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that's a dead giveaway.

I see what you did there...LOL.

Bill wrote:The CS actually does engage in institutionalized slavery. The dog boys are engineered to live and die in the service of the state and they are hunted if they attempt to escape. The life of a dog boy may not be too painful, but they are not free. The CS also engages in tacitly approved private slavery. The 'Burbs adventures mention several times that D-Bee slaves are used for labor there.

The government of the Coalition is not good and neither are the citizens that choose to willfully ignore the destructive and evil acts that it perpetrates. At best, it could be claimed that they are ignorant or in fear for their own lives.

That's a matter of perspective. Am I a slave owner because I own a dog and make it fetch birds that I shoot? No sane individual would say yes. Does my dog having human like intelligence magically turn this into slavery? Does it matter that I am the one that gave my dog that intelligence in the first place?

In the CS mind, Dog Boys are just dogs that can talk. And according to Coalition War Campaign, they get paid so they aren't slaves anyway. They are more like a caste that must perform a given task to be part of society.

I will grant you dbee slavery because there are mentions of VIPs in CS cities having dbee slaves. The slavery in the burbs is not run by the CS. They just turn a blind eye until it becomes a problem worth fixing.

Dog Boys are mentioned to be slaves in one of the books.

Hasn't it been mentioned in the books that the CS higher-up treatment of dogboys as expendable numbers is what may drive a wedge between the CS military and the CS Psi-Stalkers assigned as pack handlers?

taalismn wrote:Hasn't it been mentioned in the books that the CS higher-up treatment of dogboys as expendable numbers is what may drive a wedge between the CS military and the CS Psi-Stalkers assigned as pack handlers?

I think so.

Slaves, by definition, do not get paid for their labor.. Dog Boys are forced labor and have a lot of similarities to slaves, but they earn a wage.

It's a weird place they occupy and there are tons of referenced to them being slaves and property of the CS. But they get paid for their work. Why would the CS give a slave a wage? You don't have to pay a slave because you own them.

Who knows? I guess you could say the CS does it to ease their conscience about forcing these animals to do the worst work they have.

Crow Splat wrote:Slaves, by definition, do not get paid for their labor.. Dog Boys are forced labor and have a lot of similarities to slaves, but they earn a wage.

It's a weird place they occupy and there are tons of referenced to them being slaves and property of the CS. But they get paid for their work. Why would the CS give a slave a wage? You don't have to pay a slave because you own them.

Who knows? I guess you could say the CS does it to ease their conscience about forcing these animals to do the worst work they have.

They get paid so they can handle their own day-to-day expenses and such without someone doing it for them. That way they can buy supplies for their squad while on patrol and similar.

However, they can't quit under threat of death. They have to do what they're told, or they're killed. They may have a bit of money, but they're property.

It wasn't unheard of in the ancient past for slaves to get some money, and buy their own freedom. Not being paid is common, but not inherent to being a slave. Being owned by someone else is the key thing.

As Q99 says, throughout history there have been examples of slaves purchasing their freedom with earned wages. Slavery is a matter of property status and freedom of volition, not whether they are paid. As long as a person (including sapient mutant animal hybrids) lacks self-ownership, including the freedom of choice to do with their life what they will, that person is a slave. Children are a gray area, they are free but in the custody of their parent or guardian. That relationship is also regulated for the protection of the child. It could be argued that dog boys are wards of the state; if not for the callous endangerment that the state exposes them to and that there is no means for a dog boy to emancipate itself. Well, that and the canon statement that they are slaves.

Crow Splat wrote:Slaves, by definition, do not get paid for their labor.. Dog Boys are forced labor and have a lot of similarities to slaves, but they earn a wage.

It's a weird place they occupy and there are tons of referenced to them being slaves and property of the CS. But they get paid for their work. Why would the CS give a slave a wage? You don't have to pay a slave because you own them.

Who knows? I guess you could say the CS does it to ease their conscience about forcing these animals to do the worst work they have.

Slaves can get paid, they just often aren't.
The CS would pay them so that they have loyal slaves who can but stuff, and yes, perhaps to south their conscience.

The point I believe is that if you consider Dog Boys an animal and/or engineered/created piece of property either one, then them being expected to obey their owners/creators isn't morally questionable. This is complicated by the knowledge that Dog Boys have human levels of intelligence on the OOC level. That fact likely isn't completely acknowledged by everyone in the CS. Those who don't work hand in hand with Dog Boys and/or have frequent direct interaction with them in some way would never have a reason to believe anything other than that they are engineered/mutant animals, and that everything is perfectly normal and right in them working for the betterment of their human creators/masters.

In-game/setting the treatment of Dog Boys could easily be seen as much more morally ambiguous than it could be argued to be OOCly with perfect knowledge.

Dark wrote:The point I believe is that if you consider Dog Boys an animal and/or engineered/created piece of property either one, then them being expected to obey their owners/creators isn't morally questionable. This is complicated by the knowledge that Dog Boys have human levels of intelligence on the OOC level. That fact likely isn't completely acknowledged by everyone in the CS. Those who don't work hand in hand with Dog Boys and/or have frequent direct interaction with them in some way would never have a reason to believe anything other than that they are engineered/mutant animals, and that everything is perfectly normal and right in them working for the betterment of their human creators/masters.

In-game/setting the treatment of Dog Boys could easily be seen as much more morally ambiguous than it could be argued to be OOCly with perfect knowledge.

That the dog boys are considered property is precisely what makes them slaves.

Dark wrote:The point I believe is that if you consider Dog Boys an animal and/or engineered/created piece of property either one, then them being expected to obey their owners/creators isn't morally questionable. This is complicated by the knowledge that Dog Boys have human levels of intelligence on the OOC level. That fact likely isn't completely acknowledged by everyone in the CS. Those who don't work hand in hand with Dog Boys and/or have frequent direct interaction with them in some way would never have a reason to believe anything other than that they are engineered/mutant animals, and that everything is perfectly normal and right in them working for the betterment of their human creators/masters.

In-game/setting the treatment of Dog Boys could easily be seen as much more morally ambiguous than it could be argued to be OOCly with perfect knowledge.

This is really what it boils down to. Are you of the camp that says Dog Boys deserve the same rights as humans, or do you believe they are on par with any working animal?

From a CS standpoint, a Dog Boy is a dog. Nothing more. The minute they recognize them as anything more, the production of artificially grown Dog Boys would have to stop and the CS would have to start caring about the lives of the Dog Packs because they wouldn't be able to replace them as easily.

[/quote]

That the dog boys are considered property is precisely what makes them slaves.[/quote]

Only if you consider Dog Boys to be equal to a human..

The CS has no such opinion.

It seems like people on here cannot distinguish between "good guys" and "not the worst guys". The CS are bad guys, quite solidly. The fact that they aren't on a constant killing rampage against anyone they dislike is not enough to label them good.

Crow Splat wrote:

michael silverbane wrote:That the dog boys are considered property is precisely what makes them slaves.

Only if you consider Dog Boys to be equal to a human..

The CS has no such opinion.

Which, again, is what makes them bad guys.

Crow Splat wrote:This is really what it boils down to. Are you of the camp that says Dog Boys deserve the same rights as humans, or do you believe they are on par with any working animal?

This is the same argument that was had with black people, I cannot see why anyone today would try to justify that same type of argument just because they are intelligent dogs. The Confederacy tried to justify slavery, the Coalition can try as well, that doesn't make their arguments morally correct by any current code of morality, nor do I think it makes sense to act like players can ignore their own morality so completely during a game. There are lines that are not to be crossed, and personally, slavery is a pretty important one.

