148615-so-dominion-and-exiles-page-4

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"Racial slur or not"...? We're literally right back where we started. *facepalm*
 
Just in case you've lost track, allow me to trace the circle for you. The statement you started with that I wanted clarification about what this right here:
This position has two possible interpretations that I can see.
First, that people on both sides literally view each other as undeserving of what we would call basic human rights in a real world context.
Second, that people on both sides call each other nasty names. True but trivial, as people on both sides of pretty much every war to ever happen have done so.
 
As I'm sure you're well aware, a number of Dominion apologists have in fact argued that the Dominion does not recognize the Aurin as sentient/sapient beings as an explanation for simply plowing over them during the Ravaging of Arboria with no efforts to open negotiations and no prior overt hostility to justify it. That event does not, to my knowledge, have any comparably callous equivalent on the Exile even on a small scale and even lacks a comparably callous equivalent elsewhere in the Dominion backstory.
 
Because I don't think that position IS in fact equal on both sides, my response was a request for clarification, as follows:
In other words, "are you in fact making the argument that the Aurin are not recognized as sentient/sapient by the Dominion? Because if so, your claim that the two sides are equal in this respect now requires that the Exiles also deny that status to the Chua. I don't see it--it seems to me that they're calling each other nasty names."
 
Your response:
Presuming that you were in fact responding to my query--and you did quote my question directly above this statement--I can see only one reasonable interpretation of your clarification: "Each faction regards the races in question on the other side as genuinely incapable of true sentience/sapience". You even went out of your way to say that Granok view Chua as "trained rodents" because "that's how they see them".
 
Another few rounds of back-and-forthing between us made clear that the obviously unreasonable language that you were using here was being pulled directly from Loremageddon's sections on the different races and how they interact with other races in the game; for example, Loremageddon tells us that "Most Granok see the Chua as little more than trained rodents and afford them the commensurate respect." And so you're simply parsing the text of Loremageddon the same way a computer would: reading the text, attaching definitions to the words, and treating the result as literally true without reference to anything else, independent of whether that fits with any other aspect of the game, backstory, or common sense.
 
The problem with this approach becomes clear when we actually look at the Chua and the Granok and the extent to which each race is aware of the other as a major subpopulation of their opposing factions. The Chua are a major source of the Dominion's technological superiority. They invent weapons and machines that are of central importance to the Dominion war effort. To not be aware of this, the Granok would have to be completely ignorant of the enemies that they've been fighting up close and personal for centuries. So we're left with a choice: either the text isn't literally accurate. or the Granok are not being given even the most rudimentary information about the military capabilities and technology of their long-term opponents--not from the front, not from the Black Hoods, not from the Aurin, and not from the Exile humans. The last one is particularly unrealistic, given that the Exile humans didn't leave the Dominion until 800 years after the Chua were brought in.
 
It simply is not reasonable to treat that text in Loremageddon as a literal truth. The only sane way to reconcile it with the other things we already know from much more integral and direct components of the backstory is to treat it as hyperbole. The same fundamental considerations apply to the Aurin. There's simply no sane way to conclude that the Dominion is not well aware that they are sentient and sapient.
 
That means that no, actually, the two factions cannot reasonably be said to genuinely view major races in the opposite side as literally non-sentient and non-sapient. They're just calling each other nasty names. Just like every other set of opponents in every other armed conflict. Which makes your response to my request for clarification simply wrong, based on overliteral interpretation of some overly melodramatic text that doesn't actually mesh with the rest of the story.
 
Your response?
 
 
What a delightfully passive-aggressive deflection.
 
No commitment to any of the possible ways of interpreting what you've said in several preceding posts except the conclusion that whatever it was you were referring to, both sides do it.
A statement that I "assigned the literal aspect" with no clarification of whether that was an accurate reflection of what you intended or not.
Nothing to directly acknowledge, note, or correct any substantive error on either of our parts.
 
Ah, wait, I should give credit where it's due. You did take the time to be clear about one thing: that I was wrong to call a statement in his preceding post a "declaration"--without committing to what word would more accurately capture the statement in question, and why the distinction makes any difference whatsoever to anything.
 
And now we're right back to where we started, an ambiguous statement that may or may not mean what it looks like it means--and is only true for both of them if it doesn't mean what it looks like it means, despite your claim to the contrary.
 
