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Nothing against canon (which works just fine in this regard); just a thought exercise speculating about the 'what if' notion that, rather than resorting to war (even if hopefully bloodless), the GTVA security council had tried to negotiate a joint solution to the Terran problem with the UEF's leadership. In essence, would some kind of feasible, effective solution have been possible, even theoretically, or was the situation just too much for both sides to reconcile satisfactorily?
Now, knowing that there could very well be 'X' unknown unknown factors that are currently hidden from the players that change the entire dynamic significantly (and moving forward with this exercise regardless, as short of the dev team telling/hinting to us, it's pointless to get caught up in them), the major goals of both sides are at least moderately capable of coexisting/coinciding.
GTA:
1) Prevent ideological splintering/rifts
2) Prevent large-scale abandonment of newer/outer colonies
3) Prevent massive exodus from many GTA colonies to Sol
4) Prevent GTA (and GTVA by extension) from splintering into several factions
5) Avert the spread and growth of Ubuntu's pacifist, antimilitary policies/mentalities
6) Ensure that Council of Elders does not achieve/maintain major decision-making power in government (at least in a legal, effective sense)
7) Prevent and curtail potential Vishnan (and/or Shivan) influence over leadership, military, and culture.
UEF:
1) Maintain/preserve the key aspects of its culture, workings, and philosophies
2) Preserve the Council of Elders as a cultural (and indirectly political) entity--not so much for actual authority or power, but as its core purpose as a long-term, culturally-mandated guiding committee that works primarily via cultural influence and not legal authority
3) Preserve its general methodology of neocapitalist (or something similar enough) economic models, science/data-based approach to economic management, improvement, and development.
4) Coinciding with #3, preserving the mandate of working to achieve everyone's full potential
5) Retain enough political/cultural security to ensure that these things are not simply chipped away at or suddenly removed by legal/military acts.
There's a lot of broad interpretation here, and the devil could very well be in the details. However, hypothetically, a joint solution may be possible:
A) The UEF, Council of Elders, et al, actively supports (both culturally and legally) an emigration from Sol, rather than a mass immigration, to (in a sense) bring the figurative 'utopia' of Sol to the rest of the Terran worlds. Not only is a much-needed cultural boost provided to many Terran colonies, a massive morale boost is brought as well--figuratively speaking, the Petrarch Doctrine finally pays off and Sol/home is brought to the Tevs, rather than the Tevs going back to Sol.
B) The UEF, Council of Elders, et al, makes a public proclaimation/shift in official policy of a greater focus to strengthening the defense of the GTVA/Sol against the Shivans, with Sol specializing in aiding the economic recovery of the Terran half of the GTVA and boosting the military and civilian infrastructure. Mention could be made of deferring to the highly experienced, well-proven military expertise and skill with defending against the Shivans, for the time being.
C) The UEF would become something of a third component of the GTVA (or at least start out as such, as part of a gradual transition), maintaining a degree of autonomy/federal sovereignty while ultimately being part of (and subject to) the GTVA.
D) Privately (but legally), the Council of Elders would agree to work with and vocally support the will of the GTVA Security Council for at least the near future, working to prevent the (valid and significant) fears of the GTVA SC (diaspora to Sol, cultural splintering, etc) from coming to pass.
Would anything like that have worked? I know that it's hard to imagine the Security Council and UEF taking such risks to give something like this a shot (even to talk about the possibility) under the circumstances, but for curiosity's sake, how might have such a hypothetical direction have turned out?
And would Laporte still have been made Requisitions Officer for Admiral Byrne's Testicles?
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This is a very cool concept. I suspect the Security Council probably spent a while working on this problem itself.
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You kind of mentioned this in point B, but the GTVA would likely like access to UEF military technology to see what could better their own arsenal against the Shivans.
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Since nobody's arguing the other side, I'll advance a pretty high-level theoretical objection here, one that's likely been granularized and reified a bit by GTVA analysis: when the periphery attempts to integrate the center, the center assimilates the periphery. It happened to the Mongols in China.
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when the periphery attempts to integrate the center, the center assimilates the periphery.
Could you elaborate on this a bit? What exactly does this mean?
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Center/periphery is a slightly simplistic historical model which - I am slightly tied down so I'm gonna be super lazy and just post up something from Google:
This particular approach to political analysis comes in three forms. First, the commonly called modern world system analysis is a theory of the international political economy rooted in a perspective which argues that since the rise of capitalism and the nation state in the sixteenth century global market forces, not domestic ones, have determined national economic development or underdevelopment. The structural form of this process, which has persisted over time, is one in which core manufacturing states dominate, exploit, and make dependent, peripheral (and sometimes semi-peripheral) states which operate primarily as raw material producers for the core. In short, peripheral countries exist, and have always existed, to service the economies of core countries. World politics must be understood in terms of this unequal division of labour. Hence capitalism, rather than contributing to the development of the global periphery, ensures the ‘development of underdevelopment’. The theory does allow for dominant centres within the core. Examples would be Britain in the nineteenth century and the United States in the twentieth century.
Second, the theory of internal colonialism is in many ways an offshoot of the first. Here the stress is on the unequal division of labour, exploitation, and dependency within singleton core or peripheral countries. Internal colonialism is concerned with patterns of domestic territorial inequality and with the various ways (not just economic) a core, or centre region, controls and exploits a peripheral region or regions.
Thirdly, the centre-periphery framework has been employed by some analysts as an approach to central-local relations, alternative to the intergovernmentalist bias of the traditional literature. Here the emphasis is on the variety of mechanisms by which the political centre seeks to control, or manage, or avoid dealing with, the rest of the national territory (the periphery or peripheries). This certainly opens up the study of central-local relations and inserts a much-needed concern with the centre. On the other hand, it suffers from a degree of uncertainty about the precise principal actor focus in the periphery.
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I think a pure emmigration from Sol wouldn't work.
The Terrans were promised Earth and what they really get is a neighbor from Earth?
If they open the portal both ways - a "citizen exchange programm" if you will - I think it has better chances of working. The GTVA could either make a lottery (for the satisfaction of the masses) or handpick the ones believing most in the GTVA philosophies (in the hopes of spreading their own philosophies inside Sol) to be sent to Sol.
One thing that might work in the favour of the GTVA is, that the "outer powers" - the martians and jovians - seem to be the more adverturous of the Sol citizens and thus more likely to take up the offer of living outside Sol. Since they aren't "true believers" of Ubuntu, so to say, they are less likely to be the source of any rift, if they settle in GTVA terretory.
I doubt the technological side of the treaty would be problematic.
If anything I would expect them to collaborate (with them I mean UEF, Terrans AND Vasudans, if they are willing to play along) in this regard. Now that they are no longer sheltered, the UEF has a vast interrest of being as prepared as possible for a Shivan attack. The UEF might try to find a different way of dealing with the Shivans, but in my opinion the existance of their fleet (especially the Solaris and heavy bombers) shows they aren't taking it for granted that a conflic with the Shivans can be avoided and try to be prepared for them.
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Since nobody's arguing the other side, I'll advance a pretty high-level theoretical objection here, one that's likely been granularized and reified a bit by GTVA analysis: when the periphery attempts to integrate the center, the center assimilates the periphery. It happened to the Mongols in China.
Question: How does having a war necessarily prevent this? (The Mongols example again.) I mean, we can't really have the GTVA just throw a war because they don't know what else to do.
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It may not prevent it in the actual historical timeline, but computers may have calculated it as the best shot they had against Ubuntu's pacifistic Ghandian disease.
The key point here by the GTVA is to destroy Ubuntu's philosophical shenanigans, to show how decrepit and suicidal the whole ideology is, not to "deal with it", to "negociate with it" and so on. GTVA is neoconservative in this regard, it does not believe in full blown liberalism, it believes instead that this Ghandian liberalism is the recipe towards a nihilistic embrace of relativism, of an extreme "understanding" of any enemy, and ultimately towards a total incompetence at self-defense. An incompetence which is amazingly dangerous in an apocalyptic universe filled with Shivans.
