Are We Evil?

[Atrocities]

Ok so your the ruler of a vast stellor empire with enemies all around you. You have commanded your forces to obliterate an enemy planet. Your ships defeat the planets orbital defense and anihilate the planets Weapons Platforms. All you have to do now is drop troops but instead you glass the population from orbit killing 16 Billion people.

Does that make you Evil? Think about it, if that was a real planet, those were real beings, would not what you have just done be considered a crime against the galaxy? Whole sale extermination of the population of an entire planet?

I guess the next logical question would be if you enjoyed exterminating that planets population. Well did you? I hate to say it, but yes, I loved blowing those insects to hell. I mean how dare they be on my planet before I ever even knew it exsisted. What the hell, this is a four X game with on of the X meaning Exterminate.

But if in some far off distant reality those were real living breathing beings, how would you feel about killing them in mass?

The order to commite genocide against an entire planet is an order that I could not give. But then again, who knows the circumstances. What if that planet was filled with 16 billion vampires who have been feeding on your worlds for centuries, then wiping them out would only be the right thing to do. Then again what if they are a planet of women and children vampires? Would the same apply?

Would we as a leader of our own empire not be as evil as those we kill by killing them?

To be an effective leader is to made a decision and never question it. Decisiveness is a weakness that one can not aford when ruling a vast stellor empire. So in the end, burn them or conqeur them it makes little differance. Glass them and your an evil SOB, drop troops and loose them and your a poor leader and will be ousted. Given those alternatives, the Vampires would fry.

[Taera]

The boundaries of human morals would claim that as evil, but more logically/technically sometimes its the only way to go. Of course, not that i'd advocate doing that in real life but face it, it is far more effective.

[Narratio]

And that, Bug my bug, was the decision the US made over Hiroshima... (maybe not Nagasaki, I'm unsure). They projected casualties from an Operation Olympic, compared to testing out the first "real tough toys for real tough boys".

The Japanese fried and we're still discussing it.

[Gryphin]

I think you may recall, I won't glass a planet. I will only capture them.

I find even though it is no more than a bunch of 1s an zeros I still can't get into it.

[oleg]

I don't want to get into another A-bomb discussion, thank you.

As to the original question, what is evil ? I had a relative died of cancer recently. Does it makes cancer cells evil ? But humans are not mindless cells, you say ! Are you sure ? Even if humans have free will - it will be debated forever - does that makes humanity as whole a conscious force for good ? Or are our moral dilemas no more than Brownian motion of tiny cells in a suicadal cancer devouring the life on the planet ?

[Wardad]

ask someone who has done it for real...
...ask the Alien Agent...

[Loser]

I like to avoid genocide, just for economic reasons. I've never played it Gryphin's way, but I may have to try that soon.

In a TDM/FQM game recently I was trying to beat the Rage down enough that they'd surrender. Yeah, the Rage. Surrender. So that didn't happen. But in the process I tried to take their homeworld in Tac combat (High-Med TDM is being difficult, so I'm using Tac)

It had 16 billion on it, and I had two ships of one hundred troops each. Just like expecting the Rage to surrender once I had ten times their score I expected that many troops could take a homeworld. Well, that many troops can't take and FQM homeworld.

The first ship dropped it's troops and they just went away. Dang militia ate them and asked for seconds.

So spent the next twenty-two turns pelting the world with PPB from orbit. This killed about twelve billion Rage, but allowed my troops to take the planet. The Resupply Depot survived the orbital bombardment, so I got just about everything I wanted.

Gryph, would you practice the wholesale slaughter of billions prior to a troop landing?

[tesco samoa]

in one game i play an empire who only gas. as it is their culture and background to do that.

[Renegade 13]

What we'd do in a game, and what we would do in real life are two entirely separate things. Just because at times I tell my ships to bombard an alien homeworld with APB, doesn't mean I could do anything like that in real life. I couldn't plan to kill someone, not unless they had done something absolutely horrible to me, or my family and friends. Then I would kill them. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that just because you'd do something in a game, doesn't mean you'd do it if given the choice, in real life.

[Cipher7071]

This topic from a guy whose chosen name is 'Atrocities.' Twinges of guilt? Or has he just been smoking mother nature and contemplating his navel?

Are chess players evil for playing chess?

[ January 03, 2004, 16:05: Message edited by: Cipher7071 ]