Maybe I'd be less inclined to view you as trolling if you put less of your obvious intelligence towards staking out positions based on their ability to avoid scrutiny and more of it towards staking out positions based on their ability to withstand scrutiny.
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I don't have the time to keep correcting you. There is no gain in it. You are free to make any assumption you want as I am not the internet police and you have already stated that you see me as a troll multiple times. You already predetermined the interpretation of everything I could say. But don't expect me to co-sign the nonsense. 
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Which means that people who say "this is a MMO, and here are the things that matter in MMOs" will tend to place a great deal less value on the story and lore than people who see the game as a MMORPG--which is why guys like Frost could wax philosophical about how stupid and irrelevant the story is without instantly invalidating themselves from a lead management position for a game where those are in fact major game elements.
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I quite disagree with that.  When it comes to MMORPG's I'm a firm believer in "something for everyone" at least at the scale that Themepark MMO's wish to operate at.  That opinion is based on the academic research done by the likes of Richard Bartle, Jennifer Mulligan, etc.  When you neglect a facet or fail to provide attractive activities for that facet you will upset a portion of your customers.
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A morality discussion where one of the participants keeps moving the goalposts, creating a goose chase while basically saying "lol nothing fishy here, me too smart u r too dumb!" whenever he's called out for it. Yep, sounds like we are back in that thread again.
 
Now we just need Bytek to post a short tantrum post, dissapear for 7 months, and then come back repeating the same things he has said all the time with no modification at all. Then his path to becoming  Nazryn Sith  an Insistent Dominion Apologist will be complete! :P
Though I'm calling it now: if the forums freak out and we lose a whole month of this conversation I'm going to start thinking the Greek philosophers weren't so wrong when they spoke of periodic calamities resetting human civilization every so often.
 
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They tried to do that in the Defile [Assemble the Crew +20] and it's one of the worst missions.  Save eight (4+4) of your soldiers from Strain goo and in cold blood murder eight soldiers from the opposite faction who are also stuck and cannot fight back.  If you want mission credit you must do all steps.  It's senseless psychopathy.  Same with that Globellum mission.  Awful.
 
So no... no I do not want them trying to make the faction conflict "mean something" because they just don't get how to write conflict stories.
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 Another few rounds of back-and-forthing between us made clear that the obviously unreasonable language that you were using here was being pulled directly from Loremageddon's sections on the different races and how they interact with other races in the game; for example, Loremageddon tells us that "Most Granok see the Chua as little more than trained rodents and afford them the commensurate respect." And so you're simply parsing the text of Loremageddon the same way a computer would: reading the text, attaching definitions to the words, and treating the result as literally true without reference to anything else, independent of whether that fits with any other aspect of the game, backstory, or common sense.
 
The problem with this approach becomes clear when we actually look at the Chua and the Granok and the extent to which each race is aware of the other as a major subpopulation of their opposing factions. The Chua are a major source of the Dominion's technological superiority. They invent weapons and machines that are of central importance to the Dominion war effort. To not be aware of this, the Granok would have to be completely ignorant of the enemies that they've been fighting up close and personal for centuries. So we're left with a choice: either the text isn't literally accurate. or the Granok are not being given even the most rudimentary information about the military capabilities and technology of their long-term opponents--not from the front, not from the Black Hoods, not from the Aurin, and not from the Exile humans. The last one is particularly unrealistic, given that the Exile humans didn't leave the Dominion until 800 years after the Chua were brought in.
 
It simply is not reasonable to treat that text in Loremageddon as a literal truth. The only sane way to reconcile it with the other things we already know from much more integral and direct components of the backstory is to treat it as hyperbole. The same fundamental considerations apply to the Aurin. There's simply no sane way to conclude that the Dominion is not well aware that they are sentient and sapient.
 
That means that no, actually, the two factions cannot reasonably be said to genuinely view major races in the opposite side as literally non-sentient and non-sapient. They're just calling each other nasty names. Just like every other set of opponents in every other armed conflict. Which makes your response to my request for clarification simply wrong, based on overliteral interpretation of some overly melodramatic text that doesn't actually mesh with the rest of the story.
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That's because the Dominion is unfixable without a major social shaking.
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It actually does give credence to a Nexus rebellion against the Dominion, which I wholly support and have been suggesting is what will happen for awhile now. I mean, they've hinted several times that things they found on Nexus could 'shake the very foundations of the Dominion.'
 