Crow Splat wrote:

That the dog boys are considered property is precisely what makes them slaves.

Only if you consider Dog Boys to be equal to a human..

The CS has no such opinion.[/quote]
Isn't that sort of one of the necessary conditions for slavery? The dehumanization of the subject is a standard part of the processes. If we can simply say "well I don't feel that they don't count" then nothing can ever be evil since, we all we have to do is simply define all victims as being deserving of their fate.
I am going to go out on a limb at say that if the race has full intelligence, and free will, then making them property is pretty much the definition of slavery.

The Dog Boys generally share the opinion that humans are better than them, and not because of indoctrination, but because of their pack mentality.

Killer Cyborg wrote:The Dog Boys generally share the opinion that humans are better than them, and not because of indoctrination, but because of their pack mentality.

Even if this is true, does it matter? I am not sure if either the impact of indoctrination or the specifics of the CS gengineering can be fully removed when it comes to this opinion, but there are certainly Dog Boys who do not agree.

cosmicfish wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:The Dog Boys generally share the opinion that humans are better than them, and not because of indoctrination, but because of their pack mentality.

Even if this is true, does it matter? I am not sure if either the impact of indoctrination or the specifics of the CS gengineering can be fully removed when it comes to this opinion, but there are certainly Dog Boys who do not agree.

It matters in the context of whether or not the CS is evil for seeing Dog Boys as lesser.
It doesn't matter in the context of whether or not the Dog Boys are slaves.

The pack mentality isn't something that the CS added to them; it's something that they didn't remove.

The difference is that the CS created Dog Boys. They didn't evolve or just happen from some accident. It would be no different than if your pet dog started talking right now.. At the end of the day, would you still euthanize it when it got old and couldn't function without assistance anymore? If so, how would that be different from euthanizing old people that can't support themselves?

Where is the line between slavery and working animals? What are dog boys considered slavery but sled dog teams are ok? How much intelligence does an animal need before they tug at your heart strings and they cease being an animal to you?

You can't say all dog boys are smarter than all dogs because statistically you can have a dog boy with an IQ of 3 and a dog with a higher IQ. The only thing that truly separates them is bipedal locomotion and human speech.. And I have seen some dogs that even have the bipedal locomotion down.

Many of you act like it is cut and dry and has to be a certain way when from a viewpoint shared by many CS citizens, it makes perfect sense. And there is no scientific evidence to prove otherwise. Only feelings

Moral absolutism - Slavery is bad independent of reason or consequence.
Moral nihilism - Slavery happens.
Moral relativism - Slavery is only bad to an observer that does not share the cultural perspective.
Moral universalism - Slavery may be acceptable depending upon reason or consequence.

This argument has ceased to be interesting. You're in an area that will not achieve resolution because it plays upon the moral foundation of the individual. Once a person has settled on their morality, it takes major life experiences to shift them; which an internet forum dedicated to RPGs will not be one of. I strongly suggest that you express your opinion, accept that it will be disagreed with, and move on to the next topic/subtopic.

I suggest the social hierarchy of the Coalition. It's a terrible oligarchy. Not necessarily evil, but it certainly makes it hard for a low-leveler to rise up into leadership.

there is nothing morally ambiguous about creating a slave race and then forcing them into a life of servitude. no, you don't have a right to force them into servitude, any more than you have a right to force people that you didn't create into a life of servitude.

it is evil.

it does not matter whether they consider it to be evil or not. they don't get to decide what is right and what is wrong. they can think it is right all they want. it is still evil.

likewise, while their actions may be understandable, that doesn't make them good. there were also, during those years, times where d-bees would have helped. we can see entire communities where humans and d-bees got along just fine. the humans of the CS regularly meet d-bees that are not trying to murder them, or torture them, or rape them, or eat them.

they choose to ignore those, and focus on the bad as an excuse to kill. that is evil. it is understandable. but it is still evil.

Killer Cyborg wrote:The Dog Boys generally share the opinion that humans are better than them, and not because of indoctrination, but because of their pack mentality.

I'd say because of indoctrination. I mean, they're raised in a controlled environment from birth separate from their parents- which is not natural even for a genetically engineered species like them. Literally all CS Dogboys have heavier indoctrination than any human soldier.

'Feral' Dogboys a generation or two down aren't necessarily going to agree, as well.



Additionally to the 'slave' thing, there's the other factor that they're treated as expendable cannon fodder, and only relatively recently permitted to use guns or had an environmental power armored designed for them.

And the 'if one is encountered outside their control, they kill them. If one under their control leaves, they hunt them down and kill them.'

Most of them willingly serve, but it's not like the CS is happy with just that factor.


---

That being just the interior stuff. Exterior, they launched an offensive war on Tolkeen, they've attacked and wiped out large numbers of innocent D-Bee settlements, and generally aren't very nice. Sure, D-Bees can hide in their shadow, in the Burbs too close for the more aggressive CS forces to let loose, but even that is entirely a side-effect.

This is an absolutely great conversation, but I would caution that "we," the gaming audience, do not engage in the Historian's fallacy or Presentism by attempting to place the information we have and our viewpoints on others.

If the question is: "do we, as modern, Western educated humans think that the CS is evil?" then we could be correct in saying, that the CS is evil to us. However, if we were to be placed in that situation (Chaos Earth and Rifts) and some organization like the CS arose and protected "us" (provided that no one on this board is a psychic or a wizard or a D-Bee...), then ask whether the CS is evil....even if many of us felt that their actions were somewhat heavy handed and questionable, it is a rare and extremely courageous individual that would call our your savior as evil.

-STS

The general consensus on the part of CS citizens might be "If a few eggs need to be broken to insure our safety and well-being, then so be it", and a common blind eye is turned to the worst excesses of the CS government. A common problem in large organizations and public institutions...unless you happen to be one of the eggs so broken, or have heard the broken eggs screaming.

slade the sniper wrote:This is an absolutely great conversation, but I would caution that "we," the gaming audience, do not engage in the Historian's fallacy or Presentism by attempting to place the information we have and our viewpoints on others.

If the question is: "do we, as modern, Western educated humans think that the CS is evil?" then we could be correct in saying, that the CS is evil to us. However, if we were to be placed in that situation (Chaos Earth and Rifts) and some organization like the CS arose and protected "us" (provided that no one on this board is a psychic or a wizard or a D-Bee...), then ask whether the CS is evil....even if many of us felt that their actions were somewhat heavy handed and questionable, it is a rare and extremely courageous individual that would call our your savior as evil.

-STS

From my moral and ethical point of view, I view them as evil. Like you say, though, other viewpoints should be considered.

From the POV of D-Bees in the Burbs, it's still usually going to be yes. Among the humans, more mixed, but 'yes' is not all that rare (Erin Tarn's writings are fairly popular there, and she calls them evil). Many kingdoms at the edge of their boundaries or beyond, who've had to deal with them and seen what they do further from home, yes. The Cyber-Knights, often considered the epitome of good by many in North America, 'yes.' The Republicans, 'yes'. Most any D-Bee outside the burbs, 'yes'.

So it's not like *purely* our perspective in which they're bad. If you held a vote in North America on the subject, they probably wouldn't do too well.


Heck, even the NGR, who's allied with them, is uncomfortable with a number of their aspects, they just don't have a lot of other potential allies against a bigger threat.

slade the sniper wrote:This is an absolutely great conversation, but I would caution that "we," the gaming audience, do not engage in the Historian's fallacy or Presentism by attempting to place the information we have and our viewpoints on others.

