I made a thing (Terran Propaganda Piece)

[cellinaire]

Oohhhhh awesome. I now hope SOE do the kind of 'bi-weekly Auraxian herald' or something like that, based on the everyday war stories, fictions, and stats on the official web site (can also be the one which made by fans)

=)

[TheDrone]

Originally Posted by Atheosim

Yeah, I've always seen them as the people who actually think things through and act for the good of all of the people, whereas the NC are solely seeking power and wealth, and the VS are endangering the entire human race by fucking with shit they don't know about.

Quite an apt analysis of all sides.


Apparently not a lot of people know the background of the TR.

The TR were the guys who effectively saved mankind and lead it to prosperity. The TR democracy (because they really are) reacted to the alien threat rationally. They did the same with internal threats. Which is quite surprising considering mankind had just emerged from a more than 70-year long gruesome war. One would expect a dictatorship, but the TR isn’t. Sure, they might suffer from a certain form of stagnation and perhaps decade and some corruption. But their track record has proven that these are tolerable mistakes, if one considers they’re still able to act rationally and make tough decisions when needed.
Then you’ve got the insane libertarian NC. Glorified corporate lapdogs who happen to mistake freedom with anarchy. When you shout “freedom” and are willing to demand the ultimate sacrifice of freedom from others (by killing them) through terrorism it would seem you have a few wires crossed.
The VS are even bigger crackpots than the NC. Glorifying a means (technology) with no real purpose, save perhaps a kind of sad, no pathetic, to emulate their deities, which happen to be some unknowable aliens. To the petty mind advanced science is indistinguishable from magic and it’s clear that the VS fashion themselves wizards through their advanced weaponry.
Although it should be quite obvious that the VS have anything but a highly evolved morality as they join in the war just as easily as the other “primitive” factions.

A choice for the TR is a rational one.

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by Atheosim

[...] and the VS are endangering the entire human race by fucking with shit they don't know about.

Whaaaaat ?!?!

We brought rebirthing tech to mankind, new propulsion/energy systems and what-not... while the TR and NC want all the secrets of Vanu to use and abuse them unscrupulously.

YOU are the greatest danger to humanity by your attitude. The Vanu Sovereignty uses tech to make the world a better place. The rest of you only want it for power and bloodshed.

[Destroyeron]

Very cool. Don't make any for the opposing forces.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by noxious

Oops. I ran all the copy through MS Word but it doesn't check all-caps because it interprets them as acronyms (or something), and I missed that one when manually checking the all-caps text. This is why I like using Dropbox for hosting things though; I made a phantom edit

Yeah, the thing is though things don't stay up on dropbox forever, sites imgur only removes content if it's not viewed once for a full 6 months. Basically meaning most things stick around forever.

Be a shame when someone finds this thread through google in a year and your art has disappeared for all eternity, hence rehosting somewhere better.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by TheDrone

Quite an apt analysis of all sides.


Apparently not a lot of people know the background of the TR.

The TR were the guys who effectively saved mankind and lead it to prosperity. The TR democracy (because they really are) reacted to the alien threat rationally. They did the same with internal threats. Which is quite surprising considering mankind had just emerged from a more than 70-year long gruesome war. One would expect a dictatorship, but the TR isn’t. Sure, they might suffer from a certain form of stagnation and perhaps decade and some corruption. But their track record has proven that these are tolerable mistakes, if one considers they’re still able to act rationally and make tough decisions when needed.
Then you’ve got the insane libertarian NC. Glorified corporate lapdogs who happen to mistake freedom with anarchy. When you shout “freedom” and are willing to demand the ultimate sacrifice of freedom from others (by killing them) through terrorism it would seem you have a few wires crossed.

Woah hold on a second, this misses the point and oversimplifies the situation.. The Terran Republic FORCE everyone to be part of the Terran Republic, nobody is allowed to create anything else even if they were to do so peacefully. While they may remain an internally utopian democratic regime their attitude towards and other kind of regime even being allowed to exist is very clearly that of oppressiveness.

Everyone is allowed to exist but only as long as they conform to the laws and rules of the Terran Republic, everywhere. If anyone does not, they must be destroyed.

The NC want something different to the Terran Republic, but they're not allowed it, their only option is therefore fighting against them and ultimately seeking to destroy them.

You're spot on with the VS though.

