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Topic: Evil in SC2 (Read 32053 times)
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Spitfire
Zebranky food
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Posts: 9
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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.
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FalconMWC
Enlightened
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Avatar Courtesy of Slyrendro
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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?
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Michael Martin
Core Team
*Smell* controller
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You're not diverting them to get the Aqua Helix. It's to stop the Ilwrath from interdicting a different world entirely.
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Art
Guest
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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).
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Sander Scamper
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I'm not a little teapot
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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.
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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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Art
Guest
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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.
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Art
Guest
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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.
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Art
Guest
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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.
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meep-eep
Forum Admin
Enlightened
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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.
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.
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.
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).
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“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
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. The Aqua Helix can be obtained even without wiping out the Thraddash anyway.