Let me Segway slightly here, because I find this parenthesis very interesting and it has occupied my mind recently (when I think about BP): I find the ideological connections very curious, since Ghandi was referenced by Laporte, and Ghandian philosophy was influenced by a letter friend of him, Leo Tolstoi. Now, Tolstoi believed in an extreme version of non-violence and civil disobedience, a belief that was very well written into his account of the Napoleonic invasions of Russia.
In his War and Peace, the overwhelmingly hated general Kutuzov (that apparently got his job of defending Russia from Napoleon because he was the only russian general in Russia, imagine that) kept retreating his troops instead of facing them head on in battle*. Later, he decided to give Napoleon Moscow. Now that was a completely controversial decision. However, it was done in a way not dissimilar to Ghandian thought. Let the bully have what he wants. Let him celebrate. Let him get drunk in satisfaction. And then, when his army is left without purpose or motivation, we will pursue them and avenge our city. And so they did, and without ever actually engaging his army, Napoleon was chased down to Russian borders and when he left Russia his army was but a small contingent of diseased men (all the others had disbanded, deserted, wounded, dead by famine or cold).
Kutuzov was at his best by deciding not to wage Napoleon. And Ghandi proposed an even more extreme version of this, by actually declining to porsue a military victory (like Kutuzov), but a psichological victory. This may sound perverted but these are actual quotes by Ghandi:
Whatever Hitler may ultimately prove to be, we know what Hitlerism has come to mean, It means naked, ruthless force reduced to an exact science and worked with scientific precision. In its effect it becomes almost irresistible.
Hitlerism will never be defeated by counter-Hitlerism. It can only breed superior Hitlerism raised to nth degree. What is going on before our eyes is the demonstration of the futility of violence as also of Hitlerism.
What will Hitler do with his victory? Can he digest so much power? Personally he will go as empty-handed as his not very remote predecessor Alexander. For the Germans he will have left not the pleasure of owning a mighty empire but the burden of sustaining its crushing weight. For they will not be able to hold all the conquered nations in perpetual subjection. And I doubt if the Germans of future generations will entertain unadulterated pride in the deeds for which Hitlerism will be deemed responsible. They will honour Herr Hitler as genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more. But I should hope that the Germans of the future will have learnt the art of discrimination even about their heroes. Anyway I think it will be allowed that all the blood that has been spilled by Hitler has added not a millionth part of an inch to the world’s moral stature.
Harijan (22 June 1940), after Nazi victories resulting in the occupation of France.
Or in a more damning letter to the Brits in 1940:
I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.
The GalTevs will have none of this shenanigan. To them, the world is clearly defined in a binary way: there are good guys (Humans and Vasudans) and the bad guys (Shivans), the story is one of Apocalypse and redemption, of human agency of Good against Evil, of cowboy sheriffs against a mob of evil-doers. The very thought of surrender and let Shivans do as they please is high treason. Ghandi did not know of Hitler's final solution and Ubuntu does not seem to understand Vasuda Prime or Capella.
To force the UEF to respond, to wage war, and then to defeat them anyway is their method of ruining the Elder's pacifistic ideals. If these abandon such ideals and instead resort to a much better violent process of dealing with enemies, then the GTVA has at least destroyed the first-order threat of Ubuntu. This much at least they were able to accomplish already. The UEF fought back, the Wargods were created and defeated. Laporte herself was converted (by both the GTVA and Ken) from Ubuntu towards something else entirely. She now is forced to see the world in black and white (more literally, black and red), and to choose sides. No more "understanding of the enemy". Only one side will be rendered righteous, the other must be named evil. No more hesitation.
The big question remains: is Ubuntu right at the end, or are the neo-con galtevs?
*He did battle before Moscow against Napoleon, losing more soldiers than the french, but in the novel this was done despite his desire not to. Everyone around him wanted too much to battle Napoleon.
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The problem with thinking about peace is that the GTA already judged such approach as non-profitable, they would be assimilated as battuta put it, so they want to purge the core of the Periphery and replace it with their own.
The way the Galatevs see things are simple:
-Assimilation by UEF
-Annihilation by Shivans
Both of them are undesired by what by now has probably degenerated into a semi-imperialist/fascist government out of belief of necessity for survival.
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I don't quite get why you bring up the Russians defense against Napoleon. The UEF didn't constantly reatreat without fighting back... they fought and lost all the "ground" the GTVA now occupies. The UEF even went so far that, when it was inevitable that they'd lose a station, they destroyed it, to prevent it from falling into GTVA hands.... untill they failed to do so in time with Artemis station.
And the word "fought" alone should be enough to prevent any comparision with Ghandi. They might have adopted a few ideas, but the UEF are not pacifists. They have an army and they are using it to fight. They might look for alternatives to the fighting, but still they are fighting.
Though the UEF is kind of giving credence to what Ghandi wrote in the letter of your second quote, becuase by fighting against the GTVA they become more like them.
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Yeah thanks for violently agreeing with me. That's nice.
EDIT: To be less terse, I am comparing Kutuzov with Admiral Byrne.
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Another monumental quality post. I guess I'll just jump in to back it up -
Since nobody's arguing the other side, I'll advance a pretty high-level theoretical objection here, one that's likely been granularized and reified a bit by GTVA analysis: when the periphery attempts to integrate the center, the center assimilates the periphery. It happened to the Mongols in China.
Question: How does having a war necessarily prevent this? (The Mongols example again.) I mean, we can't really have the GTVA just throw a war because they don't know what else to do.
You're absolutely right, there's nothing inherent about war that prevents it. But the Mongols were, anecdotally, convinced to rule by tax and to leverage many of the existing Chinese institutions. War solves the GTVA's problem if it gives the GTVA the ability to dismantle whatever power structures make the center capable of assimilation - de-Ubuntification. As far as the GTVA's concerned, there's not really any such thing as soft power; it always comes down to assets, whether shipping, scientific campuses, or individual brains.
Of course the trick is to do this without losing the economic and scientific capabilities of the center.
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As Stalin once said, How Many Divisions does the Pope of Rome Have?
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Yeah thanks for violently agreeing with me. That's nice.
EDIT: To be less terse, I am comparing Kutuzov with Admiral Byrne.
Oh I see... I put it down to "lost in translation" :nervous:
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I like this discussion :). I have a few questions:
How can Gandhi's nonviolence survive an immoral slayer? Nonviolence might give you a moral and psychological victory against those you share your same references (logic, moral, instincts, biology, etc...). But can nonviolence expect any result in a truly relativistic universe? How could it work in the face of a truly alien enemy?
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Ghandi's strategy worked because the British wanted to actually rule India. It wouldn't have worked against an enemy that wanted to exterminate India's population.
If an enemy just wants to kill you, all non-violence does is make it easier for them do do so. If a building's on fire, surrendering won't prevent the fire from burning it down. Fighting it might.
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In regards to the OP:
I think that's a good idea.
However, by now it's probably too late.
So I just have to hope for an outright GTVA win. :p
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Well according to Ken (Bosch) the GTVA is doomed no matter what happens
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Well according to Ken (Bosch) the GTVA is doomed no matter what happens
Assuming he's trustworthy, exists, and knows everything necessary to make that judgement.
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If Ken is convinced that mankind is doomed anyway, then why tell Neomi that she has to decide which side would survive?
I like this discussion :). I have a few questions:
How can Gandhi's nonviolence survive an immoral slayer? Nonviolence might give you a moral and psychological victory against those you share your same references (logic, moral, instincts, biology, etc...). But can nonviolence expect any result in a truly relativistic universe? How could it work in the face of a truly alien enemy?