What I'm more curious of is what it means for the fringe elements of the Dominion that have very little invested in the actual Dominion religion and divinity clause but rather in what it offers - or basically, the chua. Who cares if the Dominion wasn't founded on gods? They're there for the resources. And even if a rebellion stops them from getting resources from the Dominion, what reason do they have to stay with the rebels? At best, I guess, they could offer access to Eldan research and the like, since that was something Mondo was personally homing in on. But it'd have to be something rather profound for them.
 
The mechari is kind of the same question, since they were founded on the principle that the Dominion should thrive no matter what. I guess it would be either have a schism in the Mechari network where they're taking sides based on what they think the best direction for the Dominion is, or the Mechari unanimously side with the rebellion as they see it as most likely to succeed in surviving and creating a better Dominion. Long-term goals et cetera et cetera.	
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Not wanting to bring horrible, real-world stuff into this, but I'm sure that you can think of plenty of examples from human history where intelligent and otherwise civilised Group A fully accepted the sapience of Group B... but cheerfully considered them to be literally subhuman vermin anyway, in order to rationalise what Group A wanted to do to them.
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			All that sounds really nice to me but then I wouldn't give the writers of this game that much credit. Call me "cynical"!	
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Yeah, I suspect that there's a very important reason coming why one of the few restrictions the developers have directly imposed on the player-characters and their status within their own race is that no player character Mechari is allowed to be a Millennial.
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[1] Oh, I definitely can think of plenty of examples of that, and I appreciate your willingness to bring the point up, given how much of a potential minefield the topic is.
 
[2] My response would be that's not people literally accepting two flatly incompatible statements--a genuine case of cognitive dissonance--that's people actively endorsing a pretext because it's useful to ignore a reality that will be expensive or unpleasant to acknowledge. And in most cases, it isn't sincere. Just convenient.
 
[3] In that case, the only thing that changes is where exactly the melodramatic, unrealistic hyperbole resides--with the person writing Loremageddon or with the races insisting on something that they know perfectly well can't be true. And if it's the latter case then we have to ask what it is they've done using this pretext... and that will assuredly not be leading us to the conclusion that they're all that similar. Not at all.  ;)
 
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what a cluster... Hey Illdur, for future reference defaming people on the forums just makes you look insecure.
 
Neither faction is better than the other, they have different world views and violently enforce them as they see fit. 
 
Arboria was a resource grab (*cough* Native Americans *cough*), the comparable / worse action on the Exile side was the literal auto-genocide of the Mordesh.
 
I explained this ad nauseam in the old and thankfully long locked thread, The two factions have different but equally valid moralities. The Dominion operates on what Nietzche termed "master morality". This is the type of morality you see practiced by Japanese Samurai, Knightly orders, and classical greece and rome. This morality puts nobility, honor, and justice at the forefront of moral "good". The Exiles operate on what Neitzche termed "slave morality" (these terms are not desriptive, they are just names for these moral archtypes). They put intentions, and utility at the forefront of the "moral good". Neither morality is better or worse, and we all have experience with both. When we root for Odyseus, or Hercules as they defeat their opposition, we are exercising master morality. When we feel sorry for Frankenstein's monster when it kills everything it knows in the world, we are exercising slave morality.
 
The factions represent two types of morality we all are intrinsically used to, though some people personally exercise one type more often then the other, we all implicitly understand them both. The police capturing or killing a criminal is good? That's master morality. A good popular media example of an archetypally similar moral situation to the Dominion would be Judge Dredd. 
 
So to reiterate. If you think the Dominion is "evil", it's because you're willfully or unintentionally ignoring the master morality you excercise in your own life. If you think the Exiles are "evil" you are likewise willfully or unintentionally ignoring the slave morality you excercise in your own life. Both are good by their own standards, with major elements that are very not good (Black Hoods / Mordesh Alchemists | ICI / DREDD). Both factions accept the rather terrible actions of the ICI/Black Hoods for the "greater good", and likewise support the Mordesh Alchemists and DREDD because the technological / scientific gains outweigh their devious methods (again for the greater good of each faction).
 
