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Topic: Evil in SC2 (Read 32268 times)
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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.
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Bobucles
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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.
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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.
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Art
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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.
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jabbrwock
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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.
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Lukipela
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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.
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.
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.
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« Last Edit: July 28, 2004, 01:14:01 pm by Lukipela »
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What's up doc?
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Art
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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*.
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.
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.
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.
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Sander Scamper
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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.
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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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jabbrwock
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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.
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jabbrwock
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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.
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FalconMWC
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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.
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