This needs a bit of an explanation. This isn't so much a story as it's a philosophical take on what "good" means through the eyes of fictional character that's been developing in my head for many years. The Alexander Cromwell mentioned there is the name of the character, and this is his mentality almost completely.
I tried to make it make SOME sense and still be pretty out there in terms of conclusions. I think it came out reasonably well, and it really DOES put the character well in perspective.
Let me know what you think 
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Alexander scares me. o.o Very nicely done in any case
Please read my FEAR/Portal/HalfLife Fan Fiction!
Repurposed
Masquerade has fun with quotes and his bloody sense of humor.
"Oh, how I love the Earth and everything in it, life and death. And men. One can think of nothing finer, or nicer, than men and their wars, their concentration camps, their justice."
Cynic too, being the fine genocidal zeaous knight templar that he is, enjoys some pitch black humor. And quotes.
"The Greatest Happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you. To see his cities reduced to ashes. To see those who love him shrouded and in tears. And to gather to your bosom his wives and daughters."
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Alexander scares me. o.o Very nicely done in any case
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Thanks a bunch
I was prompted to write this after speaking with a few people who found the concept of a villain fighting against evil to be odd. Explaining why such a villain truly is a villain is difficult to do in a convincing way, so in the end I decided to let Alexander's own teachings speak for themselves. This calm, calculating ruthlessness is the very definition of his character.
I'm really glad that he comes off as scary
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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[ QUOTE ]
Oh, how I love the Earth and everything in it, life and death. And men. One can think of nothing finer, or nicer, than men and their wars, their concentration camps, their justice.
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I love that as an objective standpoint I also like how easy it is for men to deem themselves above the rest and proclaim their vision to be the one which is objectively true, and by which all others may be judged. To an extent, that's what I've built my own Alexander on. His way is the one true way, and there can never be any doubt as to its validity.
Cool, I'll try to incorporate that
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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This is a perfect example of what happens when someone takes their worldview and distills it to the bare fundamentals.
Cromwell would make a most excellent hero as well as a most terrifying villain... because he fully intends to save the world, even if it means he must destroy it in the process.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Good read, yes. Disturbing: exceptionally.
I understand fundamentally how one can come to that conclusion and how the character could see things like that, but he and I will not agree I'm afraid.
If that's good, I'll be evil, thanks.
Infinity
Sam Varden 50 MA/Reg Scrap
Doomtastic 50 SS/Inv Brute
Ceus 50 Eng/Kin Corr
Cinderstorm 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
?
He needs a girlfriend.
...and a puppy.
What a great read, Sam...printed for re-reading. Thanks very much.
And so did raise our Lord and Saviour, Sir Alexander Cromwell, and so did he speak unto his children:
You have asked for my advice, my brethren. You have fought the forces of evil, defended our world and devoted yourselves to the cause of good, all the while asking these questions over and over. What is good? How far can we go? Who should we spare, and who should we purge. I have helped you decide, my brethren, and I will help you again in the future, but these questions need to be answered once and for all, and answered conclusively, that there is never any doubt about these teachings again. Listen close and remember, my warriors, and let these words be your guide and compass in this world of evil.
What is good? How can we tell the good and the bad apart? Is it perhaps kindness, compassion or altruism? No, it is not. These are virtues, my brethren, but they are not the good we have sworn to uphold. Virtue is the nature of the perfect world we fight to create, but it is not the means by which we create it. Virtue is what we want to protect, but virtue is not the weapon with which we protect it. This is the one weakness that all of historys self-professed heroes have always exhibited they are trying to live their utopia before it has been achieved.
Virtue, my brethren, is ultimately weakness. The kind are weak, that they are being exploited. The generous are weak, that they are being robbed. The altruistic are weak, that they are being used. Virtue is, by its very nature, a deep, crippling weakness. That is why we are here. To protect it, to defend those who exhibit it and to create a world where their weakness does not put them in danger. To create a perfect world. But to do so, we ourselves must abolish our own virtues, and steel our hearts against evil.
