire branch of Philosophy that does nothing but analyze this very subject)

But in the game as written it isn't true. There is explicitly defined good and evil, that are detectable, testable, and can even be used for things....it would be like saying that relativity or gravity are matters of perception.

I don't think that's true. The powers I can think of only work on living things, but if "good" and "evil" are actual things in-game, then you'd be able to measure the amount of "goodness"/"evilness" of, say, a skelebot. Or a rock.

--flatline

[eliakon]

Good and Evil are always a matter of perception. Trying to make absolute claims about either is pointless.

(finally back from vacation and loving having a keyboard again!)

--flatline

In the real world that may or may not be true (there is an entire branch of Philosophy that does nothing but analyze this very subject)

But in the game as written it isn't true. There is explicitly defined good and evil, that are detectable, testable, and can even be used for things....it would be like saying that relativity or gravity are matters of perception.

I don't think that's true. The powers I can think of only work on living things, but if "good" and "evil" are actual things in-game, then you'd be able to measure the amount of "goodness"/"evilness" of, say, a skelebot. Or a rock.

--flatline

Which proves nothing....
Just because a rock does not have an electrical charge does not mean that electricity doesn't exist
By this logic life doesn't exist because rocks and skelebots are not alive.
The simple fact is that there are things that have concrete in universe observable results based on alignment. This means that those alignments are not nebulous out of game things but actually exist in the universe. This means that Rules As Written a person can be Good or Evil, this can be tested, and doing evil acts will change your alignment from good, which means that yes it is theoretically possible to make a hypothetical (and testable) set up to determine the in game morality of a specific act.

[Alrik Vas]

It's a poor comparison because evil I'm palladium, like nearly everything else, is based off human perception. A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

[eliakon]

It's a poor comparison because evil I'm palladium, like nearly everything else, is based off human perception. A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

Unfortunatly the rules as written support the first answer.
Yes I think it should be changed (And I house rule on PB and MA all the time)
But RAW....

And no morality there is no reason to say that its relative.
I do not see how 'will not take dirty money' can be relative between races. Either you do what the alignment says, or you don't.

If we make good and evil relative we get into the 'there is no evil because everyone sees themselves as being/doing good'. At which point we would then have to jettison the entire alignment system entirely.

Summery: You can house rule alignments to be relative if you wish to, but the RAW make it rather clear that they are not relative but in fact ridged universal rules.....for everyone.

[flatline]

It's a poor comparison because evil I'm palladium, like nearly everything else, is based off human perception. A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

Unfortunatly the rules as written support the first answer.
Yes I think it should be changed (And I house rule on PB and MA all the time)
But RAW....

And no morality there is no reason to say that its relative.
I do not see how 'will not take dirty money' can be relative between races. Either you do what the alignment says, or you don't.

"Dirty" is subjective. Some folks feel that taxes are "dirty money", so according to them, food stamps qualifies as "dirty money" since it's paid for with taxes.

If we make good and evil relative we get into the 'there is no evil because everyone sees themselves as being/doing good'. At which point we would then have to jettison the entire alignment system entirely.

Many groups I've played with have done exactly this. And there was much rejoicing.

Summery: You can house rule alignments to be relative if you wish to, but the RAW make it rather clear that they are not relative but in fact ridged universal rules.....for everyone.

As written, they're totally subjective. The fact that you don't see them as such just indicates that you don't realize that you're projecting your own interpretations into what's written.

If we were playing together, how would you tell if my character was Scrupulous or Aberrant?

--flatline

[eliakon]

It's a poor comparison because evil I'm palladium, like nearly everything else, is based off human perception. A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

Unfortunatly the rules as written support the first answer.
Yes I think it should be changed (And I house rule on PB and MA all the time)
But RAW....

And no morality there is no reason to say that its relative.
I do not see how 'will not take dirty money' can be relative between races. Either you do what the alignment says, or you don't.

"Dirty" is subjective. Some folks feel that taxes are "dirty money", so according to them, food stamps qualifies as "dirty money" since it's paid for with taxes.

The books lay out what is dirty money. Again personal opinions do not enter into this

If we make good and evil relative we get into the 'there is no evil because everyone sees themselves as being/doing good'. At which point we would then have to jettison the entire alignment system entirely.

Many groups I've played with have done exactly this. And there was much rejoicing.

So do I. But that does not change the fact that the RAW has alignments.
Thus discussing good and evil in the RAW means that the alignments are relevant.

