Places like Lazlo are more cemented evil, those good citizens are more likely doing their duty on the small towns in the expanse between the CS and magical cities.
eliakon wrote:the CS doesn't believe in gods....at least ones they cant kill.......
CWCp13 has Erin Tarn end with "God help us all", I couldn't find that in Karl's speech but it makes me wonder if I'm forgetting something. Anyone remember if he made any other speeches to mine?
CWCp186 mentions "Cavanaugh mentally thanked god", showing theism of some sort exists even in a NTSET officer in Chi-Town.
SoT5p54 mentions that Vosberg being "god-fearing people" is part of why they can't fathom the CS would hurt them.
SoT5p103 has Drogue use the phrase "god damned" and then mention Christmas, though the CS might celebrate a secular version of that.
Sot5p104 has Sgt. Canton say "God Damn" as well. It's possible that the CS version of this phrase's etymology (assuming they could not stamp it out) was reinterpreted as some kind of "X, damn the gods" rather than "gods, please damn X" though.
eliakon wrote:The argument that Tolkeen (which as a nation btw existed before the CS was formed....) should move because the CS says that the now own that land is ludicrous.
1) what year was Tolkeen the nation formed, as opposed to Tolkeen the city? Gets a bit fuzzy to me since a 'kingdom' may be a king ruling over a city or a kingdom ruling over a nation.
2) I don't think it's a matter of the CS merely saying they own the land, but that Tolkeen was militarizing and suspect in terrorist activity, both the resurrection of Old Chicago and the assassination of Joseph Prosek. They were not regulating magic as Chi-Town requested that the Great City did. Leaving was not enough, they should have stopped summoning supernatural creatures, and they wouldn't. Instead, they let dragons build a city under their nose. The CS was kicking out shape-shifters and supernatural beings (fully capable of teleporting to less instructive pastures) even before the Federation attacked. Tolkeen should've known better.
eliakon wrote:The argument that a D-Bee villiag that has existed for centuries should move because someone moves in and thinks that they have claim to the land is silly.
Tolkeen threatened CS troops in Minnesota when they were investigating Joseph the First's assassination in Minnesota, even though the CS did not attack Tolkeen itself. The CS backed off but Tolkeen kept militarizing. It was a threatning move.
eliakon wrote:in the Palladium universe we can look at what the definition of good and evil are and see where stealing lies......
The concept of stealing relies first on establishing who the owner is, which is a fuzzy pickle. Humans had the land, then D-Bees came and started occupying it. Sure, the D-Bees have been there a while, but some humans still believe they have an ancestral claim. The Israel/Palestine thing is a lot of this, and there's not a clear answer, as ownership itself is artificial and based on, if you trace back far enough, people just walking into places and grabbing it.
Can theft even exist if ownership doesn't? Palladium needs to define the metaphysical idea of ownership (would also help with that temporal spell) before we force alignment changes based on appropriating goods.
eliakon wrote:The CS isn't humanity. And they don't claim to be for humanity
So what exactly is the "Crusade for Humanity" military campaign, if not Karl claiming to be for humanity?
CWCp9 "we will not allow the destruction of human civilization" .. "This is my promise to humankind" .. "humankind's place in the world" .. "peace and prosperity for all humankind"
CWCp11 "to protect our human neighbours" CWCp12 "for the good of our nation... and all of humankind"
eliakon wrote:They claim that humans are better, but they do not claim to represent humanity.
CWCp11 "to defy the Coalition States is to spit in the face of humanity"
Maybe not 'all humanity' (Karl acknowledges neighbours, distinguish the CS nation from humankind) but even if they do not 100% represent it, they are among its representatives, and as protectors, an offense to humanity's protectors is an offense to humanity.
eliakon wrote:the Humans that were here before the CS are being displaced and killed just as much as the D-bees.
Who're you talking about, the sorcerers, or their thralls?