In the name of the greater good, sacrifices must be made, my brothers. Evil will always exploit our weaknesses, and were we to believe our own utopia and forget the reality of the world we live in, then our weaknesses will hurt not just us individually, but will hurt our cause itself. We cannot afford to be squeamish of harming the innocent, or evil will simply hide behind them. As much as it may feel wrong to do so, we must enforce good no matter the cost. Collateral damage is unimportant before the gravity of our mission on this Earth. If innocents must die, then their deaths are justified. Good must make sacrifices if evil is ever to be vanquished. And even if we were to spare these innocents and allow evil to run free, what have we done for them then, but to doom them to live longer still in an evil world? No, my brethren, to leave these poor souls to fester in this flawed world is to do them more harm than to take their lives in the name of good. Then their existence, at least, will have meant something, for it will have brought us one step closer to creating the perfect world for the rest.
What is good? Is it law? Order? Rules? No, it is not. Those, as well, are weaknesses. The law is weak, for it is blind and so unable to see evil for what it is. For fear of wronging the innocents, the law enforcers of this world will seek unambiguous proof of evil, but in the end they just give evil a better opportunity to escape. And to what end? After all the effort and all the liability, innocents still suffer from incorrect application of the law. Law and order are ideals, my brethren. They are virtues, themselves, that we need to protect. But law and order cannot be the tools by which we will build our new world.
The law may be blind, but we are not. We can see evil for what it is. We can recognise its presence wherever it may be. We cannot afford to pretend we do not and seek evidence with which to convince ourselves of that which we already know to be true. To kowtow to blind laws is to allow evil hide in plain sight, to mock us in broad daylight and to run rampant unchallenged, all because we refuse to stop it despite our clear ability to do so. That is a weakness we cannot afford to have. All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. It is therefore imperative that we do not allow the restrictions of law to keep us from our mission.
What is good? Is it self-sacrifice? To sacrifice ourselves, to die in the name of our faith? No, it is not. We, those of with strength to fight and eyes to see, have been chosen, my brethren. We are this worlds champions of good, its saviours. Without us, this world is lost. It is, therefore, of utmost importance that we remain alive and able to carry on the fight. To give up our lives for any reason would be not just foolish. It would turn us into traitors to our mission, as well. All who abandon the fight for good are deserters, weakening our ranks and robbing us of our strength to fight. Whether intentionally or otherwise, they are assisting evil in its fight against us, and that makes them traitors.
The truth is, my friends, that each of us is more important than any innocent we may be forced to protect. To trade our lives for theirs ultimately hurts people as a whole, for they are that much farther from final salvation. Ultimately, self-sacrifice is a weakness through which we inflict casualties upon ourselves through our own doing. And this is a weakness evil will always seek to exploit, engineering situations that force us to sacrifice ourselves, or sacrifice the innocents. But the deaths of innocents are justified, for in life they would have been ruled by evil, and in death their sacrifice has meaning. Our sacrifices, however, are meaningless, for in life we fight for good, while in death our power for good is wasted. To sacrifice one of us is to sacrifice the souls of many innocents, and perhaps even our perfect world, and without our perfect world, all is loss and none have any meaning.
Good, my brethren, is simply the eternal battle we, the champions of good, must wage with the champions of evil. No more, no less. Good is the responsibility we that have power have chosen to shoulder a responsibility to abolish all evil from creation and build a perfect world. A world where the weak need not be protected and where the strong are not needed for there are no wars to fight. We are, my brethren, fighting to create a world where we are not needed, and where we cannot exist. But that in itself is our greatest sacrifice.
In your travels, you will meet many false prophets. You will meet those who believe good means something else, and that the good are meant to be doing things differently. You will meet many who will even call you evil. But you must never believe them. Good, my friends, is not subject to interpretation. Good is not an opinion, and it is not an argument with which to justify or denounce peoples agendas. Good is our battle with evil, and all who claim otherwise are wrong. They are preaching a flawed kind of good, one that inherits weaknesses and teaches evil practices. One which has goals that, though they may feel right, are ultimately wrong. Many are blind to the gravity of the situation we are in and unaware of the lack of staying power their teachings have. For most, it is enough that they feel they have done good, enough that they be thanked. That their deeds are meaningless and that they are quickly reversed and the situation made even worse for them is irrelevant to these false prophets.