Again, because this is really missed by so many people here. The Ravaging of Arboria was a RESOURCE EXTRACTION OPERATION. The Aurin were not targetted by the Dominion Legions for extermination, their wood and minerals were (And are still being) extracted by Mondo Zax (not the millitary). The Aurin that fled are still alive, and Aurin still live on Arboria (e.g. the Thorns of Arboria, who guard the mother tree). In comparison, almost all Mordesh were wiped out by Victor Lazarin and his everlife elixer. The differences here are:
 
1) Mondo is interested in resources, but doesn't much care if Aurin who get in the way perish (apathy) 
2) Victor was interested in living forever, but didn't test his creation and damned his whole species for his hubris (arrogance)
 
Objectively, Victor caused the most loss of life by FAR. Grismara is devoid of life due to his hubris and arrogance, a planet completely dead. Whereas Chua and Aurin still inhabit Arboria, continuing to collect resources and protect their forests respectively. This has had a major emotional impact on the Aurin, but no where near the sheer loss of life the Mordesh suffered at Victor's hands. But because Victor "didn't mean to destroy all life on Grismara" we're supposed to think he's good? Every scientist and doctor knows to thoroughly test medicines and compounds before selling them (Victor, by the way, didn't give his elixer out free, it was sold at a high price). Thats why we have a multi year- testing program for all potential new drugs before they hit our markets. Negligence is just as bad as intention in my book, but because Slave morality values intent rather than results, he is shown in a "good" light. Just as on the Dominion, Mondo is acquiring much needed resources for the Empire AND exacting justice on criminals, and as master morality values justice, he is shown in a good light...
 
And as for snarky defamation about the Sith, they too are not actually "evil". Jedi and Sith are two opposing religions. The Jedi preach complete vacuity and elimination of all emotion to gain harmony; while the Sith preach using ones emotions to gain the strength to achieve freedom. A point that's missed by many, is that as far as the movies are concerned, it was a Sith who ultimately saved the galaxy (Darth Vader) when the Jedi (Luke) failed. Vader did exactly as the Sith believe, he used his love for his son (a powerful emotion) to overpower the emperor and free himself and the galaxy.... That's the Sith Code down to a "t". 
			
				
	Edited January 12, 2016 by Nazryn	
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[1] Hopefully, being quick and vague will function as minefield avoidance.
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I think you can be less vague here without stepping on any of the mines associated with real world analogies. And I'd agree that there are many Exiles who would cheerfully do terrible things to the Chua now. They're at war with the Chua, the Chua are the Dominion's major source of technological and industrial supremacy, and the Chua are the main engineers of what's happening to Arboria.
 
That is quite different from the statement that there are any Exile species who would have gone to Bezgelor to raze the planet with no effort to negotiate, just a short time after the Dominion made initial benign contact with the Chua. That, I don't see any Exile species doing. Not even the Mordesh. So no, I don't think it really is that similar. Not at all.
 
By the way, here's an interesting question: let's play the "what if the roles were reversed" game a bit further and imagine for the sake of argument that the Exiles do in fact have that power and do in fact abuse it to invade Bezgelor after the Mechari's visit. And let's imagine that the Dominion's power has waned so that they're outnumbered and outgunned by the Exiles.
 
Does the Dominion fly in to save the Chua before the Chua have officially joined the Dominion, having no real obligation to do so? I don't see it. I expect they'd simply re-evalutate costs and benefits of continuing to engage the Chua, decide that they were now unlikely to be worth more than the cost of protecting them, and wash their hands of the whole situation.
 
Which would not be all that similar to what the Exiles did. Not at all.
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Been there already, Naz. It's just as silly now as it was in the first thread you flooded with logical fallacies, inaccurate descriptions, and waaaaaaay too much reliance on the ramblings of a pre-internet troll in the years immediately preceding his descent into full-blown insanity.
 