Non-mage humans living in Tolkeen were warned to evacuate, and if they had done so, they could've eventually came back once the CS settled the area.
eliakon wrote:when one adds in the fact that it is incontrovertible that there was magic and other races in earths history (since in universe the various religions myths are in fact true) the idea that one bunch of humans has a better claim than any other bunch of humans is pretty laughable on its face.
The CS isn't claiming they own the entire earth, just that humanity owns the earth and that they are agents in this reclamation. Karl wouldn't be encouraging the protection of neighbours if the CS message was 'screw the neighbours'.
Blue_Lion wrote:Despite claims by the CS as being champions of humanity they do not claim land for all humans (many of the leadership and people of Tolkeen where humans after all) but for there nation.
Their personal claims are CS ones, yes, but they do help secure allies' claims as well. That's what the CS was to begin with, Chi-Town helped to secure Iron Heart's claims, then Free Quebec, then not so much Quebec when they wanted to ignore chain of command and be sitting ducks for wizards.
Blue_Lion wrote:The nation of the CS never owned the land they took by force and if the D-bees that lived there did not move away because the CS told them to the D-bees faced death.
The CS is composed of humans descended from those who have lived throughout north america. Who's to say that the sorcerers who ruled the Federation of Magic (which Tolkeen was once part of) didn't displace non-mage human farmers at the start?
Blue_Lion wrote:Not all D-bees are invaders many where pulled to earth through rifts, trapped explores or even born on earth. The claim that all D-bees are inhuman invaders is based on racism not fact.
I'd say most of the Xiticix alive on Rifts Earth right now were also born here. They're still invading human lands. Same with D-Bees.
If D-Bees were willing to bow to human sovereignty I don't think this problem would exist. But they are prideful and want to own lands, hold authority equal to or possibly over humans.
Alrik Vas wrote:the act of displacing people is immoral. Yeah. They were living there, doing what they can...Then uncle Skullhead comes along and chases them off, or outright annihilates them. That's immoral. No argument.
I'd argue with that, if the people you were displacing had displaced others' claims to begin with. Or if they were militarizing and their people had assaulted you before.
Tolkeen broke from the Federation of Magic in the early days of the Great City's assault on Chi-Town the same way The Three of Dweomer broke from the assault in the later days. It was a smart move. But I don't take that as a sign of goodness, just tactics.
Alrik Vas wrote:Where does it imply property rights exist, and that they have moral value?
Come to think of it, while principled 'never break the law unless conditions are desperate' and scrupulous 'bend and occasionally break when deemed necessary', theft being forbidden does not seem like an absolute rule, but rather, it seems like something condition on theft being illegal.
So if the CS laws say it is not theft to conquer Tolkeen, there's no violation of a 'never break the law' thing, so a Principled CS soldier can steal whatever he wants from Tolkeen.
Blue_Lion wrote:So you are saying that invading another nation to take its land has no moral value? I think if nothing else it falls under theft and murder.
Invading another nation doesn't require murder. Alignment seems more restrictive against murder than it does against theft.
If we look at principled: you can't attack an unarmed foe (but 'armed' is flexible so it's pretty meaningless) and you can't kill for pleasure. Nothing wrong with trying to take a guy's stuff (though legal government-approved procedures) and shooting him if he tries to hurt you to stop you from taking his stuff, because then you're just defending yourself.
Nightmask wrote:How could one living on the land particular for generations NOT give them a right to it? What could possibly give one the right to it if that doesn't?
The Splugorth will be happy to hear this. It might upset the True Atlanteans a bit to hear it though.
Lazlo are awful people, engaging in genocide against the Xiticix who have been living in Canada for generations and have a right to that land.
I feel bad for the zombies in Dead Reign and the vamps in Vampire Kingdoms. Sure, they've been occupying the land for years, but undead aren't technically 'living' there so we can't recognize their rights. I think the bugs in Systems Failure are alive though, so props to them, humans should shove off, bugs have invaded long enough to be rightful occupants.
Lucky for the CS, if they just occupy the ruins of Tolkeen for a couple periods of childbirth, anyone who tries to kick them out will be the bad guys.
