Title: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on July 25, 2004, 07:00:18 am This is a spin-off thread of the Official remix addon 3: The Ur-Quan Hierarchy (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1088637667;start=60#60) thread.
The question is, can certain SC2 races (Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah in particular) be considered evil? This of course depends on your definition of "evil". If you take the religious view, "evil" are usually the opponents of the "good" guys, where the good guys are usually those likeminded in belief as the speaker. So for George Bush Iran and North Korea are evil, for a Muslim extremist America may be evil. Neither is incorrect within its own definition. If there is no religious reason for what is called "conscience", then it is either the result of evolution, or of upbringing (or a combination of the two). If it is the result of evolution, then it is just something which happened to work out for the survival of the species. If it is through upbriging, it's merely something that has survived through history. Either way, while "conscience" may be helpful for the whole, "good" and "evil" are not absolute truth. In fact, they are irrational (in the meaning "not the result of reason") and "conscience" may in fact be completely replaced one day by logical guidelines. Nonetheless, this doesn't have to stop us from defining "evil" and using those definitions on the SC2 races. One thing to keep in mind is that you need to seperately define "evil" on an action, and on a person (or intelligence in general). It is also good to realise that we don't need a precise good/evil dichotomy; a definition where there are gradations of "good" and "evil" is also valid. In the original thread, I came up with a few possible definitions, which were flawed in the way that they do not match the idea what most people have of "good" and "evil". Dinoli came up with the latest suggestion: Quote I consider it quite a safe assumption that evil is something that one does to harm other self-aware creatures with little or no benefit to oneself except satisfaction from said actions. So killing something intelligent in self defense is OK, but killings said intelligent creatures for 'fun' is 'evil'. I have some problems with this definition:
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on July 25, 2004, 08:22:09 am Some things to think about (I'm not really trying to make any point here):
Quote How on earth can a race that protects all known sentience from utter eradication with all its known means be evil? Alright, I know why people think otherwise, and here's why: What Kzer-Za takes is not our resources nor intellectual property, but our freedom OR our will to govern ourselves. Either we stay on our planet or fight alongside our masters. Not only that, but what Earth (and the other races) lose is the ability to defend themselves. What would have happened if the Kzer-Za didn't slave-shield planets and destroyed or locked away their defensive capabilities? Those races would have a chance to defend themselves when the Kzer-Za lost the war. Or better yet, they could have been fighting alongside the Kzer-Za and actually defeat the Kohr-Ah. Now the Kzer-Za don't want that, because the doctrinal war isn't about defeating the other party, it's a matter of determining what strategy is better. Also, the Kzer-Za destroyed historic sites on Earth. What was that good for? By the way, the Kohr-Ah believe in reincarnation. That would reduce the severity of killing someone somewhat. Quote Now, lets focus on the 'Slaveshield' part. So humanity lost its chance to get to stars. 0.01% of human population couldn't get above strathosphere. Bohoo. The sky is red but we are goddamn alive. Is your (opposer of the Way of Now and Forever) life so cheap that the color of sky or the minimal chance of getting to space is what dictates whether or not you want to be alive? Contact with other races can also enrich your culture. And it may advance science. Most people want living to be something more than just existing. Quote Even if there were no Kohr-Ah, Kzer-Za acted rather benevolently, even after all they had gone through they protected races even from themselves (Thraddash), united everyone under one banner(Ur-Quan hierarchy) and/or prevented them from causing any trouble to anyone else (slave shields). (yet another a loose thought; I'm not a supporter of this myself:) Civilisations can also gain strength by conflict. For some cultures conquest may even be their purpose. Who is to say that can't be a valid purpose in life? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Cronos on July 25, 2004, 08:22:22 am Quote Combined with the above definition of "evil person", this would make Kzer-Za, Kohr-Ah, Ilwrath, Umgah, Vux, and Druuge evil. How convenient. I agree with you, but they are in fact different gradations of evil. Also, shouldnt the Dnyarri be up there somewhere? I'll put an Evil-O-Meter rating at the bottom of each comment, 0 is absolute evil, 20 is pure good. 10 is neutrality, 15 is good and 5 is evil, etc. Kzer-Za Wish to enslave all races. This is, in and of itself, a negative thing and thus evil. However, the Kzer-Za also give the race a choice to submit to slavery in two forms, fallow slavery or battle thrall. Kzer-Za slavery is in all probability not like the slavery we've seen in the past, although there would be some major changes in society (should battle thrall be chosen) the overall populace shouldnt be negatively impacted to a great degree. Fallow slavery is much simpler, you just cant travel in space at all and you can live however the heck you want under a slave shield. Limiting freedom is an evil in this definition so the Kzer-Za are in fact evil. However, the amount of freedom they give and the patience they show a lot of the time with the "inferior" races shows a kinder heart, or at the very least a more logical one from their normal pathology (thanks to the Dnyarri). In retrospect, however, the Kzer-Za may actually be the most egalitarian of all the slave empires to date, making them quite possibly less evil the some past Terran slave empires (Roman, Ottoman, etc). Evil-O-Meter Rating: 6 - Kind of Evil Kohr-Ah The Kohr-Ah are definitely evil under this definition. They benefit from the evil they perpetrate on other races. They give no choice and even take pleasure in the act ("Fine Cleansing" "Filth" etc). However, it's also been demonstrated that the Kohr-Ah are in fact insane. It's questionable whether it is possible to perpetrate an evil act when one cannot reason. In another light the Kohr-Ah are doing whats right by them. They believe that by murdering all races in the galaxy that they will be given a chance to be reborn as Ur-Quan and they view this as a positive thing. To them it's like a mercy killing. Evil-O-Meter Rating: 3 - Damn Evil Umgah I did a bit of thinking about the Umgah and they are certainly evil, but not to the same extent as the Kohr-Ah or Kzer-Za are. The Umgah are more callous then they are evil. Those subjected to their cruel jokes are often laughed at (har har har) and the umgah dont know when a joke ceases to be funny. In some cases Umgah jokes can have beneficial results. *The Umgah placing the Evil Ones on Spathiwas surface, for example, catapulted the Spathi on the path to technology, but created much misery when they had to move to their moon and resulted in thousands, if not millions of Spathi deaths (not surprising since hundreds of thousands die of shock from an alarm clock :P). Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Frightening the spathi can be viewed as more of the behaviour of a jerk then anything but getting the Ilwrath to attack the Pkunk was a decisively evil act. Though funny in the Umgah's eyes it was essentially prompting genocide and allowing it to happen. Futhermore, the Umgah probably found it quite funny for the Ilwrath to be killing the Pkunk. Also, the Umgah killed a mycon for study purposes. This is once again the Umgah's callousness showing. Other races are nothing more then some kind of entertainment or objects of study to them, the most direct example of which is when they make you honorary king and then decide to attack you. *It's not known that the evil ones are in fact an umgah prank but in my opinion it has all the hallmarks of umgah humour about it and the Umgah have been in space long enough to have done this Evil-O-Meter Rating: 6.5 - Kind of/Sort of Evil VUX We dont know about the attitude of the Vux to other races except from what we hear from the Yehat ("The VUX are an effete and bigoted race..."). Clearly the VUX are arrogant but this is not evil. They attack and kill humans based upon appearence but this is because we sicken them. This, in my opinion, is where the evil definition kind of falls down. The VUX do not harm others to bring pleasure, but to remove bad (known as negative reinforcement in Psychology :)). Apart from that though, it seems that before the war the VUX were fairly solitary (I cant find any records of any animosity between the Yehat and the VUX either). Their negative actions are, in a way, warranted. Unless someone gives me compelling reasons the VUX arent really THAT evil when compared to the Kzer-Za or the Druuge. Evil-O-Meter: 9 - A little evil The Druuge Before I type anything, I want the reader to know that I have a personal bias against the druuge. I never like them, in fact, I just about hated them, so I am sort of biased. The druuge are a slave empire if ever there were one. Their currency with outsiders at the very least is in slaves and if you wont give them slaves then the most you can do is barter with them for some valuable goods (Fuel, rosy sphere, ships etc). The druuges evil becomes evident as the game is played. They are willing to trick you into attacking their competitors (melnorme) under the premise that destroying a melnorme trader gives a large benefit (probes in fact give more RU then a trader ever will). The druuge also diverted the Kohr-Ah away from them to attack the Burvixese. The Utwig also took some collateral damage from this. Although this was done out of survival, the Druuge didnt even attempt to rescue some of the burvixese race, something of which the ships they sent could have done (I guess =\). The main evil of the druuge though is slaving. If your not a good slave to the crimson corporation, you get tossed into the furnace. Your not transferred to a more useful position, your not even allowed to quit (since the corporation owns you). The corporation also owns all the water air and sunlight on the druuges homeworld, which allows them to treat the entire race as property. This not only limits the freedom available to the druuge but devalues them (leading into the slaving empire saga). The druuge also regularly rip off their customers for their own benefit. This comes in under the definition of evil used here as they do this for their own benefit, which is usually at the customers expense. They also dont seem to realise that this is what they do to others when it is done to them and thus appear to lack perspective. All in all, the druuge will do anything to better themselves or their race no matter what the cost is to others. Since most of what they do has a negative impact on others (Slaving, furnace throwing, diverting hostile alien races to cleanse out innocent races etc) they can be considered to be quite evil but by their own standars they are quite altruistic. Evil-O-Meter: 4 - Evil and then some Also, a question, how do the Thraddash, Androsynth and Dnyarri fall under this discussion of Evil? Apoligies if anything didnt make sense up there. I'm fighting with fatigue here and I think it's winning. {Edit} Since the second posting does not conflict with the original content of this post, I'll leave it as it stands but some points are reiterated whilst others are missed etc. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 25, 2004, 10:52:32 am I don't entirely agree with your existing classifications or rating system, but for the sake of brevity I'll give my take on the ones you asked about:
Thraddash are on par with Druuge. They're a heck of a lot less *competent* than the Druuge, but they never the less are in the category of people who take what they want without caring about others' needs or feelings. Like the Druuge they have a pathological need to dominate, to be superior, to control, though unlike the Druuge they prefer to express this in war rather than commerce. But it's not terribly different in the end. Dnyarri should rank as low or lower than Ilwrath. As the Chmmr said, "If ever there was a devil, Captain, it was a Dnyaari". The purest definition of evil -- an utter hatred and contempt for all other life, possibly even including itself, and a perverse need to cause as much suffering as possible for its own sake. The fact that the Dnyaari is uniquely adapted to be perfect at achieving this goal is a bonus -- in fact, the reason for its sadism may be the nature of its existence, as a pitiful lump of flesh that can only ever do anything by bending others to its will. Androsynth should be higher than the VUX (I'd rate the VUX a lot lower -- they don't just dislike humans, they kill them on sight and express a deep desire to commit genocide against them, which makes them pretty damn evil). I'd hestitate to make Androsynth evil at all; the only harmful actions they've taken were winning their own freedom from slavery and then fighting for the Ur-Quan under duress. The brutality they demonstrate against humans, and the pleasure they take in killing them, do demonstrate that they've held their own grudge long enough for it to become irrational and pathological and, yes, probably evil, but no one can deny they have reason and we ought to see them as partly sympathetic. In any case, they're preferable to the Orz, who definitely rate somewhere in the pretty damn evil range (at least I'd say their actions are evil, even if their motives are so incomprehensible as to be undefinable). Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Smaug on July 25, 2004, 04:08:18 pm I would say that the Umgah are far more evil than the Kzer-Za, or even the Kohr-Ah. The Kzer-Za, at the very least, have some justification for their actions, and have even saved species from self-annihilation before. The Kohr-Ah believe in reincarnation, so killing isn't so terrible a thing to them. Also, the Ur-Quan don't screw with you; they tell you what they are from day 1.
