OT A question regarding a culture I'm working on

[Starhawk]

So in other words, someone has to take all the people out of the town, filter the bad guys from the innocents, then destroy the town. If you've filtered out the bad guys, why not deal with them and let the innocents go back to their homes?

Or did you mean the population is just moved wholesale to some other region and then the empty town destroyed? What does that achieve, other than forcing the entire population into poverty and recruiting more dissidents?

No actually what I meant was that basically if they are under fire from a house they destroy the house, they don't risk their own soldiers to try and get the Terrorist OUT of the house before blowing it up and they wont always risk going IN to clear said terrorist nest out.

If under fire from a house they destroy it, unless they are 100% SURE there are hostages in there.

So in the end if you let terrorists use your house as a base you lose your house, its sad but it saves Icaran lives.

Likewise they would blow up Mosque/Church/Graveyards/etc if there were terrorists using them as bases of operations, the average Icaran soldier might feel guilty but they wouldn't let it stop them. And the state as a whole wouldn't feel bad about it.

But there WILL be innocents in there.

There are always innocents caught in the line of fire sadly, its just Icarans wouldn't let a few innocents deaths change their ENTIRE warfighting policy to the extent of say the US where it wont even let them chase known enemies into certain regions.

OK, if that's their attitude, then fair enough. What they do doens't have to make sense, except to them. However it does cast doubt over their claims to respect life and so on. You will have difficulty getting the average reader to feel any kind of sympathy for a people with this attitude, however.

Actually this makes a lot of sense from even a modern political viewpoint, YOUR Citizens are more important then someone else's ESPECIALLY if that someone else is attacking your nation.

Its no more self centered then any other country they are just much more open about it and admit it fully.

Besides, they wouldn't have to attack the schools, would they? They could attack some other school containing only someone else's children. Kill as many of them as possible, in order to show the Icarans how it feels to have your family torn apart. Or target the parents. Or plant bombs in shopping centres and libraries and government buildings and so on and just kill anyone who supports, even passively, the regime that destroyed your life. Keep doing it, against all odds and opposition and oppression until some concession is made to end the violence. That's how terrorism works, and why heaping oppression upon oppression does not solve problems, it just creates more people with nothing to lose.

Well like I said Icaran responses tend to be rather proportional to the amount of resistance they get from your world when the fighting is done.

Basically if they land and take out your military (or your military surrenders) and your people are willing to submit then you get treated rather well, your kids get taken to school for six months out of the year (full course) and then for every other week for the remaining six months (half course). They get to see their family and the culture is slowly assimilated into the Empire.

If however you continue resisting THAT is when they take your kids, steralize your population and wait for you to grow old and die and your kids to take over as proper Imperial citizens.

As far as the "blowing up markets etc" goes that wouldn't work on Icarans because like I said they pretty much leave a conquered population alone aside from certain requirements, the conquered world doesn't see a massive influx of actual Icarans so they'd only be blowing up their own people instead of Icarans.

On a world that fought hard enough to earn the "punishment" I described basically all the Icaran facilities would be mini fortresses that are practically unaproachable with anyhting but a nuke or armored regiment....including the "schools" which would be ON BASE.

And Icarans are patient, they've been bred to be and trained to be so twenty years, thirty, even fifty would simply be seen as a waiting game to a population with SUSTAIN level lifespans. Eventually the dissident population will die off or be too old to be effective, and then your new generation can come in and take over.

But this seems wildly out of character. They don't respect life, they seem quite willing to deprive people of it at the first turn. The sanctity of life is at best a secondary concern to the stability of the Empire (personally, I suspect it's even lower down the list than that) - and as we know, politicians are always willing to label things a threat to the stability/ security of the state in order to push their own agenda. What's more, police are always willing to make the same claims in order to justify the use of the fullest extent of their powers.

And if you ask any Icaran born citizen then they KNOW their life is secondary to the survival of the Empire, and that the ENEMY is even lower down the list. It's not some hidden state secret or conspiracy it is simply the way it is to them.

And as I said I think you over-estimate their eagerness to take life based on the fact they don't respond the same way to threats as we would. They will destroy any armed resistance yes but then again so does any good soldier, they even take POWs when possible. But the survival of THEIR culture is paramount so if another culture has to die then it will.
But that's really no different then any country if it is threatened with its very survival, if it comes down to an "us or them" its usually "them" that get wiped out.

The Empire is a culture of assimiliation, they'd much prefer to let any rebellious elements grow old and die then to actually have to fight them. But at the same time any rebellious element that threatens Icaran lives has to be destroyed.

As long as they *are* unarmed peaceful protestors. As soon as people see that what appear to be peaceful protestors get soft treatment and close contact with a squad of police, one of the state's many many enemies (one of the parents mentioned above, someone who has been beaten and humiliated for some minor crime, someone who is disaffected for some other reason and has no other outlet for his political frustrations) will strap a bomb to themselves, pretend to be a peaceful protestor and then wait for the police to come sauntering up with the handcuffs.

From that moment on, the police will be far less reluctant to just open fire, believe me.

Aye this is true but they have less then lethal weapons, and bomb sniffers that would help with this if someone was dumb enough to blow themselves up in a crowd of their own people that are working for the same goals as them.

FedSec is a single "police" force they are controlled by the Imperial government not local governors (constables are controlled by local governors and are responsible for most petty crimes while major crimes fall under FedSec jurisdiction) so they wouldnt likely open fire just because a local governor flips out and says to.

Also, if everything is forgotten and forgiven immediately, surely the "humiliation" part of the punishment is meaningless..?

Basically as far as the GOVERNMENT is concerned all's forgiven, you still have to prove to your fellow citizens that you learned from your mistake and are willing to grow and move on.

And like I said they actually DO take you for analysis after punishment (like the drunk driver being taken to hospital so they can clean him up) and try and make you "better" if possible.

And actually btw there are cultures that DO still practice public beatings and it is quite an effective means of stopping minor crime as most people dont want to face their peers with the same sort of crime again.

As far as your statements regarding the Neo-Buddists, in a population of billions there are only a few thousand of them left so their overall numbers contribute about jack squat to the strength of the Armed forces. So honoring their "act of pennance" is not difficult.

And I think you misunderstood the government a little, yes the Praetor and High Lords are pretty much absolute but the Nobles themselves are not so much and are answerable to several authorities (the military, the High Lords and Praetor and to some extend their own populace).

So any governor seen as betraying Icaran honor would not likely end up dead.

They are ALL raised to the same standards, noble and citizen, all in the same schools together all taught the same, and for the most part you have to EARN a noble title you cant just walk up and ask for one.

And yes noble families are liable for a draft just like any other fit young Icaran, and they face the same 25 years service.

Even the Praetor's family (except for first born son) and High Lords families are liable for draft and service (in fact it is strongly encouraged for a noble child to serve their Empire).