I didn't mean the War In Heaven would fully validate the whole letter. Just that in the one point I mentioned he seems to have been right, in regards to the UEF losing part of their identity and becoming more like the GTVA by fighting them. Of course the alternative is most likely even worse, so this "insight" is pretty much useless untill the conflict is over.
At least for the UEF it's useless, while the GTVA might use this fact for their propaganda.
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I don't buy this whole Ken(Bosch) thing to be trustworthy, fr me, it's an attempt to manipulate Noemi, just like the Vishnans tried this with Sam.
So what, this is a proxy war or what?
Just my thoughts, so you don't need to grind me into dust^^
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Except Noemi a) probably has at best a vague idea of who Bosch was, b) likely doesn't know anything about Bosch's Shivan ambitions, which the GTVA are unlikely to publicly announce and c) hasn't seen more than vague hints as to his identity, particularly considering that the most telling clue, the cargo crates, is only visible in FRED.
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This was why I put Bosch in brackets man.
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What I mean is that it's not likely to be a deliberate attempt to make him look like Bosch; it all flew right over Laporte's head.
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It's not that Ken is masquerading as Bosch, the implication is that Ken is Bosch. Laporte doesn't have to know that he's Bosch or even know who Bosch is to be manipulated by him. Pretty sure the cargo containers are a meta thing for the players to discover, not a representation of in-universe information for the characters to discover.
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I was actually responding to crizza.
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While I personally detest pacifism because it promises just too much for what it can actually provide (while snarkily name-calling everyone else as grotesque violent people), one should analyse it as potentially "viable" inside a narrative like BP. One must be somewhat open to the possibility that a different context like the one described where beings like Shivan and Vishnan exist can indeed turn viable such an obsolete point of view, or indeed turn the tables upside down to whatever kind of ideological truths we may hold dear in our present.
e: Think of the above in a darwinian sense. While today any pacifist nation would be "dead-on-arrival", one can create alternative universes where Shivanesque creatures select and destroy civilizations based on signals of their attitude. In such an universe, a nauseatingly naive civilization filled with kumbayah polyanna behavior would survive while a more "down-to-earth" self-defending common-sensical civilization (to our standards) would not - the first would go unnoticed or unselected, while the second would be exterminated.
This means that any "irrational behavior" can be justifiable if that behavior is rewarded by not being targeted and exterminated by the outside force. Weird behavioral branching is then allowed to exist, completely lunatic civilizations with weird irrational beliefs and actions are possibly allowed to do better than usual ones.
That's, btw, the "problem" of existing godlike creatures, it messes everything up that badly.
Furthermore, it is patently obvious that there's a lot of meddling of these gods unto the higher positions of each faction, which it even makes this whole mess even more messier. One should make the questions of whether peace was really impossible due to the reasons given by galtevs, or if it was just "made" impossible by some kind of nagari influence meddling up the anxiety levels of galtev officials. The scenario of a "proxy war" by crizza must surely have gone through every mind in this particular universe. It can be even worse: a remake of Job's life being used as a bet between god and the devil (read the bible ffs).
So there's just so much going on. Anytime the big trump card that stomps every other mortal card can be placed on the table, and all the previous analysis goes out the window.
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I was actually responding to crizza.
Oh, I see. I think we're both saying the same thing here. Whether Ken is Bosch or not makes no difference to Laporte.
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She'll probably find out who he is later
If Ken is convinced that mankind is doomed anyway, then why tell Neomi that she has to decide which side would survive?
Ken didn't say mankind was doomed, just that Laporte could save it by destroying the GTVA
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While I personally detest pacifism because it promises just too much for what it can actually provide (while snarkily name-calling everyone else as grotesque violent people), one should analyse it as potentially "viable" inside a narrative like BP. One must be somewhat open to the possibility that a different context like the one described where beings like Shivan and Vishnan exist can indeed turn viable such an obsolete point of view, or indeed turn the tables upside down to whatever kind of ideological truths we may hold dear in our present.
e: Think of the above in a darwinian sense. While today any pacifist nation would be "dead-on-arrival", one can create alternative universes where Shivanesque creatures select and destroy civilizations based on signals of their attitude. In such an universe, a nauseatingly naive civilization filled with kumbayah polyanna behavior would survive while a more "down-to-earth" self-defending common-sensical civilization (to our standards) would not - the first would go unnoticed or unselected, while the second would be exterminated.
This means that any "irrational behavior" can be justifiable if that behavior is rewarded by not being targeted and exterminated by the outside force. Weird behavioral branching is then allowed to exist, completely lunatic civilizations with weird irrational beliefs and actions are possibly allowed to do better than usual ones.
That's, btw, the "problem" of existing godlike creatures, it messes everything up that badly.
Furthermore, it is patently obvious that there's a lot of meddling of these gods unto the higher positions of each faction, which it even makes this whole mess even more messier. One should make the questions of whether peace was really impossible due to the reasons given by galtevs, or if it was just "made" impossible by some kind of nagari influence meddling up the anxiety levels of galtev officials. The scenario of a "proxy war" by crizza must surely have gone through every mind in this particular universe. It can be even worse: a remake of Job's life being used as a bet between god and the devil (read the bible ffs).
So there's just so much going on. Anytime the big trump card that stomps every other mortal card can be placed on the table, and all the previous analysis goes out the window.
Yes, but this thread was made under the hypothetical scenario in which we put aside the various possibilities that some random plot twist throws all of our knowledge on its head--as it's pointless to debate when unknown unknowns are allowed to override everything in the hypothetical scenario. The inevitable conclusion of it is, basically, what you said in your last sentence: we have no idea what is really going on under those circumstances.
Thus, the hypothetical: using only what we KNOW, right now, at this point in the story, is a peaceful solution possible (or would it have been possible at some point before the war, or early into it)?
As for the center/periphery idea: very intriguing. However, in this case, I'm thinking it to be more of a case of the center coordinating with the periphery to somewhat mitigate and blend the merging. The center actively becomes more like the periphery in the ways that are critical, and the center spreads out to the periphery at least as much as the periphery immigrates to the center. The periphery and the center (as in, their leadership) become one voice, so to speak, from the beginning, so that the eventual merging can happen more closely to their terms.
In theory, anyway.
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Gradually merging and meeting halfway to make a more solid whole? Sounds pretty Ubuntu... ;7
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Bumping since this was one of my favorite threads in a while and I really liked the idea of it.
I'm still a Tev/GTVA supporter, but this idea would probably have given the GTVA 90% of what they want for 90% less work.
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After playing Act 3, there's no way the GTVA can or should meet the Elders halfway. Not only the existence, but the freedom of the human race is at stake here, and
MEGA SPOILER
there's no way humanity should be told what to do by the lapdogs of the Vishnans.
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After playing Act 3, there's no way the GTVA can or should meet the Elders halfway. Not only the existence, but the freedom of the human race is at stake here, and
MEGA SPOILER
there's no way humanity should be told what to do by the lapdogs of the Vishnans.
I agree it's likely too late now for a negotiated/gradual merging of the UEF-GTVA, but the question is was this possible at the beginning of the conflict?
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No, because the GTVA have long suspected that the Elders are under external influence and they have absolutely ruled out peace for a long time now.
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Or the Tevs might not want to be taking orders from mysterious alien overlords with unknown motives and objectives.
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With Act III released, it seems humanity is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Shivan/Vishnan goals.
The Shivans continue their directive to cull violent species. The Vishnans deem any 'lesser' race that succumbs to violent behavior worthy of purging.
The UEF leadership is hopelessly compromised by the Vishnans, even more hypocritical, they've apparently tired of their new pets and decided they aren't worth the trouble of preserving after all.