If you are of the opinion that all moralities are equivalently valid, I don't see why you're bothering with this discussion at all. You reject the entire premise that it is even possible for one side to be better than the other, which means there's nothing to discuss.
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The Mordesh and Aurin in Celestion do exactly what the chua did and are doing to Arboria to the Torine and their sacred sites to collect primal life.... So remind me of your point again?
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The Exiles tried to open negotiations and were met with violence. The Dominion showed up on Arboria and started shooting.
The events of Arboria stand out because even the Dominion doesn't usually do what the Dominion did on Arboria. What the Exiles do to the Torine is far more like what the Dominion did on Gnox, and even there the comparison isn't great because the Exile-Torine violence there doesn't actually ignite a full-fledged war between the Exiles and the Torine--which would have precluded their ability to work together later in the game. 
 
When exactly did the Exiles try to open negotiations with the Dominion? And why would the Dominion open negotiations with terrorists (Which is what they considered the Aurin after learning they sheltered and abetted the exiles). We don't negotiate with terrorists or those that aid them, we carpet bomb them...
 
The Mordesh and the Aurin did begin open war with the Torine in Celestion, but that didn't preclude the story from forcing them to work together later. Just as the Exiles began open war with the Dominion, but that didn't preclude the story from forcing them to work together later.
 
The Dominion pursues the Marauders and the Ikthians because both forces exploit innocent citizens of the Dominion. Do you have an example where the Dominion steps in at great cost to themselves to save people they have no obligation to help?
 
The Lopp, the Ekose, the Pell, the Torine, the Free Bots..... They have done so numerous times with many factions that are not part of the Dominion.
 
The work you do to help the Ekose, Lopp, and other groups is not the Dominion committing to a high risk, high casualty, resource expensive rescue operation committing your military to confrontation with a more powerful enemy so that you can save people who aren't part of your own faction. Try again, please.
 
Uh, what are you talking about? Dominion missions to help the Free Bots, the Ekose, the Pell, the Torine, and other groups frequently have serious ramifications. The only military power that might even be close to the Dominion right now are the Ikthians and the Dominion (in their arc) save all of nexus from them, including the Exiles (grudgingly of course). 
 
In the Ikthian Arc, Kezerek himself takes on the Ikthian leader, like the BAMF that he is. But tell me more about why that doesn't count? The Exiles knew what would happen to the Aurin when the Dominion caught up with them, and they left them anyway. The Aurin were the Exiles responsibility, so why do instances where the Dominion (through their virtues of Justice and Purity) feels obligated to help not count? 
 
That said there are plenty of examples of such situations. Just one example is when the Dominion negotiates fair working conditions and wages for the enslaved freebots used in Protostar mines.... The Dominion accepted serious financial risk in fighting to free the freebots from slavery and get them proper employment... 
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When exactly did the Exiles try to open negotiations with the Dominion?
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First up: :blink: "There there Friedrich; don't listen to the nasty man." :lol:
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Up to a point it will. At some point, being quick and vague starts to become its own minefield, because at some point you do in fact have to present an idea with clarity.
 
I think that argument excuses human rights atrocities in war instead of recognizing them for what most military personnel recognize them as: war crimes.
I think that when real world examples of this go public, most people respond in genuine horror at the atrocities, a sizeable subset of people respond in irritation that the people doing the atrocity didn't cover it up better, and almost nobody responds with "I don't see what the problem is at all, they're subhuman anyway".
 
Those populations respectively correspond to the three categories: sincere without doublethink, insincere without doublethink, and sincere with doublethink.
 
So no, I don't think sincerity is involved there on a society-wide scale. We all have unpleasant realities that we don't like to think about, but we do still know what the reality is. We just don't like having it pointed out.
 
Better for all concerned to continue to be vague: Think of, rather than conventional war, comparatively recent history where it's largely the 'ordinary, decent people' who directly got their hands dirty.  Ideological purges, civil wars, bloody revolutions and that kind of thing.  Which leads to:-
 
Since this whole point is revolving around rather Orwellian concepts, I'd like to point out that there's two large-scale messages about concepts like doublethink to take away from works like 1984. The first is a cautionary one and certainly the most obvious: that the core of being human can ultimately break under enough pressure. But the second point is that the pressure required to actually make it happen is extreme. It is not easy to break someone's mind enough to get them to sincerely believe that 2+2 is 5 when you need them to. It can be done, but it takes the thing in Room 101 to get there.
 
