148615-so-dominion-and-exiles-page-3

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But I did explain what I meant, just for that post to be completely ignored lol...
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Ehhhh, not really on this part. The Dominion basically talks a big game about the eradication of the Exiles, but they've never walked the talk. It feels mostly like propaganda to embolden the troops and populace, and perhaps incite some fear in the enemy. Given their reaction to everyone else on Nexus, they probably wouldn't care so much about the Exile races if they, well, stopped being Exiles in behavior and loyalties. Current "war criminals" aside.
 
The Dominion never targeted the Aurin for eradication. They targeted Arboria for resource harvesting, Aurin were irrelevant and mostly just collateral damage they had to justify. If I recall correctly, the Chua made the push for reaping Arboria because they NEEDED a new resource world. They're perfectly fine with the Aurin running around Nexus un-aligned. Shit, you HELP some in a few instances playing Dominion-side, at the very least in CoGS. In fact, I'd contend that the only race they actively attempted to destroy was the Exile humans, and it's been said by devs that it wouldn't be too hard for an Exile human to actually become a member of the Dominion. (The war of Gnox was a response to the murder of Dominion diplomats, and we don't actually know what would have happened had the Dominion won. But complete genocide has never been their MO that we've seen. They never bombarded the Mordesh settlements, but they did implement one hell of a terrifying quarantine. I'm not saying they aren't violently racist assholes, but if extermination has ever been the goal they've done a poor job at showing it.)
 
Slavery is also completely out of character for the Dominion, and something they're adamantly against. Both in-game lore and Loremageddon talk from the devs confirms that. Also according to the devs, on Cassus Lowborns actually have it pretty good. They're more or less like the American middle class, but with much less formal education, and much better health care and welfare systems. It's good to be born Dominion, they take care of their own. (Sort of.) The major instances in which we see the Lowborns being shat on by the Dominion are when they give a classist but at least vaguely reasonable explanation for the initial dispursal of a plague's cure, which actually quite well mirrors what we'd do in American society today, and the instance where one family of Highborns treats Lowborns like they're inhuman. Which the other Highborns look at with vocal disgust. And while you're not HIRED to kill the head of that family... Nobody seems to mind that you do. Or that you killed several other Highborns of said family to save kidnapped Lowborns.
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 More to the point, I have to say that the more I discuss this matter, the more I listen to arguments on both sides, the less I want to play Wildstar. Now, part of that is the morally questionable arguments that Dominion supporters bring up, but the bigger part is that the authors clearly didn't know how to do what they wanted to do.
 
If the authors of the lore were trying to create two morally complex factions, then they failed. It's not even that hard to understand why they failed: when there is a conflict with such a severe power imbalance, if the dominant power is acknowledged (even by their defenders) to be "violently racists assholes", the other side ends up (even if only by default) as 'the good guys'. When that side also has the single most physically attractive race, said race is a huge underdog and the poster child for the game... c'mon.
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No offense, but as I've said many times, the writing (especially the presentation of the Dominion) is simply at odds with what the lore people seem to think they have conveyed. This would be a case in point;
 
-"The Dominion never targeted the Aurin for eradication. They targeted Arboria for resource harvesting, Aurin were irrelevant and mostly just collateral damage they had to justify." This is not exculpatory. This is incriminatory.[/background]
 
This is like saying 'it's not that the police are racist, it's that they don't view blacks as people, entitled to the rights and privileges thereof.' It's not actually a defense of the police, it's an indictment.
 
Also, I'm going to honest, I have seen nothing to indicate that Aurin do have or could ever have any standing in Dominion society at all. If you want to argue that being the moral and legal equivalent of vermin is less of a moral indictment then explicit slavery, you're welcome to do it, but I see very little reason to agree.
 
As an aside, the fact that their genocide is lazy and incomplete doesn't make it not a genocide (or ethnic cleansing, if you prefer that term), it makes them lazy and incompetent.
 
More to the point, I have to say that the more I discuss this matter, the more I listen to arguments on both sides, the less I want to play Wildstar. Now, part of that is the morally questionable arguments that Dominion supporters bring up, but the bigger part is that the authors clearly didn't know how to do what they wanted to do.
 
If the authors of the lore were trying to create two morally complex factions, then they failed. It's not even that hard to understand why they failed: when there is a conflict with such a severe power imbalance, if the dominant power is acknowledged (even by their defenders) to be "violently racists assholes", the other side ends up (even if only by default) as 'the good guys'. When that side also has the single most physically attractive race, said race is a huge underdog and the poster child for the game... c'mon.
 