The Umgah are just jerks. They exploit other races, not to preserve their species like the Ur-Quan, but merely for their own enjoyment. They don't have any kind of morality; they just do whatever amuses them. The Thraddash aren't evil. They believe in basic evolution: survival of the fittest. While most of the conflict results in the death of the loser, it is aluded to that the vanquished are not always killed in conflicts. As for the Dnyarri, we know is what they did: they enslaved a large portion of the galaxy via thought control, corrupted the Ur-Quan at a generic level, and utterly wiped out a number of species. That makes them pretty evil, given the lengths that they were willing to go to in order to gain and ensure power. I consider them to be kind of like Umgah with mind control and a more serious attitude. The talking pet in the game, however, has every right to want to hurt the Ur-Quan. They brutalized their species, stripping away their sentience and reducing them to mere translation units. BTW, SlaveShields are, in the really long run, a death sentence. Sooner or later, the nearby star will go Nova, crack the shield, and kill everyone on the planet. Also, what about species that have been so long in space that one world cannot sustain their population? Half of their population would starve in short order. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Zeep-Eeep on July 25, 2004, 06:24:26 pm Saint Augastine defined more evil acts as actions taken with
no gain or positive result in mind. His example was stealing a pare that the thief did not want, nor need. If you take something or destroy something with no plan (or hope) of a positive outcome, that becomes an evil act. I'm not sure I agree with him. I mean, rape for pleasure seems worse than taking a pare one will not eat. But it is food for thought. I think Dungeons and Dragons says that evil (for game purposes) is the hurting, oppressing or killing of others, regardless of intent. I tend to agree with this definition more. Especially if we regard the UQM universe. By that rule set, nearly every race is a little evil, but some are more so than others. The Kor-Ah being near the top of the list and the Pkunk (probably) near the bottom. Here's another thought. Our hero goes about collecting life forms and life form data from planets. Really, isn't stunning, capturing and selling a creature slavery? Doesn't that make the hero pretty evil, selling poor, dumb creatures to the Traders for profit? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Dinoli on July 25, 2004, 06:50:21 pm Quote I consider it quite a safe assumption that evil is something that one does to harm other self-aware creatures with little or no benefit to oneself except satisfaction from said actions. So killing something intelligent in self defense is OK, but killings said intelligent creatures for 'fun' is 'evil'. Quote I have some problems with this definition: torturing non-sentient beings for fun is not evil by this definition Yes, I consider it not evil to hurt something that doesn't have any sentience, unless there are sentient beings (of which the torturer is aware of) around who feel sympathy towards the tortured creature. It might be strange but not yet evil. It might very well be a result of a 'evil thoughts', but in itself said act harms no-one's 'feelings'. Quote "An evil action is an action that has a damaging effect on other self-aware beings that are not in proportion to the benefit to the whole." This definition is more universal than my previous one, may I keep it? :) Of course it would be interesting to make a rating system for different levels of evil, I wonder if someone has done that before? Quote Combined with the above definition of "evil person", this would make Kzer-Za, Kohr-Ah, Ilwrath, Umgah, Vux, and Druuge evil. How convenient. Here the "not in proportion to the benefit to the whole" part of "evilness rule" comes to play: Ilwarth, Umgah, Vux and Druuge sure are evil in some portions, but Ur-Quan (I use this term to refer to both Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah) are not 'definitely' evil. Kohr-Ah: Even Kohr-Ah does what they're doing to make universe a nicer place for everyone (althought, everyone = everyone left after cleansing = Ur-Quan). They surely don't do it for the kicks of it, but to ensure future generations of Ur-Quan an agony free existence. The method of accomplishing this is just quite painful. Oh, they have some generosity too, they allow their target to make any prayers they wish before getting annihilated. Kzer-Za: Kzer-Za too wants universe to be a better place to live, but instead of genocide it is enough for them to make sure any sentience won't be able do anything to harm Ur-Quan. Additionally, Kzer-Za wants to ensure safety of their subjugated species without expecting anything in return. They even gave Syreen a new homeworld after Syra was destroyed. Slaveshielded species do lose their ability to defend themselves, but if something so powerful came that could crack down the slaveshield, the ability to defend wouldn't make a huge difference. Losing capability to reach the stars would be a disappointment, but we'd still be able to have fun down here. I think that curiosity is the main reason to reach other planets and stars, not able to do that is not fundamentally that horrible thing. Quote BTW, SlaveShields are, in the really long run, a death sentence. Sooner or later, the nearby star will go Nova, crack the shield, and kill everyone on the planet. Also, what about species that have been so long in space that one world cannot sustain their population? Half of their population would starve in short order. Considering how Kzer-Za manage their things (Syreen is an excellent example), if the population of a species can not be fit on one planet the population would be divided into a few different planets. Regarding a star going nova Kzer-Za probably takes this into account, on our case, 5 billion years 'might' be enough time to consider options for us: relocating to a different star system might do the trick. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Bobucles on July 25, 2004, 07:10:31 pm Quote Also, the Kzer-Za destroyed historic sites on Earth. What was that good for? The Kzer-Za were destroying all of the precursor artifacts on Earth. The artifacts may have had the technology to break the slave shield, so they were destroyed. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 25, 2004, 10:11:45 pm Honestly, in my opinion, Evil is an absolute illusion, So is good.
Neither exist, its simply we have no other word for it, probably due to religious influence over so very long a time impacting on all culture. Now then, consider the Kzer-Za... I dont consider them evil at all. They were mentally enslaved for a very long time, and forced to torture themselves to free themselves. To me, this is the same as the Dynarri directly torturing them. Sure they enslave entire races, but under both options, autonomy IS kept. We cant go skip school days, can't steal, cant do all sorts of things...How is this different from not being able to disobey the Kzer-Za in MAJOR things? Mostly, I imagine that the Kzer za dont micromanage their individual races. This isn't slavery, in my opinion. Btw, in 5 billion years, you'd have gone FAR further than Chmmr, and would've pulled down the shield by then EASILY. The Kohr-Ah are insane. Even if this is discounted, consider their Reincarnation belief. Everyone who dies, is reborn as another sentient being ( i dont think youd be reborn as a squirrel). You kill everyone, only Ur-Quan are left, so EVERYONE is Ur-quan. They're no longer Filth. They are now safe. Evil? no. A bit messed up? Oh yeah. How are the Vux any different from us? We persecuted, enslaved, killed black people for hundreds of years. And we didn't throw up every time we saw one of them, not that it matters. Don't judge others before taking a long, good look at yourself. The Umgah are kinda weird. I think that they have a belief similar as the Ur-Quan. They're masters of bio engineering, and i personally believe they can preserve or even reincarnate anything killed. Look what they did with the Dynarri. The Ilwrath are fictional, no 'true evil' (as everyone so far has called them) will sustain cizilisation for long enough to survive past Dark ages, in my humble opinion. The Androsynth are very, VERY justified, in wreaking revenge on us. We enslaved and persecuted them for like 100 years. The Druuge are pretty scary. Why? Because they're powerful enough to carry out whatever they want. I think that sure, evil is an illusion, but theyre as close to that illusion as pretty much ANYTHING ive seen. =p The Dynarri are, to me, a frightening concept, and theyre right up there with the Druuge. Power corrupts. There is no issue. How evil would any one of us be if there were no consequences to our actions? THAT is why evil is an illusion. We are all evil in some way, and no one is perfect. Some just control it better than others. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Terminator on July 25, 2004, 10:47:53 pm Quote Honestly, in my opinion, Evil is an absolute illusion, So is good. Neither exist, its simply we have no other word for it, probably due to religious influence over so very long a time impacting on all culture. Good and Evil are relative terms, contrasted to what we know is good and evil. You need to know the extremes to define the terms comparing good music(Metallica, Black Sabbath) and bad music(Brittney Spaers, Jessica Simpson) . Hell some people see me as evil. Why I'm a smartass, sarcastic and I have an Umgah sense of humor. TERMINATOR - The Obnoxious One Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on July 25, 2004, 11:20:31 pm Quote Honestly, in my opinion, Evil is an absolute illusion, So is good. Neither exist, its simply we have no other word for it, probably due to religious influence over so very long a time impacting on all culture. It doesn't stop us from defining evil and applying that definition to the SC2 races. Despite my first post, most people here are just saying which races they consider evil. Which is meaningless as they all use different definitions which they don't make explicit. Quote How are the Vux any different from us? We persecuted, enslaved, killed black people for hundreds of years. And we didn't throw up every time we saw one of them, not that it matters. Yes, humans aren't all nice either, and you may (depending on your definition) call some or all of us evil. But you're overly generalising here. Most humans alive today have nothing to do with the persecution of anyone. Quote The Ilwrath are fictional, no 'true evil' (as everyone so far has called them) will sustain cizilisation for long enough to survive past Dark ages, in my humble opinion. If you must believe the Pkunk, the Il-Wrath weren't always evil; they only became evil after becoming too good. Quote Power corrupts. There is no issue. How evil would any one of us be if there were no consequences to our actions? THAT is why evil is an illusion. We are all evil in some way, and no one is perfect. Some just control it better than others. It's all a matter of definition. If you don't have one, then it becomes vague and subjective, and can be considered an illusion. With the appropriate definition, Zelnick can be considered pretty evil too. Genociding the Il-Wrath and the Thraddash, getting the Mycon slaughtered, stealing from both the Thraddash and the Mycon. Locking up the Talking Pet in the cargo bay when blowing up the Sa-Matra. Even applying the solar manipulator on the proto-Chmmr without asking them can be considered evil. And maybe destroying an irreplaceable precursor artifact too. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 26, 2004, 06:00:39 am Most discussion of morality and ethics around a computer game will be sophomoric and silly, but even so...
Quote I think Dungeons and Dragons says that evil (for game purposes) is the hurting, oppressing or killing of others, regardless of intent. I tend to agree with this definition more. Especially if we regard the UQM universe. By that rule set, nearly every race is a little evil, but some are more so than others. The Kor-Ah being near the top of the list and the Pkunk (probably) near the bottom. Here's another thought. Our hero goes about collecting life forms and life form data from planets. Really, isn't stunning, capturing and selling a creature slavery? Doesn't that make the hero pretty evil, selling poor, dumb creatures to the Traders for profit? I don't particularly like a definition that excludes considerations of intent and sentience and such. It's the sort of thing that potentially makes it impossible to *not* be evil, since everything a person does has unforeseen consequences to something. (A butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane somewhere around the world -- is it liable for the deaths it unknowingly caused?) Though I'd separate "intent" from "value system" here. The fact that Kohr-Ah don't *think* exterminating all non-Ur-Quan life is a bad thing doesn't make it not a bad thing; the fact that they knowingly and wholeheartedly embrace it, in fact, makes them a lot more evil than a species that's deceived or manipulated into genocide. (The Ilwrath have a rather humorous conversation tree based around this topic: No really evil race thinks of what it's doing as "evil", which makes the Ilwrath a bit of a paradox.) And no, I don't think Zelnick collecting non-sentient life forms for observation is any more evil than what naturalists on Earth do today (which it isn't). For one thing you're not taking all life from the planet -- it's pretty obvious that the samples that pop up on the survey screen are the most relevant or unique concentrations of life on the planet (please, no overly-literal interpretations about how your lander somehow removes *all* valuable minerals and *all* life forms from the planet, which is patently ridiculous). Secondly, what you transport isn't the life forms themselves but the biological data, with certain exceptions that only pop up for storyline purposes (the Evil Ones, ZEX's Beast). It's silly to think you really could cart around that many specimens, even in suspended animation, and not take up any cargo room; probably most of the time the specimens are brought back to the ship, analyzed, and then immediately rereleased. Quote The Kzer-Za were destroying all of the precursor artifacts on Earth. The artifacts may have had the technology to break the slave shield, so they were destroyed. Um, no. There's no particular reason to believe that Precursor artifacts would somehow be located in older *human*-built structures -- if anything most technological knowledge, Precursor-based or otherwise, would be housed in the newer buildings and facilities, and the Ur-Quan would've targeted labs and research centers and military outposts where such things would be stored, not monuments and old city blocks and libraries. Notice that it's not the cities and population centers that matter to the Ur-Quan, but the buildings themselves -- any structure older than a certain age. (The actual cities of London, Moscow, Beijing, and so on still exist, or else Hayes wouldn't make a big deal about Buenos Aires no longer existing.) No, what the Ur-Quan were after was cultural history, despite the tantalizing hints about unknown areas being blasted (which I think were pretty obvious nods to traditions about lost civilizations -- Atlantis, the star-spawn kingdom in Antarctica, some secret Amazon civilization, etc.) They wanted to destroy Earth's national identities, identification with religions and ancient belief systems, and so on; to reboot Earth culture and make people forget they'd ever been anything but Ur-Quan slaves. A rather dark and cynical motive for them to have, but a quite plausible one if you believe they really are trying to build a lasting empire of willing slaves, and you believe that the only way for humans to survive is as willing slaves. Quote With the appropriate definition, Zelnick can be considered pretty evil too. Genociding the Il-Wrath and the Thraddash, getting the Mycon slaughtered, stealing from both the Thraddash and the Mycon. Locking up the Talking Pet in the cargo bay when blowing up the Sa-Matra. Even applying the solar manipulator on the proto-Chmmr without asking them can be considered evil. And maybe destroying an irreplaceable precursor artifact too. Leaving aside the fine points, you ignore the fact that every single one of the races listed here (even the Chmmr) *dies* once the Kohr-Ah win the Doctrinal Conflict, and the moral thing to do is probably to prevent that, given those stakes. The exception may be the Dnyaari, in which case leaving the Dnyaari alive to enslave and slaughter trillions is only the ethical solution in the most bizarre and twisted moral calculus. And destroying one-of-a-kind artifacts may be tragic for those of us who love knowledge, but it's not truly evil, from my point of view. It's just a thing, even if it's an expensive and cool thing. Its existence doesn't matter the way sentient life does. Would you really let a child burn to death to save the Mona Lisa? Quote BTW, SlaveShields are, in the really long run, a death sentence. Sooner or later, the nearby star will go Nova, crack the shield, and kill everyone on the planet. Also, what about species that have been so long in space that one world cannot sustain their population? Half of their population would starve in short order. Most stars that support life don't go nova. Yes, they do eventually swell to red giants and roast their inner planets, but given the timescales involved I doubt even a spacefaring species would live long enough to see that possibility. In fact, the Ur-Quan may not plan that far ahead, given the possibility that their first slave shield naturally collapsed after a few tens of thousands of years (if the Utwig are descended from the Fahz). But the Ur-Quan do seem to do their best to take care of the species in their control, as with finding the Syreen a home and preventing the Thraddash nuclear war. Quote The Umgah are kinda weird. I think that they have a belief similar as the Ur-Quan. They're masters of bio engineering, and i personally believe they can preserve or even reincarnate anything killed. Look what they did with the Dynarri. Um, but they don't. I don't recall engaging Umgah Drones in combat and having them reincarnate anyone that they killed. Not that it was particularly easy to lose to them, but once I got bored and kept playing till my Precursor ship blew up, and I don't remember them trying to help me. Nor did any of the Spathi who got eaten by Evil Ones get miraculously reincarnated. The Talking Pet, if you remember, was in critical condition but never actually *died* before they fixed it. (It was healthy enough to have conscious memories of its trip to the Umgah homeworld afterwards, after all, and to consciously experience pain. Probably the Dnyaari equivalent of broken legs or a shattered ribcage, but not a true hovering-on-the-edge-of-death scenario.) Even if they can reincarnate any killed creature, which I really doubt -- the Mycon can only sort of pull it off, and the Umgah claim the Mycon are *way* beyond them -- they don't bother to set up a nice controlled environment to play their jokes on endlessly reborn test subjects. They just throw their jokes out into the cruel world and let people get killed by them. Sounds pretty damn irresponsible to me. Quote How are the Vux any different from us? We persecuted, enslaved, killed black people for hundreds of years. And we didn't throw up every time we saw one of them, not that it matters. Don't judge others before taking a long, good look at yourself. "We"? Speak for yourself (not everyone here is descended from Europeans). But yes, there is a big difference from finding someone's physiology distasteful and using that as an excuse to oppress and enslave them and using that as a reason to systematically slaughter them. So yes, I find the system of Atlantic black slavery less depraved than Hitler's holocaust or the slaughter of the Tutsi by the Hutu. Not the place to argue RL history, but you should also consider that while Europeans did have pretty wack theories about the genetic inferiority of sub-Saharan Africans, the main reason they used them as slaves was because slaves were the primary trade good African traders had to offer that they had any use for. Europeans *bought* slaves from coastal African and Muslim slave traders out of an existing slave system -- sure, the European treatment of slaves, once bought, was a lot worse than the traditional treatment of slaves in Africa, and their ability to buy slaves in huge numbers caused slavery to be a much bigger deal than it had been, but they didn't make the system up or force the African slave traders into it at gunpoint. Moreover, the reasons for actual genocides like events involving Native Americans in the American West, or the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, or the Tutsi in Rwanda, all stemmed from old cultural conflicts that involved a lot more than distaste for a person's appearance. (Often one group of people was starving and needed a pretext to grab land, or one group of people was poor and oppressed and became jealous of another group that was wealthy, and so on.) The VUX are a silly caricature *because* few humans are *so* prejudiced as to embark on genocide because of simple visceral distaste at another's appearance. When has anyone ever seen a picture of something they've never encountered before and then and there decided to risk life and limb to murder all of them because they just look so gross? To say that human racism is like that *is* a silly exaggeration, and the fact that VUX embody this exaggeration is what makes them a funny concept, just as Ilwrath are a silly exaggeration of "holy war" religions, and Druuge are a silly exaggeration of callous corporate capitalism, and Ur-Quan are a silly exaggeration of imperialism. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 26, 2004, 06:53:05 am Quote If you must believe the Pkunk, the Il-Wrath weren't always evil; they only became evil after becoming too good. Even though the Pkunk revelation is played off as a joke, I can imagine a civilization deeply culturally hidebound by an enforced law requiring empathy, compassion and love for all other life forms. A race that still had a red-blooded urge to conflict and war trapped in it might eventually rebel against this social construct and plunge itself into all the cruelty, hatred and destruction its law had formerly forbidden. Hence the Ilwrath's eagerness to call themselves "evil" and have others perceive them as "evil"; they're like teenagers rebelling against a moral code that they had at some earlier point in time. It makes more sense than most other explanations for how the Ilwrath got to be the Ilwrath. (After all, they *made up* Dogar and Kazon...) Obviously, the Pkunk can stave off the huge amounts of boredom, resentment and annoyance a race can build up from being forced to be wise and kind and loving all the time by mixing their lovingkindness with a hearty dose of sarcasm, mischief and humorous aggravatingness. It's the only way I can imagine being able to stand being a Pkunk... Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 26, 2004, 07:41:37 am You raise a lot of valid points. Especially about the Vux.