If the question is: "do we, as modern, Western educated humans think that the CS is evil?" then we could be correct in saying, that the CS is evil to us. However, if we were to be placed in that situation (Chaos Earth and Rifts) and some organization like the CS arose and protected "us" (provided that no one on this board is a psychic or a wizard or a D-Bee...), then ask whether the CS is evil....even if many of us felt that their actions were somewhat heavy handed and questionable, it is a rare and extremely courageous individual that would call our your savior as evil.

-STS

Of course this begs the question of "What about the fact that in universe there is black and white universal, absolute detectable good and evil" Which means that you can make absolute objective statements about what is good and what is evil. In the Palladium Universe morality is not subjective nor up for debate. It is quite literally a universal law like gravity....and just as testable.

The Taoist alignment starts looking really attractive to those who don't want to be pigeonholed, right now.
Except that of you based a nation on it, you could have some serious loopholes with regards to self-interest.

One could make the argument that the CS is "the bad guy" because they're portrayed as "the bad guy." This is a work of fiction, and the creators played with tropes that are generally used for "bad guys."

However, the creators also add interesting elements beyond, including some moral ambiguity. This fictional universe has things like "pure good" and "pure evil." What exactly that means is unclear (as it often is in fantasy). Even then, Spirits of Light are said to avoid working with Gods of Light because they often use mortals for their own ends. Those ends are supposedly "good." Or at least "for the light."

The cool thing about such difficulties is you can play all sorts of viewpoints. It's not hard to imagine being the "good guy" and saving coalition soldiers on a mission to kill a village of d-bees from being slaughtered by fiery angels.

What's clear is that "forces of darkness" are "bad." They will do all the bad because they want to do the bad for bad's sake. If you tell them they aren't really that bad, in comparison to some ideal of bad, they'll try to prove you wrong. Sometimes Spirits of Light might have to align with Gods of Light...maybe even align with mortals who have serious hangups about helping alien Beings (or even allowing them to live), whatever their allegiance in the Grand Megaversal Moral Compass, in order to vanquish the "true evil."

Palladium Fantasy has a lot of bad people in it. They all had to get together to stop the Old Ones, and afterwards they went back to killing each other. But they weren't bad in that war, at least.

Yea. There's a lot of bad guys, but... when the Minion War hits, on the scale of evil sides, the Coalition's a 3 or 4, the Demons and Devils are like, 9s.


Which is one of the interesting things about Rifts. There seems to be more evil great powers than good, buuut, even many evil ones will team up against a greater evil, while very few have much interest in teaming up against a greater good.

Q99 wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:The Dog Boys generally share the opinion that humans are better than them, and not because of indoctrination, but because of their pack mentality.

I'd say because of indoctrination. I mean, they're raised in a controlled environment from birth separate from their parents- which is not natural even for a genetically engineered species like them. Literally all CS Dogboys have heavier indoctrination than any human soldier.

'Feral' Dogboys a generation or two down aren't necessarily going to agree, as well.

Not indoctrination:
Rifts 108
Secondly, dogs are instinctively pack animals. Because they see themselves as part of the human pack, they automatically accept their social position as subservient members within the pack society. Consequently, they are submissive and steadfastly loyal to humans, whom they perceive as the pack leaders or dominant pack members.

Rifts 109
Oddly, most Dog Pack members don't see anything wrong with how they are treated and tend to concur that they ARE expendable, rather than jeopardize a valuable human life (remember the pack mentality). This also means that they rarely feel cheated or abused, and are happy just to be part of the human pack.

That being just the interior stuff. Exterior, they launched an offensive war on Tolkeen, they've attacked and wiped out large numbers of innocent D-Bee settlements, and generally aren't very nice. Sure, D-Bees can hide in their shadow, in the Burbs too close for the more aggressive CS forces to let loose, but even that is entirely a side-effect.

Nations launch wars, and kill innocent people, and as a rule aren't all that nice. Does that make a nation necessarily evil?

Yes, being able to thrive in the CS's shadow is a side effect, but it's a side effect that benefits a very large number of people, including quite a few of the Coalition's enemies.

eliakon wrote:

slade the sniper wrote:This is an absolutely great conversation, but I would caution that "we," the gaming audience, do not engage in the Historian's fallacy or Presentism by attempting to place the information we have and our viewpoints on others.

If the question is: "do we, as modern, Western educated humans think that the CS is evil?" then we could be correct in saying, that the CS is evil to us. However, if we were to be placed in that situation (Chaos Earth and Rifts) and some organization like the CS arose and protected "us" (provided that no one on this board is a psychic or a wizard or a D-Bee...), then ask whether the CS is evil....even if many of us felt that their actions were somewhat heavy handed and questionable, it is a rare and extremely courageous individual that would call our your savior as evil.

-STS

Of course this begs the question of "What about the fact that in universe there is black and white universal, absolute detectable good and evil" Which means that you can make absolute objective statements about what is good and what is evil. In the Palladium Universe morality is not subjective nor up for debate. It is quite literally a universal law like gravity....and just as testable.

Excellent point!! In Rifts there is an objective Good and Evil, which would make everything so much more clear cut (although without mystical knowledge, is there a way to "prove" objective Good and Evil exist purely by technological means? If not, then perhaps that is why the CS does not see themselves as evil, since you can't "prove" it with technology?)

-STS

Hmm. Had Tea with Joe. (Joseph Prosek) the other morning. Told him about this forum topic.

Busted! I think you all just made it on a hit list. Good job.


As a side note: I like using the CS as a whole as the bad guys. But also like having individual NPC CS good guys interact with my Players.

Insert evil laugh here. Nothing is more fun as a game master than listening to a group of players argue about the morals of the particular mission. Last week when we were playing a chaos earth game a morally ambiguous, gray area, for the characters survival came up. I had 8 players in that game. They nearly came to blows. The night ended with them each telling me they "hated me" for putting them in that situation and they couldn't wait until the next game session. Hahaha

Everything in life can be a grey area. Just like the CS are. That's what makes it fun

Fell wrote:Hmm. Had Tea with Joe. (Joseph Prosek) the other morning. Told him about this forum topic.

Busted! I think you all just made it on a hit list. Good job.

Seriously? It took this long? Sheesh, what's a mage got to do around here to get some notice. I hope they at least didn't give me an insulting bounty.

eliakon wrote:

Fell wrote:Hmm. Had Tea with Joe. (Joseph Prosek) the other morning. Told him about this forum topic.

Busted! I think you all just made it on a hit list. Good job.

Seriously? It took this long? Sheesh, what's a mage got to do around here to get some notice. I hope they at least didn't give me an insulting bounty.

You know you're moving up in the world when the bounty on your head exceeds the GDPs of small nations.

--flatline

slade the sniper wrote:

eliakon wrote:

slade the sniper wrote:This is an absolutely great conversation, but I would caution that "we," the gaming audience, do not engage in the Historian's fallacy or Presentism by attempting to place the information we have and our viewpoints on others.

If the question is: "do we, as modern, Western educated humans think that the CS is evil?" then we could be correct in saying, that the CS is evil to us. However, if we were to be placed in that situation (Chaos Earth and Rifts) and some organization like the CS arose and protected "us" (provided that no one on this board is a psychic or a wizard or a D-Bee...), then ask whether the CS is evil....even if many of us felt that their actions were somewhat heavy handed and questionable, it is a rare and extremely courageous individual that would call our your savior as evil.

-STS

Of course this begs the question of "What about the fact that in universe there is black and white universal, absolute detectable good and evil" Which means that you can make absolute objective statements about what is good and what is evil. In the Palladium Universe morality is not subjective nor up for debate. It is quite literally a universal law like gravity....and just as testable.