It's all just so frustrating.
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It's all just so frustrating.
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But I did explain what I meant, just for that post to be completely ignored lol...
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You make good points. Especially illustrated by the example of how Aurin are seen by the Dominion. but there is another side to it that may be evidence that those who see the [insert chosen faction] as the good/bad guys are only focusing on the propaganda and POV of one side. Keep in mind that while the Aurin are seen as vermin by the Dominion, the chua are seen the same way by the Exiles. So, here we find another similarity.
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More to the point, I have to say that the more I discuss this matter, the more I listen to arguments on both sides, the less I want to play Wildstar. Now, part of that is the morally questionable arguments that Dominion supporters bring up, but the bigger part is that the authors clearly didn't know how to do what they wanted to do.
 
If the authors of the lore were trying to create two morally complex factions, then they failed. It's not even that hard to understand why they failed: when there is a conflict with such a severe power imbalance, if the dominant power is acknowledged (even by their defenders) to be "violently racists assholes", the other side ends up (even if only by default) as 'the good guys'. When that side also has the single most physically attractive race, said race is a huge underdog and the poster child for the game... c'mon.
 
It's all just so frustrating.
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That sounds like exactly the sort of contempt for story and setting that guys like Frost openly displayed during the run-up to the game's launch, and that I expect is pretty common among people who think the first three letters of MMORPG matter much more than the last three letters do.
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Agreed with the rest of your post.  The underlined part of the above quote is rather inaccurate.  Interest in lore and interest in group content are not mutually exclusive. 
 
Heck, just look in the WSRP channel.  Lots of discussion of both going on there.
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That's funny, there's many people here who have claimed that the Dominion's actions on Arboria differ from their response to other cultures on other worlds because it was punitive--the Aurin were aiding and abetting the Exiles by resupplying them.
 
Are you claiming that the Dominion's typical approach to a new world is to simply take what it wants by force without any effort to even open negotiations with the indigenous people at all?
 
Or is there some other explanation for their actions here that you think explains it?
 
 
No rich person in America has the legal right to blow away the middle class for fun, and the missions surrounding the Vandarin in Auroria make clear that the Highborn do in fact have that right, even if most of them take a dim view of anyone who actually does so. So no, they're not even remotely like the American middle class.
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No offense, but as I've said many times, the writing (especially the presentation of the Dominion) is simply at odds with what the lore people seem to think they have conveyed. This would be a case in point;
 
-"The Dominion never targeted the Aurin for eradication. They targeted Arboria for resource harvesting, Aurin were irrelevant and mostly just collateral damage they had to justify." This is not exculpatory. This is incriminatory.[/background]
 
This is like saying 'it's not that the police are racist, it's that they don't view blacks as people, entitled to the rights and privileges thereof.' It's not actually a defense of the police, it's an indictment.
 
Also, I'm going to honest, I have seen nothing to indicate that Aurin do have or could ever have any standing in Dominion society at all. If you want to argue that being the moral and legal equivalent of vermin is less of a moral indictment then explicit slavery, you're welcome to do it, but I see very little reason to agree.
 
As an aside, the fact that their genocide is lazy and incomplete doesn't make it not a genocide (or ethnic cleansing, if you prefer that term), it makes them lazy and incompetent.
 
More to the point, I have to say that the more I discuss this matter, the more I listen to arguments on both sides, the less I want to play Wildstar. Now, part of that is the morally questionable arguments that Dominion supporters bring up, but the bigger part is that the authors clearly didn't know how to do what they wanted to do.
 
If the authors of the lore were trying to create two morally complex factions, then they failed. It's not even that hard to understand why they failed: when there is a conflict with such a severe power imbalance, if the dominant power is acknowledged (even by their defenders) to be "violently racists assholes", the other side ends up (even if only by default) as 'the good guys'. When that side also has the single most physically attractive race, said race is a huge underdog and the poster child for the game... c'mon.
 
It's all just so frustrating.
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...
The Aurin helped the Exiles increase food production with the little resources the Exiles had available. It still wasn't enough but I like to think this was still an accomplishment. The Dominion could have wanted them for their agricultural expertise. Just like the Dominion uses Chua tech, I can see them applying their cultivation methods to the Empire in order to increase food production in all their territories. This would mean that they would have to spend less time harvesting other planets for resources which would overall save the Empire money. I also can't help but feel like maybe the Exiles chose to save the Aurin specifically for this specialty. I find it hard to believe that they never stopped at any other planets for hundreds of years and just happened to save the races that were either capable of helping them survive (Aurin) or helping them fight the Dominion (Granok and Mordesh). Especially since the Dominion supposedly has many colonies under their wings, like why not save those other helpless colonies as well?
 