Summery: You can house rule alignments to be relative if you wish to, but the RAW make it rather clear that they are not relative but in fact ridged universal rules.....for everyone.

As written, they're totally subjective. The fact that you don't see them as such just indicates that you don't realize that you're projecting your own interpretations into what's written.

No need to personally attack me or my views.
But as the attacked party I will reply.
They are not subjective because they make explicit statements on what you can or can not do. If they were subjective then they would not do so.
There is no way to make a statement like "will not attack an unarmed foe" subjective. You either will attack an unarmed foe, or you will not. There is no 'it depends' (that is 'will' BTW)

If we were playing together, how would you tell if my character was Scrupulous or Aberrant?

You mean besides using something like a ward with the good or evil trigger?
Or having spells like Detect Good or Detect Evil active
Or seeing if you are helped or hurt by Karmic Power
Or any of the other in game ways to determine if your good or evil?

--flatline[/quote]

[Nightmask]

Summery: You can house rule alignments to be relative if you wish to, but the RAW make it rather clear that they are not relative but in fact ridged universal rules.....for everyone.

As written, they're totally subjective. The fact that you don't see them as such just indicates that you don't realize that you're projecting your own interpretations into what's written.

If we were playing together, how would you tell if my character was Scrupulous or Aberrant?

--flatline

Uh no, as written alignments are quite objective. While you might try and spin something as fitting when it doesn't that won't mean it's subjective. You may want to insist that there's nothing wrong with Torture and killing anyone that opposes you and that you're a Principled, good person but objectively based on what it takes to qualify as a Good alignment you don't even rate Unprincipled let alone meet the objective definition of Principled.

[Q99]

Uh no, as written alignments are quite objective. While you might try and spin something as fitting when it doesn't that won't mean it's subjective. You may want to insist that there's nothing wrong with Torture and killing anyone that opposes you and that you're a Principled, good person but objectively based on what it takes to qualify as a Good alignment you don't even rate Unprincipled let alone meet the objective definition of Principled.

Yes. What a person views as good or bad can be subjective. Whether someone follows a specific set of behavior guidelines (or at least whether they're near it) is something that can be measured.

[Alrik Vas]

Eliakon, using mechanics to determine someone's morality is in itself a poor way to gauge someone. So what if someone has witch powers, nerve gas weaponry or a complete sociopathic outlook? What if they're just doing what is normal for them? What if alignment detection says evil, but you've never heard of them being evil, nor winessed it yourself?

In the case of the CS, there is no national alignment. Casting a spell to determine your judgement is like shaking the magic 8 ball. It might be helpful, but it's irrelevant.

[eliakon]

Eliakon, using mechanics to determine someone's morality is in itself a poor way to gauge someone. So what if someone has witch powers, nerve gas weaponry or a complete sociopathic outlook? What if they're just doing what is normal for them? What if alignment detection says evil, but you've never heard of them being evil, nor winessed it yourself?

In the case of the CS, there is no national alignment. Casting a spell to determine your judgement is like shaking the magic 8 ball. It might be helpful, but it's irrelevant.

My point was that it CAN be measured. Ergo, it is something that exists.
Just because I can not measure the back ground radiation of a rock doesn't mean its not there.
Likewise just because it takes special detection methods to detect something doesn't make the something disappear. Morality exists in universe.

[Alrik Vas]

Philosophically speaking, I agree. In practice it much more comes down to being the winner and being the loser. Truth and perception rarely line up in issues of morality.

[Nightmask]

Philosophically speaking, I agree. In practice it much more comes down to being the winner and being the loser. Truth and perception rarely line up in issues of morality.

Unless you're in a universe were there are such things are as measurable as the mass of a rock or the wavelength of a beam of light. whether it's the Marvel RPG setting where you can't be a hero and keep good karma in killing people or in Palladium where you can't claim to be of Principled or Scrupulous alignment while engaging in acts contrary to the stated behavior that makes you fit those alignments.

Doc Feral is a villain, he's NOT a principled alignment (no matter what excuse the writer used to give him that alignment). He's at best an Aberrant alignment. He's no different than those Heroes Unlimited aliens secretly looking to kill all humans after humans shot their peaceful ship down stranding them on Earth. They're clearly listed as having evil alignments even though to each other they're as decent and dependable as one could ever hope for. Heck they even have their own counterpart to Doc Feral, a medical doctor alien who's perfect and compassionate when it comes to treating aliens and other non-humans but enjoys torturing and experimenting on humans. He's rightly listed as having an evil alignment as should Doc Feral. His being human doesn't make him special where he can get to claim to be an alignment he clearly doesn't rate, same as those in the CS, just because they're great to each other doesn't make them good.