The Terran Republic is best compared to the Roman Empire, ignoring the supreme emperor part to make them fit though. Inwardly it's a democratic society that seeks to be somewhat utopian, outwardly though they sought to conquer and assimilate absolutely everyone into their empire. The Terran Republic ended war through achieving just this, uniting absolutely everything under one banner and one law. I'm sure you can understand how some people might disagree with that though, it's definitely oppressive. While it does indeed create peace, it does it through power and force, that's wrong. It's anti multiculturalism at it's best, could even be viewed as a form of facism, accept our law and culture or be destroyed.

Equality for all...

As for their image, they're the product of TRay, who worked on Fallout 1 and 2, of note - he created the look the Enclave has. They're quite clearly inspired by the look The Enclave had and understanding this helps understand the oppressive through force nature of the Terran Republic, they share a huge amount of look and similar oppressive ideals with The Enclave of fallout, and as such it's pretty clear they're not the good guys, at least from typical societal viewpoint of the year 2012.

[Canaris]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Woah hold on a second, this misses the point and oversimplifies the situation.. The Terran Republic FORCE everyone to be part of the Terran Republic, nobody is allowed to create anything else even if they were to do so peacefully. While they may remain an internally utopian democratic regime their attitude towards and other kind of regime even being allowed to exist is very clearly that of oppressiveness.

Everyone is allowed to exist but only as long as they conform to the laws and rules of the Terran Republic, everywhere. If anyone does not, they must be destroyed.

The NC want something different to the Terran Republic, but they're not allowed it, their only option is therefore fighting against them and ultimately seeking to destroy them.

We're a 1 party democratic system of course we can't allow others to shoot up around and confuse and lie to people, especially the NC they're so misguided they don't know if they're coming or going. They should simply have worked the system and remained in the Republic and been happy with their lot. It's just greed, avarice and hatred of peace that lead them to armed insurrection.

[TheDrone]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Woah hold on a second, this misses the point and oversimplifies the situation.. The Terran Republic FORCE everyone to be part of the Terran Republic, nobody is allowed to create anything else even if they were to do so peacefully. While they may remain an internally utopian democratic regime their attitude towards and other kind of regime even being allowed to exist is very clearly that of oppressiveness.

Everyone is allowed to exist but only as long as they conform to the laws and rules of the Terran Republic, everywhere. If anyone does not, they must be destroyed.

The NC want something different to the Terran Republic, but they're not allowed it, their only option is therefore fighting against them and ultimately seeking to destroy them.

You're spot on with the VS though.

The Terran Republic is best compared to the Roman Empire, ignoring the supreme emperor part to make them fit though. Inwardly it's a democratic society that seeks to be somewhat utopian, outwardly though they sought to conquer and assimilate absolutely everyone into their empire. The Terran Republic ended war through achieving just this, uniting absolutely everything under one banner and one law. I'm sure you can understand how some people might disagree with that though, it's definitely oppressive. While it does indeed create peace, it does it through power and force, that's wrong. It's anti multiculturalism at it's best, could even be viewed as a form of facism, accept our law and culture or be destroyed.

Equality for all...

As for their image, they're the product of TRay, who worked on Fallout 1 and 2, of note - he created the look the Enclave has. They're quite clearly inspired by the look The Enclave had and understanding this helps understand the oppressive through force nature of the Terran Republic, they share a huge amount of look and similar oppressive ideals with The Enclave of fallout, and as such it's pretty clear they're not the good guys, at least from typical societal viewpoint of the year 2012.

Sure, it does sound kinda totalitarian to deny other regimes to break-off.

And if you want to do something different, ... Why not use non-violent ways through the democratic process? Using terrorism to spread your message isn't only completely immoral but destroys your legitimacy. As is clear from the background texts released the TR only abandoned large portions of the democratic process (after a vote actually) because they could not contain the rampant NC terrorism.
There were options, but they chose to scheme and plot.

And again, context is important.
The world has seen what 'something different" can result in. Almost the destruction of the species.
Experiments in tribalism and anarchy (not even anarchism) being propagated by the NC are the very reason humanity stood at the brink.

As the power of mankind increases exponentially, so should our vigilance in wielding it.
So it's probably not going to get any better than the Pax Republica Terrae.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by TheDrone

Sure, it does sound kinda totalitarian to deny other regimes to break-off.

