City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

I hate every Praetorian

Adumbrate

By Adumbrate,
Posted on: 2010-08-25 02:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
The law of an inhuman dictatorship - it's very important to remember that when trying to justify being one of Tyrant's stormtroopers
There's often, in such dictatorships, a huge gap between the law as written and the law as it's actually enforced. (Take North Korea. Did you know their constitution guarantees freedom of speech? Do you think anybody in North Korea actually has freedom of speech? No.) I think, taking that into account, that the Loyalist Responsibility character is enforcing the law as it's written and not going above and beyond it like many of the NPCs are shown to, generally speaking.

 

Posted

I also think they balanced this out pretty well.

In some ways Praetorian Earth reminds me of the Alliance operative in Serenity. Someone who really believes that what he does will bring about a better world while at the same time fully admitting that what he does is evil. I built an officer in the Powers Division that thinks like that. She's fighting for utopia and believes that anything worthwhile requires sacrifices. She's kind of like an old school Bolshevik in the 1920s, before Stalin purged them all--a doomed true believer.

Of course I'm playing the other side of the fence too but I haven't been able to flesh his personality out enough yet.

"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
That's hardly in the same league as the state-wide systemized brutality Tyrant's stormtroopers enforce
C'mon, where's that black-and-white, no middle ground Golden Girl? You'd stand aside and and let the Resistance get away with this moral crime?

Global name: @k26dp

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tired Angel View Post
Oh if it only were that simple considering the people the resistance allies itself with in some of the later arcs!
You mean the Crusaders.

Although I do need a spoiler.....

*SPOILER*







If you choose to follow Marchand's orders and arrest Calvin Scott at the Enriche plant, can you actually do it or are you horribly stymied by a stupid teleporter?

PM me the answer if you are not comfortable with posting it. I've done it one way and now I'm looking down the abyss of choice.

 

Posted

Praetoria is a fundamentally evil society. When evil is thoroughly institutionalized, it then becomes both mundane and "necessary". To refer to the wisdom of C. S. Lewis (apologies for the long quote, but he explains the Praetorian mindset (and the mindset of so many people who would dictate for the sake of "peace", "safety", or "social justice") so very well:

Quote:
If the justification of exemplary punishment is not to be based on dessert but solely on its efficacy as a deterrent, it is not absolutely necessary that the man we punish should even have committed the crime. The deterrent effect demands that the public should draw the moral, “If we do such an act we shall suffer like that man.” The punishment of a man actually guilty whom the public think innocent will not have the desired effect; the punishment of a man actually innocent will, provided the public think him guilty. But every modern State has powers which make it easy to fake a trial. When a victim is urgently needed for exemplary purposes and a guilty victim cannot be found, all the purposes of deterrence will be equally served by the punishment (call it “cure” if you prefer) of an innocent victim, provided that the public can be cheated into thinking him will be so wicked. The punishment of an innocent, that is , an undeserving, man is wicked only if we grant the traditional view that righteous punishment means deserved punishment. Once we have abandoned that criterion, all punishments have to be justified, if at all, on other grounds that have nothing to do with desert. Where the punishment of the innocent can be justified on those grounds (and it could in some cases be justified as a deterrent) it will be no less moral than any other punishment…

It is, indeed, important to notice that my argument so far supposes no evil intentions on the part of the [Praetorian] and considers only what is involved in the logic of his position. My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we “ought to have known better”, is to be treated as a human person…

In reality, however, we must face the possibility of bad rulers armed with a [Praetorian] theory of punishment. A great many popular blue prints for a [moral] society are merely what the Elizabethans called “eggs in moonshine” because they assume that the whole society is [moral] or that the [moral] are in control. This is not so in most contemporary States. Even if it were, our rulers would still be fallen men, and, therefore neither very wise nor very good...