Good is not subject to interpretation, and all those who try to interpret it must be treated as agents of evil. Many will not have that intention, admittedly, and it is unfortunate that they must share the fate of those who do, but all that stand in the way of good must be removed. Our goal is too important and our utopia too precious to allow for ill-conceived good intentions to interfere with it. The read to hell is paved with good intentions, and it is that read that we must avoid. It is not our intentions and it is not the rewards for our deeds that drive us, but our ultimate goal that requires conviction more than anything else to achieve.
There will always be those who will masquerade as good, but will not be, in truth. Many agents of evil will claim they repent and will ask for forgiveness. But no-one who has committed an act of evil or associated with an agent of evil can be forgiven. They are forever tainted with the evil with which they have come into contact, and these souls can never be cleansed. As with all evil, they must be destroyed if our perfect world is to become a reality. A perfect world has no place for tainted souls.
There will also be those who will masquerade as your friends and allies, but will fight alongside you for personal gain. It matters not how much these people ultimately help, when it is their intention to profit off our sweat and blood and capitalise on our crusade. These people are not our friends and allies, they are traitors to the faith, for their goal is not ultimate victory, but rather personal betterment. There is always the chance that they will switch to the side of evil if that should become more rewarding, and even when they do not, they have no place in our utopia. Traitors and users have no place in a perfect world.
In our eternal battle, there is no room for neutral observers. Our struggle is far too important for anyone with the power to influence it to remain uninvolved. If they can gaze upon the importance of our fight and remain unmoved to join us, then they are rejecting the notion of our perfect world, and all those who would reject it are enemies of our goal. Even those who are too afraid or too confused to join must be treated as enemies, as well. If they do not step up to fight on our side, then they are allowing evil to thrive, and so actively working against us. There is always the chance, as well, that they will fall under the influence of evil in time, making them that much more of a threat. All those who will not join us are our enemies for if they do not, then they do not want a perfect world strongly enough. And all those who have to power to make this perfect world happen, but do not wish to do so are our enemies.
Our goal, my brethren, is not to protect the innocent. It is not to right injustice, to protect the innocent or to save those in peril. Our ultimate mission is to destroy all evil, for a world without evil would be perfect without the need for warriors such as us. Without the need for perfection to be enforced. Injustice will not happen, for there will be no evil to cause it. The innocent will not need protection, for there will be no evil to threaten them. There will be no peril, for there will be no evil to make it. Anything short of that is too little.
I realise it is tempting to stop and help every lost soul along the way, but we cannot afford to do this. It is impossible to undo all evil from the world, for the champions of evil will always be able to cause it faster than we can undo it. Evil is easy to cause, it is good that is hard to enforce, and for us to waste our efforts countering every evil that occurs is a doomed endeavour. Furthermore, it is exactly the kind of plight evil would have us consigned to a battle we cannot win, but that keeps us occupied and unable to fight back for all time. Every time we stop to protect an innocent, we lose that much more time in our fight against evil. There will always be innocents to protect, and we can never protect them all. Even the ones we do protect will eventually need protecting again and again, and will ultimately succumb to evil just the same.
We are not helping the innocents by trying to protect them, my brethren. On the contrary, we are doing them more harm by abandoning our greater fight, and doing harm to all others at the same time. The only way to truly save the innocent is to remove all evil from the world, and in so doing remove the source of the problems that plague them. All who must perish in the fight to do so will have perished for a reason. Even if everything has to be destroyed, it is still better than this fate of eternal evil. This, my friends, is a battle that has been lost since its very beginning, and there is nothing we stand to lose but our ability to win it.
No matter what it costs, we have to win. Nothing short of that will matter.
So spoke Alexander, and so it was written. Learn, children, these words of wisdom, and remember them well, for it is these teachings that you must follow if good is to prevail over evil.
Be at peace.