And if you want to do something different, ... Why not use non-violent ways through the democratic process? Using terrorism to spread your message isn't only completely immoral but destroys your legitimacy. As is clear from the background texts released the TR only abandoned large portions of the democratic process (after a vote actually) because they could not contain the rampant NC terrorism.
There were options, but they chose to scheme and plot.

And again, context is important.
The world has seen what 'something different" can result in. Almost the destruction of the species.
Experiments in tribalism and anarchy (not even anarchism) being propagated by the NC are the very reason humanity stood at the brink.

As the power of mankind increases exponentially, so should our vigilance in wielding it.
So it's probably not going to get any better than the Pax Republica Terrae.

Democracy in this form can be defined as a tyranny. The NC never tried to go through these methods (at least not to our knowledge, the backstory could do with a LOT of fleshing out, I'd buy multiple books) because they knew full well what would happen. A democratic vote to decide whether a small group should be allowed to live outside of Terran Republic law? How do you think that would go down in any political regime today? It wouldn't at all. Just look at almost any small group in history that wanted to become an independent country, they ALL had to fight for it. Most notable today is probably the Palestine-Israel conflict.

The NC knew full well they'd have to fight for their recognition, so they have. I love the TR, I can't possibly see them as anything other than an absolutist mechanical regime though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism

Morality and law is dictated by the people within a society, throughout history morals have changed constantly, what is right and wrong changes all the time, Shakespeare said along the lines of "There is no right or wrong, but thinking makes it so". The point being that rights and wrongs are dictated by the people living within each society and another society should not negatively judge others for their views or perspective as they are just that - views and perspective, just as their own. In a multiculturalist society you get multiculturalist morality. In a single society you get moral absolutism and tyranny.

Entertainingly Kant believed in moral absolutism AND hated the tyranny of the majority, but mainly only because utilitarianism is the majority's view. Democracy can in fact be viewed as a tyranny in and of itself, it is the tyranny of the majority, the majority exert their power over the minority purely because there is more of them. The right and wrong in that is easy to argue, what is inherently wrong with allowing the minority to have their views as well as the majority? It's an interesting topic.

I love being a cog in the TR oppressive war machine but I really wouldn't want to live in a world(universe) with just a single society and the absolute inability to separate from said society and create a new one with the minority's views and laws. It would be horrible. At least in the world today it's not particularly difficult any more to fuck off somewhere else where you don't have to live under government and laws you disagree with.

[TheDrone]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Democracy in this form can be defined as a tyranny. The NC never tried to go through these methods (at least not to our knowledge, the backstory could do with a LOT of fleshing out, I'd buy multiple books) because they knew full well what would happen. A democratic vote to decide whether a small group should be allowed to live outside of Terran Republic law? How do you think that would go down in any political regime today? It wouldn't at all. Just look at almost any small group in history that wanted to become an independent country, they ALL had to fight for it. Most notable today is probably the Palestine-Israel conflict.

The NC knew full well they'd have to fight for their recognition, so they have. I love the TR, I can't possibly see them as anything other than an absolutist mechanical regime though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism

Morality and law is dictated by the people within a society, throughout history morals have changed constantly, what is right and wrong changes all the time, Shakespeare said along the lines of "There is no right or wrong, but thinking makes it so". The point being that rights and wrongs are dictated by the people living within each society and another society should not negatively judge others for their views or perspective as they are just that - views and perspective, just as their own. In a multiculturalist society you get multiculturalist morality. In a single society you get moral absolutism and tyranny.

Entertainingly Kant believed in moral absolutism AND hated the tyranny of the majority, but mainly only because utilitarianism is the majority's view. Democracy can in fact be viewed as a tyranny in and of itself, it is the tyranny of the majority, the majority exert their power over the minority purely because there is more of them. The right and wrong in that is easy to argue, what is inherently wrong with allowing the minority to have their views as well as the majority? It's an interesting topic.

I love being a cog in the TR oppressive war machine but I really wouldn't want to live in a world(universe) with just a single society and the absolute inability to separate from said society and create a new one with the minority's views and laws. It would be horrible. At least in the world today it's not particularly difficult any more to fuck off somewhere else where you don't have to live under government and laws you disagree with.

Actually today there are numerous peaceful independence groups all over the world, even in pretty strict regimes. There have been examples of such successfully implemented struggles for independence.