Nope: If you read plenty of other Orwell, written at roughly the same time (e.g 'Essays' and 'Homage to Catalonia'), '1984' was heavily informed by his actual experiences dealing with dogmatists.  Just as in the book, the overwhelming majority of Party members had no problem at all doublethinking their way through life, without needing a Room 101 to get there.  That was very much his personal experience in dealing with such dogmatists, including almost being killed by them when the Party decreed that he was no longer an ally (and had therefore never been an ally, because otherwise the Party would have been wrong, which is impossible) in the Spanish Civil War.
 
The message of '1984' is how easily most people (especially the 'intellectual' class) can doublethink their way to atrocity and horror: And this is what happens when folks surrender their ability to coherently reason for themselves, and uncritically believe what they're told.
 
Not much further we can go here, but you may find Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' a good read if you're interested in this kind of thing; especially the bit where he writes about humans having a large part of their brains dedicated to allowing them to lie to themselves with absolute conviction, and why that would have been a useful survival trait.  Anyway....
 
I think you can be less vague here without stepping on any of the mines associated with real world analogies. And I'd agree that there are many Exiles who would cheerfully do terrible things to the Chua now. They're at war with the Chua, the Chua are the Dominion's major source of technological and industrial supremacy, and the Chua are the main engineers of what's happening to Arboria.
 
That is quite different from the statement that there are any Exile species who would have gone to Bezgelor to raze the planet with no effort to negotiate, just a short time after the Dominion made initial benign contact with the Chua. That, I don't see any Exile species doing. Not even the Mordesh. So no, I don't think it really is that similar. Not at all.
 
By the way, here's an interesting question: let's play the "what if the roles were reversed" game a bit further and imagine for the sake of argument that the Exiles do in fact have that power and do in fact abuse it to invade Bezgelor after the Mechari's visit. And let's imagine that the Dominion's power has waned so that they're outnumbered and outgunned by the Exiles.
 
Does the Dominion fly in to save the Chua before the Chua have officially joined the Dominion, having no real obligation to do so? I don't see it. I expect they'd simply re-evalutate costs and benefits of continuing to engage the Chua, decide that they were now unlikely to be worth more than the cost of protecting them, and wash their hands of the whole situation.
 
Which would not be all that similar to what the Exiles did. Not at all.
 
You may well be right but this side of things isn't my 'fight' [especially since I agree with most of what you wrote anyway].  All I'd say is that just as I wrote that those who consider the Dominion to be worse are on fairly strong ground when sticking to 'did' rather than 'probably would/n't' statements (which are pretty worthless, as evidence, when all's said and done); by the same token, this would apply to the directly above that you wrote.
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All I'd say is that just as I wrote that those who consider the Dominion to be worse are on fairly strong ground when sticking to 'did' rather than 'probably would/n't' statements (which are pretty worthless, as evidence, when all's said and done); by the same token, this would apply to the directly above that you wrote.
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First up:  :blink: "There there Friedrich; don't listen to the nasty man."  :lol:
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			Wow I opened up a fantastic Can o worms.  Love it.  Now I got read the last 6 pages.  Hold that :)	
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But I certainly agree that playing the "what if the roles were reversed" game is pure speculation. We have no way of knowing either way. It just keeps coming up as a central position of defending the Dominion's morality, that the Exiles would do the same thing if roles were reversed.
 
Because they have demonstratedly done so. Arboria? Exiles did it in Celestion, Grismara? Did it in the Quarantine Zone. There is nothing the Dominion has done that the Exiles have not in principal also done.
 
First: the text you quoted was a reference to Exiles opening negotiations with the Torine.
Second: If the Dominion had negotiated with their own citizens prior to armed revolution, the Exiles wouldn't exist in the first place. It was that refusal to negotiate that drove the creation of the Exiles, remember?
 
First: The Torine were unwilling to let go of their sacred sites... that's how negotiations went, and instead of honouring that the Exiles killed them and took the sites by force. 
 
Second: How on earth do you expect any government to negotiate with a SURPRISE TERRORIST ATTACK? There was no warning, no attempt by Brightland to take his grievances to his superiors or use Diplomacy to help overcome unforeseen social consequences of a well intended decree. Brightland was a washed up admiral and immediately decided that rather than take sensible diplomatic and legal actions to help improve things, he was going to bomb thousands of innocent people....
 
 
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