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Topic: Evil in SC2 (Read 23032 times)
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Shiver
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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.
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Cronos
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Shofixti Scoutmaster
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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?
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Cronos
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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.
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Slylendro
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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.
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« Last Edit: July 26, 2004, 01:06:16 pm by Slylendro »
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It is as though your species' brain is too small to hold a simple thought
such as, WE WILL KILL YOU FOR DISOBEYING!
This is not a complex idea.
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Sander Scamper
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I'm not a little teapot
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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?)
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"Oops!" KA-BOOM!!
"Space is a dangerous place where wimps eat flaming plasma death" -The Zot....or is it the Fot?? We may never know...unless the guy in the back tells us!
UQM/SC2 = World Peace.
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Cronos
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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 
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« Last Edit: July 26, 2004, 03:03:40 pm by Cronos »
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Culture20
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Thraddash Flower Child
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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).
That said, I'm going to ignore my own post and try and correct what I believe is a misconception about the Mycon:
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:
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).
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« Last Edit: July 27, 2004, 05:12:40 am by Culture20 »
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Shiver
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"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.
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0xDEC0DE
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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:
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.
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.
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!
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"I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me… unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth." --Fry
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