One could argue that the Aurin wouldn't join the Dominion because they weren't "nice" enough, but they seem to tolerate the Granok and Mordesh enough who have proven to be capable of being very mean sometimes. 
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The argument I presented wasn't to alleviate the Dominion of blame. It was to point out the complete extermination of a species has never been their goal that we've seen, and that they don't take slaves.
 
The Dominion ARE the bad guys in the comparison between the Exiles and the Dominion, I've met very few people who would try to contend otherwise. But they still have morals and laws. They also have their own perspectives, and their own internal stratification. Their government is BAD, but it's not really EVIL. It has done evil things, but not for the sake of being evil. There are definitely evil people within the Dominion, though. And some of them have a whole lot of power and influence. And I find the idea of not considering Avra Darkos evil within the Exiles kind of laughable, especially when using her reasoning as justification while insisting that the justifications the Dominion gives mean nothing. (I'd argue her reasons are more often than not BETTER, but not that it excuses her targeting of innocent civilians for horrible death plagues and her willingness to manipulate and murder her own people.)
 
I feel like the cornerstone of this argument being a big argument at all is people insisting that the Dominion is wholesale evil, or that the Exiles are completely justified in everything that they do. When the reality is much more complicated without eliminating the good guys-bad guys dichotomy. But of course, every time I get into this topic I kind of think back to something an old professor said about being wary of the "everybody is an extremist but me," mentality, and try to take a step back to look at this stuff again. So far it hasn't really changed anything, but I am open to the idea of being swayed in perspective. So if you've got an argument against this idea, by all means, present it.
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The Dominion response to Arboria being very different from previous responses to sapient life we know of is irrelevant to what I said about them targeting Arboria for its resources, not the Aurin for eradication. Or rather, the fact they targeted the planet at all IS how it's different and doesn't refute my point like, at all. So I don't understand why it's being brought up. All you've done is restate the justification given while the Chua were pressuring the Dominion for a new resource world.
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Yes? And Aurin eat completely sentient and self aware organisms that are harmless, Exiles torture Dominion POWs, the Exiles risked the future of known galactic civilization by helping the Mordesh, the Granok pointlessly murder anyone who they dont like, etc.
 
Umm the Draken CHOSE an area that was bare dirt if I'm not mistaken. I wasn't aware that they specifically modified the location into that.
 
You also realize that you are metagaming with the Mordesh fact, right? The FACT is that their planet had an outbreak of the deadliest disease known to science and doing anything BUT quarantining the planet would have been simply foolish. You can not use the end result of the lore to justify what the Exiles did. You are essentially saying that because the Exiles helped the Mordesh and because the contagion didnt spread for lore reasons after the fact, the quarantine was was not justified? Think about that for one second. What that means is that the Dominion should have known that the lore itself would have stopped the contagion, and thus they should not have bothered with quarantining the planet. Ummmm yeah. No. The FACT is that the Exiles could have very easily have doomed the the entire galaxy if the contagion spread when they were helping the Mordesh. By the magic of plot convenience the contagion didn't do that. 
 
And no, what? When the hell did I say they weren't evil because they didn't commit genocide? I said there's more to it than that. They may be evil, or at least more evil than the Exiles, but I am saying THERE IS MORE TO IT. If they are as evil as you say they are, then why didn't they just bombard the planet from orbit to spite the Granok? My point was that there's more to it. How could you not get that? I literally said that word for word. And no, my point was that the Dominion COULD have killed all the Granok afterwards without losing a single soldier and it would have eliminated a potential threat, BUT THEY DIDN'T. And maybe next time the Granok shouldn't MURDER ambassadors, even if said ambassadors are rude. If you kill people for no reason, then it's your fault for starting a war.
 
And what part of "the home world of the Aurin" don't you get? The planet IS automatically a threat because it harbors so many Aurin, a species that the Dominion is currently at war with. Not to mention getting resources out of it. And like I said, if you want to blame someone first and foremost, blame the Exiles.
 
So you ignored most of what I said. What a surprise. 
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Dominion have the better arena sets.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Come on, you all know I'm right. :D
 
 
 
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You're defending planet reapers.  Your opinion is invalid.
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Because intent defines goals and informs morality.
 