…If crime and disease are to be regarded as the same thing, it follows that any state of mind which our masters choose to call “disease” can be treated as a crime; and compulsorily cured. It will be vain to plead that states of mind which displease government need not always involve moral turpitude and do not therefore always deserve forfeiture of liberty. For our masters will not be using the concepts of Desert and Punishment but those of disease and cure… The new Nero will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor, and though all will be in fact as compulsory as the tunica molesta or Smithfield or Tyburn, all will go on within the unemotional therapeutic sphere where words like “right” and “wrong” or “freedom” and “slavery” are never heard. And thus when the command is given, every prominent [dissident] in the land may vanish overnight into Institutions for the Treatment of the Ideologically Unsound, and it will rest with the expert [jailers] to say when (if ever) they are to re-emerge. But it will not be persecution. Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident; the intention was purely therapeutic. In ordinary medicine there were painful operations and fatal operations; so in this. But because they are “treatment”, not punishment, they can be criticized only by fellow-experts and on technical grounds, never by men as men and on grounds of justice.

…That is how it can deceive men of good will. The error began, with Shelley”s statement that the distinction between mercy and justice was invented in the courts of tyrants. It sounds noble, and was indeed the error of a noble mind. But the distinction is essential. The older view was that mercy “tempered” justice, or (on the highest level of all) that mercy and justice had met and kissed. The essential act of mercy was to pardon; and pardon in its very essence involves the recognition of guilt and ill-desert in the recipient. If crime is only a disease which needs cure, not sin which deserves punishment, it cannot be pardoned. How can you pardon a man for having a gumboil or a club foot? But the [Praetorian] theory wants simply to abolish Justice and substitute Mercy for it. This means that you start being “kind” to people before you have considered their rights, and then force upon them supposed kindnesses which no on but you will recognize as kindnesses and which the recipient will feel as abominable cruelties. You have overshot the mark. Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice; transplanted to the marshlands of mere [Praetorianism], it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety. But we ought long ago to have learned our lesson. We should be too old now to be deceived by those humane pretensions which have served to usher in every cruelty of the revolutionary period in which we live. These are the “precious balms” which will “break our heads”.

There is a fine sentence in Bunyan: “It came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his House, he would sell me for a Slave.”
This does not justify excesses on the part of the Praetorians, but it does explain the fundamental evil of their institutions.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by NightErrant View Post
I didn't have that much of a problem with Mr. G or Transmuter because I wasn't actually being evil. Using your position to gain power is immoral. But blowing up ghouls when you could be curing them? Horrific.
I agree, aye. The Power arc is positively tame compared to the Crusaders. And pretty amusing sometimes.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
The devs also said that the real threat in Praetoria is not the Resistance, it's Tyrant, along with the PPD, Powers Division and Seers
Things change. When dealing with radicals like the Crusaders, they change quickly. Taking a bunch of violent, break-all-the-rules types and then saying telling them what they can or can't do is a good way to have them start turning on you once the bigger threat is out of the way.

Assuming the Resistance won tomorrow, they'd have a hard time organizing the disparate elements of all the Resistance's allies into an effective society. Unity through hatred is a fragile thing indeed.

 

Posted

Having played through most of the warden and power arcs -and- the entire Responsible arc...

Noone is really heroic.


SPOILERS!


The Wardens intervene against the Crusaders and Cops, trying to police their own faction, but their motive sucks. They're doing it -just- so they don't lose public opinion. Sure, there are some who think the Crusaders are doing the wrong thing, but they maintain the alliance and cover stuff up. They're also incredibly short sighted, in that they're willing to get a lot of people tortured, killed, or maimed in order to spread knowledge that will cause even -more- pain torture and death before anything gets better. Blowing up the single potable water supply so that Vanguard can be heroic when they come six months later? It smacks of the Power Arc!