I agree with you, Art, on the 'exaggeration'. Pretty much all of the races in SC2 are exaggerated notions or aspects of humanity. I think the best example of this is Utwig...I just always imagine them crying about the Ultron then breaking out with 'Always look on the briight side of life..." (Monty Python are the greatest =p). What im getting to is that if most of the SC2 races are Exaggerated, then surely exaggerating to match them makes it even. I'm sure general Zex isnt the only Vux who doesnt hate humans. The most intriuging notion is the Ilwrath, as a 14 yr old myself, I DEFINATELY see the possibility of the 'rebelliousness' of being 'Evil'. Of course, as the humourous conversations tree points out, Evil is the abberation from a norm that is being deviated from, in a 'bad' way. That is where i say Evil is an illusion. One nation's terrorists are another nation's freedom fighters. Its all a matter of perspective. As for the Umgah, I do still consider them the masters of bio engineering. The Mycon are PRODUCTS of bio engineering, they dont actually have the technology....theyre friggin mushrooms =p. I consider the Umgah to be sort of like the Borg (sorry, trek kicking in). As in they don't consider death all that bad. Maybe they are callous, but it doesnt mean they torture kittens. Dont you guys laugh at Mr. Bean or all those skits when someone gets hurt in a humourous way? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Deep-Jiffa on July 26, 2004, 08:20:40 am Last thread:
http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1058894999;start=0 Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Shiver on July 26, 2004, 09:31:11 am Quote Here's another thought. Our hero goes about collecting life forms and life form data from planets. Really, isn't stunning, capturing and selling a creature slavery? Doesn't that make the hero pretty evil, selling poor, dumb creatures to the Traders for profit? No. They're animals that are stunned and put in suspended animation. These are sold to Melnorme, who probably also leave them in animation most of the time. The capturing of creatures as shown in the game is extremely simplistic, but I get the feeling you don't actually go on a raid and kidnap every living thing off the face of the planet. Aren't they just grabbing a sample, like one of each major unusual species or something? If you capture two Merry Whumpets, they're probably as different as lions and tigers. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Cronos on July 26, 2004, 10:06:05 am It seems theres a lot of disagreement...
There appears to be two kinds of evil from further thought. Evil Intent and Evil Action. For example, The Kohr-Ah, they have good intentions, but their actions are evil, hence, they have Evil Actions, but not an evil Intent. The Umgah are the same. Evil actions without an Evil intent. The mycon are then more easy to classify, Evil action, but not evil intent. The Ilwrath become very very evil as well, Evil intent and Evil action (Killing all life (intent) and going about murdering things in the most painful ways possible(action)), as do the druuge (gaining material wealth through the use of slaves(intent) and the actual trading of slaves(action)). Also, in some cases the ends justify the means. It was justified that the captain would capture life forms in return for credits and technology to prevent the death of every sentient race in the quadrant. It's kind of like killing a cute bunny rabbit so you can prevent a global thermonuclear war. Even if murdering that rabbit is against all your ethics and such, it would be more unethical to allow the rabbit to live at the price of all human kind dying (and the rabbit would die anyway in the event of a global thermonuclear war). Also, consider that the captain never said "Go for the thraddash my children!" he merely said "SEEK NEW PREY!". The Ilwrath could just as easily have gone for the Kohr-Ah or the Druuge (though they may not have known about either). Even the Umgah could have classified as new prey. It's kind of like the assasination of Franz Ferdinand. Although a nationalist fired the gun and Ferdinands death is largely blamed for triggering WW1, the nationalist is never fully blamed for it (how the hell could he have known that killing the Arch Duke would have triggered one of the greatest wars the world had known?). Also, just a note, by the time any sun will go nova, I'd have thought that any species would be extinct by then. Hell, 5 Billion years is a long long long time. Considering that 500 Million years of multi-cellular life has brought about humans I'd think that a further 4.5 Billion years of development would create something wholly different. Hence if human kind were to survive for that length of time I doubt that the resulting life form could be called human and may not even be sentient (stupidity can be as much an evolutionary advantage as intelligence can be, else why are there a lot of stupid creatures?). In any case I think the Kzer-Za would have been done conquering the galaxy by then (unless they met up with some particularly resilient resistance of course) and would have relocated the race before anything disastrous could happen. The Kzer-Za are not stupid and they arent callous. Same goes for huge populations of starfaring races. The 'Quan are NOT stupid and are NOT callous. Multiple slave shields on their primary colony worlds would suffice. Heck, they did it with Unzervalt instead of transporting the colonists back to Earth, so I'd think they would have done it before. So uh, how does the Evil Intent vs Evil Action tangent sound? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on July 26, 2004, 10:51:33 am Quote So uh, how does the Evil Intent vs Evil Action tangent sound? Meaningless without a definition of "Evil Intent" and "Evil Action". :) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Cronos on July 26, 2004, 11:14:33 am Evil Intent - The will to do an action. Ex. I want to kill him
Evil Action - The actual doing of that action. Ex. I raised my knife and stabbed him in the face 12 times, then carved a smiley face in his back. The mycon wish to reform worlds to spread juffo-wup (intention). When the mycon do this, they dont consider the consequences of their actions, such as when they spread juffo-wup to Syra and killed off an entire race (action). The intention is not evil, but the action can be when there is a sentient race living on that world. The Kohr-Ah wish to cleanse the galaxy of all non ur-quan sentient life (intent) and go about this by killing off all sentient life that is not ur-quan (action). Hence, their Intention and Actions are evil, but are in their eyes justified (reincarnation et al). The Umgah wish to make some real funny jokes (intention) and go out getting races scared shitless of the planet eaters, Killmaster 18 and Jud the ineffable vug. Not to mention inciting others to genocide (Action). Hence, although their intenions are fairly neutral, their actions can be viewed as evil. Another example, if you wish to entertain some friends (intent) and setup a fight to the death between strangers (action) the intent is not evil, but the action is. In another example, if you intend to save someones life, but kill a man in the process, your actions are not necessarily evil. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Slylendro on July 26, 2004, 01:05:13 pm I think the Kohr-Ah are evil while the Kzer-Za aren't.
the Kohr-Ah abuse and justify themselves with the path of now and forever, same as the Ilwarth that like torturing aliens cuz they believe Dogar and Kazon wish it. on the other hand the Kzer-Za aren't evil. they don't wish to kill aliens unless necessary, they enslave them and wish to also protect the enslaved species unlike the Kohr-Ah that wishes nothing for other species except for their total annihigilation.. annihigation... will conclude with this quote: "Why do you wish to enslave us?" Although you consider us the enemy, these conclusions are flawed. We are your salvation. We bring you peace a peace built upon OUR social framework imposed upon your planet a new world order in which your prosperity and security are assured by the Ur-Quan. We will protect you from the hazards of this hostile universe, from dangers so hideous your simple minds cannot imagine their dark scope. Today, we are the enemy. In time, this will change. Soon, you will come to understand the boon of slavery we force upon you and then, you will revere and even love us for this gift. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 26, 2004, 02:23:15 pm The Kzer-Za are sort of like Mom 'n' Dad...Sure, we may wooden spoon your ass, but you will, in time, grow to understand why.
I believe that if the means are substantially smaller than the end then the end justifies the means. (Killing off ALL the cute bunny rabbits to prevent global thermonuclear war, and a good number of other animals, too). Or maybe i just hate rabbits? =p As to the Evil Action/Evil Intent. It doesnt work. Consider this (im just using this as an example, and the best example i can think of is one thats BOUND to be inflammatory) Bush invades Iraq *wince, told you it would be inflammatory* Possibly 'Evil' intent (oil, political control, etc) Possibly 'Evil' Action (many civilians die, cannot be helped) The end? (maybe) Is that Saddam Hussein is eliminated, a democratic ruling committee is established. The proper allocation of funds from the oil, stopping secret police and death camps etc. All of that is stopped, with more money going to hospitals, schools, etc etc. So even though both Evil action, AND evil intent are present, perhaps good comes from it (in the long run, anyway). Look at this from an objective perspective, not knowing any other facts about it (Seen Farenheit 911?) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Cronos on July 26, 2004, 03:02:22 pm Interesting point, lets see...
Hitler wished to hurt every jew because he hated them (intention) therefore he systematically destroyed them all by herding them into labour camps and working them to death (action). The result is some 6 million casualties from this regime alone. However, Anti-Semitism, and indeed many other forms of racism become unacceptable in modern society, a definite improvement. An evil action can have positive outcomes, I think it's called the ripple effect. It also depends on how one views the situation. If one viewed the war in Iraq as one of liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal regime with the oil playing only a small role, then it can be viewed as a good thing with a necessary evil action. The official intention was to remove WMD's that intelligence believed Iraq to be producing. If your neighbour had a gun in his house and you had every reason to believe that he would go nuts the next morning and start shooting, you'd try to stop him. The US did what it did in Iraq because they believed it was the right thing to do. However, no WMD's have been found in Iraq and the intelligence gathered was faulty. The action is evil, the result is still questionable, and the intentions were good at the time if shaky now. It's in the past now and we have to live with what we've got. Moving back to applying this to SC2. The Mycon-Syreen, the Mycon destroyed the Syreen Homeworld to spread juffo-wup. Intention: Spread Juffo-Wup (not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but to the mycon it's good so we'll consider it good for the scope of this post) Action: Implant deep child into crust which will destroy the surface and spread juffo wup to a new world (works out to an evil action since it killed hundreds of millions) Result: An entire race is nearly wiped out with the survivors displaced for three quarters of a century, juffo wup has spread to a new world and the Syreen eventually lend a hand (albeit a forced hand) to the alliance of free stars and the new alliance of free stars in later stages (helping them immensley). It's questionable to say whether the mycons are evil based on this action. In the short term it was incredibly evil, it essentially amounted to nothing more then genocide for the furtherence of themselves. Yet, the Syreen eventually came to help the alliance and the new alliance, so it could be said to have had positive side effects. Since the mycon could not have known that the syreen would eventually help the alliance it must be presumed that intent, action and result should only be calculated for the short term with the long term taken into consideration but left on the side as an interesting footnote. Thanks for that, criticism of my views helps me to improve them :) Now result must be included in any analysis of evil. Thus; Intent: I Want to kill that man Action: I kill that man Result: That man dies. Overall: Evil However.... Intent: I want to kill that man because he has killed others Action: I kil that man Result: That man dies Overall: Depends. Was this man a serial killer, would he have killed again? Why did this man kill in the first place? This is fast turning into the ethics of evil I think... {Edit} By the way, no, I haven't seen Farenheit 911, nor Farenheit 451 either for that matter :P Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 26, 2004, 05:05:19 pm Go see it, its one freaky ride =p (Michael Moore rocks)
As with before, I think that what your actually getting at, that due to the Holocaust now racism is concidered a bad thing (which it is, duh), Is just society going 'Whoopsadaisy, i shan't do that again. It doesnt tie in with evil. However, the means do NOT justify the end in that situation, so no matter how you put it, so my former statement is still true. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on July 26, 2004, 07:51:29 pm Quote Evil Intent - The will to do an action. Ex. I want to kill him Evil Action - The actual doing of that action. Ex. I raised my knife and stabbed him in the face 12 times, then carved a smiley face in his back. You've only defined "Intent" and "Action", not the most unclear part, "Evil". I initially thought you meant that even an accidental action with negative results could be evil. But now you introduce "result" as separate. Please define your terms so that we can be talking about the same thing. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Chad on July 27, 2004, 12:01:36 am I cannot offer more than my opinion. I think evil and good is a human/sentient concept created to satisfy our moral consciences for when we take an action or believe in a cause (aka peace of mind).