Do you agree with that statement, or not?
If not, do you view an assassin who kills someone for money as morally distinct from someone who kills in self-defense?
Do you think that the moral issues facing the Dominion are the same if their point is "Nice planet, we'll take it" as they are if their point is "You gave aid to our enemies and became one yourself because of it"? If not, do you think either--or both--apply?
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I think we're not actually disagreeing. let me put my points a different way;
 
-I think that it's very clear from the most publicly available lore (and promotional material) that the Dominion is 'the bad guys' of the setting.
 
-It's my understanding that the Lore guys don't think this: they have stated that they see the two sides as being basically morally the same in terms of good/bad.
 
Now, it seems to be that at least a couple of people in this thread seem to be in agreement with the lore guys. I am not, and it seems like you are not.
 
We both seem to be in agreement that the Dominion comes off as the villains of the piece, in the same way that, say, the Sith Empire are the villains of TOR (until the most recent expansion, or whatever). There are technical disagreements that I think we would have, such as the difference between a bad government and an evil government, and how debased a nation's view of another sentient species can be before it is an indictment of the whole nation.
 
Ultimately, all this comes down to a simple question: did the authors succeed in their goal, if their goal was making the two sides moral equivalent? I think the answer is an unqualified "No". Most likely for the reasons that Yasfan laid out above.
 
If the goal was to emulate Warcraft's Alliance-Horde style 'both sides are flawed, both sides have villains and heroes, neither side has is obviously the bad guy', they failed.  They seem stuck between the 'Bad guys that you can root for' that the Sith Empire has going on, and the Horde's 'Traditional bad guy races but not really bad guys' idea, and the result isn't satisfying either way.
 
I think there are things they can do to fix it, one way or the other (I outlined them above), but... they have to pick an emotional tone. Right now there are... just too many conflicting emotional cues, which, unfortunately, is the way a lot of the game is.
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Well I must admit I gave this thread up (since I don't feel the need to argue faction morality anymore), but that there have been some very good points made in this thread! Nice to see at least some members having level headed discussion about a topic. 
 
Anyway, I most certainly agree that there is a significant amount of cognitive dissonance going on as to morality of the two factions (due to disparities between advertising, trailers, in-game lore, etc etc etc), which no doubt fuels these discussions quite heavily. 
 
If nothing else, I think this is a good chance to reflect on how important story and continuity ACTUALLY is to games like this, despite the fact that some people might think its pointless. Here's to hoping that future games avoid this mistake by consulting heavily with their lore teams!  
			
				
	Edited January 9, 2016 by ZuberiGF	
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I'm of the "Dominion is the more evil faction" group, and honestly, I don't understand why a lot of people are so against the idea of it, at least from what I've seen from the RP chats in game. So what? I think it makes things more interesting, and the Dominion has a lot of characters I find enjoyable. I am interested to see how Dominion citizens, from commoners, to soldiers, to nobles, live their lives in such an empire. You can definitely create characters that live in an "evil" faction that aren't evil themselves, and there are characters like that in lore already, as well as RPers that play such types. I like the idea of an empire that has created prosperity and stability, but has a lot of ickiness behind the scenes as well. Though my main is an Exile (and an Aurin!), I have more Dominion toons.
 
My issue is with Carbine telling us that both factions are meant to be equally grey. They're great at -telling- us that, but lousy at -showing- it. If they want us to believe one thing about their works and we end up thinking the opposite, that is their failure as writers. You can't just force your intentions in peoples' faces and expect them to simply accept it as the reality.
 
I know the points above have been brought up already, but I wanted to share my opinion.
 
I don't know if balancing faction morality can be fixed now with content already in-game, but maybe in future stories. This is a war, and in war sometimes you have to do horrible things for the greater good of your faction. The Exiles are making their last stand on Nexus. If they lose, that's it for them. They can't afford to be "nice". I'm sure there's plenty that can be used from this to enhance the stories of both factions to make them both sympathetic and dark.
			
				
	Edited January 9, 2016 by Kintallo	
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I never said that it was just, merely that was the Dominion's reasoning, then there was their justification for their reasoning. The point was that Aurin extermination was a byproduct, not the goal. So I don't see why it would be the goal now.
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Yes? And Aurin eat completely sentient and self aware organisms that are harmless, 
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How is it hypocrisy? While the Aurin are about conservation and protecting environments, they are still a race of hunters. It's been no secret that they hunt and kill other living things, plant and animal. So long as the balance of the ecosystem is respected and maintained, and there is no cruelty shown toward the prey, the Aurin are cool with it. Some Aurin are totally against eating sentient Veggies and would rather befriend them, and it's shown in-game. Also, other races grow and eat Veggies, not just the Aurin. The Aurin grow and eat Veggies, but they have shown no cruelty toward them.
 