In the Power Arc you manipulate the populace and media to aggrandize yourself. In one arc you need to get into a laboratory, so you try to convince the Resistance to attack it so you can go in after them, arrest them, get the data you need, and come out looking like a hero. The Wardens are -almost- doing the same thing on Vanguard's behalf. Meanwhile the Power arc isn't so horrible as people like to let on (at least through Imperial City). Sure you're self-serving, but it's more "Booster Gold" than "Doctor Doom"

The Responsible arc is, officially, the most Heroic arc I've done. You're given bad circumstances and you have to fight against the people whom you know are, at least in part, right. Why do you have to fight against them? For the good of the common man. Because they intend to get -everyone- killed in their petty plots for revenge. By the end of the Responsible Loyalist arc you exile yourself to Paragon or the Etoille in order to take down Cole and his Oligarchs. The right way, with the support and power of others, rather than bombing hospitals or starting city-wide riots. Take out Cole, Take out the Praetors, THEN rebuild. Don't randomly blow stuff up and get a ton of people killed in the process.

The Crusaders... I couldn't finish the Nova Praetoria arcs. They were just -too- vile. Gassing people, reprogramming robots into death machines to loose on the populace... It's wanton Destruction, not revolution.

-Rachel-

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
Having played through most of the warden and power arcs -and- the entire Responsible arc...

Noone is really heroic.


SPOILERS!


The Wardens intervene against the Crusaders and Cops, trying to police their own faction, but their motive sucks. They're doing it -just- so they don't lose public opinion. Sure, there are some who think the Crusaders are doing the wrong thing, but they maintain the alliance and cover stuff up. They're also incredibly short sighted, in that they're willing to get a lot of people tortured, killed, or maimed in order to spread knowledge that will cause even -more- pain torture and death before anything gets better. Blowing up the single potable water supply so that Vanguard can be heroic when they come six months later? It smacks of the Power Arc!

In the Power Arc you manipulate the populace and media to aggrandize yourself. In one arc you need to get into a laboratory, so you try to convince the Resistance to attack it so you can go in after them, arrest them, get the data you need, and come out looking like a hero. The Wardens are -almost- doing the same thing on Vanguard's behalf. Meanwhile the Power arc isn't so horrible as people like to let on (at least through Imperial City). Sure you're self-serving, but it's more "Booster Gold" than "Doctor Doom"

The Responsible arc is, officially, the most Heroic arc I've done. You're given bad circumstances and you have to fight against the people whom you know are, at least in part, right. Why do you have to fight against them? For the good of the common man. Because they intend to get -everyone- killed in their petty plots for revenge. By the end of the Responsible Loyalist arc you exile yourself to Paragon or the Etoille in order to take down Cole and his Oligarchs. The right way, with the support and power of others, rather than bombing hospitals or starting city-wide riots. Take out Cole, Take out the Praetors, THEN rebuild. Don't randomly blow stuff up and get a ton of people killed in the process.

The Crusaders... I couldn't finish the Nova Praetoria arcs. They were just -too- vile. Gassing people, reprogramming robots into death machines to loose on the populace... It's wanton Destruction, not revolution.

-Rachel-
Thumbs up!

Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
The Crusaders... I couldn't finish the Nova Praetoria arcs. They were just -too- vile. Gassing people, reprogramming robots into death machines to loose on the populace... It's wanton Destruction, not revolution.
revolutions generally are wanton destruction, regardless of the intent.

The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

My City Was Gone

 

Posted

RE: Why the Crusaders should be killing these bas*****.



Yeah, these jerks are all about "safety," beating up a defenseless woman in questioning. I wish I could have targeted them. I even more wish I could have served them to Hatchet's ghouls with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
RE: Why the Crusaders should be killing these bas*****.

Yeah, these jerks are all about "safety," beating up a defenseless woman in questioning. I wish I could have targeted them. I even more wish I could have served them to Hatchet's ghouls with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
While I agree those two cops should be severely punished...

The Cops should be wiping out the Resistance because of their willingness to BOMB HOSPITALS.