Thus, I believe nothing is good or evil, people are just taking sides in things. i.e. evil and good are all a matter of a certain point of view. All IMHO. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Culture20 on July 27, 2004, 05:02:30 am Gentlemen (and the one of two Ladies), Ethicists have been trying to pin down Moral/Immoral & Good/Evil for thousands of years. I'd suggest doing what Zeep-Eep did: choose your favorite philospher & use his ethical system to base your answers off of. Making a workable ethical system is tough work (take it from someone who tried to major in Philosophy before realizing that it pays diddly-squat).
;D That said, I'm going to ignore my own post and try and correct what I believe is a misconception about the Mycon: Quote The Mycon-Syreen, the Mycon destroyed the Syreen Homeworld to spread juffo-wup. Intention: Spread Juffo-Wup (not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but to the mycon it's good so we'll consider it good for the scope of this post) Action: Implant deep child into crust which will destroy the surface and spread juffo wup to a new world (works out to an evil action since it killed hundreds of millions) Result: An entire race is nearly wiped out with the survivors displaced for three quarters of a century, juffo wup has spread to a new world and the Syreen eventually lend a hand (albeit a forced hand) to the alliance of free stars and the new alliance of free stars in later stages (helping them immensley). Intention: Quote When we encounter the Non, we must absorb the Non or reject the Non so that it is no longer Non. Juffo-Wup acknowledges the existence of un-Voidable Non when we are faced with such, we join, absorb and wait for our opportunity to learn the weakness that will allow us to Void the Non. The Podships thrum with the plasma containment field whose offspring seek to transform the Non to Void Juffo-Wup is All... omni-existent, spreading and changing the Non into Juffo-Wup. You are the Non, who must become Juffo-Wup or Void. We are part of Juffo-Wup. Juffo-Wup is the hot light in the darkness. All else is unfulfilled Void. When Juffo-Wup is complete when at last there is no Void or Non when the Creators return then we can finally rest. However, you are Non -- not part of Juffo-Wup. You CAN be destroyed by energy blasts. Let us demonstrate. From these statements (and others) it's pretty clear that they understand they are destroying life (although it *might* be with the intention of transforming it into another type of "acceptable" life like the Khor-Ah are doing). Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Shiver on July 27, 2004, 08:53:11 am "Evil" is a clumsy term when it's not used in a supernatural setting, like a horror movie or some such. Are the Kohr-Ah evil? It really doesn't matter.
Here's the deal: You're a captain of a ship and you've been rudely intercepted from hyperspace by a bunch of aliens that happen to follow a doctrine that tells them to wipe out you and your whole species. Maybe their reasoning for this isn't based on pure wickedness. If the species in question is the Androsynth, you might even say they're fully within their right to want you dead. But in practice it's still the same - gotta blast them into tiny bits and get back to the mission. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Lukipela on July 27, 2004, 04:33:38 pm To quote Granny Weatherwax somewhat accurately:
"Evil is thinking of people as things" That's how it all begins. So the Kzer-Za think of others as indivduals, to be given the choice of following or being imprisoned. The Kohr-Ah think of all other sentient life as a thing to be removed. The Druuge think of lives as trade goods, i.e things. the Ilwrath, while intent on torturing and killing everyone, including themselves, think of each victim as a prayer to their goods, and so an individual. So they are twisted, but not evil. And so on... Hope this added fuel to the fire ;) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: 0xDEC0DE on July 27, 2004, 08:41:47 pm Quote the Ilwrath, while intent on torturing and killing everyone, including themselves, think of each victim as a prayer to their goods, and so an individual. So they are twisted, but not evil. I think the bulk of your point is very well-made, but I take exception with this particular assertion. The Ilwrath very much think of their victims as "things". A few choice quotes from the game should illustrate this quite nicely:Quote By The Green Eye Of Dogar, It Is A Squishy Bone-Bag Hu-Man! It Is Waiting For Kazon To Knead Its Body With The Cilia Of Dread Until It Can Only Roll And Bleat. Hah! It Can Only Hope To Be So Honored. Even Now It Begs For Death And So Now I Must Decide... Will It Be By Sequentially Bursting Sensory Apparatus Until Nothing Remains? Will It Be By Shaking It Until It Is Oozing All Over? Will It Be By Chewing Off Bits And Pieces Until It No Longer Functions? Hmm, I Think Not The Latter -- Too Many Bones. Quote What Is It? Mmmm, Hu-Man! It Has Been Long Since I Have Seen A Hu-Man Die! We Will Bet On How Many Parts We Can Remove Before It Stops Making Noise! Now, You Space-Ship Captain, Begin The Expedient Transfer Of All Hu-Man Crew So That We May Waste No Time. Quote You Amuse Us With Your Nonsensical Ramblings. We Look Forward To The Careful Exploration Of Your Structure. First, We Will Peel Back The Curious Follicle-Infested Outer Layer Followed By The Greasy Blankets Of Yellow Lard. Such A Confusing Hodge-Podge Of Parts Can Entertain For Hours! Hu-Man, Prepare Yourself For The Festivities! Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 27, 2004, 08:58:16 pm Luki, sorry, but your stretching Granny's philosophy on evil WAYY too much. If you recognise the Ilwrath's prayer sacrafices as individuals, then surely the Kzer-Za's choice would count too? You dont ask 'things' questions.
The Kohr-Ah say they remember and can recall the screams of countless dead. Spooky, but it still discounts their 'purified' victims as individuals, not as things. Under Granny's philosophy, only the Druuge are really evil...I agree there *grins*. Edit Are the Slylandro the most evil beings in the galaxy....not treating anything any differently from space rock? =p Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 28, 2004, 05:49:46 am Granny's statement can be interpreted more broadly than as just a simple yes/no statement. Treating people as things means giving them less respect and honor than they deserve, thinking of them as less "human" than oneself, thinking of one's own thoughts and feelings as real and of others' as less so.
Both Ur-Quan subspecies fit in this category. Kzer-Za see other species as helpless animals that deserve compasssion and care, and Kohr-Ah see other species as dangerous animals that need to be put down, but neither one acknowledges any other species as equals to Ur-Quan. Ur-Quan are real people, and their interests come first. Kohr-Ah say as much when they tell you about the religion they've built around the Cleansing; the only real life worth living is that of an Ur-Quan, and whatever little sparks of sentience may live in other species, they're being done a favor by being liberated from their existence and given the chance to reincarnate as a *real* person. The Kzer-Za feel a noblesse oblige to use their superiority to take care of their inferior pets, but if their pets begin to threaten the lives and interests of *real* people, they will be punished and if necessary destroyed. The Umgah, too, fall into this category. I would disagree *strongly* that they lack "Evil Intent". They aren't like the Slylandro Probes, who really are nothing but machines blindly doing what they're told, or the Slylandro themselves, who threaten others through their innocent ignorance. They're intellectually aware of other species' sentience and awareness -- they just make the choice not to care, and to use other sentient beings' suffering for their pleasure, thinking of others' feelings as less important than their own. They're only a few steps away from the Ilwrath in that respect, except that Umgah prefer a bit more sophistication in the emotional pain and suffering they inflict on others -- they have to see it through an ironical lens for it to count as a "joke". But their siccing the Ilwrath on the Pkunk is no more excusable than the Ilwrath's willingness to attack the Pkunk; the Umgah really are evil by any definition, even if they cloak it in the confusing guise of incomprehensible humor. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Bobucles on July 28, 2004, 08:10:19 am Yes, but was it the Umgah that did those horrible things, or was it the healthy talking pet that did it? From my understanding, the talking pet has been around the Umgah for quite a while. A lot could have changed for their culture in that time.
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 28, 2004, 09:14:57 am Quote Yes, but was it the Umgah that did those horrible things, or was it the healthy talking pet that did it? From my understanding, the talking pet has been around the Umgah for quite a while. A lot could have changed for their culture in that time. Well, the Umgah have been tormenting the Spathi before the Ur-Quan even appeared, since the Spathi's prehistoric era. Releasing the Evil Ones was definitely one of their more evil acts, an almost-genocide that killed countless innocent Spathi, evicted the rest from their homeworld and infected the whole species with a crippling pathological paranoia (yes, I sound like I'm channeling the Safe Ones). The Dogar and Kazon trick is probably the Umgah's own doing too. The timeline isn't totally clear, but the Ilwrath have been attacking the Pkunk for some time now -- they abandoned Earthguard long enough ago for the Spathi to have relocated the operation all the way out to Pluto. Meanwhile the crash of the Dreadnought took place recently enough that the Ur-Quan haven't investigated into it yet, and the Arilou are only beginning to be concerned about not having heard back from the Umgah. Besides, as the Captain observes, the Dnyarri-controlled Umgah aren't really very funny. At the height of their empire Dnyarri probably had just as twisted a sense of humor as Umgah, but the neo-Dnyarri seemed to realize how much danger it was in and was very highly focused in coming up with a plan to take out the Ur-Quan, without much time to play jokes on the side. Hence the Umgah were mentally modified to be focused, emotionless robots who talked in ALL CAPS and weren't too humorous. I gather the *only* thing the Dnyarri-controlled Umgah were doing was heavy research into the location and weaknesses of the Sa-Matra. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 28, 2004, 09:18:59 am Just did some checking, and actually the Dnyarri takes over the Umgah within game time; if you visit the Umgah early enough, they aren't under its control, and they tell you about how they're in the process of operating on it. So there's no question that everything the Umgah are cited as doing before the game starts was done by the Umgah themselves.
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on July 28, 2004, 12:01:24 pm I define evil as selfishness. Most people tend to value themselves and what they want more than other people and what they want. The degree to which this is true defines the degree of evil. To judge an action's evilness, you must understand the gain the perpetrator hoped to recieve through that action. Killing is evil, but self defense is, to most, justified - you are allowed to take another person's life to preserve your own. You value your life more than theirs, but the balance is close enough to not qualify as evil.
On this scale, here's how I'd evaluate the races evilness, from 1(not evil) to 10 (really evil): Dnyarri. Actions: enslave the whole galaxy, torture and kill enormous numbers, exterminate entire sentient species. Benefits: Apparently, just the pleasure of doing it. Verdict: this is archetypical evil. Even the simple pleasure of a Dnyarri is more valuable than any conceivable suffering or loss to any number of other beings. 10/10 Umgah. Actions: provoke genocidal wars of extremination between two other races. Attempt to do same again. Release unstoppable bioweapons on the homeworld of a third race. Benefits: A good laugh. Verdict: this is just as evil as the Dnyarri, only more likable and less effective. 10/10 Druuge. Actions: slave trading, luring genocidal aliens to another culture, murder of crew. Benefits: Survival, material gain. Verdict: The Druuge are actually less evil than the Dnyarri and Umgah, because they only harm others for actual benefit, rather than simple pleasure. However, they are still pretty darn evil, as even the slightest benefit is enough to justify pretty much any suffering inflicted on another. 8/10 Ilwrath. Actions: sentient sacrifice, attempted genocide. Benefits: religious satisfaction. Verdict: To me, it is less obviously evil to kill for sincerely held religious beliefs than for fun, but not by much. 9/10 Thraddash. Actions: unprovoked attacks. Benefits: social progress. Verdict: The problem with the Thraddash isn't that they're evil, they're just wrong. Advancing your civilization is a pretty darn huge benefit, and in the process, they expect their victims to advance their civilizations as well - provided that they survive. I'd call it a 5/10. Kzer-Za. Actions: conquest, enslavement, threatened (and presumably carried out in the past) genocide, genetically removing the sentience of a sentient species. Benefits: Freedom and the protection of those enslaved. Verdict: The Kzer-Za remove the freedom from others to preserve their own. That's not actually that disproportionate - except that they're wrong. They're more sane than the Kohr-Ah, but not all that much more sane. 7/10. Kohr-Ah. Actions: genocide, attempted genocide, refusal to consider less extreme solutions, felony creepiness. Benefits: their freedom. Verdict: this is pretty darn evil, but not as much as the big bad evil and the little bad evil. 8/10. VUX. Actions: murderous attacks, lying about reasons for murderous attacks. Benefits: aesthetic pleasure, not having to turn off their viewscreens, not having to admit how shallow they really are. Verdict: The VUX kill because they don't like the way we look. Um, that's pretty darn disproportionate. On the other hand, they aren't genocidal and they don't keep slaves (most of them, anyway). They have limits. That puts them out of range of the big bad evil and the little bad evil. 8/10, wimpy style. Mycon. Actions: destruction of inhabited worlds, unprovoked attacks. Benefits: impossible to guess. Verdict: Who the heck knows? The Mycons are by far the most alien aliens in the game, totally incomprehensible. We can't guess what they're trying to achieve or what they're thinking, or why they think what they're getting is so important, so we can't even begin to judge how proportionate their actions are. I can't rate this one, but I'd treat it as a 9/10, since the appear to be relentlessly hostile and immune to reason. Orz. Actions: doing something to the Androsynth. Benefits: impossible to guess. Verdict: *Jumping Peppers*! These guys make the Mycons seem comprehensible. It's hard to judge these guys because they don't make any sense. They seem less hostile than the Mycons, in fact, they seem friendly. I'd rate them 4/10, with a warning to be prepared for a jump to 10/10 if it seems appropriate. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Lukipela on July 28, 2004, 12:26:25 pm Quote Luki, sorry, but your stretching Granny's philosophy on evil WAYY too much. If you recognise the Ilwrath's prayer sacrafices as individuals, then surely the Kzer-Za's choice would count too? You dont ask 'things' questions. Quote So the Kzer-Za think of others as indivduals, to be given the choice of following or being imprisoned. I.e I don't think the Ur-Quan are evil. I'll fold to OxDECODE on the whole Ilwrath matter though. I'd liek to think that their spirituality allows them to view each prayer as unique, but those quotes are very convincing. Quote The Kohr-Ah say they remember and can recall the screams of countless dead. Spooky, but it still discounts their 'purified' victims as individuals, not as things. As individual things. This is not necessarily the same. I can recal lots of sounds from my past, thunderstorms, rockslides, birdsong, the wind hhowling. All inevitable, all individual, but none especially sentient. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 28, 2004, 02:08:42 pm Quote I'll fold to OxDECODE on the whole Ilwrath matter though. I'd liek to think that their spirituality allows them to view each prayer as unique, but those quotes are very convincing. See, this is why this interpretation of that Granny Weatherwax quote is flawed (though it's probably doubtful that we ought to give quasi-religious significance to one quote from one character in a Terry Pratchett novel). The important thing isn't whether someone *thinks* of people as things but whether someone *treats* people as things -- that is, treats people as though their feelings and desires didn't matter. I don't think anyone really ought to care about Ilwrath theology, and whether or not Ilwrath think humans and Thraddash and Pkunk have souls or else think that all non-Ilwrath are mindless automata. What matters is that Ilwrath cause what *they* perceive to be sensations of pain and suffering in other beings for fun, and they think *this is okay*. Intellectual understanding of the criteria for sentience is not really necessary for morality. It's entirely possible to be convinced *intellectually* that, say, everyone else is a clever simulation in the Matrix and doesn't exist and still be a moral person because hurting other people just feels wrong. Just like it's possible for someone to entirely intellectually understand that other people have feelings and are sentient and still walk all over them because he just can't bring himself to *care*. Quote Ilwrath. Actions: sentient sacrifice, attempted genocide. Benefits: religious satisfaction. Verdict: To me, it is less obviously evil to kill for sincerely held religious beliefs than for fun, but not by much. 9/10 Well, even if there really were giant supernatural beings named Dogar and Kazon who really, really enjoy other beings' pain, and even if they really did pick the Ilwrath and command them to cause pain to other beings, that doesn't make the Ilwrath better for doing it. It just means that there are evil *gods* out there, and just implies that their followers are evil -- and are all the more evil the more fervently and sincerely worship that kind of god. And the Ilwrath wholeheartedly embrace this characterization rather than stating their religion in a way that actually would make them less evil (claiming to be sending their victims to Heaven or somesuch -- in fact they claim their victims' souls are tortured for all eternity in Dogar's belly or something). And it's not a bartering religion -- they don't believe Dogar and Kazon will *reward* them for being evil. Other way 'round: they worship Dogar and Kazon in the true sense of the word. They really love being around Dogar and Kazon and serving them because of what Dogar and Kazon stand for, 'cause they just like the bloodthirstiness. Heck, they reject the existing form of their religion and adopt a new one because the Channel 44 Dogar and Kazon offer more opportunities for bloodshed and violence, proving they're the "real" Dogar and Kazon and the priests' religion is outmoded. Quote Mycon. Actions: destruction of inhabited worlds, unprovoked attacks. Benefits: impossible to guess. Verdict: Who the heck knows? The Mycons are by far the most alien aliens in the game, totally incomprehensible. We can't guess what they're trying to achieve or what they're thinking, or why they think what they're getting is so important, so we can't even begin to judge how proportionate their actions are. I can't rate this one, but I'd treat it as a 9/10, since the appear to be relentlessly hostile and immune to reason. Hoo boy. It's true they're hard to understand, but I don't think they're meant to be truly impossible to understand; their language is translated accurately, unlike the Orz's. They have a biological urge to procreate ("Juffo-Wup") and that's what they do, exclusively. The environment that's comfortable for them is deadly for others. They don't care. So they merrily go around improving the environment for the comfort and health of *their* offspring while laying waste to everyone else's environment. Yes, they do this because they're flawed biological computers whose self-preservation instinct overrode their original purpose. But they nonetheless seem to be sentient and to understand the pain and distress of the Non, so they're not just a version of the Slylandro Probes; they really are evil, at least in the same way as the Druuge. Ruthless expansionism to feed their biological drives at everyone else's expense. That's pretty evil, even if not as evil as sheer sadism. Quote Orz. Actions: doing something to the Androsynth. Benefits: impossible to guess. Verdict: *Jumping Peppers*! These guys make the Mycons seem comprehensible. It's hard to judge these guys because they don't make any sense. They seem less hostile than the Mycons, in fact, they seem friendly. I'd rate them 4/10, with a warning to be prepared for a jump to 10/10 if it seems appropriate. Er, yeah. I think the two species that we're least likely to be able to make any sensible evaluation of are the Arilou and the Orz, because they operate at such a higher level that we can't evaluate their motives because we truly have no concept of the situation as it appears to them. The Arilou as much as tell you this when you confront them about their history of manipulating humanity. The invasions of privacy and indignities we suffer at their hands, their duplicity and callousness to nonhumans and so on make them *seem* kind of evil... but if they did actually create the human race, and have long-term plans for its survival that depend on the stuff they're doing to us, and if our survival ties into some long-term plan that involves the whole galaxy... the issue becomes a lot murkier. Then again, it is the Arilou who in no uncertain terms tell us the Orz are evil, or as close to "evil" as the Arilou are willing to describe anything as. Whatever happened to the Androsynth I think it's safe to say by our standards, and the Arilou's, and that freaky Bukowski guy who went crazy's standards, it was pretty darn Not Good. And the Orz seem to be deeply mixed up in it, and I'd be willing to call them pretty darn Not Good. I think giving them the benefit of the doubt they're at least 7/10 -- they *do*, after all, give no thought to randomly slaughtering the VUX and possibly you out of sheer capriciousness, but I'm really tempted to put them at 10/10. They just seem really evil; they have a bizarre hidden agenda that only they care about, and to them we just plain don't matter. (Some of the more comprehensible Orzese is focused around how we're just "silly cows" and insignificant compared to the giant Orz hivemind-thingy and it can play whatever games it wants with us evanescent "bubbles".) And anyway, Orz aren't truly friendly. They will in fact kill you just for asking annoying questions about the Androsynth, a subject they seem real touchy about. They join you because they think of all fighting as a cute game and making ships explode to be fun, which is perhaps useful to you but doesn't make them any sort of moral paragon. But all in all jabbrwock has the list that I agree with most. The most meaningful definition of evil is being cut off from others and seeing them as unimportant compared to oneself; that's the definition that, to me anyway, most maps onto my gut feelings. The Ur-Quan are more likable than the Umgah to me, even though the effects of the Ur-Quan's actions are a lot more horrendous, because the Ur-Quan's *attitude* shows more honor and respect for others than the Umgah's does. Just like Slylandro Probes are less offensive than Mycon, because while they do the same thing Mycon have a smug, self-righteous attitude about the wrong they do, while Probes have no attitude at all. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 28, 2004, 04:59:43 pm Ok...where to begin.
The Dynarri, to me, are the most evil thing in the entire game. If Satan had a mother on PMS they would be twice as bad =p (sorry if that offends) The Ilwrath are misled, and through the centuries, warped into their religion, because they are, after all, a theocracy. If you follow someone long enough, you become more like them. Think about the Catholic church, indeed the entire belief. I would bet most here come from european roots (as i do.) Think about how deeply the entire belief system has impacted yourself, your family, your society and its morals and values, and your own. They are probably shaped by the church. I think this is what the Ilwrath are like. Some nut started worshipping Dogar and Kazon and the belief grew, and grew, exploiting the inherent evil in every individual, until the evil overtook and probably sacraficed the non believers. So they stayed worshipping them for centuries and it warped their culture to what it is today. I consider them misled, like a child who was bullied who grew up strong enough to bully and make everyone else miserable. The umgah are a grey area, to me. I as yet am unsure what to 'rate' them. The Kzer-Za are reasonably evil, but as with the Ilwrath, they got bullied and now seek to protect themselves from bullies, by stopping the bullies from being bullied by other bullies. (if that makes any sense). So basically, they protected themselves, as is their right, but the way they do it is suspect. I think also, that after 15000 years their goal got warped. Now they're the biggest bullies, and they dont even know it. The Kohr-Ah are similar, but more extreme. Someone you kill doesnt become a bully. To me, the Orz are the most creepy, and downright scary aliens in the entire game. that Buwolski text freaked me out =p I consider the Mycon to be incapable of evil because, as said above, theyre bio computers that someone forgot to debug. The Thraddash aren't really evil, theyre just overly aggressive, and not overly bright. The Druuge, still, are the second most evil. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: 0xDEC0DE on July 28, 2004, 08:15:51 pm I have never liked the idea that the Mycon were "broken" in some way, and the Mycon sub-plot in SC3 left a very bad taste in my mouth. Broken scions of the Precursors. Feh.
I have always considered it to be much more interesting to think of them as acting exactly according to design -- we just don't know what their endgame is. Only Fred and Paul know for sure, and I'm sure they'll never tell (until a publisher back a truckload of money up to their offices for another Star Control sequel, that is ;) ) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on July 28, 2004, 09:13:18 pm Some elaboration on my refusal to rate the Mycons and the Orz.
The Mycons appear to be somewhat lacking in something that is needed for true evil: free will. They seem to be constructs acting according to their programming. Whether that programming takes the form of a simple set of instructions (like the Slylandro Probes) or overpowering urges they cannot resist is not terribly relevant. It's not even entirely clear that they are sentient, although they at least have minds developed enough to be susceptible to the Syreen. They really do seem to exist in a world completely different from the other sentient races. It's worth noting that I don't claim that the Mycon should not be fought and defeated - merely that their sentience is so alien that judging them as evil or not is questionable. The Orz are even more alien than the Mycons - we can't even adequately translate their language. We also cannot understand the actual physical realities they experience, which puts them at a further remove. Coming from another universe, with completely alien perceptive tools and a mind adapted to comprehend that other universe, they Orz are in no danger of ever being understood. While it seems like they attacked the Androsynth, and it seems like they attack us just for asking annoying questions, nothing is really clear about them. It is also hard to say whether they are capable of establishing the empathy toward our kind of sentience that would allow them to even consider the possibility that we might not want to *DANCE*. The Orz are dangerous, certainly, and possibly even threatening, but it's not clear to me that they qualify as evil. Imagine a person who would die if you shook his hand. This is so incomprehensible to us that we wouldn't even imagine it, and might very well shake his hand as a friendly greeting. Now imagine that when he dies, nothing happens that we see. He keeps on walking and talking like always. Only now he's really ticked at us and says we've killed him. This isn't any kind of death we can understand - to us, he seems healthy in all but mind, and we feel secure in the knowledge that we didn't do anything to him, he's just being irrationally hostile. This kind of incomprehensibility is perfectly plausible when considering the Orz. They're not evil, they're just impossible to understand. Like the Mycons, keep an eye on them and be ready to defend yourself. Unlike the Mycons, there is at least the possibility of avoiding starting a fight with them, and even having what appear to be friendly relations with them. Except for a few odd triggers that start horrible fights, the Orz act like friendly oddballs. Avoid those triggers, and they don't even seem slightly evil. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 28, 2004, 09:46:31 pm Dammit, if yer gonna be livin in this here reality/dimension/universe/plane of existance, yer better be speaking a god dern language that me nifty translathingamabob be understandin! =p
Very acute perception with the Orz, i like it =) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: 0xDEC0DE on July 28, 2004, 10:05:57 pm Quote They really do seem to exist in a world completely different from the other sentient races. Â It's worth noting that I don't claim that the Mycon should not be fought and defeated - merely that their sentience is so alien that judging them as evil or not is questionable. If we take this relativist position to its extreme, then the entire discussion is moot. I, for one, would like to see this discussion proceed under the pretense that there is "objective evil" in the universe. ;) Game Fact: the Mycon shatter life-bearing worlds Game Fact: the Mycon seek to eradicate all "non-Juffo-Wup" in the universe Game Fact: If the Mycon see that an opponent cannot be defeated, they will ally with them, and "stab them in the back" at the first available opportunity. I'd say this puts them pretty squarely in the "Bad Guy" camp. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on July 29, 2004, 03:29:39 am Quote If we take this relativist position to its extreme, then the entire discussion is moot. I, for one, would like to see this discussion proceed under the pretense that there is "objective evil" in the universe. ;) Game Fact: the Mycon shatter life-bearing worlds Game Fact: the Mycon seek to eradicate all "non-Juffo-Wup" in the universe Game Fact: If the Mycon see that an opponent cannot be defeated, they will ally with them, and "stab them in the back" at the first available opportunity. I'd say this puts them pretty squarely in the "Bad Guy" camp. This discussion isn't about "Bad Guys", it's about evil. I described my standard of judging evil earlier - a sense of selfishness so extreme that it renders the wishes and wellbeing of any others irrelevant. Most folks have this to some degree, and the extent to which they have it is my preferred measure of evil. In order to be judged as evil, a race has to recognize that it is harming others, and choose to do so for benefits smaller than the harm they are inflicting. This has three requirements: recognition, choice, and action. The Mycons certainly perform harmful actions against others. There is room to argue that they do not recognize what they are doing as harmful to others - after all, Juffo-Wup permeates time and space. Becoming part of Juffo-Wup would thus be the ultimate form of spiritual fulfilment. There is even more room to argue that the Mycons do not have a choice as to what they do. They are biological constructs acting on programmed imperatives. They may not be capable of having any priorities other than the expansion and protection of Juffo-Wup. If I had to call it, I'd say that the Mycons do recognize that their vision of Juffo-Wup requires harming other sentient beings. There is still a credible case that they have no choice as to what they do, and that pretty much kills any attempt to define them as evil. They act under compulsion, thus the moral onus for their actions belongs to those who placed them under that compulsion. Finally, let's be perfectly clear - a race does not have to be evil to be enemies. Slylandro Probes are machines, incapable of being good or evil, but they are certainly enemies. Even if the Mycons are absolved of moral evil, they are certainly destructive, and if no other means of containing their expansion is available, they must be destroyed. The universe is a harsh place sometimes, and occasionally a perfectly innocent race is placed under an irresistable genetic compulsion that forces them to behave in a manner that it provokes all other sentient races to attack them and destroy them. Too bad, so sad, goodbye mushroom men. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 29, 2004, 02:31:25 pm To quote the lords of the universe:
"Space is a dangerous place where wimps eat flaming plasma death". If the Mycon's reason for doing all of this is to 'help us become one with juffo-wup' or whatever, not counting all the other reasons/speculations, then they may arguably be the good guys. Tough love? If you amputate a limb that was gangrenous, is that evil? This is why i consider Evil and Good to be illusions. We are evil because our women dont wear veils in public. They are evil because they support Terrorist networks. We are evil because we bombed them. They are evil because they attacked us. Dont you see? I discount the Ilwrath because i do not consider it possible for a race to knowingly act evil, revel in it, recognise it and the entire society mimics them. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: FalconMWC on July 29, 2004, 08:16:45 pm You also have to realize that the illwrath could be following orders - or think they are.