I would like to see the controversy of eating Veggies brought up among Aurin groups though. Should be fun to watch.
 
But if we're going by the logic that the Aurin can't be considered good guys for eating sentient vegetables, then we might as well say the Dominion is irredeemable because they make shoes out of Aurin, and it has been shown in-game that some Draken eat Aurin hearts because they believe it keeps them young. Silly, yes?
			
				
	Edited January 9, 2016 by Kintallo	
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How is it hypocrisy? While the Aurin are about conservation and protecting environments, they are still a race of hunters. It's been no secret that they hunt and kill other living things, plant and animal. So long as the balance of the ecosystem is respected and maintained, and there is no cruelty shown toward the prey, the Aurin are cool with it. Some Aurin are totally against eating sentient Veggies and would rather befriend them, and it's shown in-game. Also, other races grow and eat Veggies, not just the Aurin. The Aurin grow and eat Veggies, but they have shown no cruelty toward them.
 
I would like to see the controversy of eating Veggies brought up among Aurin groups though. Should be fun to watch.
 
But if we're going by the logic that the Aurin can't be considered good guys for eating sentient vegetables, then we might as well say the Dominion is irredeemable because they make shoes out of Aurin, and it has been shown in-game that some Draken eat Aurin hearts because they believe it keeps them young. Silly, yes?
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I would like to see the controversy of eating Veggies brought up among Aurin groups though. Should be fun to watch.
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I don't see how any of what you stated takes down my argument any. You didn't answer my question as to how the Aurin are being hypocritical in any way, or more evil than any of the other races in WS. 
 
How are the Aurin more evil for growing and eating Veggies (a thing common among numerous other races) when compared to Draken who hunt and kill for sport, capture people and animals for the sake of having them fight and be hunted for entertainment, and devour hearts for the sake of maintaining youth? A race that grows sentient vegetables for food while showing them no cruelty, compared to a race that will wipe out all other living things in an ecosystem just for fun? ((As a disclaimer, I do not hate the Draken. I think they're pretty cool and I have made several of them in the game.))
 
The Aurin are not against hunting and killing plants and animals; they are against reckless hunting and foraging, and showing unnecessary cruelty toward the life that is being taken. The one time Veggie cultivation and eating was shown among the Aurin, it is implied that they are raised with tender loving care, and they don't go out of their way to be mean or cruel to them just because their purpose was to be eaten. There is no hypocrisy here. Morally questionable? Yes. Hypocritical, no.
			
				
	Edited January 9, 2016 by Kintallo	
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Would you care to elaborate on that point? Just how "vermin"-like are you arguing the Dominion sees the Aurin?
 
Because it sounds to me like the argument you're making is that the Dominion doesn't feel any particular moral obligation to approach the Aurin the same way it would any of the other humanoid races in the game. While I think it's clear that the Exiles detest the Chua, I don't see any sign that they view Chua as somehow less capable or aware than any other humanoid race in the game.
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Devour hearts for the sake of regaining youth? o.O
 
I think we need a source on that one. Draken may have some crazy blood rituals but I haven't heard of that one before XD	
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They devour hearts to lengthen their lifespan, not keep themselves young. My apologies!
			
				
	Edited January 9, 2016 by Kintallo	
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I would love to see an emote that allows you to look hungrily at your veggie pets. :lol:
 
If you seriously can't tell the difference between an integral component of the backstory and lore about the sociopolitical structure of the factions and a minor bit of in-game comedy relief, I'm inclined to agree.
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This particular issue, the issue of 'sapient veggies', is a nice illustration of an issue even larger then the difference between the Dominion and Exiles, but which is deeply integral to it: the disconnect between the various elements of Wildstar.
 
Let's think of WIldstar as three broud elements: Aesthetics, Gameplay and Story. Each of these is important in their own way and each of these contributes to the player's enjoyment of the game as a product. I now believe that there is a serious disconnect between these elements, and it contributes to the problems that we see in the game as a whole. 
 
Specifically, I think the biggest and most jarring disconnect is between Aesthetics on one hand, and story and gameplay on the other.
 
Aesthetics: Wildstar has, I think we can all agree, some very well developed aesthetics. It has a coherent sense of style that is easily recognizable while not being too divergent from previously existing styles. It's light, it's relatively simple and clean in an artistic sense, and it has an overall cartoony sensibility and style. 
 
I don't mean simple and clean as an insult here: I'm contrasting Wildstar's style against things like, for example, the Baroque style of Warhammer 40,000 (the standard bearer for cluttered aesthetics in sci-fantasy). Again, I'm not saying one is better then the other, merely that they are visually distinct art styles.
 