[Alrik Vas]

You say Doc is a villain, and that the authors are wrong. That's interesting. Your reasoning is consistent with the idea of alignment, but then after giving specific examples of personalities, you go immediately back to broad statements about an entire population. It makes a mess of your basic idea. Are you claiming that if you're evil you must be the villain? Logically it doesn't have to be true.

In the case of the CS, I think the enforced ignorance makes for an evil empire, but I don't believe "those in the CS" are evil.

[eliakon]

My suspicion is that Doc Feral is a good example of "special snowflake" syndrome. It also tells us that in the early days of the TMNT game that the alignments for that game were different. So I will concede that in the TMNT game alignment can be relative.

However in the Palladium Fantasy 1st edition game, Palladium Fantasy 2nd edition game, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited 1 and Heroes Unlimited 2, and Ninjas and Superspies we have specific evidence that alignments are not relative, but fixed. (great example....the Tomb of the Titans in the PF Book High Seas. If a person steals from the tomb, for any reasons, they drop alignment.).

The question is still out on Recon, Mechanoids, Robotech 1, Robotech 2, Macross II, Systems Failure, Dead Reign, and After the Bomb.


As the question of the CS is in the Rifts game and not TMNT1 I would look to Rifts Alignment system and rules rather than those of TMNT 1.

[Killer Cyborg]

My suspicion is that Doc Feral is a good example of "special snowflake" syndrome. It also tells us that in the early days of the TMNT game that the alignments for that game were different. So I will concede that in the TMNT game alignment can be relative.

I think it's more that the Alignment rules--like pretty much all the rules--are unevenly applied and enforced by Palladium.
NPC stats often depend on the whims of the author at the time.

[Nightmask]

You say Doc is a villain, and that the authors are wrong. That's interesting. Your reasoning is consistent with the idea of alignment, but then after giving specific examples of personalities, you go immediately back to broad statements about an entire population. It makes a mess of your basic idea. Are you claiming that if you're evil you must be the villain? Logically it doesn't have to be true.

In the case of the CS, I think the enforced ignorance makes for an evil empire, but I don't believe "those in the CS" are evil.

I'm sure the actual authors who created Feral would also say he's a villain, certainly he's evil. He routinely experiments on, tortures, and kills innocent beings simply because they aren't human. To try and say he's really a good person and not evil is like the people who insist some serial killer is really a good person because 'well he did such good works in the community', as if somehow if you were doing some good things that meant nothing else you did mattered no matter how vile. It's why Kingpin is still a villain no matter what public works he does because of the evil he supports (hence the reason for the Villain with Good Publicity trope).

There's also nothing wrong with a statement like 'just because they do good to each other doesn't mean they're actually good people', that's factual. There's more to qualifying as good than just being good to the people around you. After all it's generally in ones best interest to garner the good will of others in order to function and prosper in society, you can act good to others because it's benefiting you while displaying your evil would cause you problems. So it's quite irrelevant how the individuals in the CS treat themselves since however good they are to each other that's not actual evidence that they're good people, it's how they treat others that counts and currently the vast majority are just fine with the military going around killing people for no other reason than existing, that approval marks them as not being good people, at best that marks them as selfish people at worst it makes them as evil for willingly condoning what the CS does.

[Alrik Vas]

Here's the problem with that argument, Nightmask;

A predator fires a missile at a building where IS leaders are meeting, several civilians are inside as well and everyone dies. Now everyone is America is evil.

We have no evidence that proves the military chain of command wasn't laughing about civilian casualties, and regardless of an apology citing deep regret we also have no evidence that tells us they didn't know they were there. And even if they didn't know, according you arguments here, it wouldn't matter. They still killed everyone, that's an evil act according to the book.

So now, no matter how good we are to each other, we are all villains. It doesn't work. We might be wrong, but that doesn't make the people stepping on the flag the only good aligned humans in the US.

War is an ugly business where no one is really the good guy, but it also doesn't automatically make all participants the bad guy. Palladium's alignment system is a set of rules to gauge a mechanic, it doesn't match real world ethics.