Excellent point!! In Rifts there is an objective Good and Evil, which would make everything so much more clear cut (although without mystical knowledge, is there a way to "prove" objective Good and Evil exist purely by technological means? If not, then perhaps that is why the CS does not see themselves as evil, since you can't "prove" it with technology?)

-STS

AFAIK, there is no technological means. Even with the psychic power, you can't really detect evil unless the person is really psychotic or something (iirc).

But just to make a further point about alignments and human nature...

viewtopic.php?p=2466748#p2466748

Killer Cyborg wrote:this is how most human groups have behaved throughout history.
Take the colonization of America, for example.
The colonists couldn't tell the natives apart very well.
One warlike tribe attacks them, and they retaliate against a completely different tribe, because they just can't discriminate.
One white man kills a native, and that native's buddies go out and kill the first white guy they see, and call it even. Again, no discrimination.
All of history is filled with this kind of conflict, where wars are fought out of this kind of lack of discrimination.
It's only very recently, because of our modern communications technology, that we're really growing out of that kind of behavior, and you STILL have a heck of a lot of people who think that ALL Muslims are terrorists, or that ALL Christians are uptight hate-mongers.

And this is among groups of HUMANS.

It'd only be worse when you introduce different species into the equation.
Because it's not like there are any (or, at the least, many) "GOOD" races. Most races in Rifts don't have racial alignments, and the ones that DO tend to have EVIL alignments.
It's not like the CS can say, "Elves GOOD, Brodkil BAD," because there's nothing saying that the elves that they run into ARE going to be good. They're not all fluffy happy tree-prancing do-gooders.
Look at p. 291 of PFRPG, under the description.
Alignment: Any
And if your read about elves as a species, they're no better than humans:
(PFRPG 290-291)
Furthermore, the elves adopted a haughty air of superiority that belittled dwarves and chastised all non-elven people, treating them like ignorant children. This arrogance soon truned to disdain and increased the level of rivalry as the elves tried to prove their superiority over all other mortal men and beasts. Non-elves were regarded as second-class citizens (or less) with frequent degrading lessons to remind them of their place.
And if you read about the Elf/Dwarf war, you should see that there are NO good guys in it.
And it was a war that lasted two thousand years!
Caused by and carried out by elves and dwarves, some of the "good" humanoid D-Bee races on Rifts Earth.

Just look at the PFRPG races' alignments.
Elves: Any
Dwarves: Any
Gnomes: Any
Troglodytes: Any, but most tend to be good or unprincipled
Kobolds: Typically anarchist or evil
Goblins: Typically anarchist or evil
Hob-Goblins: Typically anarchist or evil
Orcs: Typically anarchist or evil
Ogres: Typically anarchist or evil
Trolls: Typically anarchist or evil.
Changeling: Any
The Wolfen: Any, but tend toward principled and aberrant. (Society is based off of the Romans, who were better than the Nazis primarily because they believed in slavery. The stated goal of the Wolfen as a species (on Palladium), is "to conquer the known world, uniting all races under one global government. Of course, that government would have to be organized, led, and enforced by Wolfenkind.")
Coyles: Any, but tend toward anarchist and miscreant.

14 races including humans.
Only ONE race is good by nature, troglodytes. I don't know their population on Rifts Earth, but their numbers are likely small, since they don't seem to have any kind of entry in either CB1 or CB1r. And even that race can have exceptions.
The next best races are the "Any" alignment catagory. There's 5 of them, including humans.
Then there's 7 races that are TYPICALLY Anarchist or outright EVIL.
Then there's the Wolfen, who are just as likely to be Principled as they are to be Aberrant, but any way you slice it, want to conquer and dominate the known world, and who are (like the CS) modeled after a brutal and warlike society.

To recap:
Of the primary races on the Palladium world, roughly 7% lean toward Good, 42% are just as likely to be good as they are evil, and 50% are actually outright Evil or Anarchist (which is just low-calorie Evil) as a norm.
So if you run into a random person from the Palladium world, there's a 71% chance that their alignment, their personal code of morality and ethics, is going to be hostile to your own.

None of which is to say that the directions that the CS leadership is taking their nation in is GOOD, or even to say that it's not EVIL.
Just to say that it's understandable.
Humans are surrounded by inhuman forces, of too many types to categorize, most of which are hostile, almost all of which are dangerous, some of which are shapechangers just to further complicate things, some of which can hijack your body or even your mind just to complicate things even further.
And humans are a species with a long history of not bothering to sort out the good from the bad among other humans that happen to have different skin colors, religions, or nationalities from our own.

Genocide is wrong, and it's evil, and it's what a lot of the non-human races on Rifts Earth would do to humans if they only got the chance.
A lot of the others would enslave us one way or another.
A lot of the rest would simply see us subjugated under their rule, second-class citizens at best.
Genocide is evil, but it's understandable- humanity's back is pressed against the wall, and the life and freedom of our species is at stake.
The Coalition is wrong in their extremism, but it's understandable, and their extremism does not mean that they're not doing our species more good than harm.

One of the things that always appealed to me about Rifts is that when you get right down to it, you have Demons on one side, Nazis on the other, and your characters have to either choose which of those sides they're on, or get caught up in the middle.

The Forums need a "like" button!

-STS

Korcheski wrote:I would love to see the storyline progress with the CS becoming a little more tolerant, accepting magic and some inhuman allies.

A plausible way forward into this would be South America's proposed alliance with Cordoba.

The dwarves (particularly if a lot of them hold attitudes suspicious of magic like in PF) are, among the various D-Bees, probably one of the more prime candidates of aliens for humans to ally with. No beauty/height to envy, they like to live subterranean and work mines (something I think most humans don't), the bearded women won't make the human women jealous, etc.

In regard to magic, perhaps Techno-Wizardry, if anything? An RCSG and Psionic Devices segway into the region under very highly regulated controls is not impossible to imagine. Techno-Wizards of course would have to be fitted with bomb collars and not allowed to travel freely, can't risk external mages teaching them dangerous spells, only approved magic known not to be subversive, like pure PPE>energy type stuff, much like their starting spells. No summoning/mind-control or whatev. TW negate magic or TW anti-magic cloud generators being considered the most favorable, along with Mend the Broken, Create Steel, Create Wood, Ironwood, etc.

Nightmask wrote:Uh no, the CS is very much the bad guys, while there are some exceptions a an individual level the CS as a rule is as evil as it gets.

Let's just forget how they eat humans for pleasure in FoM/Atlantis/Phoenix/Gargoyle empires then? The mass sacrifices of the blood druids?

Nightmask wrote:They aren't the only reason why humans have a chance in North America

True, Korcheski should've said "the prime reason". There are certainly other contributing factors.

It's even possible that the sum of all other factors exceed the CS contribution to preserving humanity. But on a 1 to 1 comparison, am guessing the CS are the best/central reason humans survived so well.

Nightmask wrote:they actively engaged in genocide against another nation/state (Tolkeen)

I disagree with this statement. However I do not know if we should get into another genocide-related argument considering the last thread to do so was inexplicably locked. Until the reason for that is sorted out I am apprehensive of discussing it.

Nightmask wrote:where humans were thriving

Admittedly Tolkeen did have a human monarch... and many humans in its ruling class, but I do wonder if we should measure the state of the common human as thriving. How well were non-mages doing, for example?

Nightmask wrote:the CS will brook no rivals to their goals of conquest.