Although, I truly believe in the context of the TR, independence should NEVER be granted.
The gains can not possibly outweigh the risks and losses.



The reason why I like the TR is because they're pretty close to a state ruled through a form of consequentialism. Which is IMHO the only truly just view on morality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism

The NC are much more morally absolutist as they do not seem to care about the consequences of their actions. They tout "freedom" constantly with no regard for the risks associated with the very real potential of abuse of these freedoms (ironically resulting in a decrease of freedom across the board).
Rules and views on right or wrong serve a greater purpose and should not be a purpose themselves.

And that's why the TR can be flexible in its morality as they look at the long term and the bigger picture. Dissent might inevitably lead to the destruction of the species, and this it is not tolerated.

BTW, you have a pretty bleak view on life under the TR. There are very few details, but judging from the few we have I'd judge life to be fairly good. You have to remember that they were democratically re-elected time and time again. So I don't think they're all that culturally oppressive.

[Skitrel]

Consequentialism fails due to double effect, and that of the removal of emotion and bias in order to make judgements. It forgets that we're humans, and seeks to make us not so.

Seen Equilibrium? Consequentialism society.

As for my bleak view, no, not necessarily. Standard of living is probably relatively good, that however does not make it right. Standard of living in Roman Europe was great compared to what it was like prior to assimilation, that however doesn't make the forced imposition of law and rule right.

I don't suggest that rule under TR is uncomfortable, I suggest that it is wrong, and that is why the NC fight them.

[TheDrone]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Consequentialism fails due to double effect, and that of the removal of emotion and bias in order to make judgements. It forgets that we're humans, and seeks to make us not so.

Seen Equilibrium? Consequentialism society.

As for my bleak view, no, not necessarily. Standard of living is probably relatively good, that however does not make it right. Standard of living in Roman Europe was great compared to what it was like prior to assimilation, that however doesn't make the forced imposition of law and rule right.

I don't suggest that rule under TR is uncomfortable, I suggest that it is wrong, and that is why the NC fight them.

Well, of course emotion and bias are removed from the decision making. But that does not, in any way, shape or form, mean that emotion and bias suddenly become enemies of the state.

If the goal is the preservation of the state (assuming that this is the goal for a second) it is completely irrational to go against things like individuality, culture and emotion as removing them serves no purpose and is only a massive waste of resources. Not only that, it's a potential loss of legitimacy.
It's baseless to assume that a consequentionalist government seeks to make everyone consequentionalists. Especially not in a democracy, which the TR still is.

Also, the end DOES justify the means, if the end is moral and properly defined. This realization is probably the reason the TR managed to save humanity from destruction.

BTW, the NC fight them because they literally are corporate lapdogs. "Freedom" is just a causa belli.

[Skitrel]

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suggesting the NC were good guys, just that the TR certainly aren't either.

They're all severely flawed.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Woah hold on a second, this misses the point and oversimplifies the situation.. The Terran Republic FORCE everyone to be part of the Terran Republic, nobody is allowed to create anything else even if they were to do so peacefully. While they may remain an internally utopian democratic regime their attitude towards and other kind of regime even being allowed to exist is very clearly that of oppressiveness.

The Terran Republic is the reason humanity is even alive at this point. I don't think it's so much about force than it is reason and gratitude - loyalty to that which saved them.

Everyone is allowed to exist but only as long as they conform to the laws and rules of the Terran Republic, everywhere. If anyone does not, they must be destroyed.

To put it into context - the Terran Republic saved humanity from war and united them. Breaking away into another human faction is a threat to all they have built and would be a huge leap backwards for mankind.

The Terran Republic is best compared to the Roman Empire, ignoring the supreme emperor part to make them fit though.

More like the Roman Republic

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suggesting the NC were good guys, just that the TR certainly aren't either.

They're all severely flawed.

Cut out that NC propaganda crap. TR are the epitome of human civilization and the reason for its continued existence.

[Geist]

Originally Posted by Skitrel

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't suggesting the NC were good guys, just that the TR certainly aren't either.

They're all severely flawed.

That's what makes PS2 so great. It used to be obvious, TR=bad, NC=Good, VS=Crazy. Now all the Empires have pros and cons, making picking an Empire a much harder choice to make.

<3 grey areas.