[eliakon]

Here's the problem with that argument, Nightmask;

A predator fires a missile at a building where IS leaders are meeting, several civilians are inside as well and everyone dies. Now everyone is America is evil.

No but if the US decided to declare a war of extermination against someone and we didn't protest then we would be.

We have no evidence that proves the military chain of command wasn't laughing about civilian casualties, and regardless of an apology citing deep regret we also have no evidence that tells us they didn't know they were there. And even if they didn't know, according you arguments here, it wouldn't matter. They still killed everyone, that's an evil act according to the book.

Your making a false comparison. There is worlds of difference between one shot and an entire campaign.
And yes, if the people said 'well it doesn't matter' or 'eggs and omlets' then yes they WOULD be Selfish/Evil. The people demanding an apology, the people demanding accountability, the people demanding to know what we are doing to prevent this from happening again? Those are the good people.

So now, no matter how good we are to each other, we are all villains. It doesn't work. We might be wrong, but that doesn't make the people stepping on the flag the only good aligned humans in the US.

Again a totally ludicrous comparison. You don't have to 'step on the flag' to be the good person. But if your government is committing genocide and you know it and support it then you stopped being innocent. In your hypothetical? That apology you mentioned? Yeah that's because the action was considered unacceptable. If the Military shrugged and said "they were all bad guys" and the people said "yeah, serves those people right for being in the middle east" then yes, they would be evil. But people who demand to know how the military plans to prevent this in the future would be good. Heck the people that the military is worried about enough to apologize would be good.....since they were morally offended by the act.

War is an ugly business where no one is really the good guy, but it also doesn't automatically make all participants the bad guy. Palladium's alignment system is a set of rules to gauge a mechanic, it doesn't match real world ethics.

Which would be fine.....except that
1) a lack of 'good guys' does not preclude the presence of bad guys (hint, the invading xenocidal guys are rarely 'good')
2) there is no claim here that the alignment system has anything to do with real world ethics. Just the claim that statements about something in the game (Is ____ good or evil) should be evaluated by that games rules (in this case the Palladium Alignment system as defined for the Rifts Role Playing Game)

[Tor]

A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

That would be true if MA and PB were described as subjective things, but they are not. Luckily there is more than one way to intimidate/seduce a wolf.

in the early days of the TMNT game that the alignments for that game were different.
in the Palladium Fantasy 1st edition game, Palladium Fantasy 2nd edition game, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited 1 and Heroes Unlimited 2, and Ninjas and Superspies we have specific evidence that alignments are not relative

In what ways was the Scrupulous alignment changed between TMNT and these other games? Which criteria was altered that you think accounts for a difference?

I'm sure the actual authors who created Feral would also say he's a villain, certainly he's evil.

Feral is an original Palladium character, he isn't a Palladium-statted character from the TMNT comics like authors.

His alignment comes from his creator. He is a good person, he is not evil.

He routinely experiments on, tortures, and kills innocent beings simply because they aren't human. To try and say he's really a good person and not evil is like the people who insist some serial killer is really a good person because 'well he did such good works in the community', as if somehow if you were doing some good things that meant nothing else you did mattered no matter how vile.

Actually no, he is good because he has "twisted perceptions". Perception-twisting allows you to ignore alignment guidelines if you do not perceive someone as being a person but as a lower being. This would help explain Splynncryth only being anarchist in spite of what he approves in his empire.

[Killer Cyborg]

A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

That would be true if MA and PB were described as subjective things, but they are not. Luckily there is more than one way to intimidate/seduce a wolf.

Actually, a MA of 2d6 can still result in a MA of up to 18, because you get an additional die if you roll a 12. It'd be rare, but still there.
And yeah, there's more than one way to intimidate.

Attributes like MA and PB as a rule are not relative. It's not like that Wolfen with a MA of 18 would ONLY get his bonus to trust/intimidate when dealing with humans- it'd apply to other wolfen as well, and splugorth, and gods, and demons, and everything else that's affected by a high MA.
Just like a human's MA applies to all races, not just to other humans.

[Alrik Vas]

Here's the problem with that argument, Nightmask;

A predator fires a missile at a building where IS leaders are meeting, several civilians are inside as well and everyone dies. Now everyone is America is evil.

No but if the US decided to declare a war of extermination against someone and we didn't protest then we would be.