They could think that the their gods are all powerful and would kill them if they disobeyed. Thus they obviously obey them and think that killing others is better than being killed yourself. So in that way - you could say that the illwrath are not evil - they are just following evil gods. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on July 29, 2004, 11:44:00 pm Quote You also have to realize that the illwrath could be following orders - or think they are. They could think that the their gods are all powerful and would kill them if they disobeyed. Thus they obviously obey them and think that killing others is better than being killed yourself. So in that way - you could say that the illwrath are not evil - they are just following evil gods. In the absence of actual divine intervention, a race must take responsibility for its own religiously inspired actions. Their gods are evil, and they choose to continue to worship them. More, they demand that the worship be as gruesome as possible - witness the overthrow of their priestly caste because, in part, of the "...lack of quality death in ceremony." As for the Mycon, if you could get in a conversation with a Mycon and ask it, "If you were not part of Juffo-Wup, would you want to become part of Juffo-Wup?" the answer would almost certainly be "Yes." So I'd say the Mycons are actually misguided, rather than evil. They really are following the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." For further evidence, remember the offer they make when you tell them about Organon. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: FalconMWC on July 30, 2004, 12:26:56 am Well.....
First, the illwrath might think I had better do this or I will die. But as each illwrath dies and another is born - it becomes more and more like their nature where they enjoy it. Then the gods don't have to intervene so much.... Or they are just pretending to enjoy for their gods..... :P Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on July 30, 2004, 08:31:09 am Quote Well..... First, the illwrath might think I had better do this or I will die. But as each illwrath dies and another is born - it becomes more and more like their nature where they enjoy it. Then the gods don't have to intervene so much.... Or they are just pretending to enjoy for their gods..... :P It's always bad to judge an entire race, or nation, or whatever. What one is really judging in this case is the culture. The Ilwrath, as defined by their DNA, or whatever equivalent they happen to have, are probably not inherently evil. Their culture, of which their religion is part, *IS* evil. It teaches the Ilwrath that it is OK to inflict harm on others for any reason whatever, even simple pleasure. That is classical evil. The strength of religious convictions as contrasted with the strength of the desire for simple fun is the reason why I don't consider the Ilwrath as evil as the Umgah or the Dnyarri. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 30, 2004, 03:38:58 pm Except, in this case simple pleasure is not the opposite of their religion....Weird =p
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: FalconMWC on July 30, 2004, 09:40:52 pm See, I consider the "talking pets" the most evil in the game before they were made slaves.....
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on July 30, 2004, 10:35:47 pm Something just occured to me.
What if the Spathi were the most powerful race in the game? Would they resort to butchering all the other races to make them safer? It kind of does scare me a little, never ever assume the weak are the good. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 31, 2004, 05:53:15 am jabbrwock: Good points all. Indeed, SC3 throws the nature of the Mycon into question, since it draws a line between the Mycon's truly sentient basic nature and the Mycon as they are after they've been imprinted with Juffo-Wup commands (though this makes the Mycon much less interesting and is probably bad storytelling).
Sander Scamper: One can justify a greater or lesser degree of moral relativism based on one's worldview, but keep in mind that just because morality is a concept that cannot flow from scientific testing or facts does not make it something we should discount as "illusion". Good and evil *for us* are the benchmarks by which we build a society most conducive to our nature and way of living. The Mycon moral system may be just fine for the Mycon. It's horrible for almost anyone who's not a Mycon. Hence it's really hard to explain how the Mycon could be the "real" good guys. The problem of finding a system of good and evil that works best for the most different cultures is a hard one, but it's a problem that does need to be tackled, both in real life and in SC2. (That's the basis behind the fundamental laws of the League of Sentient Races in SC3, and probably a similar set of laws behind the Sentient Milieu; a "first do no harm" sort of thing.) Anyway, you contradict yourself by saying that the Mycon moral system is possibly justifiable but the Ilwrath isn't. Of course it's logically ridiculous to claim that "evil is good" and define good and evil that way, but the Ilwrath aren't quite so shallow. I think it's quite possible that the Ilwrath originally had a society that had a quite rigid moral code and then at some point in history reversed it, because it was too wearying for them. They're an exaggeration, of course, like all other SC2 races, but if you don't think strict moral codes create a tendency to rebel against them in service of older instincts, you haven't, say, ever attended Catholic school. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 31, 2004, 06:20:23 am Oh yes: About the Spathi, I don't think they're actively evil as such. They certainly don't have any opportunity to be, and much of the humor comes from that. But they're definitely amoral to an extreme degree. Their extreme cowardice comes from their being basically extreme materialists -- they don't believe in any kind of transcendence, either a literal afterlife or in things that one ought to be willing to die for. As Fwiffo demonstrates, the only things they want are basically plentiful food, pleasant climates, scenic vistas and the company of attractive nubiles. And, of course, as much time to enjoy all this in as possible. So while their nature makes them fearful of confrontation to such a degree that I doubt it'd cross their minds to actively raid and conquer for their own benefit, they are quite likely to screw over other people in their quest for safety and prosperity if they don't have to look their opponents in the face to do this. They ain't nice guys.
Most obvious is their decision to flee inside their little slave shield while the rest of the New Alliance is fighting desperately for their lives. More disturbing are hints of other baggage they've had over the years, like the incident the Melnorme tell you about with their overeager expansionism -- they don't mind conquering planets if they don't have to fight to do so, and they take plenty of risks with other people's lives in the process... "much to the Algolites' sincere and short-lived regret". Interesting point people haven't brought up yet: What about the Melnorme? They're like the benign counterpart to the Druuge, yet they use the language of capitalism to deny responsibility in a similar way to the Druuge and the Spathi. Maybe they have a point that trade is a basic social activity and you can't be responsible for what someone does with your stuff after they buy it, but stuff like the Algolites and the 2148-B probe make me wonder if their own corporate practices need a review... Though I do like to think they do take sides in these conflicts, just choosing to do so from behind the scenes and behind the cloak of commerce. (They are, presumably, selling stuff to *you* and not the Ur-Quan for a reason.) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on July 31, 2004, 08:40:00 am Quote The Mycon moral system may be just fine for the Mycon. It's horrible for almost anyone who's not a Mycon. Hence it's really hard to explain how the Mycon could be the "real" good guys. The problem of finding a system of good and evil that works best for the most different cultures is a hard one, but it's a problem that does need to be tackled, both in real life and in SC2. (That's the basis behind the fundamental laws of the League of Sentient Races in SC3, and probably a similar set of laws behind the Sentient Milieu; a "first do no harm" sort of thing.) Anyway, you contradict yourself by saying that the Mycon moral system is possibly justifiable but the Ilwrath isn't. Of course it's logically ridiculous to claim that "evil is good" and define good and evil that way, but the Ilwrath aren't quite so shallow. I think it's quite possible that the Ilwrath originally had a society that had a quite rigid moral code and then at some point in history reversed it, because it was too wearying for them. They're an exaggeration, of course, like all other SC2 races, but if you don't think strict moral codes create a tendency to rebel against them in service of older instincts, you haven't, say, ever attended Catholic school. They Mycon would want to be treated the way they treat others. The Ilwrath would not want to be treated the way they treat others. The Mycon are thus not being selfish, merely blind. The Ilwrath are being selfish. Since my basic thesis is that selfishness is the true measure of evil, the Mycon are not evil, and the Ilwrath are. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on July 31, 2004, 10:32:57 am Are we really sure of that? Presumably the Ilwrath do want to be on the winning end of the wars they fight, but they seem to be almost as masochistic as they are sadistic; they may like giving pain more than getting it, but they rip off their own limbs and mutilate their own bodies and stuff in worship of Dogar and Kazon.
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Bobucles on July 31, 2004, 07:12:30 pm Quote ([The Melnorme] are, presumably, selling stuff to *you* and not the Ur-Quan for a reason.) Maybe it's becasue the Kzer-za don't collect biological data, they enslave it? And the Kohr-Ah certainly don't have any interest in biological data. Also, if the Melnorme tried to trade, wouldn't they be forced to follow the path of now and forever? Being either enslaved on a planet, or becoming a battle thrall would be... bad for business. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Michael Martin on August 01, 2004, 06:04:16 am Quote Something just occured to me. What if the Spathi were the most powerful race in the game? Would they resort to butchering all the other races to make them safer? It kind of does scare me a little, never ever assume the weak are the good. They could possibly come up with reasons not to. The best example in science fiction of the immensely powerful, yet amazingly cowardly race is the "Puppeteers" from Larry Niven's "Known Space" continuity. Try to track down a copy of the novel "Ringworld." It will demonstrate the lengths to which a "coward" will go to ensure their safety -- especially when they're also smart enough to recognize that the Kohr-Ah strategy isn't very safe. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Michael Martin on August 01, 2004, 06:19:13 am Quote Since my basic thesis is that selfishness is the true measure of evil, the Mycon are not evil, and the Ilwrath are. The Mycon are a tricky case because they're constructs of some kind - the Umgah say so, and they self-identify as "planetary transformer biots" if you let them ramble enough. I would claim that making moral judgements about the Mycon is like making moral judgements about unit 2418-B. (This seems to be mentioned above.) I'm not sure I like the use of selflessness/selfishness as the sole arbiter of good and evil. Imperialism in the British Empire, White Man's Burden (http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/922/) vein comes out as largely selfless (and the Kzer-Za appear to think they're in this tradition, too), but you won't find many spouting this as a moral model to be followed in this day and age. (The closest you can find removes the 'overlord' aspects of it, which makes the debate completely different.) [Edit: One of these day's I'll learn to remember that UBB doesn't accept HTML.] Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 01, 2004, 10:40:08 am Quote More disturbing are hints of other baggage they've had over the years, like the incident the Melnorme tell you about with their overeager expansionism -- they don't mind conquering planets if they don't have to fight to do so, and they take plenty of risks with other people's lives in the process... "much to the Algolites' sincere and short-lived regret". What makes you think the Spathi went there for expansionistic reasons? I think it's unlikely that their empire would reach that far, and having a remote colony where they would be vulnerable to attack doesn't seem very Spathi-like to me either. For completeness, this is the dialog in question: Quote The Spathi once used a similar excuse after an unfortunate incident at their base on Algol IV. They didn't like the climate there so they decided to make `just a few minor, climatic adjustments.' Their equipment went haywire, they panicked and fled and the entire atmosphere was stripped off the planet much to the native Algolites sincere though short-lived regret. What makes me wonder is what the Spathi did all the way over at Algol, especially as it's inhabited and right in Druuge Space (though maybe not at that time). It could be that they wanted to set up a remote listening post so they could feel safer. Why pick an inhabited planet for that? Maybe it's the Algolites themselves they want to spy on. Still, why would the Spathi not use an unmanned listening post? The climatic adjustments they wanted to make suggests the Spathi intended to stay there. I guess the people that ordered the mission weren't the ones who had to execute it, so fear is not really an issue. A funny thought: the "native Algolites" may have been Druuge. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 01, 2004, 02:08:28 pm Do we know the Druuge didnt come from outside the starmap, like the Melnorme?
And maybe the Spathi were searching for (coughs) "THE ULTIMATE EVIL!" (the voice addons for Fwiffo are terrific). And as said above, doing unto others as you would have done unto yourself is a pretty good measurement of 'good and evil'. And i think that they prefer to rip off their own limbs. Thankyouverymuch =p Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Spitfire on August 01, 2004, 10:12:24 pm The only truly evil race in the galaxy:
The Dnyarri Remember that the Ur-Quan turned out to be the way they are because of the Dnyarri. The Dnyarri kept the Ur-Quan (and Kohr-Ah) as slaves for millennia, and when Kzer-Za finally managed to free their race they vowed to do everything in their power to let it never happen again. The Kohr-Ah wanted to kill every other civilization from the galaxy, whereas the Ur-Quan merely wanted to enslave all sentient species so that they would never grow powerful enough to enslave the Ur-Quan ever again. Their reaction was quite understandable. According to the Melnorme info, The Ur-Quan was quite a peaceful race before they got enslaved by the Dnyarri. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Terminator on August 02, 2004, 06:44:54 am Here is some musical wisdom, "Every silver lining's got a, touch of grey." I sincerely hope that no one needs any interpretation.
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on August 02, 2004, 08:09:11 am Quote The only truly evil race in the galaxy: The Dnyarri Remember that the Ur-Quan turned out to be the way they are because of the Dnyarri. The Dnyarri kept the Ur-Quan (and Kohr-Ah) as slaves for millennia, and when Kzer-Za finally managed to free their race they vowed to do everything in their power to let it never happen again. The Kohr-Ah wanted to kill every other civilization from the galaxy, whereas the Ur-Quan merely wanted to enslave all sentient species so that they would never grow powerful enough to enslave the Ur-Quan ever again. Their reaction was quite understandable. According to the Melnorme info, The Ur-Quan was quite a peaceful race before they got enslaved by the Dnyarri. You should not confuse competence with evil. The Umgah are just as evil as the Dnyarri, they are merely less dangerous because they lack psychic powers. Both races will level any abuse imaginable on any other race for the simple fun of doing so. THe Ilwrath are arguably just as evil as the Dnyarri and the Umgah as well. However, their pleasure arises from a sense of satisfying a religious obligation, and can thus be seen as a more important gain than simple pleasure. The Dnyarri are certainly the most dangerous and destructive, I'll grant you. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: FalconMWC on August 02, 2004, 09:36:00 pm Well - what would happen then if the Gods told the Illwrath to do good? After a century or so, would they enjoy it like they do evil now?
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Spitfire on August 02, 2004, 10:27:03 pm Quote Well - what would happen then if the Gods told the Illwrath to do good? After a century or so, would they enjoy it like they do evil now? I wonder why you can't use the Caster to make them stop waging war altogether rather than attack the Thraddash. Dogar and Kazon are the law, and they must be obeyed no matter what ;). The Aqua Helix can be obtained even without wiping out the Thraddash anyway. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Michael Martin on August 03, 2004, 07:50:51 am You're not diverting them to get the Aqua Helix. It's to stop the Ilwrath from interdicting a different world entirely.