The Shivans on the other had are no saviors either. They have sworn again and again they WILL purge humanity and the Vasudans along with them. The only thing they're willing to offer is a vague promise from Ken that if Laporte serves as their lapdog, the apocalypse may be cancelled. The issue is, the Shivans are a collective of ancient, reactive, whirlwinds of destruction. They're untrustworthy, and their directives are seemingly broken. They've butchered whole worlds and have done so like a person stepping on ant. There is no reason to take anything they have to say at face value. Once again, like Capella, the only option is to find a way to survive.
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there's no way humanity should be told what to do by the lapdogs of the Vishnans.
You do realize that those "lapdogs" brought humanity to one of the longest and most prosperous era of peace and advancement humanity ever met ?
Clearly if we need alien influence to finally reach peace and advancement because we humans are too retarded to reach it on our own (after millennia of human civilizations that were nothing more than millennia of warmongering among ourselves !), I don't see how you could argue that we have any right at independence from them.
You would do well to not forget that when speaking ill of the Elders. Collaboration with aliens or not, this was the first time humanity had any real, tangible and long-term hope for its future.
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Is being a misanthropic cynic just part of being French?
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Do you want to start arguing facts ?
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If you want to put your unconditional trust in beings far too vast to have a truly comprehensible purpose, let alone foreseeable plans at the microscopic scale of humanity, then please don't drag the rest of us with you.
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If you'd rather have a life of warmongering, destruction, poverty, sadness and constant fear from Shivans instead, be my guest !
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You act like the alternative is demonstrably better.
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You mean the facts that the UEF was at peace and had a prosperity and a level of education the GTVA could only dream of ? Yeah, I definitely can see how that is not better than the alternative.
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What the Vishnans giveth, the Vishnans can taketh away.
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You mean the facts that the UEF was at peace and had a prosperity and a level of education the GTVA could only dream of ? Yeah, I definitely can see how that is not better than the alternative.
However they had a closed system, and the results that brings about especially after knowing that there was a wide open universe out there, and that it is now forever shut off to them after being full of xenocidal aliens trying to burn planets.
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This isn't any kind of word of God, just rumination, but - how outraged should we really be that any component of the UEF/Ubuntu program was 'dictated' by the Vishnans?
FS1 Alpha 1 knew the Ancients' crime was sin. S/he clearly believed that there was some evaluative moral component to the Shivan threat. The Elders apparently successfully determined the details of this acid test and developed a plan of action to successfully negotiate it. Isn't that good grand strategy?
I'm not saying nobody should be alarmed by it. Nor am I saying that FS1 Alpha 1 was necessarily right about the motivations behind the criteria (be good or else!). I am saying that (as, hopefully, with everything in BP) there's a case on both sides.
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There's no pride to take in the UEF. Humanity didn't make it, the Vishnans did. I'd rather have an imperfect human world than a utopia handed to me from on high.
By accepting Vishnan control, we merely trade one form of apocalypse for another. The Vishnans would kill the soul of humanity as surely as the Shivans would kill its body.
I hate the Vishnans for the same reason I hate the Abrahamic God (religion is not the topic of this thread, let's not have a debate about it). We accept to be controlled "for our own good" or we die. I'd rather die fighting.
If the Shivan alternative doesn't result in us being left alone, **** them too.
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I'd rather have a world where everyone is happy, cooperation with aliens or not, than the alternative. Humanity has shown far and wide that despite all our millennia of civilization we are still barely better than animals fighting among themselves for a whole bunch of petty reasons. The Elder's plan brought peace, prosperity and happiness. Who cares if aliens are behind it, as long as everyone has enough to eat, to be happy, has education, has freedom of speech and everything else ?
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Cooperation with and controlled by are two different things. Perhaps you see it as the former. I don't.
And I do think it matters where our achievements come from. They mean so much more when they're truly our achievements, rather than handed to us.
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Cooperation with and controlled by are two different things. Perhaps you see it as the former. I don't.
And I do think it matters where our achievements come from. They mean so much more when they're truly our achievements, rather than handed to us.
Was the Ubuntu program something less than a genuinely human project, though? (again, real question, not leading!)
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I can't say for sure, but I'd say it's one of the Vishnan ideas, or at least its spread is a result of their help. Seems to me that the places where Ubuntu has the biggest hold are the places where the Elders (and ergo, Vishnan intentions) are least challenged. But I can't say for sure.
The Jovians, for instance, aren't much different from what the GTVA would be if they didn't have that economic depression and the Shivans to deal with. They're the least - er - Ubuntu humans in Sol save for the Gefs. And their admiral is the one our heroine runs to for help because she can't trust the Elders. They're the least controlled.
Peace between the Jovians and the GTVA may not be impossible.
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And I do think it matters where our achievements come from. They mean so much more when they're truly our achievements, rather than handed to us.
And I for one believe that when we're talking about the prosperity and happiness of humanity, it doesn't matter one bit whether it was offered to us or not.
The Jovians, for instance, aren't much different from what the GTVA would be if they didn't have that economic depression and the Shivans to deal with. They're the least - er - Ubuntu humans in Sol save for the Gefs. And their admiral is the one our heroine runs to for help because she can't trust the Elders. The least controlled.
Which didn't prevent them from accepting and profiting from Ubuntu's prosperity and happiness. Should say something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth now, doesn't it.
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So what's your point? That the Jovians profited from their incorporation in the UEF? Of course they did. Would the UEF's prosperity be possible without Ubuntu and/or Vishnan interference? Maybe, maybe not. But who's to say what the GTVA would be like if the Second Incursion hadn't happened?
The Vasudans seem to get along fairly well without the Vishnans.
Or are the Vishnans controlling them too? (serious question, not rhetorical)
And I for one believe that when we're talking about the prosperity and happiness of humanity, it doesn't matter one bit whether it was offered to us or not.
I disagree.
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There's no pride to take in the UEF. Humanity didn't make it, the Vishnans did. I'd rather have an imperfect human world than a utopia handed to me from on high.
By accepting Vishnan control, we merely trade one form of apocalypse for another. The Vishnans would kill the soul of humanity as surely as the Shivans would kill its body.
I hate the Vishnans for the same reason I hate the Abrahamic God (religion is not the topic of this thread, let's not have a debate about it). We accept to be controlled "for our own good" or we die. I'd rather die fighting.
If the Shivan alternative doesn't result in us being left alone, **** them too.
Without a theology discussion, the reverse is actually true. The God of the Old testament offers free choice, with consequences for breaking the rules. Obviously some find that abhorrent, others comforting. The nature of man is not being changed, only being held accountable. Much like the Shivans. The Genocidal Ancients were themselves destroyed. An eye for an eye. The issue with the Shivans seems to be, their motives for existing are seemingly breaking down. They're unstable, breaking their own protocols and upsetting the galactic balance again.
The Vishnans aren't the same. According to BP's database, they are fundamentally altering the way humans think and behave on a massive level. Their motives are secret, their control is secret, they are altering humans at a social and individual level. It is horrifying. The GTVA is right to conclude, however benevolent the Vishnans appear to be, they are still altering humans from our base line and their control over our civilization is unacceptable.
Do you believe mankind has a right to choose its own fate? Be that good or bad? Then you should be freaked by the Vishnans.
Do you believe mankind is awful and the only way we'll ever change is if someone FORCES us to? Then you should welcome the Vishnans.
Mankind's new golden age is NOT, mankind's golden age. It's the Vishnans, a result of their social engineering.
This isn't any kind of word of God, just rumination, but - how outraged should we really be that any component of the UEF/Ubuntu program was 'dictated' by the Vishnans?
FS1 Alpha 1 knew the Ancients' crime was sin. S/he clearly believed that there was some evaluative moral component to the Shivan threat. The Elders apparently successfully determined the details of this acid test and developed a plan of action to successfully negotiate it. Isn't that good grand strategy?