Which is why they invaded Northern Gun? Oh wait.. they allow people who produce weapons to rival their own to co-exist. Maybe Tolkeen got invaded because it was full of demon-summoners?

Nightmask wrote:They actively end up creating threats to all humans with their genocidal policies and actions

I do not consider any action or policy of theirs to have reached the level of genocide.

What threat to humans has the CS created so far?

Nightmask wrote:have massive slums that they keep humans in living in poverty where they on a whim will go through and exterminate everyone.

If you are talking about the Burbs, where does it say that they "exterminate everyone" on a "whim"?

The CS is not "keeping" anyone in poverty. They're just limiting immigration into their super-cities because they don't have the resources to protect everyone as of yet.

Nightmask wrote:The CS is the worst example of humanity, they aren't 'bullies at times', they're actively guilty of mass murder, and they are in fact devoid of any remorse as they slaughter those that oppose them.

Once again: let's convenient ignore the Kingdom of Dunscon, head of the Federation of Magic, and its City of Brass. Karl is way worse than sacrificing a living being on a weekly basis to stay immortal. Or summoning demons and letting them sacrifice/enslave humans.

Nightmask wrote:humanity has NO need whatsoever for the CS. The NGR alone would be far far better if any one human nation ever came to dominate the Earth than the CS ever would be, because the NGR unlike the CS wouldn't build a death world murdering billions to conquer it.

Just because there might be a better candidate to rule does not mean that the people do not need you. The NGR isn't in North America.

As for who is better for the world: the CS has outlawed U-rounds, the NGR uses them. What's better in the long run?

We don't know what the NGR would become by the time it reached North America. I think they've already changed too much.

Korcheski wrote:you will see a very clear reason why the CS enforces a policy of genocide again magic users. The Vanguard is an excellent example of people with the CS mindset expanding their horizons.

The Vanguard are an example that the CS did not have a genocide against magic users, and there is still no evidence that they've ever done that. They are pressuring dangerous unpredictable forces to relocate away from the population centers used to defend vulnerable humans.

Think about how you don't want loaded MD weaponry wielded by every casual citizen. Mages can't be disarmed, they're not safe to have around normal people who are not protected from MD.

Note that Tolkeen wasn't particularly into demon summoning until *after* the CS invaded. Before that, they generally avoided the practice.

Once again: let's convenient ignore the Kingdom of Dunscon, head of the Federation of Magic, and its City of Brass. Karl is way worse than sacrificing a living being on a weekly basis to stay immortal. Or summoning demons and letting them sacrifice/enslave humans.

In terms of number of people killed on a daily basis? Yes. I mean, 'to say immortal' isn't nice, but neither is 'because you don't look human enough,' 'because you learned spells to protect yourself,' 'because your species has natural magic,' or so on.

And sure, the Kingdom of Duscan is bad, but it's not like there's a limited number of 'bad' slots and once they're full no-one else can be bad. The CS is much larger scale and hardly the only force to oppose Duscan. There's Lalzo in the mix, and even several of the cities in the magic zone are relatively nice places.

Which is why they invaded Northern Gun? Oh wait.. they allow people who produce weapons to rival their own to co-exist. Maybe Tolkeen got invaded because it was full of demon-summoners?

They signed a deal in which Tolkeen would be in a subordinate position, allow CS fairly free action in their territory, and make weapons for them.

They don't like rivals, but they will allow others to take a lesser position. And long-run, they usually intent to absorb even those who agree, like they did with Iron Heart. Northern Gun isn't a rival, it's a future state to them.

What threat to humans has the CS created so far?

The Kingdom of Duscan. Remember how the original Duscan started out as allies of Chi-Town, and wanted to join the CS during it's formation, but only when rebuffed did they turn hostile, and the Coalition's continued persecution of magic types have driven many into Duscan's arms when otherwise the losers of the original war would've likely remained a small and fading group that would've likely dwindled to irrelevance rather than grown to be the larger power in the Federation of Magic.

Also, their war with Tolkeen convinced Tolkeen to summon a whole lot of demons onto Earth when before they were a positive force that'd fight the normal random demons and Xiticix and such just like every power did. The whole area's a bloody mess for everyone, former Tolkeenites, CS people, etc., when it used to be more stable.

What makes humans so special?

--flatline

Killer Cyborg wrote:None of which is to say that the directions that the CS leadership is taking their nation in is GOOD, or even to say that it's not EVIL.
Just to say that it's understandable.

So? Hitler was understandable! Evil is often very understandable, it remains evil even when understood.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Humans are surrounded by inhuman forces, of too many types to categorize, most of which are hostile, almost all of which are dangerous, some of which are shapechangers just to further complicate things, some of which can hijack your body or even your mind just to complicate things even further.

And one option would be to ally with the ones that aren't hostile, the ones who can teach you to recognize shapechangers, the ones who can get the bad guys out of your body or mind... or you can just make everyone your enemy, and kill innocents out of fear. Some groups chose the first path, the CS chose the second, and thereby became evil.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Genocide is wrong, and it's evil, and it's what a lot of the non-human races on Rifts Earth would do to humans if they only got the chance.

Again, so? The "if they got the chance" part is very important here. If you are able to defend yourself to the point that they do not have that option, then exercising it yourself is the only important part of the equation.

Killer Cyborg wrote:A lot of the others would enslave us one way or another.
A lot of the rest would simply see us subjugated under their rule, second-class citizens at best.
Genocide is evil, but it's understandable- humanity's back is pressed against the wall, and the life and freedom of our species is at stake.

And yet humanity flourishes around the world and across many universes, against enemies greater than what the CS faces and without resorting to their tactics. There couldn't be stronger Hitler parallels if they had actually dressed the CS like Nazis and festooned skulls all over them.

Oh, wait...

Killer Cyborg wrote:The Coalition is wrong in their extremism, but it's understandable, and their extremism does not mean that they're not doing our species more good than harm.

I'd love to see the math on that one. I would also love to see how you can define as good any morality that accepts only members of one's own narrowly-defined race (see: psychics, mutants, psis, etc) and permits the wanton genocide of others even when only a fraction are any threat.

Killer Cyborg wrote:One of the things that always appealed to me about Rifts is that when you get right down to it, you have Demons on one side, Nazis on the other, and your characters have to either choose which of those sides they're on, or get caught up in the middle.

I've never seen a player choose a side before. The game always struck me as designed to isolate the characters as the rogue good elements in a world where all the major powers were clearly evil.

Tor wrote:True, Korcheski should've said "the prime reason". There are certainly other contributing factors.

The fact that humanity seems to be doing even better in other parts of the world could be evidence that the CS has been a detriment to humanity in North America.

Tor wrote:I disagree with this statement. However I do not know if we should get into another genocide-related argument considering the last thread to do so was inexplicably locked. Until the reason for that is sorted out I am apprehensive of discussing it.

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

Tor wrote:Admittedly Tolkeen did have a human monarch... and many humans in its ruling class, but I do wonder if we should measure the state of the common human as thriving. How well were non-mages doing, for example?

A heck of a lot better than mages in the CS!!

Tor wrote:I do not consider any action or policy of theirs to have reached the level of genocide.

Why not?

Tor wrote:What threat to humans has the CS created so far?

Themselves? I am not sure if there is any force in NA that has killed as many humans in the last half-century as the CS. Heck, they may well have killed more humans that all the other powers combined!

Tor wrote:The CS is not "keeping" anyone in poverty. They're just limiting immigration into their super-cities because they don't have the resources to protect everyone as of yet.

That is awfully charitable.

Tor wrote:As for who is better for the world: the CS has outlawed U-rounds, the NGR uses them. What's better in the long run?