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Spitfire on August 03, 2004, 11:42:39 am Quote You're not diverting them to get the Aqua Helix. It's to stop the Ilwrath from interdicting a different world entirely. Yes, the Chmmr. But heck, I would've commanded them to attack the Kohr-Ah instead of the helpless little Thraddash I so much grew to like after gaining their odd but genuine 'friendship' ;) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 03, 2004, 02:45:20 pm As with many religions, I sincerely doubt the Ilwrath unconditionally believe in Dogar and Kazon because of the evidence of a big voice in the sky. They believed in Dogar and Kazon before the Umgah started their transmissions, and the Pkunk tell you that they're pretty sure Dogar and Kazon aren't real extradimensional superpowerful beings, so obviously they *made up* Dogar and Kazon in the first place because of certain psychological needs of theirs.
Dogar and Kazon are defined as evil gods who revel in torture and suffering -- it's the fact that Dogar and Kazon are the prime embodiments of sadistic evil that makes the Ilwrath worship them, not fear of their power or anything. If Channel 44 started broadcasting a message of peace the Ilwrath would probably take this as evidence that the Channel 44 voice was a faked message and the *real* Dogar and Kazon were elsewhere (though there might be a civil war first before they concluded that -- the Ilwrath seem to like civil wars). They wouldn't go through a wholesale change in character any more than most of the world's Christians would suddenly start worshiping the Threefold Goddess or having sex with members of the same gender or cutting up babies if someone claiming to be Jesus told them to. Religions develop as systems of thought because people seek external causes and justifications for internal moral convictions, not vice versa -- that's the basis of the concept of faith in the first place and for most theological arguments for God's existence (the idea that human moral systems reflect external reality). A smart Catholic won't try to claim that the Catholic Church started and grew because of divine hypnosis or a series of miraculous accidents -- they'll claim that it's because Catholic doctrine calls out to real, deep needs in the human heart, which proves there is some truth to them. (I tend to agree with this view, being a religious person myself.) This is the main reason why I don't feel the argument that Ilwrath are only evil because their religion "forces them to be evil" very convincing. I think the cause and effect pretty obviously runs in the other direction; the Ilwrath picked this religion because this is the kind of people that, at some point in their history, they became, and the Captain was smart enough to know the Ilwrath wouldn't fall for "NOW YOU MUST BE PEACEFUL AND NICE AND LOVE BUNNIES!" This is particularly true because (in my game at least) the Captain contacts the Ilwrath after the Thraddash, and the Thraddash *openly* express a philosophy of constant cultural change and self-improvement. Nevertheless all attempts to instill an kinder, gentler, more cultured culture into the Thraddash fail miserably (and humorously). It's pretty much for that reason that I think the Ilwrath/Thraddash war was justified -- the Thraddash, after all, are *happy* fighting the Ilwrath, and the Ilwrath are happy fighting the Thraddash, and if they weren't fighting each other there's really nothing you could do to keep them from slaughtering lots more innocents at some point in the future. It's in their blood, and there's no way to cure them -- or if there is, you've got no time for it as you've got bigger fish to fry (the Kohr-Ah). Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 03, 2004, 03:22:45 pm Sure there is, and I'm unhappy this wasnt an option. Send BOTH to attack the Kohr-Ah. That way, they may weaken (at least a little) the REAL threat, and get agnigiligalated in the process. Everybody wins....except for them, and they dont count....=p
I don't know that the Umgah would be as evil as the Dynarri, even given the power. I dont think the Umgah would enslave them because that would get boring really quick, and the Umgah seem to prefer having a subtle hand in the havoc their humour creates. As it stands, the Umgah could produce a cross-Bio plague of mass proportions. They could wipe out every species in the galaxy. But they wont, because destroying everything gets real old, real quick. Posing as gods is like a prank call, which is pretty funny =p. If the Ilwrath were telepathic, then the galaxy would be kinda screwed. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 03, 2004, 04:02:09 pm Quote What makes me wonder is what the Spathi did all the way over at Algol, especially as it's inhabited and right in Druuge Space (though maybe not at that time). It could be that they wanted to set up a remote listening post so they could feel safer. Why pick an inhabited planet for that? Maybe it's the Algolites themselves they want to spy on. Still, why would the Spathi not use an unmanned listening post? The climatic adjustments they wanted to make suggests the Spathi intended to stay there. I guess the people that ordered the mission weren't the ones who had to execute it, so fear is not really an issue. A funny thought: the "native Algolites" may have been Druuge. The Spathi mindset is more complicated than a simple human coward's. Look at the mindset behind the Spathi Eluder; though it's designed to be evasive and manueverable, it's actually a fairly large ship, built on probably an indefinitely expandable modular design, with tons and tons of extra modules acting as "decoys". Why? Because while the decoys are of questionable value to actually surviving combat, from a human's point of view, it seems like Spathi fetishize having plenty of familiar free space as a form of safety. An Eluder is built on the same principles as Fwiffo's dream estate -- plenty of defensible places to hide (trees or modules) that can be abandoned in a pinch. Plenty of *options* in a fight. Plenty of places to go. I'd imagine the Spathi in their empire-building stage, immediately after the flight from Spathiwa, were much like this. They'd accelerated the development of their civilization at an insane rate, remember, and given what seems to be a huge population growth rate (six-digit numbers of encrustlings at once) suddenly unchecked by Evil Ones they probably had a lot of motivation to expand. But if they wanted to expand without *fighting* anyone, they'd probably do it the way that makes sense to Spathi, not humans; the Eluder tells you right away they don't care for compact contiguous territory. They probably traveled along defended safe zones or corridors, expanding from undefended world to undefended world, making themselves a nice big mazelike network of escape routes that they could shunt themselves along whenever there was trouble. The irregular shape of their sphere of influence and its enormous geographical span would be a huge advantage in their eyes; if they get attacked on one side of the galaxy, flee to the other! If they get surrounded, they have a million hideouts and outposts they can jump to. And in their paranoia they probably grabbed every single world they could. Unfortunately for the Algolites, whom I imagine being a friendly and nonthreatening race, as I can't imagine the Spathi colonizing any world with even slightly hostile and threatening natives. This, by the way, means that I doubt the natives were Druuge -- though the Spathi probably were in their wave of expansion before the Druuge got to be very big or powerful, even weak, savage Druuge would be pretty darn threatening to the Spathi. Also the Algolites are the "natives", the Melnorme seem pretty clear that they did all die, and the Druuge homeworld is probably somewhere near their Central Trade World, if it isn't the Trade World itself (and if it isn't it's probably because the Druuge themselves polluted and exploited their homeworld to depletion). It would be a very funny and ironic origin of the Druuge's grudge against the Melnorme, though. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 03, 2004, 04:09:44 pm Many of the bad guys are following a shallow version of the Golden Rule, doing what they simplistically think others would want done to them. VUX are revolted at the idea of being human and can't understand how humans stand themselves -- they see killing humans as putting them out of their misery. Mycon think Juffo-Wup is the ideal state of living and think they're doing everyone a favor by replacing them with Juffo-Wup life. Kohr-Ah think being an Ur-Quan is the ideal state of living and think they're doing everyone a favor by killing them and allowing them to be reincarnated as Ur-Quan. Kzer-Za think that their civilization is superior to everyone else's and even if others protest they're doing them a favor by making them part of the Kzer-Za's ideal social order. Ilwrath think torture and pain is the ultimate pleasure and think they're doing everyone a favor (at some level) by killing and mutilating them. And on and on.
What the real Golden Rule means is actually trying, honestly and sincerely, to understand what others want and need and putting yourself out of the picture so you can *really* help them rather than intervening to make yourself feel good, or increase your own sense of power, or make other people more like you. Most of the humor in SC2 comes from that simple inability of vastly different races and cultures to get into other races' heads -- Pkunk not understanding why you, a less-evolved race, want their ships more than their spiritual guidance, the Melnorme not guessing how technically incompetent the Slylandro were and refusing to take responsibility for their mistakes, the Spathi being unable to understand why humans have a problem with living in the slave shield, and on and on and on. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 03, 2004, 04:15:30 pm Quote ure there is, and I'm unhappy this wasnt an option. Send BOTH to attack the Kohr-Ah. That way, they may weaken (at least a little) the REAL threat, and get agnigiligalated in the process. Everybody wins....except for them, and they dont count....=p Well, we've been talking like the Captain really completely planned the whole war thing. Really it's pretty obvious the Captain doesn't know the protocols of the whole divine command business (his dialogue choices seem to indicate he's kind of groping around). He just tells the Ilwrath to SEEK NEW PREY and the Ilwrath come up with the idea of killing the Thraddash on their own. The Captain may not have had that plan originally in mind, but he probably decided it was an acceptable plan and that trying to change the Ilwrath's minds might be risky, given that the Captain probably wasn't really good at doing the Dogar/Kazon voice for too long. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 03, 2004, 04:34:29 pm He doesnt, he just has to speak normally and maybe turn up the mic volume and lower the pitch.
What about the Umgah, Art? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 03, 2004, 10:26:39 pm Quote A smart Catholic won't try to claim that the Catholic Church started and grew because of divine hypnosis or a series of miraculous accidents -- they'll claim that it's because Catholic doctrine calls out to real, deep needs in the human heart, which proves there is some truth to them. In other words, your religion has some truth in it, because you "feel" it has. 1. Just because you've found a better explanation than the common one, doesn't make yours true. There other possible explanations. For instance, you may "feel" it's true because you feel uncomfortable at the thought that it may not. Which brings me to the next point: 2. Just because something is desirable, doesn't make it true. Title: EReO Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 03, 2004, 10:50:25 pm Quote I'd imagine the Spathi in their empire-building stage, immediately after the flight from Spathiwa, were much like this. They'd accelerated the development of their civilization at an insane rate, remember, and given what seems to be a huge population growth rate (six-digit numbers of encrustlings at once) suddenly unchecked by Evil Ones they probably had a lot of motivation to expand. You assume that the only thing that kept the Spathi's population in check were the evil ones. Maybe Spathi just don't live very long (maybe they have a heart attack every time they see a shadow in the twilight). Maybe only one out of a million Spathi actually has children. Maybe Spathi have a gestation period of a few hundred years. Quote But if they wanted to expand without *fighting* anyone, they'd probably do it the way that makes sense to Spathi, not humans; the Eluder tells you right away they don't care for compact contiguous territory. They probably traveled along defended safe zones or corridors, expanding from undefended world to undefended world, making themselves a nice big mazelike network of escape routes that they could shunt themselves along whenever there was trouble. The irregular shape of their sphere of influence and its enormous geographical span would be a huge advantage in their eyes; if they get attacked on one side of the galaxy, flee to the other! If they get surrounded, they have a million hideouts and outposts they can jump to. I like this idea. It sounds very Spathi-like. Still, there is safety in numbers too. Quote Also the Algolites are the "natives", the Melnorme seem pretty clear that they did all die, and the Druuge homeworld is probably somewhere near their Central Trade World, if it isn't the Trade World itself (and if it isn't it's probably because the Druuge themselves polluted and exploited their homeworld to depletion). "Native" can be understood relatively. If the Druuge colonised an unhabited Algol IV hundreds of years ago, they may be considered the natives of that planet. "Native" can also be understood just as "born there". In both cases it would mean that just the Druuge on that one planet got exterminated. Quote It would be a very funny and ironic origin of the Druuge's grudge against the Melnorme, though. I don't get that. What do the Melnorme have to do with this? Besides, the "grudge" may just be based on conflicting interests (competition, ideology of currency and information). Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 03, 2004, 11:22:13 pm Quote Many of the bad guys are following a shallow version of the Golden Rule, doing what they simplistically think others would want done to them. I have some problems with that theory. (Despite you stating it as a fact, it's still a theory.) It seems to me most of the races are just considering themselves more important than the others. When they say it's for the others own good, it seems a mere excuse. They may have learned to actually believe it in some cases, but the actual motive seems to be their own benefit. Quote VUX are revolted at the idea of being human and can't understand how humans stand themselves -- they see killing humans as putting them out of their misery. I don't think that is to be taken seriously. It looks to me like killing humans puts them out of the misery of the VUX. Take this quote: Quote But now you have forced us to reveal our REAL reason for hating you humans an embarrassing reason with no acceptable justification, but nonetheless undeniable! Human! You are SOOO ugly, SOOO hideous to us that we will NEVER be able to find peace with your species! Whenever we see your kind, we just want to kick you!... stomp on you!... squish you!... ...vaporize your ugly faces from the entire universe! We know its unreasonable! We know that you had no choice about how you look! We know that it is cruel fate that the Creator made you appear like putrid excretion but WE JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT! Quote Mycon think Juffo-Wup is the ideal state of living and think they're doing everyone a favor by replacing them with Juffo-Wup life. Where do you get the idea that they think replacing humans by Juffo-Wup does them a favour? Humans gets in the way of the Mycon's purposes. Quote You impede the flow of Juffo-Wup through the Universe. We will now remove this clog. We will now aid Juffo-Wup by eliminating you! Quote Kohr-Ah think being an Ur-Quan is the ideal state of living and think they're doing everyone a favor by killing them and allowing them to be reincarnated as Ur-Quan. The Kohr-Ah really do seem to believe that killing humans will eventually benefit them. But that's not their motive. Their motive is to remove any threat to the Ur-Quan. Maybe this reincarnation thing allows them to excuse their mass genocide to themselves, but by no means are they killing humans so that they can be reincarnated as Ur-Quan. Quote Kzer-Za think that their civilization is superior to everyone else's and even if others protest they're doing them a favor by making them part of the Kzer-Za's ideal social order. Again, they may think they're doing humans a favour, but that's not their motive. Their motive is to make sure the humans are no threat. Quote Ilwrath think torture and pain is the ultimate pleasure and think they're doing everyone a favor (at some level) by killing and mutilating them. Whether the Ilwrath torture for their own pleasure, or (also) for their gods, I find no corroboration for the idea that they think they do it in any way for the benefit of their victim. Just because you've found an explanation which sounds plausible and better than anything else you've heard, doesn't mean it's correct. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 03, 2004, 11:26:30 pm I just rediscovered this quote from the Ilwrath on what they consider evil:
Quote Evil Is Doing Things That Make Others Hurt Or Fear. At least, that's how one Ilwrath thinks of Evil. There may be as much definitions of Evil among the Ilwrath as there are among the Humans. Title: Re: EReO Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 04, 2004, 12:47:50 am Quote You assume that the only thing that kept the Spathi's population in check were the evil ones. Maybe Spathi just don't live very long (maybe they have a heart attack every time they see a shadow in the twilight). Maybe only one out of a million Spathi actually has children. Maybe Spathi have a gestation period of a few hundred years. Another thing, with really fast population growth you won't be able to move enough Spathi to other planets fast enough. At least not without something more advanced than Hyperspace. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 04, 2004, 05:07:05 am Quote You assume that the only thing that kept the Spathi's population in check were the evil ones. Maybe Spathi just don't live very long (maybe they have a heart attack every time they see a shadow in the twilight). Maybe only one out of a million Spathi actually has children. Maybe Spathi have a gestation period of a few hundred years. Well, one or all of these have to be true for the Spathi to make any sense at all; hundreds of thousands of encrustlings that grow into anywhere near human-size Spathi adults means death by mass starvation is utterly unavoidable unless one of these is true. I don't think super-short lifespans plausibly leads to their attitude about living a long life (though who knows, maybe every second counts more when you've only got six weeks to live). I think it's probably more likely that Spathi start out in some sort of nymph form as tiny little guys and only a few Spathi happen to make it to full adulthood while the rest continue living as little swimming things -- which would be a parallel with clam physiology (clams start out as little swimming things before a few clams get big enough to settle down and grow shells). Maybe that's one reason that the life of a full-grown adult is so full of terrors for young Fwiffo. Quote I don't get that. What do the Melnorme have to do with this? Besides, the "grudge" may just be based on conflicting interests (competition, ideology of currency and information). Oh, the Melnorme were the ones who sold the Spathi the terraforming gear in the first place, and they refuse to take responsibility for the Spathi's misuse of their awesome technology. It'd be thoroughly ironic for the Druuge to blame the Melnorme for this, but they seem like the sorts of hypocrites who just might. But yeah, mos def the obvious explanation is just that the Druuge plain don't like business competition. And for that matter neither do the Melnorme. (They take special care to tell you how horrible the Druuge are, and even though they are telling the truth, they make sure to be as vague as possible to incite the most possible worry. "Hidden tariffs" indeed.) Title: Re: Evil in SC2Art Post by: Art on August 04, 2004, 05:17:53 am Quote In other words, your religion has some truth in it, because you "feel" it has. 1. Just because you've found a better explanation than the common one, doesn't make yours true. There other possible explanations. For instance, you may "feel" it's true because you feel uncomfortable at the thought that it may not. Which brings me to the next point: 2. Just because something is desirable, doesn't make it true. That's fine. I wasn't trying to claim that religions' doctrines about the supernatural and stuff necessarily are objectively true just because people believe them. Maybe even the opposite. My point was that the Ilwarth religion doesn't *excuse* the Ilwrath for what they do. Just because what I believe isn't necessarily true doesn't mean it doesn't say something true about me. If I commit a crime because of my religion, I think I should be held just as responsible for what I do as someone who commits the same crime without using religious language as a motive. People who do wrong because their god commands them to are no better than people who kill because their glands command them to, or their whims command them to, or their employers command them to. My point was the complete opposite of saying that the Ilwrath are only evil because Dogar and Kazon are really out there somewhere and making them evil. Whether or not Dogar and Kazon are fictional or not, the Ilwrath choose to worship them because (for a number of possible reasons) they are the sort of people to worship Dogar and Kazon, and they should be judged accordingly. Just as (within certain limits) the fact that someone is Catholic, and the kind of Catholic someone chooses to be, is still a reflection of their personality and their choices, and you can't pawn off their attitudes and actions on the Church. Nor can you pawn off, say, Middle Eastern terrorism on Islam. Whether or not the god is really out there in the world, if you respond to a god's calling and nature it's because of something in *your* nature. Religious or antireligious authorities try to override this, but you can't get away from it; it's the reason that monolithic religions break up into different sects over time no matter how powerful they are, because people will always find diffferent things about the religion that seem true to them and are important to them. Hence people who think that a popular religion has a particular "personality" get surprised by the thoughts and actions of some practitioners, because the personality is ultimately dependent on the believers' personality. If the religion has truth in it it's a truth that's internal first and external afterwards; you believe in the Big Guy up in the Sky only if you first believe certain things about yourself. My believing in God isn't proof that God exists, but it *is* proof that I am the sort of person to believe in a particular kind of God; you can't dismiss religion as "random white noise" that says nothing about the people or cultures or societies that believe them, which is what some people seem to think. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 04, 2004, 05:20:28 am Re: Golden Rule
I don't take this explanation as a universal explanation for what bad guys do. I don't even think it's a good primary explanation, since if you poke even slightly hard at many justifications, like the Kohr-Ah's, the illusion breaks and sheer selfishness comes through. But it is worthwhile to see how most evil things people do *can* be expressed in terms of serving others' interests, so that a shallow reading of the Golden Rule fails -- being good doesn't just mean imagining everyone else is the same as you and doing stuff you would want done to them. A real application of the Golden Rule takes more than that, and it's the reason why there is in my opinion not that much more than a superficial distinction between, say, the Kohr-Ah and the Druuge. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 04, 2004, 05:24:29 am Quote Another thing, with really fast population growth you won't be able to move enough Spathi to other planets fast enough. At least not without something more advanced than Hyperspace. Not necessarily. A large amount of births at once doesn't necessarily mean births take place often, or that maturation occurs quickly. It may be that Spathi always have lots of encrustlings they don't know what to do with, but the little critters grow in batches that don't mature for a while so there's time to send year-long colony expeditions to get rid of them. The time it takes to cross from one side of the Home Sector to the other isn't really that long -- a few years with weak engines, based on game time. A few years is a long time when you're fighting the sort of desperate guerrilla war that Star Control 2 is about, but may not be that big a deal in a relatively peaceful pre-war environment. Anyway, the Spathi don't necessarily need the worlds to support their population -- even if the growth rate is very low, the Spathi are the type to want lots of boltholes and secret hideouts and decoy worlds. Looking at what the Earthguard moonbase was like, their plan might have been to terraform Algol just to trick people into thinking they were settling there. Which makes the needless deaths of the Algolites just that much suckier. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 04, 2004, 05:28:25 am Quote He doesnt, he just has to speak normally and maybe turn up the mic volume and lower the pitch. What about the Umgah, Art? Hee. That was more of a joke than anything else. The real problem is the act, not the voice -- the Captain has no access to the previous transmissions, knows almost nothing about the specifics of Ilwrath religion (other than, y'know, that they like killing and ripping and squelching and stuff) and isn't sure how far he can go with this whole thing without giving away that it's a ruse. The main problem with the whole game is that it may be hard to get into Dogar and Kazon's character and absorb all that histrionic, slavish devotion with a straight face -- the Umgah were barely able to click off the mic before they started giggling. Worth noting that the Umgah of all races probably have the least problem with customizing their voice, appearance, etc., what with their amorphous genetically engineerable bodies. That's probably one reason they do so many practical jokes -- for them it's easy. (And the Umgah caster probably has a built-in "Dogar and Kazon" voice preset to boot.) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 04, 2004, 03:13:24 pm Damn Art, you must have a really boring job and a good internet connection or something. =p
Consider this...If a world was mad, and one man was sane, he would be considered the mad one. If the entire world is obsessed with their religion, with no one to tell them wrong, then that anyone who disagrees is insane, and not worthy. So they are killed off, and eventually they all just go along with it, and find that they eventually like it (Everyones a little bloodthirst). The way i work it around is that maybe its just gross, ideological ignorance, with a massive stubborness problem. Maybe they don't know any better any more, and anyone who tries to stop them is wrong. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 04, 2004, 10:41:14 pm Quote If the entire world is obsessed with their religion, with no one to tell them wrong, then that anyone who disagrees is insane, and not worthy. So they are killed off, and eventually they all just go along with it, and find that they eventually like it (Everyones a little bloodthirst). The way i work it around is that maybe its just gross, ideological ignorance, with a massive stubborness problem. Maybe they don't know any better any more, and anyone who tries to stop them is wrong. Close. I've run out of other things to do before school starts again, and until then I'm living at home with only my PC for company. ;) I think it probably is true that the whole Ilwrath race didn't start out the way it is now, and their nasty tendencies aren't really genetic despite our anti-spider phobias. The Dogar and Kazon cult just has a way of eliminating the competition. But in the end that just means that all the good Ilwrath are dead and evil Ilwrath survived; sure, there's deeper nuances than that, most likely, and everyone's actions are the results of complex histories and not simple moral choices. That doesn't actually excuse them any more than the complex history of the Middle East excuses crazy Al-Qaeda terrorists. I still think there are plenty of logical ways to invent the Ilwrath's history that are consistent with the Pkunk's odd little deduction about the wraparound effect, and some sort of cultural revolution by religious fanatics type thing makes a lot of sense to me. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: jabbrwock on August 04, 2004, 10:45:39 pm Quote I have some problems with that theory. (Despite you stating it as a fact, it's still a theory.) Where do you get the idea that they think replacing humans by Juffo-Wup does them a favour? Humans gets in the way of the Mycon's purposes. When you tell the Mycons about Organon, they offer to implant spores in your brain, with the assurance that you will be more fulfilled. I'm kind of iffy on the Mycon thing, though, they're really hard to understand, and also only have a questionable claim to free will. At best, they can be seen as a race in a perpetual and non-voluntary state of drug induced psychosis, what with all the voices in their heads. I guess whoever designed them put a few too many "magic mushroom" genes in there. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 05, 2004, 07:50:07 pm Like the good captain said. They would go well as a steak sauce.
True, Art, but Al-Quaeda are a minority, a VAST minority. The Dogar and Kazon religion is species wide and is a way of life, and for a long time before they contacted other species (I assume) they stagnated for generations, with nothing to tell them that it was wrong. ?Modern? day Ilwrath are a product of what they were. Theyre like children who were always told that torturing kittens and pulling wings off flies was Evil, and that being Evil was the correct thing. If that child grows to be 40, never meeting another human being, then when it does meet another human, it sure as hell would not change. The Ilwrath are worse, because if they DO change, then their own priest cast (I'm assuming that a new priesthood replaced the anti channel 44's) will butcher them. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Dehumanizer on August 06, 2004, 02:54:05 am Quote The Ilwrath are worse, because if they DO change, then their own priest cast (I'm assuming that a new priesthood replaced the anti channel 44's) will butcher them. Isn't it the other way around? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 07, 2004, 01:48:57 am Quote Not necessarily. A large amount of births at once doesn't necessarily mean births take place often, or that maturation occurs quickly. Ok, I should have said "an average large population growth". But you assumed the same thing when you talked about the motivation to expand. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: meep-eep on August 07, 2004, 01:51:57 am Quote When you tell the Mycons about Organon, they offer to implant spores in your brain, with the assurance that you will be more fulfilled. They may believe they're doing you a favour when they make you that offer yes, but they do not make that offer to everyone. They do not imply they're doing people a favour when killing the people that stand in the way of Juffo-Wup. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: FalconMWC on August 07, 2004, 04:30:27 am Really is to bad you can't say yes to that offer. A ending like your ship covered in "myconish" stuff would be kinda neat in its own way. Sort of like how you can surrender to the Ur-quan.....
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 07, 2004, 05:13:38 am Quote Really is to bad you can't say yes to that offer. A ending like your ship covered in "myconish" stuff would be kinda neat in its own way. Sort of like how you can surrender to the Ur-quan..... The game is having you play the character of the Captain instead of just being yourself and doing whatever you want. The Captain can have multiple personalities -- he can be a cruel slave trader and imperialist, a nice-guy negotiator, a craven coward... For the Captain surrendering to the Kzer-Za isn't totally out of character, since it may be a way he can save his home planet from destruction if all else is lost. I have a hard time picturing a version of the Captain who actually wants to become a mindless slave to Juffo-Wup, however. Same reason why you're never given an option to actually turn off the Taalo Shield when you've got the Dnyarri on board. (I like a fanfic I read which describes how the Captain had the switch to the Taalo Shield fused shut and then locked away from the rest of the ship, so even if his mind weakened it wouldn't be easy to turn it off.) Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: FalconMWC on August 07, 2004, 05:50:05 am I would not be surpised if that did happen (meaning the rock was locked away). Look at what happened when the Captain asked about his powers. *coughFlowerscough*
Regarding the Captain personality - Your right - it would not true to game really - but it would be neat all the same..... :-/ Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 07, 2004, 11:40:32 am Normal fungi on your feet is gross enough =/
I don't know about you guys, but the power/flower conversation with the Dynarri scared the hell out of me. Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Art on August 07, 2004, 03:55:03 pm That little guy seriously gave me the heebly-jeeblies. Definitely one voice I wouldn't vote to re-record; he's so much scarier as such a... *crude*, transparently malicious little bastard than he would be if he were really trying to be intimidating. He just likes playing with people and isn't one bit ashamed of it... "Please send down two of your crew to entertain me, captain. Preferably one male and one female." Brr.
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 07, 2004, 11:44:14 pm I wish there was an option to kill him yourself instead of letting the Sa-Matra explosion do it. There are few things in real life I would personally finish off, but as PC games go, the Dynarri are one of them =p
Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: bobucles on August 08, 2004, 01:22:17 am I wish there was an option to *pretend* you are under Dynarri mind control when you talk to the Ur-Quan. It'd completely freak them out. ;D
Ur-Quan: Who do you take us for, Spathi?! Captain: NO. DON'T - YOU - MEAN - THAT - YOU - TAKE - YOURSELVES - FOR - SPATHI? Ur-Quan: Yes, I mean... You will stop talking like that! We do not take your Dynarri impersinations with good humor! Wait... how could you know how the mind control works...? Title: Re: Evil in SC2 Post by: Sander Scamper on August 08, 2004, 01:31:52 am Wow, thats EVIL!...
I Love it =p |