I'm not saying nobody should be alarmed by it. Nor am I saying that FS1 Alpha 1 was necessarily right about the motivations behind the criteria (be good or else!). I am saying that (as, hopefully, with everything in BP) there's a case on both sides.
The issue is, is a medicine powerful enough to kill the patient worth the price?
Stopping genocide, war, hatred, that's all wonderful. But that can't be engineered out us.
The Elders and Alpha One's plan could very well be successful in warding off another Shivan invasion if left in total isolation. The consequence is, would it really be human civilization that survived? Or something "else?" something "alien"?
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I don't think "do as I say or die" is free will. By that standard, you might say a slave is free, because he can say no all he wants, but he'll suffer the consequences.
That's what these two are doing. They're holding us to some arbitrary standards and killing us (or allowing us to be killed) if we don't meet them. The Christian God does the same exact thing, but replace death with eternal torment. The comparison is an apt one.
But I really don't want to have a discussion about religion, so I won't post about it again.
But yes, the Vishnans are also attempting to force us to meet those standards by means other than the threat of annihilation. To spare us from the fire, the Elders would sacrifice what makes us human. I find it abhorrent.
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What are the Elders sacrificing? What part of their plan could definitively not be achieved without Vishnan intervention, and what cost are they paying in humanity?
I ask this not out of an attempt to put my finger on the scales but to tease out some of the difficulty here. Did Samuel Bei choose to save his comrades and be reunited with his family, or was he coerced into that choice? Did he pay a price, or make a mutually beneficial trade?
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The Vishnans aren't the same. According to BP's database, they are fundamentally altering the way humans think and behave on a massive level. Their motives are secret, their control is secret, they are altering humans at a social and individual level. It is horrifying.
Or is it ? They're improving our condition. Improving our behaviour. Improving our lives. That's not something to be horrified of.
Do you believe mankind has a right to choose its own fate? Be that good or bad? Then you should be freaked by the Vishnans.
Do you believe mankind is awful and the only way we'll ever change is if someone FORCES us to? Then you should welcome the Vishnans.
Humanity's been given millennia to choose its own fate. Look where this got us. If humanity has not stopped one bit to behave like petty animals despite all out civilisation and technological advancement and stuff, then we need a shepherd, or stay beasts forever.
The Elders and Alpha One's plan could very well be successful in warding off another Shivan invasion if left in total isolation. The consequence is, would it really be human civilization that survived? Or something "else?" something "alien"?
Something else doesn't mean something worse. You're just afraid of change.
EDIT: So what if the Elder's plan has had Vishnan involvement. What prevents you from accepting it if it's good for us ? Just because it's not 100% pure human-bred, really ? You would let petty human pride go in the way of human advancement ? Sacrifice the future and happiness of billions because they took advice from elsewhere ?
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It seems like a lot of the question here is whether the Vishnans said 'here's the blueprint, make it happen', or whether the Elders said 'what's the end goal? We're a smart, resourceful species, we'll figure out a way'.
I personally lean towards the latter; the UEF was a human achievement.
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And the only alternative is allowing aliens to play with our DNA to make us better on their terms?
I'm not quite as pessimistic on the human condition. War is a problem, crime is a problem. But we're not in the pre historic past. We have some concepts, religious or otherwise, of compassion, law, altruism. Several times in the last century, we had an opportunity to nuke ourselves back to the stone age, and we didn't. It's a long shot, but human nature is not set in stone.
To me, it reminds me of Rasczak aside (keep in mind I'm not bringing Starship Trooper's politics into this), that being given a first place medal when you've EARNED forth isn't a victory at all. It's a shame.
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And the only alternative is allowing aliens to play with our DNA to make us better on their terms?
Wait, hang on. Since when is DNA manipulation involved? Let's not get into hyperbole here.
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It seems like a lot of the question here is whether the Vishnans said 'here's the blueprint, make it happen', or whether the Elders said 'what's the end goal? We're a smart, resourceful species, we'll figure out a way'.
That's exactly the question. How much of the UEF are the Vishnans responsible for?
I don't know. Maybe you're right and the UEF is a human achievement. But will that remain so in the future? If they give us a utopia by threatening us and possibly mind controlling us into fitting into it, would we still be human? If neither we nor our society are allowed to be imperfect, I'd say a great deal of what makes us human has been lost.
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You say that like if staying human (whatever definition of "human" you are using) is a goal in itself. Happiness for all, prosperity and education seem more important objectives to me.
Do Vasudans being born Vasudans mean they failed ?
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You say that like if staying human (whatever definition of "human" you are using) is a goal in itself. Happiness for all, prosperity and education seem more important objectives to me.
Do Vasudans being born Vasudans mean they failed ?
No, but the bigger issue is the Vishnans have already written off humanity according to Bei. They've issued a kill order to the Shivans and the gears are in motion. So yes, the Vishnans are all about peace, love, prosperity, and if you deviate from their grand scheme for 18 months in a war of self defense (from the perspective of the UEF), they'll write you off and throw your whole race to the wolves. Even the most antagonistic depictions of Yahweh aren't that bad.
So, yes, the UEF are expendable pawns in the eyes of the Vishnans. We've seen nothing to indicate they care anything about the long term benefit of our species. Even assuming the GTVA was 100% in the wrong in attacking Sol, the Vishnans view that act of war as a failure on the part of the UEF as well. How is THAT fair and impartial? Nearly everyone in Sol wanted the same thing as the Vishnans, and they will all die on a whim.
It seems like a lot of the question here is whether the Vishnans said 'here's the blueprint, make it happen', or whether the Elders said 'what's the end goal? We're a smart, resourceful species, we'll figure out a way'.
That's exactly the question. How much of the UEF are the Vishnans responsible for?
I don't know. Maybe you're right and the UEF is a human achievement. But will that remain so in the future? If they give us a utopia by threatening us and possibly mind controlling us into fitting into it, would we still be human? If neither we nor our society are allowed to be imperfect, I'd say a great deal of what makes us human has been lost.
I would agree. And if the endgame of the Elders was to render the human race harmless in the eyes of the Vishnans/Shivans, then they greatly misjudged the benevolence of their new benefactors. Seeing as how the Vishnans are prepared to wash their hands of this little experiment after barely 50 years, despite the overwhelming commitment of the UEF towards the goals of non-violence, religious tolerance, free education and social justice. A single inter-system war, devastating though that may be, was enough to convince them to issue a recall on the entire species.
The mind control aspect seemed pretty heavily implied by Laporte when confronting Bei about the Vishnans. "Did you tell them what they wanted to know? Or did they crack you open?" Maybe the Vishnans regularly mess with human brains and maybe they don't, but the issue is they can.
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There's the question of how much more trustworthy Laporte is than Bei, though.
There's also the question of why aliens would care about particulars of human social justice. Are they micromanaging interventionists like the Culture, or are the factors they care about actually more big-picture and cosmic?
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There's the question of how much more trustworthy Laporte is than Bei, though.
If I were there, I wouldn't trust her in any way. She's weird.
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So yes, the Vishnans are all about peace, love, prosperity, and if you deviate from their grand scheme for 18 months in a war of self defense (from the perspective of the UEF), they'll write you off and throw your whole race to the wolves.
...
Even assuming the GTVA was 100% in the wrong in attacking Sol, the Vishnans view that act of war as a failure on the part of the UEF as well. How is THAT fair and impartial?
Tevs are humans too. That war is the just culmination of millennia of humans proving time and time again that they are unsalvageable. I would have done the same in the Vishnan's position.
When was anything said about Vishnans being fair and impartial ?
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You say that like if staying human (whatever definition of "human" you are using) is a goal in itself. Happiness for all, prosperity and education seem more important objectives to me.