The disconnect, and the trouble, comes in because Carbine takes this light, airy, friendly aesthetic, and uses it to tell what is actually a very grim story. In all honesty, I don't think that it really works.
 
To circle back, take the issue of the veggies: when I did the mission on the arkship where you protect the veggies, I was so confused. In the end, I just assumed it was a joke in a lighthearted universe where you aren't supposed to take things seriously. In fairness, this is super early in the game (like what, 15 minutes in for an Exile?), and the idea that this is a lighthearted world of semi-serious adventures is... well, that's the world that the advertising has been selling!
 
This is where the disconnect comes in: all too often Wildstar seems like it had a team of six writers. Four of them thought they were writing a light sci-fantasy adventure for all ages. One of them seems to not care all that much (except about creepy body horror stuff), and the last one thought he was writing The Red Badge of Courage.
 
Th effect is jarring: there are far too many quests in Wildstar that I simply felt bad having completed them. I can think of at least three Exile quests that involve telling someone that their relatives died horribly. Some of them are really early on too; there is a trooper's body you find shortly after the crash in the Exile (human) starter zone where you read his datapad about the new life he wanted for him and his pregnant wife. Who you then have to tell about his death. Then there is the Aurin whose adopted family you have to find... only to discover they are all dead and the orphan is, once again, all alone in the world. The Mordesh whose family is all dead, etc, etc... the worst for me is the quest line where you recruit people for the battle in Galeras, and by the end you have to tell one of the troopers' wives, yup, he's dead now too.
 
It completely takes me out of the game to have, say, Doc Honey the Aurin catgirl telling a widow about her dead husband. 
 
I'm not saying that a game should be all one tone; there should be ups and downs in the experience, that gives it depth and lets you really appreciate the highs. But any work, weather it's a movie, a book or (yes) a video game needs to understand tone. And tone is why, as Mike Stokasta once said, "There is a reason that Ghostbusters doesn't start with a *violent sexual assault* on a pin-ball machine." 
 
So it becomes hard to understand the background, not because any given point is unclear, but it's unclear what the nature of the universe is, what the tone is. Are we really supposed to understand from your interaction with the veggies on the Exile ark ship that the Aurins are practicing some form of chattel slavery? Or is it joke? I dunno, because I don't know how to feel about this. 
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Seems to me that it's clear the Dominion doesn't feel any obligation to approach the Aurin the same way it would other races. "Tree-slank" being a common chua reffernce for Aurin. 
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I think that you misunderstood my meaning: when I say I can't see the Aurin having any sort of status in the Dominion, what I mean is that my impression is that the Dominion views the Aurin largely in the terms of the following lines from Dredd Scott v, Sandford;
 
That the authorities view all such persons, in the words of Chief Justice Roger Taney, as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
 
In all seriousness, is there anything in the lore that would indicate the above statement is not a generally accurate depiction of the attitude of the Dominion towards other races, and especially the Aurin?
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			I don't see why it can't be true. There's no reason for Arwick to lie about this as the Aurin are already willing to fight the Draken, and there is a quest in Whitevale where you fetch boulderback hearts for a Draken to eat as he believes it will warm him up and give him the boulderback's strength, so eating hearts to gain some kind of benefit is definitely a thing some Draken do.	
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Obvious troll is obvious.
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I don't see why it can't be true. There's no reason for Arwick to lie about this as the Aurin are already willing to fight the Draken, and there is a quest in Whitevale where you fetch boulderback hearts for a Draken to eat as he believes it will warm him up and give him the boulderback's strength, so eating hearts to gain some kind of benefit is definitely a thing some Draken do.
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Well, I haven't heard of Draken eating the heart of their enemies to gain their strenghts except from that one boulderback quest, so I'm not sure how to take that quest.
On one hand, we certainly can and must make some inferences from quests we see in the game until something else comes to deny it (ussually though Author Clarification or another quest that contradicts it). On the other, we have to take the context in mind, and this quest has...well, no context except that a draken is freezing and he thinks eating a certain animal heart will help him acquire a particular strenght from that animal. We don't know if he was crazy, if his belief is particular to certain draken, if it's shared among all of them, or if it's something draken don't care about anymore.
We do have -some- context, though, in that heart-eating doesn't come ever again in draken-related quests (as far as I know). You'd think that if it was an important or widely spread part of their culture, we would have seen it during in Draken Central Deradune's quests. But we don't. We learn the importance of ancestors, of hunting, of collecting bones and trophies. But never about eating the prey specifically to gain their power. A most odd thing, considering one of the first things you do is kill a gargantuan monster that bested some of the village hunters.
You'd think the draken would be all over eating THAT heart.
 
