[Luis Dias]

You're overreading too much. It's way simpler than that and I think it can be formulated into a question: If all we deem important is efficiency through all kinds of channels and scales, with every possible game theory solution calculated throughout all iterations and so on, then why live at all? Why won't we just create robots and suicide ourselves?

The purpose of the war is to guarantee / acquire peace. And peace is a place where you live happy with other human beings and so on. In that place, in that heaven, murder is still murder, human lives are still precious. How could that pilot survive the war and live the rest of his life with that bloodshed in his hands? How many minds have been lost due precisely to these reasons?

Unless you are deeply commited to go down the rabbit hole and decide to stop being human, to forfeit the coming peace, to leave heaven to the others who will profit from your actions, then you will always be fighting with these tensions on your head. To become "Laporteish" (or like "The Operative" in Serenity) is to stop being human.

It's also about the transvaluation of values. One can speculate if such a "person" can become something "overman"-like, but if History is a lesson, the usual psychological result is not pretty.

[niffiwan]

That's bull**** in a way of course, in the end you can always say "oh, those aren't real people, just some 1s and 0s", and especially with a story as suspenseful as in BP, you probably won't be able to resist trying to know what will happen, and how it will happen. But if you were truly and completely disturbed by the thought of doing horrible things yourself - even inside a game - you'd actually have to do it.

I don't think anyone would do this in BP, but it is at least imagineable. It's like walking out on a movie in the theatre out of protest. But even there, you may only witness outrageously bad acts or horrible quality in directing or something, you may never have to pull a trigger yourself. Games do take it one step beyond in that respect. I think with other games, this has probably happened before, and not just angry parents returning the cool game their children want to play, but honestly people abandoning and/or returning a game they could not finish, because of something conflicting with their moral principles. It probably isn't a common thing, but I'd say it does happen from time to time.

Yeah, BP2:Act 3 almost got me here, I had to walk away from my PC for approx 4 hours after reading the briefing for "Her Finest Hour", before I could come back and face playing the mission.  And I was truly thankful that in the end that there was an option to accept the surrender of Lopez.  Damn you BluePlanet devs for making me feel this way about a bunch of ones and zero's!!

Anyway - that's pretty unusual for me since I tend to switch off my moral compass when playing games  .  But, I feel that most games don't give you the freedom/choice to worry about this.  You're generally railroaded down the path that the game devs have chosen, so in a way, playing the game it's not quite "committing atrocities yourself", rather it's "committing atrocities that the devs have chosen to commit" (parallels could be drawn here between this and "ordering someone else to do your dirty work"?)  And even if you want to make a stand, to make it meaningful you'd need a refund from returning the game (which can be hard to do these days), otherwise you're still "supporting" the game just as much as someone who plays it all the way through.  (Assuming that most people don't have the clout, online or otherwise, to write a negative review that would meaningfully affect anything).

[Ryuseiken]

Yeah, BP2:Act 3 almost got me here, I had to walk away from my PC for approx 4 hours after reading the briefing for "Her Finest Hour", before I could come back and face playing the mission.  And I was truly thankful that in the end that there was an option to accept the surrender of Lopez.  Damn you BluePlanet devs for making me feel this way about a bunch of ones and zero's!!

Her Finest Hour made me feel especially terrible after I read the forums and realized the two corvettes could've been saved if I'd disabled them instead of bombing them, especially since you see them refuse to leave their CO in the face of impending death. It really says something when a game can make me feel genuinely guilty for not putting more effort into saving those ones and zeros.

[Aesaar]

You could have saved them by just ignoring them, too.  They jump out when Lopez surrenders as long as they still have their engines.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, but that's basically surrendering pretty good vessels to the enemy at that point.

[Gray113]

Part of what got me about her finest hour being so great was how my interpretation allowed me to choose the targets that I destroyed because I felt it necessary and those I spared because they were out of the fight. I remember someone being surprised at me because I deliberately targeted the escape pods leaving the Carthage and destroyed fleeing transports but at the same time accepting the surrender of the Carthage and its attendant vessels. For me though the reasoning was simple - the escaping vessels contained crew that could be used to continue the war against the UEF. Those specialists were unlikely to be sent back to GTVA space at such a critical point in the war and everyone that survived could mean the difference between a lost frigate or fighter wing. The surrendering ships on the other hand were no longer going to take a part in the war and therefore their deaths would be meaningless, although remembering the fleeing Jovian forces and the Yangtze not being given a chance to surrender before being cut down made my decision that bit harder.

[Aesaar]

Well, the Yangtze might have been given a chance to surrender if the cruisers hadn't faked one to buy time just five minutes earlier (and faking a surrender is a war crime).

[niffiwan]

I got the feeling that the Yangtze wasn't going to surrender, no matter what happened.

[Gray113]

The captain of the Yangtze may have chosen to save his crew knowing that the ship was dead in the water and defenceless - we will never know what would have happened and it is not as though the ship posed a threat to the attacking tev ships.

And the Jovians? Serkr team jumps in, the captain knows his ship is doomed and they didn't think to offer terms of surrender? The TEVs have reaped the whirlwind with their actions and should expect no quarter to be given from UEF when the shoe is on the other foot. Total war means that - from both sides so the TEVs should not expect the UEF forces to spare TEV personnel when it means losing possible advantages. It is just a shame that the only Fed forces that are actively looking to hurt the TEVs in this fashion are the Fedayeen and what is left of third fleet.