I've already told you that I think the value of those things is severely reduced if they're just given to us. They're also wasted. A person does not understand the value of something if they don't understand the work that goes into acquiring that thing. The same is true for a culture.
Real triumph is overcoming the obstacles, and that's what humanity is built on. When you talk of what we've done with ourselves for thousands of years, you point to the obstacles we haven't overcome and ignore all the ones we have. But there's tremendous value in the latter.
The Vishnans seem to want to remove the obstacles entirely, but worst of all, they want us to die if we reject their guidance.
They'd turn us into pets, utterly subject to their whims. And they'll make us die if we have the audacity to refuse. That's not benevolence, it's petty spite.
Do Vasudans being born Vasudans mean they failed ?
No, because the Vasudans aren't humans. They deserve to choose their own fate just as humanity does.
You know, this discussion is funny because I'm typically one who argues against abstract concepts in favor of concrete things, just like you're doing. BP is helping me realise which abstract concepts I genuinely value. Very few stories manage to reach me that way.
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So this discussion is going in three or four different directions, as far as I can tell.
One of those tangents reminds me very much about that thought experiment Battuta posted a while back, Three Worlds Collide (or, as described in the title of the thread "Test your morality: The Babyeaters and the Superhappies (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=75340.0)").
Three civilizations with three entirely different baselines for morality and proper behavior.
One is violent out of need to survive, and that violence transformed into a concept that literally eating your babies was the most admirable thing that a being could do. If I may draw a parallel, these are the Shivans.
One is peaceful, almost incomprehensible to human minds, and believes that all beings should be happy, all the time. The parallel here isn't as clear or as helpful, but these are the Vishnans.
The last are humans, are thoroughly disgusted and revolted by the Babyeaters, and at the same time bewildered and confused by the Superhappies. The thought experiment allows the reader to choose the results. The ending of one of the choices is, to this day, one of the most horrifying things I've ever read. This choice is the "Normal" ending, where the crew, taking the place of the reader for the narrative's sake, decides to "accept" the Superhappies proposal demand to be happy forever, and I think I'll post the relevent part here.
He stepped through the door, into a neat and well-lighted transparent capsule.
The door slid shut again.
Without a lurch, without a sound, the capsule moved up toward the alien ship.
One last time, Akon thought of all his fear, of the sick feeling in his stomach and the burning that was becoming a pain in his throat. He pinched himself on the arm, hard, very hard, and felt the warning signal telling him to stop.
Goodbye, Akon thought; and the tears began falling down his cheek, as though that one silent word had, for the very last time, broken his heart.
And he lived happily ever after.
The Vishnans are, thought not as overtly, and not as significantly, fundamentally changing humanity. They are playing the roles of the Superhappies in this scenario.
And that's why I support the GTVA. :P
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You know, this discussion is funny because I'm typically one who argues against abstract concepts in favor of concrete things, just like you're doing. BP is helping me realise which abstract concepts I genuinely value. Very few stories manage to reach me that way.
And it's good that it does ! I like that discussion. If you want to know, I really understand both sides of the problem (as I pointed out to Phantom Hoover on IRC earlier) and I don't actually have my mind set on one or the other, but since noone else is arguing for the other side of the discussion, I have to, or there would be no discussion ! :D
They're also wasted. A person does not understand the value of something if they don't understand the work that goes into acquiring that thing. The same is true for a culture.
Real triumph is overcoming the obstacles, and that's what humanity is built on.
So you'd rather have people that are unhappy and have to overcome challenges, than people that are happy with challenges that other people have overcome for them in the past ? Why, maybe we should give up electricity, internet and everything so it makes our life harder ! That's what makes us human after all !
How does it matter whether those challenges have been overcome by humans that are long dead and you've never met anyway, or by aliens ? Do humans using Vasudan reactor technology means they're less human ?
The Vishnans seem to want to remove the obstacles entirely, but worst of all, they want us to die if we reject their guidance.
They'd turn us into pets, utterly subject to their whims. And they'll make us die if we have the audacity to refuse. That's not benevolence, it's petty spite.
If we don't stop behaving like animals it's only legitimate that they'll turn us into pets !
EDIT:
The Vishnans are, thought not as overtly, and not as significantly, fundamentally changing humanity. They are playing the roles of the Superhappies in this scenario.
And that's why I support the GTVA. :P
And that'd be more a reason to support them in my point of view. How is refusing this kind of improvement to our condition any different than refusing to use electricity or internet just because we're afraid to change ?
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Because technological progress is not equal to social re-engineering of an entire species. You also seem rather predisposed to the idea that humans haven't made any progress in the past few thousand years and we're still barbarous animals. I would argue certain fundamental ideas about equality, compassion, and justice have permeated throughout the globe from religious and non-religious sources, even if not everyone accepts them. See the Arab Spring for just one example. There's a long road ahead, but it isn't accurate to say people have made no progress at all.
And again, are the Vishnans offering us an end to all conflict? Or are they giving us a cookbook entiled, "to serve man"? We don't know what their endgame is. We do know they're as quick to sanitize their followers as the Shivans are.
Tevs are humans too. That war is the just culmination of millennia of humans proving time and time again that they are unsalvageable. I would have done the same in the Vishnan's position.
When was anything said about Vishnans being fair and impartial ?
I think all I'll say, is I am thankful the ability to judge an entire species' worth and/or survival is beyond the capacity of individual human beings, myself included. :p
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Indeed. I'm actually a bit disappointed at how little thought Matth seems to be actually putting into this.
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And it's good that it does ! I like that discussion. If you want to know, I really understand both sides of the problem (as I pointed out to Phantom Hoover on IRC earlier) and I don't actually have my mind set on one or the other, but since noone else is arguing for the other side of the discussion, I have to, or there would be no discussion ! :D
It's a good discussion. I understand the UEF position, I just strongly disagree with it. Of course, you have information that the rest of us non-beta testers aren't privy to. Maybe Acts 4-5 will make me reconsider.
Still, it would also be nice to have some genuine UEF supporters explain their positions.
So you'd rather have people that are unhappy and have to overcome challenges, than people that are happy with challenges that other people have overcome for them in the past ? Why, maybe we should give up electricity, internet and everything so it makes our life harder ! That's what makes us human after all !
How does it matter whether those challenges have been overcome by humans that are long dead and you've never met anyway, or by aliens ? Do humans using Vasudan reactor technology means they're less human?
Because, like I said, cultures tend to grow much like people, generally speaking.
This will be quite simplified, but I think it gets the point across: Europe's history is an insanely violent one. It was a damn **** place to live only a few hundred years ago. It certainly isn't now. Europe overcame those obstacles, and it's in no small part due to that history that Western countries are the most developed countries in the world. It was the lessons learned from mistakes that built western civilization. It's not perfect, and it never will be.
Now take Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is, generally speaking, not a nice place to live. Yet they were given the benefits of modern (at the time) civilization. The White Man's Burden, as they say. The difference is that the Africans never learned the lessons that led to the development of those benefits, and as a result did not place the same value on them, nor did they learn the responsibilities that should have come with them. This isn't even mentioning things like slavery. Again, it's a very simplified summary.
Medieval Europe is what the GTVA is. If the Vishnans were benevolent (which they aren't, else they wouldn't want to kill us all for refusing), colonialism would be what they were doing.
As for the Vasudans, cooperation is different from domination. They aren't hiding their intentions. When the GTVA asks for a reactor, they get exactly what they asked for. And the Vasudans ask for a beam cannon back. It's a peer relationship. Vishnan - Humans really, really isn't.
You're pretty good at getting long responses out of me. Funny because you understand perfectly well what I mean already. :)
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Well let's consider whether the cultural ideals and technology themselves are relevant before lambasting them for being engineered by Vishnans. There are still many aspects of the UEF I admire, and though the Vishnans may have engineered us towards certain beliefs/advances, that doesn't mean those beliefs or technology are necessarily tainted by association.