Nightmask wrote:Heck by that argument those D-bees attacking the CS and trying to take their land have every right to do so because the CS has NO right to the land either if living somewhere for generations gives you no right to the land meaning no one has any right to anything going by that logic.
Perhaps it is a question of quantity. Humanity has occupied North America for centuries, D-Bees for decades.
eliakon wrote:RUE page 290. The Alignment section. BOTH good alignments are prohibited from taking 'dirty money'
Huh, seems like alignment metaphysics work differently in RUE than in RMB. Wasn't any problem with dirty money or ill-gotten goods before. Seems to be HU-inherited weirdness.
eliakon wrote:An interesting side note......Since the only alignments that are allowed to deliberately kill an innocent are (possibly) Miscreant Evil and Diabolic Evil that sets a boundary threshold for any polity who has as a stated outcome the murder of innocent......
Innocent of what though? Innocent of impeding upon CS territories? Innocent of eating human food, of breathing human air?
eliakon wrote:Deliberately trying to kill innocents though is.
The CS do not deliberately try to kill innocents, they merely tolerate it as acceptable losses in trying to wipe out the mostly-aggressive alien invaders.
Totally passive D-Bees can surrender and may be taken on as slaves, escaping death. Or if there is no CS available to surrender to, go live elsewhere, and move on again if the CS grows near.
eliakon wrote:Unless you offer a good reason for why we should consider the CS to be 'an innocent' then its probably fair game......
Innocence is hard enough to evaluate on a personal level, I don't think we should consider applying it to nations. Even Psyscape has evil people in it.
eliakon wrote:When the alignment system says "good people can not deliberately murder innocent people" then by definition anyone or anything that deliberately murders innocent people is not good.
Even if the books describe the CS as murdering an innocent person (I'm sure that's come up at some point), for them to be deliberately murdering someone innocent, wouldn't they have to know that the person is innocent?
Are we told anywhere that the CS believes the people they killed were innocent?
I'm thinking of a cop mistaking a squirt/BB gun for a real gun and firing when they perceive a threat. The 'threat' was innocent, but the intent behind killing them was defense, not to kill an innocent, so I wouldn't say it's evil to do that.
The CS may be a case of this on a large scale. There's so many real guns out there (cannibalistic D-Bees, human-sacrificing wizards) that the squirt/BB (innocent D-bees, mages who just want to make bread) are mistaken as threats.
Pepsi Jedi wrote:Humans have lived on Earth, uninterrupted, from when they evolved from apes.
Although that's the going IRL viewpoint, it's probably worth considering in the Palladium Megaverse that we don't know for sure that this is the case. Is this stated for certain in any Rifts books?
The closest thing to an argument I can see for this would be in the TMNT timeline since Transdimensional actually had precursor species statted out and stuff. Since TMNT led up to a modern earth similar to our own (but with weird stuff added) I know we're inclined to assume it is the same for alternate earths which have (or had) a similar modern earth, but there's no telling for sure that was so.
I think we'd need to be told we evolved here in each setting to know for sure.
Nonetheless, originating here or on PF, we've certainly lived here for exponentially more generations than the vast majority of these incoming species. Least so far as the books tell us.
Some exceptions could exist. I have to wonder about the Sasquatch, for example. I guess either could be d-bees from other dimensions too, but they also might not be, right?
There exist some non-humans who the CS would assume are D-Bees who may not actually be from another dimension. Those are the moral situations we should be worrying about. But those are minority situations to judge case by case and unrelated to other stuff which isn't known to have lived here in the past.
Pepsi Jedi wrote:Any Dimensional being at best has 300 years of squatting on our planet.
I wouldn't say that, it seems a few ancient dragons (Rama Set and Lo Fung) were around when the Coming of the Rifts came, right? Dreamer (immortal in mercs) has definitely been here longer. Plus all the weird deities who set up pantheons millenia before the coming of the rifts (although it seems like they all ditched the planet so they could forfeit their rights, it was not continuous occupancy, and it still seems like they still initially invaded the place back then)