Total war leaves no room for chivalry - it is a case of killing your enemy before the enemy kills you. The TEVs understand it and the FEDs are finally beginning to understand it just in time to save themselves though probably not in time to save Ubuntu although I hope that it is replaced with something better.

[General Battuta]

The captain of the Yangtze may have chosen to save his crew knowing that the ship was dead in the water and defenceless - we will never know what would have happened and it is not as though the ship posed a threat to the attacking tev ships.

Her, and the Yangtze was by her captain's order making best speed towards the Imperieuse.

And the Jovians? Serkr team jumps in, the captain knows his ship is doomed and they didn't think to offer terms of surrender?

By no rule of warfare present or future would Serkr Team be required to request surrender in that situation. It would be utterly unenforceable. But I do agree with your points about total war!

[Gray113]

Her yes I'm still recovering from a marathon journey through the blizzards to get back from Belgium so some of my thought processes are still a bit fuzzy

By no rule of warfare present or future would Serkr Team be required to request surrender in that situation.

However if total war had not been enacted then I would have expected (given the repeated demands for surrender during the first battle of Neptune) the TEVs to put a priority on psychological victories such as magnanimous behaviour to defeated foes for the benefit of creating positive examples of TEV benevolence in order to build good relations with the civilian populace. Their actions now are simply to destroy the UEF with no regard for lives lost or damage to their credibility. This gives the moral high ground to the UEF but ultimate victory to the TEVs (at least in the short term). In order to win the UEF will have to fight the TEVs on their own level.

[General Battuta]

If Serkr Team had asked for a surrender in that situation it would've gone like this:

*serkr team jumps in*

"Dear Ranvir: we could blow you up. Please surrender!"

"Okay! We surrender! What are you going to do now?"

"Well, I guess there are probably UEF reinforcements on the way to save you, so we can't really board and take prisoners. But how bout you PINKY SWEAR never to shoot a gun again!"

[Gray113]

Or "you have 2 mins to abandon your ship before it is destroyed, If we detect any reinforcements en-route before this then  your ship will be destroyed immediately". It at least gives the crew a chance and shows that the Tev crews are not bloodthirsty barbarians whilst giving them plenty of opportunity to take out the target and escape before help arrives.

BTW please give us a chance to take out Serkr team - I would take that over a shot at Steele

[crizza]

If Serkr Team had asked for a surrender in that situation it would've gone like this:

*serkr team jumps in*

"Dear Ranvir: we could blow you up. Please surrender!"

"Okay! We surrender! What are you going to do now?"

"Well, I guess there are probably UEF reinforcements on the way to save you, so we can't really board and take prisoners. But how bout you PINKY SWEAR never to shoot a gun again!"

Made my day
And please...leave Serkr alive, I like them so much...or do it like you did with the Carthage, but then again...

[SpardaSon21]

Serkr are deeply involved in Steele's plans, therefore Serkr cannot die until Steele does.  And Steele has contingencies for everything, including his contingencies.

[NGTM-1R]

It at least gives the crew a chance

Both sides can do basic math. The Yangtze knew its situation and could have offered surrender on its own. No such attempt was made. It's not solely on the attacker to offer mercy; the defender is expected to recognize when further combat would be futile.

[qwadtep]

Well, the Yangtze might have been given a chance to surrender if the cruisers hadn't faked one to buy time just five minutes earlier (and faking a surrender is a war crime).

I doubt the Imperieuse would have accepted the Yangtze's surrender anyway. I doubt the cruiser's "surrender" gave the Imperieuse pause, either. Steele wants to end the war as soon as possible and if it saves even a single day (and more lives down the road) then the Wargods have to die.

[Aesaar]

No way to say anything about the cruisers because broadcasting "I surrender" and then setting engines to max makes your intent pretty obvious.

That's why I seriously doubt the Tevs would have accepted the Yangtze's surrender.  This is exactly why faking surrender is a war crime: it discourages accepting genuine surrenders.

And given the fact that Laporte spends about a week in the Red Room and nothing especially important happens in that time (that we know of), I don't think processing a captured frigate would have delayed anything.  All you need is a transport, a boarding crew, and some fighters to escort it back to the node.  Nothing important.

In any case, it's a moot point.  Kyrematen wasn't going to surrender either way.

[Gray113]

Kyrematen wasn't going to surrender either way.

Really? 8 thousand wardogs had just died attempting to save the crews of the Yangtze and Indus, the Indus had escaped and there was nothing left to fight for. What captain in their right minds would let the crew under their command die in a fit of bravado? Especially a captain trained in Ubuntu.

[The E]

But the big point of the entire Wargods arc is how the Wargods become less and less Ubuntu as time progresses. A more regular Ubuntu CO might have offered a surrender, but Kyrematen? Not really likely.

And even then, as Aesaar has pointed out, it is questionable if Admiral Leinonin had accepted it in any case. The Imperieuse had orders to inflict a killing blow on the Wargods; while having some of them surrender and others flee might have been an acceptable outcome here, it would also lessen the impact somewhat. The message Steele intended to send was probably "These are your best ships. I can wipe them out in a few seconds. Deal with it.", a message that would only come out garbled when a significant part of the Wargods is still alive at the end.

Not to mention that if you accept a surrender, you're obligated to care for them, run SAR, provide boarding crews, that sort of thing, all stuff that takes some time to execute, time that Imperieuse may not have (since she is sitting in a known location with a discharged jump drive).