Things that are more difficult redside, and hence more fun.

But you can - the only thing standing between humanity and its final defeat by the Devouring Earth are those heroes brave enough to do what has to be done to protect humanity - but human stupidity, as shown by those who demand freedom when that freedom would spell the end of the human race, needs to be guarded against - by those who know that freedom is a curse - a gateway to anarchy and destruction.
If humanity was free, then there would be no peace - and in the end, no humanity.
To uphold the hard won peace the Emperor has brought to the world, you, as a true hero who understands the need for humanity to be protected from itself, must do what must be done - for the greater good of those who live today, and the generations to come.

Except all of that got thrown out with the same three words you've been repeating from the beginning: Tyrant is EVIL.

This only works when there's a question of moral ambiguity. When you have clearly defined sides like the way the Loyalist and Resistance have been portrayed, the ambiguity goes right out the window. The Heroes may as well decide at random to join Recluse, or Reischman, or Nemesis himself for that matter.

That's not how a moral dilemma works. A moral dilemma works by presenting you with a choice where neither side is completely desirable, but it forces you to make a decision.

For example, lets pretend you're standing by a railroad switch between two train tracks.

On the left track, there is a newborn baby laying in the tracks.

On the right hand track, there are ten newborn babies laying in the tracks, and there is a freight train bearing down on them.

You do not have time to run out and save them. Your only options are:

1.) Do nothing, and ten babies get hit by a train
2.) Pull the rail switch and change the train over to the left hand track so only 1 baby dies.

What do you do? Do you sacrifice the one to save the others or not? How do you justify your decision?

That's a moral dilemma. There is no clear right or wrong answer. There is no clear good or evil choice. There is only the choice of allow 10 to die or kill one yourself and save 10 others. Neither is a desirable outcome. But time is running out....

What do you do?

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

You mean like choosing between humanity being wiped out, or humanity being under a dictatorship?

So are you saying that supporting the resistance means that humanity WILL be wiped out? Because unless that's true, it's not a moral dilemma.

In fact, even if it IS true, it's not a dilemma. Obviously anything that leads to all of humanity being wiped out is simply morally unacceptable as a choice. If our choices are extinction and dictatorship, then dictatorship is the only choice you can make. That's a Hobson's Choice, not an ethical dilemma.

And you didn't answer my question. Which choice in my dilemma would you pick?

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

There's a chance that it could happen - but maybe not.

To try and know for sure, there are a lot of things to consider - like would the Resistance be able to organize humanity the way Tyrant has organized it?
Would they be able to find a way to contain the Hamidon without Tyrant to help?
Would they be able to suppress crime at the same time as fighting the Devouring Earth, the way Tyrant's system has managed to do?
Is their gamble of a more dangerous today for a freer tomorrow justified or not?

But we already know the answer to that according to the devs, right? We know that the answer is yes. Because if it's not, Cole cannot be a villain. For Cole to be a villain he has to be morally and ethically in the wrong. That means it's black and white.

Hence no Moral Dilemma. That's the problem with the stuff you quoted from them: they took what COULD have been a moral dilemma and gave us the "right" answer. Thus removing the dilemma.

And you're still avoiding the question I posed to you. Which choice would you pick? Do nothing and allow 10 children to die or take action to sacrifice one for 10 to survive? And why?

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

To answer 1 is a no. To have absolute peace you need absolute control of everything which does mean strict laws and enforcement.

2. We do not know the strength of Hamidon. Although if we know is close to what Praetoria knows they will be in constant and utter paranoia if Cole was taken out.

3. No, Cole system is calculated and evolved to a point where law enforcement it not a pain staking task to have on a large populace with the fear of annihilation is near.

4. In that world, no. This is a common thing called human behavior. You take them from one extreme (absolute control) to the other (anarchy) which would send the world into a mass area of chaos and destruction. While the resistance would try and do damage control it has already done it's toll on them cause no one will trust them if they trust Cole. Dissension would rule and only time would tell if DE or human kill off the human race.

*EDIT*

All of this is my own opinion since it seems that the moral gray component of the GR seems to be gone. Cole is evil, therefore he should be brought down with extreme prejudice. Which means my main character will be waiting patiently, watching the dead count rise up to make her own city of the dead.