So my take on that particular matter is that the Writers had a 'this is cool and drakeny enough!' moment and weren't actually trying to say anything about Drakens with it. The only interpretation we can give it is that SOME drakens SOMEWHERE eat the hearts of beasts to gain their strenghts. But we can't actually assume this goes as far as eating other sentient sapient's body parts.
 
However, keep this in mind: if the Dominion doesn't see the Aurin as actual people, then it's quite possible and even probable that the Draken don't, either. Then we have to conclude that, for a Draken, eating an Aurin wouldn't be any more different than when they eat a Boulderback. And contrary to the situation Veggies are in, we don't have the constant humorous context that is given in that case: when Veggies are eaten by the Aurin, it's played for laughs all the time. It should be quite as repulsive (because both species are sapient, even if one isn't particularly smart), but the context makes it less so. Like when enemies explode into bloody chunks because you killed them with a Critical Hit. 
The fact that veggies are depicted as cartoon vegetables instead of cartoon people also helps soften the atrocity to the eyes of the player.	
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The dialog seems to me to indicate that it is a widespread belief and common practice.
 
"On Mikros, Draken hunters would consume the hearts of great beasts to gain their strengths. It is no different on Nexus."
 
edit: At least, it doesn't seem isolated to this one Draken, anyways.
 
edit: When asked if it works, he responds with something like 'Fetch me the hearts and find out'.
 
When you get him the hearts his dialog is:
 
"Yes! the heart of the mighty boulderback."
 
"deliscious! The beasts warm heart's blood courses down my throat."
 
"I feel the boulderback's heat! It's power!"
 
"Now I shall the hunt the beasts of Whitevale like no other hunter can! Tahnk you!"
			
				
	Edited January 10, 2016 by Bytek	
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Smh.... Spider Bro just confirmed the information I gave. Most of it is basic information that is found on Lormaggedon. But if you think I'm a troll, please refrain from asking me to clarify my posts. It will save us both time and energy. Thank you.
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However, keep this in mind: if the Dominion doesn't see the Aurin as actual people, then it's quite possible and even probable that the Draken don't, either. Then we have to conclude that, for a Draken, eating an Aurin wouldn't be any more different than when they eat a Boulderback. And contrary to the situation Veggies are in, we don't have the constant humorous context that is given in that case: when Veggies are eaten by the Aurin, it's played for laughs all the time. It should be quite as repulsive (because both species are sapient, even if one isn't particularly smart), but the context makes it less so. Like when enemies explode into bloody chunks because you killed them with a Critical Hit. 
The fact that veggies are depicted as cartoon vegetables instead of cartoon people also helps soften the atrocity to the eyes of the player.
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Here's how I personally see it; there is nothing in the game or lore that proves Arwick's statement about that particular Draken elder eating Aurin hearts to be false, and the fact that there is another case of a Draken eating hearts, and considering Draken culture in general, I am going to treat it as the truth. I don't believe eating Aurin hearts is a wide-spread and super common thing among the Draken, I agree with that, but there is no reason to believe that this particular Draken isn't doing it, or that there aren't any other Draken that may eat the hearts of their enemies whether they're sentient or not. Unless there is official information that proves the contrary, I will take what is stated and shown in-game to be fact, even if it's only been mentioned briefly.
 
Even if eating the hearts of sentient beings is a rarity among Draken, I don't see them caring enough to stop it if some of their own choose to eat the heart of an enemy such as the Aurin.
 
Just to be clear, my point in bringing up that Draken elder was to point out that eating the hearts of enemies is apparently a thing that some Draken do, not that it's a common practice or that all Draken do it.
 
If people can take one line from the Arborian Fables --Key word being "fables"-- about "really mean" behavior being a criminal offense in Aurin culture as canon, despite that being the only mention of such a thing (at least I haven't seen such a law mentioned in any other part of the game, but hoo boy do Aurin RPers love to bring up that "Really Mean" law!), then why can't we take Arwick's statement that there is a Draken that eats Aurin hearts as confirmation that some Draken do this? 
 
Edited for clarity.
			
				
	Edited January 10, 2016 by Kintallo	
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I suspected you might be trolling, which is why I wanted to know if you were going to confirm that suspicion or not. You did, but at least now I know why.
 