"If only they knew the truth... They'd willingly give their lives!" Bullspit. Unless you give them the option it's just flat out mass-murder. And, worse than Cole, the individuals killed didn't do anything to threaten them. At least he can hide behind that fact, the Crusaders are blowing up innocent people who just happened to get sick, that day.

Though, honestly, on 9/12/2001 would you have called out for blood and murder of cops who were beating on a confirmed member of the group who arranged the attack, regardless of gender?

-Rachel-

 

Posted

The "funniest" part of that bit of police brutality is the way they're doing it in pretty much full view of their colleagues, who are totally not reacting - I guess it's just another day in utopia

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by RosaQuartz View Post
Yeah, Villain-side contacts are wildly varied. Only a few I can think of are mustache-twirling.

...would you be thinking about Westin Phipps with that comment?

If they let you make moral choices on ordinary arcs, Mr. Phipps would have been fed to the Arachnoids quite some time ago. Gradually.

Is it time for the dance of joy yet?

 

Posted

As UberRod pointed out in a previous post, I think it's important to remember Praetoria is a city that has been under seige for many years, and may be the last remaining Human city on the Earth (which begs the question of if the ships in the docks or the planes at the airport have any place to go). Under such conditions, it is very understandable that good people would support actions that would be unthinkable to them in a peacetime setting.

Sort of like a house in a zombie movie with a bunch of strict-minded police trying to keep every window and door closed while the civilians inside cry for them to open the door and see if the zombies are really gone. Are the police just trying to be power-mad jerks, or will opening any door be the mistake that brings up the credits because the movie is over?

I love how 'grey' Praetoria is, because that's exactly how such a city would be compared with Primal Paragon City and the Rogue Islands. I also love the 'modern/real world' look to Praetoria, which definitely sets a more realistic tone for the place (Paragon City always looked like a hyper-evolved 1930-1950 city and the Rogue Islands colonial or Evil-Fortess type cities, perfectly fitting for each of their type of inhabitants). Reminds me of the film 'The Last Action Hero', when the villian tells the hero what he likes about the 'real' world..."Because here, the bad guys can win!!"

Praetoria has to be the best thought-out and realized addition to COH I have ever seen. I am in amazement as to how well the team put together a world that not only was consistently 'grey' in morality, but made sense that it would be that way.

Those who think Truth is relative haven't had a Tank land on their car.

 

Posted

Hammerstar... That is, without a doubt, the best description I know of when it comes to Praetoria.

The Zombie House analogy perfectly synchs with that -aspect- of playing a Loyalist. You don't -want- to shoot the guy who is about to let the zombies in while he makes a break for the car. But you know everyone will die if you don't. And after you make the decision to shoot him, everyone immediately looks at you as though you're evil, and starts tossing the recriminations. Maybe one or two members of the survivorship agree, but the others think of you as a horrible person and try to wrest control from you. You're even willing to let them take charge, so long as they don't make stupid decisions that will get everyone killed.

Thank you, Sir. for that marvelous moment of insight into Praetoria through Geekdom!

-Rachel-

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammerstar View Post
As UberRod pointed out in a previous post, I think it's important to remember Praetoria is a city that has been under seige for many years, and may be the last remaining Human city on the Earth (which begs the question of if the ships in the docks or the planes at the airport have any place to go). Under such conditions, it is very understandable that good people would support actions that would be unthinkable to them in a peacetime setting.

Sort of like a house in a zombie movie with a bunch of strict-minded police trying to keep every window and door closed while the civilians inside cry for them to open the door and see if the zombies are really gone. Are the police just trying to be power-mad jerks, or will opening any door be the mistake that brings up the credits because the movie is over?