Actually, as far as I know, the devs haven't said a word about what would happen if Tyrant and his government was removed - so maybe the risk is up to the players to think about?

As an example, imagine the Rikti managed to wipe out Paragon City, leaving the Rogue Isles as the only organized superpowered resistance to them - does that make Recluse any less evil, because he and his criminal organization are now possibly the best hope left to the world to defeat the Rikti?
Should any survivors from Paragon City join with him, or continue to fight him?


I'm not here to answer moral dilemmas - especially if they're implausible ones

Actually, it's not gone at all - the fact that you can justify Tyrant's rule for the greater good of the world surely means it's not black and white?
To use Recluse again as an example, the world would be better off if he wasn't in power - but can the same be said about Tyrant?

It's actually a text-book one. It's meant to make you actually think. I know, that may be alien to you, but try it. You might like it.
There's no absolute right or wrong answer here. It's about what you find morally and ethically correct or incorrect.

Here, tell you what, I'll go first. Fair?

I personally would take no action and would not change the train to the other track. Yes, that means 10 will die instead of 1, but if I hadn't been there, that was going to happen anyways. My intervention means I would have to decide that it's better to sacrifice that one particular child, that it's life is worth less than those other 10, and I do not feel I have the right to make that decision. I think it'd be better if I allowed things to play out as they were going to rather than be responsible for condemning another person to death by my hand.

There. Now your turn.

Come on, show us there's something to you beyond platitudes and smiley faces.

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

It's still implausible

*sigh*

Well thanks. Now I know that there is, in fact, absolutely no depth to you whatsoever. I tried to scratch the surface, but found there's nothing there.

I'll stop wasting my time on you

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

All right, let's put out the one that's coming up in Going Rogue:

You can have a country without crime. To maintain this country, however, you need to kill everyone with super powers, as there is (in this world) a 50% chance that Supers turn evil and go on Red-side sprees that overpower your own peace-keepers. By the time you find out someone's gone Red-Side, it's usually because it's too late.

If:

• Super Powered people make up .1% of the population
  
  
• Killing them means killing them all without knowing their potential for good or evil, as you can't risk it.
  
  
• Allowing them to live drastically increases the chance of hate crimes, sexual assault, robbery, arson, and other such nastiness.

So... a world with no crime and the offing of all Supers?

Or a world full of viciously pointless crimes and everyone being given a free shake?

It's a decent translation of the "babies on a railroad track" scenario, and it's the one Cole made. Your go.

It'd be wrong to kill people just becasue they might turn out bad - so I'd suggest detaining them in a slightly more secure version of the Zig

Detaining who? And if you're saying "the bad people", keep in mind that I painted a world where you don't know who's bad until they start their sprees (as is the case in the real world).

Are you suggesting we detain all supers?

Are you suggesting it would've been better if I hadn't posted that?

If they're a potential threat to the public, then they'd need to be kept under obsevation somewhere for psychologial profiling to be carried out to try and identify the ones most likely to go bad.

Why not it would be easier to clean the streets without them around on it since there would be no escalation happening to that level. Then once they snap you can take them out accordingly. The people that will be good can be taught and brought back into society as "normal" civilians.

Well, it's still a heck of a lot better than your mass murder solution

After all, that's the sort of thing only a tyrant would do

I love you, Golden Girl. You're a true American.

Still not sure about the "Epic soul mates/Eternal Enemies" outcome, yet.

If you're going to discuss the vagarities of moral challenges, you have to actually accept that your own particular brand of morality is not only not the only one to exist, but not even the automatically correct one.

Let's rephrase, using the key words of moral debate. You believe that ensuring the continued existence of humanity is the prime moral imperative.

Personal power is only relevant to the scale of crime. There is no level of personal power below which criminal activity is impossible, nor one above which it is inevitable. Irrelevant to the actual morality of the situation is the practical impossibility of ever applying this thought. It is not possible to prevent all crime through the detainment of specific subgroups of people and it is not possible to detain everyone.

Incidentally, using the word 'crime' at all here is a serious error. Crime as you understand it to be is not the same as crime as the citizens of Praetorian Earth understand it to be. Criminal activity is not defined by an absolute set of universal laws, but by individuals with power in concert with the geneal consensus of society. Genocide, one of the most grave criminal acts under our own legal systems, has at many times throughout history not only not been criminal but at times has been considered a moral imperative.