What repulses me about the Vishnans is that they view us as tools and have interfered without permission. If the Vishnans were truly benevolent and established contact openly to offer to teach us about their values/goals/technology I'd be much more open to the idea. However they don't respect our free will and twist an entire culture to meet their unknown ends.
As it stands I don't trust the GTVA or UEF governments, but I still agree with many of the ideals that the UEF apparently holds dear, even if I don't agree with how those ideals may have come about.
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Maybe I'm not fit to say this, 'cause I don't have finished the campaign yet, but reading this discussion I come to the conclusion that Sam isn't trustworthy...
Why should the Zods ask the Shivans to slaughter humanity?
Are they becoming juniorpartner of the shivans or what?
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Those of you who say that the elders are being controlled and engineered buy the Vishnans may indeed be right however this ignores the fact that the elders also left themselves an insurance policy in the form of the Fedayeen and Cassandra. This shows that some of them are not fully following the Vishnan's teachings by safeguarding the federation in the hands of killers and psychopaths. Then there is also the secret project.... That seems to me that the Shivans think this can be a weapon to use not only against the GTVA but also the Vishnans themselves.
Not the actions of indoctrinated minions methinks
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I certainly hope they would consider that possibility. Without waxing too philosophical (Freespace is for the most part a rather simple story of survival against all odds), I would say the main issue is this.
The Shivans and Vishnans, for reasons unknown, have determined that any species that waging internal conflict is not worthy of survival. They have straight-up executed countless other races, with the Vishnans' permission. The Ancients perhaps, got what they deserved. From a human perspective though, their judgement of humanity is premature. We never saw the atrocities of the Vasudan-Terran war, a war which began primarily as a result of miscommunication. There's no reason to assume that war would have ended in genocide of either party. The Shivans simply assumed it would, and acted.
Now we are told humanity is being judged, the Vishnans have a secret agenda, so do the Shivans, we know it relates to how they command and control the universe in the aftermath of something called the Dawn War. We know the GTVA is horrified by Vishnan social engineering and the specter of Shivan apocalypse, something the UEF has not witnessed personally. We know the UEF is attempting to, in essence, plea bargain with these powers by convincing them that human nature can change in a fashion that can please THEM. They may have hidden contingencies, but we have not seen them yet.
The fun, for me, is discovering what these powers' shatterpoints are. What would convince them to back off? For all their godlike power, they are not gods. They do not have perfect information, and we see from them shades of discontent and bickering over how the universe should be run. They're unstable because their grand scheme is apparently collapsing, and THAT is the most dangerous thing for humans and Vasudans I believe.
The trick is how to give the player some agency in how to deal with these two colossal entities within the confines of a space sim game.
And how do you deal with the two biggest kids on the block pushing and shoving if you're two tribes of ants?
And maybe deep down, I'm still looking forward to blowing up that damn SSJ Dante. :D
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can we maybe not get bogged down in duelling analogies here
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It's not being bogged down if that's what the story's chosen metaphor is. Ants and bacteria attempting to deal with human sized beings comparatively speaking. That's BP's metaphor, not mine. Freespace has always explored and played with that sense of accomplishment... only to see it demolished almost every time by the capacity of the Shivans. Victory is measured in survival, not destruction of the enemy.
Which, if any, is worthy of survival? The GTVA or UEF? Bosch is convinced only one can. The Shivans and Vishnans have their own plans in motion, and they don't appear to be particularly benevolent ones.
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I still think the discussion is dancing around the question of how much of the UEF's success belongs to the Vishnans and how much to genuine, home-grown human progress.
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Something like half the posts on the last page have been convoluted analogies. I know it's tempting to explain the similarities between the Vishnans and Hitler, but the standard of discussion is a lot higher if everyone tries to stick to the issues at hand.
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The damage is probably not irreversible, I'm not trying to say every aspect of the UEF was designed to accommodate Vishnan sensibilities. But then, they can afford to take the long view, that's what Unbutu is all about if I've read the background information right. It's a council designed to steer humanity towards a long range goal.
Alpha One and the other survivors of the Lucifer mission were undoubtedly gifted with a glimpse of their enemy's intentions. We know that Mars and Jupiter and other factions deal with Unbutu differently. But on a grand scale, they're still just pieces on a board being used for some purpose. "Dancing around" how much credit the UEF is to be given is difficult from the perspective of Joe player (such as myself), because we are not given much information as to how much the upper leadership of the Elders has been compromised. They are ALL Nagari sensitive and therefore all are vulnerable to influence. You don't see that possibly reducing the impact normal humans have on their environment?
The Hammer of Light fanatics embrace this connection with the Shivans and welcome their judgement. The one Elder who disagreed with the Council was assassinated with the player pulling the trigger.
Keep in mind, we're working with the information Blue Planet has presented. If our conclusions are wrong, they're wrong. But I have not seen much information to suggest the UEF has a long term solution to the Shivans or Vishnans beyond some super secret project we only hear a few lines of dialogue about. Cassandra is part of it, but that only opens the door to the meeting with Bosch and his biased opinion about what Laporte should do.
Laporte's cries about being rats in a maze resonated with me precisely because there doesn't seem to a faction that is free of manipulation, one that is working towards human survival of the status-quo beyond following the bidding of the Shivans, or trusting the "good will" of a collective of energy beings that judge failure most harshly.
Something like half the posts on the last page have been convoluted analogies. I know it's tempting to explain the similarities between the Vishnans and Hitler, but the standard of discussion is a lot higher if everyone tries to stick to the issues at hand.
What? No one made a comparison between Hitler and anything. The Vishnans according to Bei have cut communication with the UEF and have given their permission for a Shivan cull. That is very relevant to the discussion as to whether or not the Vishnans have the interests of humanity in mind, or their own.
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yes the reason i used that as an example was to avoid singling out anyone or indeed bothering to remember what they said
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Laporte's cries about being rats in a maze resonated with me precisely because there doesn't seem to a faction that is free of manipulation, one that is working towards human survival of the status-quo beyond following the bidding of the Shivans, or trusting the "good will" of a collective of energy beings that judge failure most harshly.
The Gaian Effort. Ignore the radical, hardline elements and that's pretty much their entire raison d'être
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On the plus side their ships are tough as hell, shame about those unshielded reactor covers, the bane of all super warships. ;)
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It seems like a lot of the question here is whether the Vishnans said 'here's the blueprint, make it happen', or whether the Elders said 'what's the end goal? We're a smart, resourceful species, we'll figure out a way'.
I personally lean towards the latter; the UEF was a human achievement.
The question itself is a much much bigger and interesting one than the answer. Why is the "responsibility" so important? Why is volition so important?
Lets not try to have the cake and eat it. To take an analogy, the reason why torture is such a moral problem is precisely because it works, not because it doesn't. If it didn't, there wouldn't even be a moral issue (and Geneva conventions and what nots). Likewise, the possibility of Humanity's salvation being independent from mankind's volition is a much darker and terrible dillema. For then the question is, should we abandon volition of our own future or should we be eradicated?
Now go far away from the clichés. All contemporary (and traditional) drama in western fiction has been precisely about how we control our destinies and how that imperative is way beyond any other moral dillema. Either that or its denial (Say compare Looper with 12 monkeys).
Why not transcend this very question? Or is that impossible? Serious question.
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Why is volition so important?
:v: is everything. You should know this.
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But torture doesn't always work, as at some point people will say anything you want to hear, even if it is not at all the truth. And they'll believe what they say with conviction too.
With torture, the line between interrogation and conditioning is thin and when your victim starts to believe their own lies, they cannot tell you the whole truth anymore. Not because they don't want to, but because they're convinced they're telling the truth, oblivious to the fact that the new truth is fabricated to appease their captor.