If you are going to pick individual points, you should at least have a comprehensive list!

Tor wrote:The Vanguard are an example that the CS did not have a genocide against magic users, and there is still no evidence that they've ever done that. They are pressuring dangerous unpredictable forces to relocate away from the population centers used to defend vulnerable humans.

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

And only the CS regards all magic-users as "dangerous unpredictable forces", a moniker that could easily include Borgs and all the members of the CS leadership.

Tor wrote:Think about how you don't want loaded MD weaponry wielded by every casual citizen. Mages can't be disarmed, they're not safe to have around normal people who are not protected from MD.

You're really going to love the next two Avengers movies.

flatline wrote:What makes humans so special?

--flatline

On the one hand they're human, native to the world, and not inherently evil, and on Rifts Earth it is necessary to differentiate when killing since it really isn't bad if you're talking, say, Xiticix or Demons or the higher Splugorth minions.

On the hand, a lot of d-bees are also not inherently bad and also effectively native by this point, having been born on Earth often to their cultures. I'd say humans aren't any more special than them.

His Dudeness wrote:I'm sorry, but Genocide is never, under any circumstances justifiable.

Perhaps not complete 100% genocide, but I would say that something like a 50% genocide may be a justified response to invasive forces like the Xiticix or Mechanoids who do not respond to diplomacy and are genocidal themselves.

Plus: still no evidence the CS has committed a genocide or is genocidal as a whole. At best there is evidence that Karl+Micander may be willing to do it in the course of war.

His Dudeness wrote:If the CS was as justified in their actions as you suggest, then no one would be second guessing those actions.

That's silly, justified actions still get second-guessed.

His Dudeness wrote:Considering that a majority of the people in Nazi Germany seemed to have no problem going along with the Nazi program, and only turned their backs on it when they were confronted with it by the Allies.

Depends on what you mean by "the nazi program".

The Germans as a majority collectively did some unfair stuff, but I don't know if most of them knew about the extremes (concentration camps, experimentation, forced impregnation, etc) that the SS upper echelong were carrying out in secret.

I just watched a Canadian TV series called "X Company" where there revelation of the concentration camp was a surprise to some Nazis and their allies as it was to the rebels.

His Dudeness wrote:The majority of the populace of the CS seems to have no problem with the idea of Genocide being committed by their government, this is what makes them evil.

Source?

taalismn wrote:The CS has been depicted as the Evil Empire from 1st Edition

No, it hasn't, only aspects of it's leadership. From page 49 of RMB under 'Coalition Soldier OCCs':

(Emperor Prosek) and his advisors are .. as evil and demonic as anything that crawled out of a rift. However this does not mean that every person who is a member or citizen of the Coalition is just as evil. Most have no idea about the government's indiscretions and lies. The majority believe their propoganda and think of their lives as fruitful, good, and happy .. few think of the CS as evil or maniacal."

Being in the army will frequently mean that the character is a little more militant, gung-ho, and pro-government than the average citizen, but that doesn't make them evil.

taalismn wrote:the CS will one day be unnecessary, and some of the actions they've engaged in during that period will prove to be Unnecessary, blatantly cruel, and just plain evil, and that will prove their undoing.

The CS would obviously change with the times as threats diminished. How would you go about proving Unnecessary any of the actions the CS has taken so far?

What actions were pure cruelty rather than addressing threats? There are cruel people in any nation, but I'm not aware of any policies the CS holds which I would call cruel. Callous, perhaps, but not cruel. Cruelty is basically sadism and suffering inflicted for its own benefit.

Korcheski wrote:If the CS does manage to kill each and every demon and invader, is that an act of genocide? There will be no mercy, no quarter given. The implication from some posts is this is genocide. Really it is a matter of perspective.

In absolute terms: it can't be genocide because demons killed outside Hades will be reborn back on Hades in a few decades. Of course, the CS may not know that, but I think they're pretty confident "there's plenty more where that came from" and that they're not destroying a significant percentage of them.

Demons are also easily capable of escaping (teleport, invisibility) so those who remain are clearly hostiles.

eliakon wrote:the active genocide against all mages, the active genocide against non-humans

"the active genocide against humans carrying anthrax and suitcase nukes into your cities, even though they haven't hurt anyone yet"

"the violence against foreigners who do not respect the sovereignty of your nation and barge on in"

flatline wrote:they're a bunch of guys who categorically treat certain kinds of people badly

Like how (even though they happily host demons) Dweomer treats necromancers?

taalismn wrote:they create a self-perpetuating cycle of distrust and hatred...Their public cause is safety and security for humanity, which is just swell, but their methods continue to insure that there's lots of people who really DO want to bring them down hard, and/or kill every Deadboy they encounter.

The CS didn't create this, there was already reason to distrust and hate alien invaders and those who wielded their magics. People already wanted to bring humans down and kill them enmasse.

taalismn wrote:people who didn't get the memo

Which I assume is a particular page number?

taalismn wrote:assume the portrayal of the CS is the result of self-serving and one-sided commentary from the likes of Erin Tarn

It's partially a result of that, yes.

taalismn wrote:people who like playing bad guys

If that were the case, there would be more arguments about what a swell guy Dunscon is. You get this for Karl and Hagan but not for Alistair.

taalismn wrote:no matter how much evidence there is to prove such an assertion RIGHT.

Less talk about evidence, more Evidence.

Jorick wrote:it wasn't until the war on Tolkeen that SOME of the generals began a campaign of Genocide.

Emperor Prosek is ready to launch a surprise military campaign of conquest and genocide!
A new breed of Coalition Officers begin to come to the forefront, and with them cruelty, murder and genocide.

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

Jorick wrote:Not all DBs are baddies, by a long shot.
But necromancers and demon-loving shifters sure are.

I don't agree with you about that. Necromancers can be unprincipled and anarchist, evil is not mandatory for them. Mystic Russia page 90 mentions "most are evil" but that could arguably be seen as representing their predominant alignment in Russia rather than world-wide.

I don't see why loving a demon would make a shifter evil. Demons are very good at subterfuge, a gullible shifter might be convinced by a succubus that she is a rare 'good' demon and fall in love with her and be tricked into atrocities, thinking they are helping people.

Jorick wrote:pretty sure most of the denizens in the Burbs, DBs included, have seen family raped and eaten alive by (intelligent) horrors

I would say phrasing it "or eaten" (drop 'alive) would cover a more significant segment of the population, but I'm not sure if even then it would still cover the majority, though certainly a horrifying number. Some horrors might just kill you to release your PPE (and not eat you) or try to enslave you, make you worship it, kill other humans in tribute, or just wreck your home and let you die of frostbite for the entertainment.

Q99 wrote:take Free Quebec. Sure, they're human supremacist as well, and can be pretty evil at times, but they also are much less likely to go out and start wars with non-hostile powers. They'll stare at Lazlo waiting a century for Lazlo to throw the first punch and preparing for it, but it won't come.

We can't know for certain that Lazlo will not attack FQ.

Also: can we get some statements on comparative distance here? Could Lazlo and FQ possibly be further apart than Tolkeen and Chi-Town? This might explain the lack of imminent hostilities, distance breeds a sense of safety.

Q99 wrote:Triax is attacked more, in a tougher position, and more reasonable.

In what ways would you say Triax is more reasonable than the CS?

Both utilize D-bees as a buffer in ghettos against more dangerous supernatural opponents while denying them citizenship.

I don't remember Triax being described as being anti-magic like the CS, but on the other hand, I don't much remember mention of them having magical forces either. Considering that a 1st level shifter could summon a couple gargoyles and command them, mages can be pretty dangerous.