I love how 'grey' Praetoria is, because that's exactly how such a city would be compared with Primal Paragon City and the Rogue Islands. I also love the 'modern/real world' look to Praetoria, which definitely sets a more realistic tone for the place (Paragon City always looked like a hyper-evolved 1930-1950 city and the Rogue Islands colonial or Evil-Fortess type cities, perfectly fitting for each of their type of inhabitants). Reminds me of the film 'The Last Action Hero', when the villian tells the hero what he likes about the 'real' world..."Because here, the bad guys can win!!"

Praetoria has to be the best thought-out and realized addition to COH I have ever seen. I am in amazement as to how well the team put together a world that not only was consistently 'grey' in morality, but made sense that it would be that way.
While I agree that Praetoria needs to be protected, I do believe that things need to change.

SPOILERS





You can't forget one of the reasons why Praetoria might be the last humanity on earth. Cole stood around and watched Rome burn. (If we are to believe the eye witness that is.)

 

Posted

He may have... But there may be more to it, beyond the eye-witness.

For example, perhaps the government of said nation forbade him from interfering? Or wouldn't submit to his demands of fealty for his help. So he let -them- die, then saved the remaining people of Rome.

That's the problem with an eye-witness. they can only tell you what they, themselves, saw. Not what actually happened.

And for those who scoff at that statement I give you This. Just because you -saw- something doesn't mean it actually happened in exactly the way you saw it.

-Rachel-

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammerstar View Post
I love how 'grey' Praetoria is
It isn't gray, because they've made the government way too evil to allow for any grayness - like Tyrant and his fascist dictatorship is a checklist of government evil - mass murder, "disappearances", torture, thought police, slavery, drugged citizens, "behavioral adjustment" for anyone who opposes the governemnt, repression of the media and education, police brutality and general oppression - there's just nothing gray there, it's all evil, from the lowest PPD thug to the insane god-emperor in his tower.

And although it's one of the lesser crimes when compared to the other crimes against humanity being carried out by Tyrant and his thugs on a daily basis, the drugging of the water is actually one of the biggest problems in trying to make Praetoria seem gray - it takes away the idea that large sections of the population might actually like Tyrant and his dictatorship of their own accord, and not because they were being pacified by a drugged water supply.

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
He may have... But there may be more to it, beyond the eye-witness.

For example, perhaps the government of said nation forbade him from interfering? Or wouldn't submit to his demands of fealty for his help. So he let -them- die, then saved the remaining people of Rome.

That's the problem with an eye-witness. they can only tell you what they, themselves, saw. Not what actually happened.

And for those who scoff at that statement I give you This. Just because you -saw- something doesn't mean it actually happened in exactly the way you saw it.

-Rachel-
I agree with you. It's just always a good idea to keep your mind open to the possibilities. And that was a cool video

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadowclone View Post
You can't forget one of the reasons why Praetoria might be the last humanity on earth. Cole stood around and watched Rome burn. (If we are to believe the eye witness that is.)
Tyrant had an agenda from quite early on in his career as a "hero"

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by RosaQuartz View Post
Johnny Sonata, Marshall Brass, Operative Vargas, Timothy Raymond, The Television...

Yeah, Villain-side contacts are wildly varied. Only a few I can think of are mustache-twirling.
If only Slot Machine wasn't so annoying to unlock.

 

Posted

I was leaning Resistance until they talked about blowing up a hospital just to prove that Cole is not a "god". At that point I realized my choice was between "fascist jerks" and "infantile psychopaths". There's MANY ways to prove someone is not a "god". Wholesale slaughter of innocents is not one of them. I went Responsibility Loyalist pretty fast, and never saw anything even approaching that level of evil, even though my hands still got dirty.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
I know you're set in your opinions, but I feel like you make it sound like every policeman or soldier who ever worked for a totalitarian government was corrupt him or herself. Do you think, as a real world example, every Italian soldier and policeman in WW2 was immoral, or is it possible that some of them were working within the means provided to them?

[EDIT: Several edits to clarify the question.]
Hey, by Golden Girl's logic, Schindler was just as much of a ******* as Hitler himself!