The only thing those statements in Loremaggedon prove is that it's just as horrifically written and poorly thought out as some of the other lore. I'm sorry, if you don't even think a race is sapient, your views are in for an inescapable revision the first time you see them conversing with races that you think are sapient. You do not take them as prisoners of war because you don't think they are even capable of understanding that status. I could go on, but those two points by themselves are enough to demonstrate how absurd this conversation has become.
 
It is simply not plausible that those views can be correct as described and still have the interracial interactions in the game occur as they do. Sorry. You trying to attach too literal of an interpretation to some text that's overstating things.
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I used the word "Vermin" because it is specifically used in a lore source. And stated that it is clear the Dominion doesn't feel the obligation to approach the Aurin the way they would other races. (They didn't approach the Aurin). YOU applied all the extra appendages of non-sapience. 
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You're the one drawing from Loremaggedon materials that proclaim various races view each other as "little more than [insert descriptive term for non-sapient life form here]" to justify your position. All I'm doing is when I use the phrase "non-sapience" is succinctly summarizing what that kind of vocabulary actually means if you're going to take it as a literal truth rather than recognize it as the exaggerated racial slur that it is.
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I don't have as much trouble with it, in part because I don't attach quite the same association of "light and simple" to the "cartoony" aesthetic.
Cartoons have generally be used in the US for those purposes, but they don't have to be--and in other countries, they aren't.
They're used for comedy, action, drama, romance, horror, tragedy, or combinations of all of the above.
 
That being said, this game very clearly has elements that you simply are not intended to take seriously even as they're completely horrific if you think about them seriously. The example that makes the point most clearly to me is that sometimes when you kill an opponent, they don't just die--they explode into meaty chunks. It's obviously meant to be funny, and I do find it funny.
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See, and please don't take this as an attack, I don't find this humorous, I find it repellent. I mean that literally; I am actually repelled by the "humor" that people have brought up and it has succeeded in, more or less, completely eliminated my interest in playing Dominion characters.
 
Now, again, that's just an opinion. But it's worth pointing out that if this discussion has any purpose, it is in the context that a) this game doesn't have players to burn, and b ) the Dominion is substantially less populated then the Exiles. Given that the mechanics are identical Exile/Dominion, this leaves only 2 possible reasons for a population imbalance;
 
1) People don't like the races on the Dominion side. Now we certainly can't discount this (I brought it up myself a while back), but it's always worth remembering that in any MMO, the single most played race is usually humans, and there are nearly identical humans on both sides of the divide.
 
2) People don't like the 'tone' of the Dominion. By that I mean the combination of story, aesthetics and interactions that the player is part of. 
 
Let's be clear, when I say that this is "a problem", I mean that it is an economic problem, because it negatively affects player retention, etc. At this point I am beginning to wonder if this is fixable at all, and even if it is, if Carbine has either the interest and/or the resources to fix it. At this point my assumption is No to all; they can't fix it, and even if they could they don't have either the time or the money to do so.
 
Imagine, for a moment, that Wildstar had a soft relaunch (well, a second soft relaunch): all they really did was... take out the Dominion. I don't mean take them out of the game, but have Wildstar be a single faction game, with the Exiles as the player faction and the Dominion as the consistent antagonist. Have seven races available (it doesn't take that much change to the lore to explain this), and have instanced PvP explained as fighting between merc groups in-faction. As a purely economic step I think it would probably work out better then continuing to have resources split between two factions, and it would increase the critical mass of players for PvE (which, let's be honest, is the real focus of the game).
 
But to be reasonable, given that Wildstar has already had a soft relaunch, I don't really see this happening. 
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Before you all go apeshit on the draken eating hearts thing. Let's back up a little bit yeah?
 
We do have evidence that some draken do it, great. That's all I was asking for.
 
It could just be a cultural thing. It was/is a common idea in many tribal human cultures that you could "bring the power of the animal unto yourself" by eating its organs. Perhaps more superstitious draken still believe this. Or perhaps it really IS a thing that can be done, at least by bloodshamans with their magic. Obviously we also have other examples of draken eating other beings, whether non-sentient, semi-sentient, sentient, or any other form of sentient. Frankly I think this is actually very interesting and adds a bit to their culture that I hadn't considered before.
 
Either way, I was just wondering where the in-game lore for this was, since I hadn't heard it before. Now that we know it CAN happen, maybe I'll add it to a Draken Ballad! :D (if i ever get around to writing one)	
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			Well if draken are already killing things, why not have a nice "heart healthy" snack afterwards...?	
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Racial slur or not, both sides do it. You assigned the literal aspect.  You can accept it or not.  It's not really important that you do as you've already decided me a troll.  And seem only able to see through that lense.  *shrug*
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