The main area they seem to come on top is their allowing literacy in a more widespread sense. That could come bite them later though, since this allows access to dangerous scrolls and learning magic within their kingdom, which could be utilized by terrorists.

Q99 wrote:Triax are the hope of humanity on Rifts Earth, the CS just happens to be the biggest one not already locked in conflict with a counterforce.

'The' seems a bit strong. What about the New Navy? Although that depends on whether one acknowledges Sea Titans as human, because otherwise, coddling them will eventually wipe out humans over time.

Shark_Force wrote:there are elements of good, but i cannot condone torture, murder, slavery, and hatred on the scale that the CS perpetrates just because they also happen to do some good things along the road.

Seems like minimization to call what they've done "some good things".

"Torture" can acquire info to save humans.

"Murder" is executing invasive threats which can easily kill humans.

"Slavery" is done to invading enemy forces or animals of our own creation.

"Hatred" against those who violate human sovereignty or deal with demonic forces can be seen as defensive.

Shark_Force wrote:they've got skulls on their uniforms. that's a dead giveaway.

Estonia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuperjano ... _Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuperjano ... _Battalion

UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Utmost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Royal_Lancers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Lancers

US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Aero_Squadron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/135th_Avi ... ted_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Recon ... _Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Recon ... _Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Recon ... _Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Recon ... _Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/400th_Missile_Squadron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Raider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFA-103

CS is carrying on a proud human tradition. Nazis were not the only ones to do this.

Crow Splat wrote:They kill anybody that disagrees with them

This is false. The CS and NGR disagree on the use of U-rounds yet have not killed one another over their different views on the important of keeping the environment radiation-free.

Q99 wrote:Sure, the NGR and others have blood on their hands, but quite often that's a much more pragmatic decision, rather than raiding D-Bees because they're not human or destroying a non-aggressive nation for using magic.

Why shouldn't we view the CS decisions to raid inhumans and destroy magic-users as pragmaticism?

*does not think Tolkeen is non-aggressive*

Nightmask wrote:that's not an example of the CS fighting for humanity, that's an example of the CS fighting for itself.

Same thing, the CS is a bastion for humanity.

Nightmask wrote:No it's not genocide if they're actively killing people actively trying to kill them human or otherwise but it IS genocide when they actively kill everyone who isn't a member of the CS that isn't human

They aren't doing this though, they're attacking imminent threats who are too close to them. They're not exactly wiping out the Egogwe in Africa or the Amaki in South America here.

Nightmask wrote:many that are human even when they're not in any fashion threatening the CS or anyone living there or humans in general.

Like who? Tolkeen was shimmying too close and summoning demons, they were clearly a threat.

Nightmask wrote:Which is pretty ridiculous, how can you be so quantifiably good (i.e. Principled alignment) when you engage in or openly support something so quantfiably evil (i.e. genocide)?

A pointless question because the CS army as a whole is not engaging in genocide and is not openly supporting genocide, the evidence associating 'genocide' with 'CS' has not been solid. Leaders were merely considering their options.

Nightmask wrote:they don't just kill people for disagreeing with them (which in and of itself makes you a bad guy)

I think I question whether or not this is true... is the example to rely on going to be Erin Tarn or something?

Has the behavior of Erin Tarn been limited to merely disagreeing with the CS? Or has she done other things?

CWCp16 lists among her equipment a magic wand (capable of compromising CS crops by changing water into alcohol) and a mysterious dragon-gifted amulet. So she is in possession of contraband, not merely disagreeing with the CS.

Also she travels in the company of a member of an extraterrestial-borne "knighthood" who carries a flail that uses dark magicks from another dimension to trap a person's soul inside it, using it for destructive purposes! Even the dwarves who created it have had their descendents reject this vile practise.

Nightmask wrote:they also don't provide protection, food, or shelter for the majority of humans in North America

So? There's limits to what people can accomplish given finit resources.

Nightmask wrote:they actively destroyed as part of their genocidal plan a city/state with a large population of humans knowing they were killing other humans.

I do not consider the destruction of Tolkeen a genocide.

This is a nation that embraced demon-summoning and other vile practises opening the Earth to new invaders. The civilians should have left it and lived somewhere more moral. They had time to leave as the CS encroached, and many wise ones did so. Those who stayed can reasonably be assumed to be hostiles who meant the CS ill.

Nightmask wrote:Eliminating the CS would simply remove an evil empire that's NOT been making things well for humanity as a whole and leave room for the actual good nations/groups to expand (although sadly too late for Tolkeen).

You're oversimplifying the situation. You overlook what the power vacuum would do in regard to expansion of forces like the Xiticix, Vampires, Kingdom of Dunscon, Soul Harvest, Grim Reapers, Mechanoids, etc.

Eliminating them does not simply leave room for good nations to expand. That is not the sole result.

Crow Splat wrote:From a CS standpoint, a Dog Boy is a dog. Nothing more. The minute they recognize them as anything more, the production of artificially grown Dog Boys would have to stop and the CS would have to start caring about the lives of the Dog Packs because they wouldn't be able to replace them as easily.

I don't agree to this extreme level. It is possible to consider Dog Boys as higher up than dogs while still considering them to be less than human. If we look at traditional slavery in the US, this is why humans cost more to buy than dogs, because they were more useful.

Recognizing a group as something 'more' does not harm the impulse to enslave so long as they are still considered lesser.

I believe the CS already care about the lives of Dog Packs, just as I care about the life of my dog. They just don't care about them as much as human life.

Also: why would production of artificially grown beings have to stop as a result of recognizing someone as an equal?

cosmicfish wrote:The CS are bad guys, quite solidly. The fact that they aren't on a constant killing rampage against anyone they dislike is not enough to label them good.

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

If it was so "solid" I doubt we would be in such disagreement about it.

Alistair Dunscon is more appreciably a 'solid' bad guy.

michael silverbane wrote:

Crow Splat wrote:Only if you consider Dog Boys to be equal to a human. The CS has no such opinion.

Which, again, is what makes them bad guys.

Not holding an opinion that a species is equal to you does not make you a bad guy.

Per Underseas 77/86/88 the Dolphins/Orcas/Spermwhales have a higher minimum/average IQ than humans (and Humpbacks even more so)

The majority of humans now, and probably also in Rifts Earth, do not acknowledge this fact, and, while recognizing them as intelligent mammals, do not think them the equals of humans, owed equal rights.

That doesn't make these humans "evil", just ignorant.

cosmicfish wrote:This is the same argument that was had with black people, I cannot see why anyone today would try to justify that same type of argument just because they are intelligent dogs.

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

cosmicfish wrote:The Confederacy tried to justify slavery, the Coalition can try as well, that doesn't make their arguments morally correct by any current code of morality

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

The problem is moreso FACTUAL incorrectness. "We should dominate lesser animals" is not necessarily immoral (whole other debate maybe worthy of soundoff) but "the (insert species with 3D6 IQ) are of inferior intellect" is a factually incorrect argument.

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

cosmicfish wrote:nor do I think it makes sense to act like players can ignore their own morality so completely during a game. There are lines that are not to be crossed, and personally, slavery is a pretty important one.

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

Choosing a character whose morals mirror your own of course makes this easier.

Q99 wrote:In terms of number of people killed on a daily basis?

Not sure what you're getting at here. Keep in mind the CS is bigger so the sheer weight of enemies they have to face at theri massive borders will rack of casualties even if they are less brutal than the FoM and do not sacrifice topless women to their Dragonwright lords. FoM is full of Styphon-worshippers, like Atlantis, they want to bring that THING here.