It's like retrieving data from a harddisk, if you're not careful and do it wrong, data becomes corrupted and irretrievably broken.
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But torture doesn't always work, as at some point people will say anything you want to hear, even if it is not at all the truth. And they'll believe what they say with conviction too.
With torture, the line between interrogation and conditioning is thin and when your victim starts to believe their own lies, they cannot tell you the whole truth anymore. Not because they don't want to, but because they're convinced they're telling the truth, oblivious to the fact that the new truth is fabricated to appease their captor.
It's like retrieving data from a harddisk, if you're not careful and do it wrong, data becomes corrupted and irretrievably broken.
That's the kind of discussion that I really do not want to delve into. I disagree with you and so does most intelligence agencies around the world for obvious reasons. The myth of this method being "bad" seems to me very pernicious for two reasons. First, it is a lie (torture like all tools available, is not perfect and has its aforementioned flaws, but it *does* give precious intel for the agencies using it), and second it flattens what is foremost a moral dillema into an engineering problem: "It does not work, therefore we should not use it".
The flattening (2) isn't bad per se, but because it is a lie (1), it becomes perverse.
Anyways, this is the last comment I'll make about torture. My point was *not* about torture, but about moral dilemmas that are incredibly mind****ing to deal with.
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And should anyone want to follow up this discussion with further discussions of torture, I would liek to remind you that we have a General Discussion board for that purpose.
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Well, my point of view is that saving humanity by changing it (or the human nature) IS NOT saving humanity.
The difference in between the Shivans and the Vishnans isnt all that great tbh.: One side destroys humanity by simple extinction, the other one by altering it in something else. But if u look at it from some point of view, at the end the outcome is very simliar. I one case there is just no one left to remember it.
If we look at history, i have to say that i belive that humanity can save itself. Someone else allready brought up Modern Day Europe as example. It isnt perfect yet, but it is a big improvement compared to what was. I have a great-grandmother that is turing 100 years old in april. She LIVED throught he stuff i did read in my history books at school.
If u go back one hundread years from now u will find out that we have A LOT of achievments to be proud of.
But what we realy need is to know the exact extent of vishnan involment. Because there is a important difference in teaching a child something and let it self figure out what is best for itself while preventing it from the most disasterous consequences(*), or FORCING a wanted behaviour onto the child without letting itself find out and understand why this behaviour is suboptimal (i want to avoid the word *bad* here).
Both methods have been explored in real life, and as far as i know the first method is todays commonly accepted method of education.
* Just to go a little bit into detail of what i mean: For example i wouldnt allow a child to play with explosives, but i would very well allow it to ride bike or climb on a tree or let it play in ways that might result in a broken leg. But i would try to minimize the risks, give helpfull advices and try to minimize the damage (bike ride -> helmet) that can occure. But not neccissarily prevent all harm from it by turing it into a michelin puppet.
So it is very important to know how and to what extend the vishnans have been interfering. Have they been like caring parents or total control freaks?
I could live and accept the caring parent version (which i dont belive in, see their reaction to the war), but i couldnt live being totaly controlled by them. There is an expression that pretty much sums it up in that case: Better die standing that living on your knees.
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What I'm confused about is *how* the Elders are compromised by the Vishnans, and why the Vishnans are acting the way they are...it just doesn't add up as I understand it.
They extensively manipulate and help shape human culture/society in Sol for decades, resulting in Ubuntu and the UEF. Come WiH, the UEF is invaded without provocation (justified or not) by an outside, unforeseeable force, which they resist for 20-ish months with purely defensive tactics while they struggle to defend themselves and reconcile this war of self-defense with their nature of Ubuntu and diplomacy. They're still holding on fairly well, and apparently there is hope for a victory that is not won purely through force of arms.
So the Vishnans do a 180 and not only completely give up on humanity as a whole, but order a xenocide of humanity? Dafuq? And it's implied that they did this roughly a year ago--long before Jupiter fell or Ubuntu was truly in jeopardy. So...seriously, what the **** is up with the Vishnans? Aren't they just making themselves look like childish, foolish, and inferior counterparts to the Shivans almost immediately after they berated the Shivans for being 'clearly' wrong about humanity and the Vishnan plans for them?
For a nigh-immortal race, the Vishnans sure have ridiculously little patience or tolerance, not to mention determination to try harder or see things through. The moment their own plan doesn't go perfectly, they abandon the plan and order a purge of all of its elements?
In this sense, it wasn't the Sol War that triggered the Vishnans' abandonment of humanity, or the growing interest of the Shivans. It was their own utter failure to plan or adapt that caused it, on top of the fact that it takes *so little* for them to abandon humanity in the first place.
But further, both the Vishnan and Shivan positions about judging races seems ludicrously absurd. It's like butchering all toddlers who aren't exceptionally mature, rather than giving them a chance to grow, learn, and develop before deciding whether to spare or massacre them. So the Vasudans and Terrans had a fairly low-intensity war shortly after first contact? Okay, but at least they seem to be learning from the experience and--notably--are not trying to enslave or exterminate each other. So mercilessly wiping out both races is somehow a more 'mature' course of action? What the hell? It's not like they're protecting any other races, either, as there were no others under threat.
As for the potential Nagari network problem, wouldn't it be both more ethical and productive to guide and enlist aid from races to help secure the Nagari network and counteract the Great Darkness, rather than exterminating every race that makes it to a vague, eventual technological point, without warning or compromise?
The GTVA is rightfully paranoid about the Shivans and Vishnans, but the problem is that they shouldn't *have to be* in the first place. They're not dealing with Cthulhu here, they're dealing with two all-powerful races that routinely commit xenocide on a whim because they can, even when they are directly at fault for any perceived offense. Yeah, enlightenment and pacifism is kind of hard to achieve in the face of unknowable, unstoppable, constant xenocidal aggression that doesn't even try to reach any kind of understanding with you.
Were it not for stupidly hypocritical Vishnans and omnicidal maniac Shivans, the GTVA and UEF could find a peaceful solution (or could have) quite feasibly. Unfortunately, something called The Great Darkness might give a slight justification for the Shivans and Vishnans treating other races at all like they do and for them being anything more than complete, despicable monsters that are infinitely worse than the Ancients ever were.
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As to why the Vishnans are acting the way they are: perhaps when Ubuntu began to flourish, they segregated some very human emotions into the Fedayeen. If the GTVA and Federation would have cooperated, particularly after being presented the dream reality of Earth being destroyed, the Fedayeen would have been behind the scenes and dormant. With the outbreak of the war, the Fedayeen has instead grown and flourished into something much more Shivan out of necessity.
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Come on Salty, stop controlling yourself. Tell us how you really feel about the Vishnans :D.
There are other kinds of fictions wherein ubber mega races are indeed understanding and nurturing as we would better appreciate (I'm thinking Contact here), or less maniacally inclined for xenocide (Babylon5), etc. However, this isn't one of them, and gladly so for it gives a lot more tension to the drama.
Now, regarding the actions and decisions of Vishnans, there are more solutions than you are letting on. Perhaps they are testing humanity in a way that goes beyond our notions of behaviorism and so on. It is indeed possible they tried to have planet Earth be the best that mankind could possibly offer and then test its limits. Its psychological limits, its sociological limits, its political limits, its subconscious, its intuitions, its instincts.
And yet, you say that mankind could "learn" its way and so on. But how do you know what it can and cannot do? Wouldn't a species that controls the very fabric of space and time be orders of magnitude more aware of mankind's limits, its real dangers to the cosmos within a framework of deep time thinking? Have we sufficient knowledge to judge the Vishnans with 21st century mediocre level of morality, something that is most assuredly in the "microbial" level of thought to the Vishnans? Is "morality" something even existent in Vishnanland?
Your writing reminds me of a certain mining ship's rant against a fearful bunch of Bentusi motherships.