We have no evidence that proves the military chain of command wasn't laughing about civilian casualties, and regardless of an apology citing deep regret we also have no evidence that tells us they didn't know they were there. And even if they didn't know, according you arguments here, it wouldn't matter. They still killed everyone, that's an evil act according to the book.

Your making a false comparison. There is worlds of difference between one shot and an entire campaign.
And yes, if the people said 'well it doesn't matter' or 'eggs and omlets' then yes they WOULD be Selfish/Evil. The people demanding an apology, the people demanding accountability, the people demanding to know what we are doing to prevent this from happening again? Those are the good people.

So now, no matter how good we are to each other, we are all villains. It doesn't work. We might be wrong, but that doesn't make the people stepping on the flag the only good aligned humans in the US.

Again a totally ludicrous comparison. You don't have to 'step on the flag' to be the good person. But if your government is committing genocide and you know it and support it then you stopped being innocent. In your hypothetical? That apology you mentioned? Yeah that's because the action was considered unacceptable. If the Military shrugged and said "they were all bad guys" and the people said "yeah, serves those people right for being in the middle east" then yes, they would be evil. But people who demand to know how the military plans to prevent this in the future would be good. Heck the people that the military is worried about enough to apologize would be good.....since they were morally offended by the act.

War is an ugly business where no one is really the good guy, but it also doesn't automatically make all participants the bad guy. Palladium's alignment system is a set of rules to gauge a mechanic, it doesn't match real world ethics.

Which would be fine.....except that
1) a lack of 'good guys' does not preclude the presence of bad guys (hint, the invading xenocidal guys are rarely 'good')
2) there is no claim here that the alignment system has anything to do with real world ethics. Just the claim that statements about something in the game (Is ____ good or evil) should be evaluated by that games rules (in this case the Palladium Alignment system as defined for the Rifts Role Playing Game)

Morality a human construct, people aren't good or evil based off another's actions, or their responsibility for other's actions. If the universe is fair, they should be judged off their own actions. Lumping a population into one category based off the actions of a few is the same kind of generalising the CS does to their enemies.

That was my argument. Sorry i wasn't clear enough that you had to make a post like that.

[Alrik Vas]

A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

That would be true if MA and PB were described as subjective things, but they are not. Luckily there is more than one way to intimidate/seduce a wolf.

Actually, a MA of 2d6 can still result in a MA of up to 18, because you get an additional die if you roll a 12. It'd be rare, but still there.
And yeah, there's more than one way to intimidate.

Attributes like MA and PB as a rule are not relative. It's not like that Wolfen with a MA of 18 would ONLY get his bonus to trust/intimidate when dealing with humans- it'd apply to other wolfen as well, and splugorth, and gods, and demons, and everything else that's affected by a high MA.
Just like a human's MA applies to all races, not just to other humans.

What's the source for non-humans getting bonus dice? Honestly don't recall that being a thing.

[eliakon]

Morality a human construct, people aren't good or evil based off another's actions, or their responsibility for other's actions. If the universe is fair, they should be judged off their own actions. Lumping a population into one category based off the actions of a few is the same kind of generalising the CS does to their enemies.

That was my argument. Sorry i wasn't clear enough that you had to make a post like that.

Which is a great philosophical argument in the real world.

But in the game universe Morality isn't a human construct. Its one of the fundamental laws of nature.

Thus it is possible to calculate the moral effects of people just like it is possible to calculate the size of an explosion or the speed of an aircraft.
And based on this, in the Palladium universe the vast majority of the CS is either Evil or Selfish with the over all 'CS' as a meta-entity being Evil.

[Killer Cyborg]

A wolfen has an MA of 2d6. Does this mean they have no intimidating, trust inducing leaders? No, it just means humans don't relate to their ways.

That would be true if MA and PB were described as subjective things, but they are not. Luckily there is more than one way to intimidate/seduce a wolf.

Actually, a MA of 2d6 can still result in a MA of up to 18, because you get an additional die if you roll a 12. It'd be rare, but still there.
And yeah, there's more than one way to intimidate.

Attributes like MA and PB as a rule are not relative. It's not like that Wolfen with a MA of 18 would ONLY get his bonus to trust/intimidate when dealing with humans- it'd apply to other wolfen as well, and splugorth, and gods, and demons, and everything else that's affected by a high MA.
Just like a human's MA applies to all races, not just to other humans.

What's the source for non-humans getting bonus dice? Honestly don't recall that being a thing.

I forget where, but it's somewhere.