Q99 wrote:Yes. I mean, 'to say immortal' isn't nice, but neither is 'because you don't look human enough,' 'because you learned spells to protect yourself,' 'because your species has natural magic,' or so on.

If you learn spells or are not human, you will have heard on the grape vine to stay away from CS territories because they are claimed for the nurturing of non-magical humans. The CS isn't going to bother you if you opt to live far enough away and do not work against their interests.

Q99 wrote:And sure, the Kingdom of Duscan is bad, but it's not like there's a limited number of 'bad' slots and once they're full no-one else can be bad.

That is not my argument, I am saying they are worse because some are saying the CS is the worst.

Q99 wrote:The CS is much larger scale and hardly the only force to oppose Duscan. There's Lalzo in the mix, and even several of the cities in the magic zone are relatively nice places.

Irrelevant, brought up Dunscon to show there is a worse place than the CS as a proof against 'CS is worst' arguments. That's all.

Q99 wrote:They signed a deal in which Tolkeen would be in a subordinate position, allow CS fairly free action in their territory, and make weapons for them.

Seems like Northern Gun was also afraid of Tolkeen then. So the CS is not in isolation here.

Q99 wrote:They don't like rivals, but they will allow others to take a lesser position. And long-run, they usually intent to absorb even those who agree, like they did with Iron Heart. Northern Gun isn't a rival, it's a future state to them.

You could argue they feel the same about the NGR, but whatever future aspirations might exist in the leadership: as things are now, the CS is coexisting with others.

If we're going to hypothesize about later changes, well, who is to say what Plato will want to do with humans 100 years from now?

Q99 wrote:

What threat to humans has the CS created so far?

The Kingdom of Duscan. Remember how the original Duscan started out as allies of Chi-Town, and wanted to join the CS during it's formation, but only when rebuffed did they turn hostile

Nope. I assume you refer to "A promising beginning..." (originally FoMp9) where he was "enraged and insulted" over being "excluded" from the CS.

What you're overlooking here is that the current CS anti-magic policies were not at fault for this. Chi-Town had a magic division. Magic wasn't the problem.

The problem was what the Federation of Magic was, how it was run, and who led it.

Nostrous Dunscon was a Temporal Wizard. IE he served a Temporal RAIDER, not usually the nicest folk. It was said he "kept company with demons". How did this guy decide who led his nation? Wizard duels. Leadership was all about who had more knowledge and magical power.

The guy is a clear narcissist, a big problem waiting to happen. He gets ENRAGED because he isn't invited to join a collective group. He decides it *must* have been an error for him not to be invited. It's like a spoiled kid who's a bully who doesn't get invited to a club or birthday party and decides to crash the place.

Keep in mind (FoMp10) that Chi-Town at this time was "not yet dedicated to human supremacy". They had only banned creatures of magic and the supernatural, but not other non-humans.

So the reason for not admitting the FoM was not due to human supremacy and it was not due to anti-magic sentiment.

So clearly, the FoM states were excluded from being invited to the Coalition States as a result of their horrible leadership-selection and government, or something else reasonable.

The CS offered to increase non-magical trade. They offered to establish and embassy within the FoM's "Great City". They had very reasonable requests (134 of them) for the FoM including:
1) avoid interdimensional trade
2) no allowing citizenship to supernaturals
3) no associating with supernaturals (including summoning them)
4) govern the use of magic and personal freedom more strongly

The CS were not even offering an ultimatum, they were making requests because a dangerous place had set up shop within 100 miles of them. Nostrous only listened to 1/10 of what they had to say before his ego got the better of him. Even after Nostrous' rejection of terms and threatening outburst, they still decided to "let sleeping dogs lie".

FoM got left alone, but Nostrous was so butthurt about not being respected/obeyed by Chi-Town that he plotted for YEARS (of being left alone) to destroy them. He got invited 1 week after the CS union in 1 PA. After it went badly, he spent 4 years forming a plan conquer the continent (not just Chi-Town, other un-involved parties too, like say, Spirit West) and another 7 years gaining power. A total of 11 years of obsessing over his bruised ego just because the CS were scared and wanted him to regulate his wizard-dueling power-cesspot.

Q99 wrote:their war with Tolkeen convinced Tolkeen to summon a whole lot of demons onto Earth when before they were a positive force that'd fight the normal random demons and Xiticix and such just like every power did.

[/quote]
Creed and Tolkeen made the same mistake as the Dunscon and Great City, they built too close and didn't put reasonable restraints on the power of their wizards or the extradimensional supernaturals being incorporated into their city.

cosmicfish wrote:The fact that humanity seems to be doing even better in other parts of the world could be evidence that the CS has been a detriment to humanity in North America.

I don't agree, there are too many variables to take things one way or the other. Like how hard a continent was hit by natural disasters or invading forces and the sheer weight of stress people have had to weigh.

I would be interested in a thread comparising the CS to some other nation where humanity seems to be doing better and measuring the variables and what they might implicate though. It is something we might draw conclusions from, but too complex to generalize about.

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

Page?

cosmicfish wrote:

Tor wrote:How well were non-mages doing, for example?

A heck of a lot better than mages in the CS!!

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

cosmicfish wrote:Why not?

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

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

cosmicfish wrote:I am not sure if there is any force in NA that has killed as many humans in the last half-century as the CS. Heck, they may well have killed more humans that all the other powers combined!

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

I am interested in your criteria though. Consider for example that if a human gets a laser pistol and goes around blasting children with it, that if you shoot that laser-wielding human, you have just killed a human.

The CS has acted as a police force against anarchy, and part of that role involves killing bandits, murderers, etc.

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

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

I would be more interested in a % of humans killed than a "net humans killed". Any force that predominates greatly will tend to have a higher net even if they are less violent.

cosmicfish wrote:That is awfully charitable.

You seem mad that people just can't become automatic citizens of Chi-Town. Never mind infrastructure issues like being able to feed everyone, protect everyone, keep the economy running, etc.

Just who are we looking to by comparison when we condemn Chi-Town for closing their doors to the masses?

Secretive communities like Dweomer or Psyscape?

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

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

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

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

cosmicfish wrote:If you are going to pick individual points, you should at least have a comprehensive list!

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

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

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

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

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

cosmicfish wrote:only the CS regards all magic-users as "dangerous unpredictable forces", a moniker that could easily include Borgs and all the members of the CS leadership.

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

cosmicfish wrote:You're really going to love the next two Avengers movies.

The X-Men films already brought these concerns to the big screen.

Wait so are they doing Civil War before Infinity War?

Lone Star addresses this directly. The Dogboys don't see themselves as slaves by and large. They willingly serve the CS and humanity. If you bring it up to them that they're slaves, they'd look at you like your crazy. They see it as a privilege to do what they do, and would do it even if they didn't get paid. It's part of why people love them.

The CS categorizes them as 'Trained animals'. Like we do police dogs. To the average CS person. That's what they 'are'. And they're beloved.

Tor wrote:

flatline wrote:they're a bunch of guys who categorically treat certain kinds of people badly

Like how (even though they happily host demons) Dweomer treats necromancers?

I'll certainly keep that in mind next time I play a necromancer.

My post was a whole whopping 3 sentences long and you didn't even quote the full sentence you replied to. You totally excluded the point of my post in order to reply to a snippet of it and in doing so made it look like I was making a far more encompassing statement that I actually did.

I don't appreciate that.

--flatline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

[stuff about necromancers and monsters outside the Burbs]

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

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


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

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

Tor wins the internet today for that really good deconstruction he wrote!

-STS