It's all about me, me, me!

That argument makes the word "selfless" completely meaningless, and is thus equally meaningless. I don't think anyone has ever understood "selfless" as meaning "completely without any benefit, societal or other wise, for the self".

Because you are Chaotic, and we are Lawful. This whole debate actually serves as ample evidence of the viability of a Lawful/Chaotic conflict that is not necessarily Good vs. Evil.

In the Crusader arcs you willingly engineer the deaths of innocent civilians. you feed people to Ghouls, rewire robots, and turn psychis into bombs. there is not justification for those acts. they are evil acts committed by evil people with an ostensibly good goal.

If that were an option I'd LEAP on it, as a Responsible Loyalist. Get the people someplace -safe- where they're not threatened by death behind a wall of sound.

Functionally: It would be like living where I live, now, but with a decent job that I work at 3 days a week. I don't make big sweeping gestures or political actions. I don't hang out after a curfew. I don't drive over the speed limit or forget to wear my seat belt... I mostly stay home with my Fiancee and enjoy a bland life punctuated by videogames. The difference would be super-criminals and superheroes fighting it out in the streets. I'd have nothing to fear from the government, since my life is so simple and meaningless in the grander scheme of things.

The only people I'd have to fear in Praetoria would be the Resistance and the Destroyers.

Agreed, Agreed, Agreed. But are they worse than unleashing the Hamidon on people by tearing down the walls or bombing hospitals? Actually, potentially. But a Responsible Loyalist seeks to end at least one of those threats, and probably all of them on returning from Primal Earth.

I don't wave them away, but when people charge an individual with the crimes of a government I find it ludicrous, especially as they distance themselves from their -own- organization's evils.

-Rachel-

Then why is almost everything Tyrant does focused on crushing all resistance to his rule and oppressing the people he's meant to be protecting? Why is the state machine looking inwards when the threat to humanity is otuside the sonic barrier?

If the Hamidon is outside the sonic fence, then why does he need to drug the people inside the fence?

If the Hamidon is outside the sonic fence, then why does he need to enslave psychic girls to use as thought police inside the fence?

If the Hamidon is outside the sonic fence, then why does he need to arrest and imprison without trial people who ask where their psychic female family members have gone?

If the Hamidon is outside the sonic fence, then why does he need to murder the families of teachers who tell their students about the real history before Praetoria?

If the Hamidon is outside the sonic fence, then why does he need to have torture chambers under the PPD precincts inside the fence?

If the Hamidon is outside the sonic fence, then why does he need to murder so many people on a daily basis inside the fence?

There's a massive leap needed to make any kind of connection between the threat of the Hamidon outside the sonic fence and the crimes against humanity being caried out by the loyalists inside the fence - but there's only a little step needed to connect those crimes to the prupose of keeping Tyrant in power.

I'm slightly confused here, I really don't see this as a Resistance versus Loyalist debate. It comes down to how you interpret the alignments of the various factions in Praetoria.

The two competing theories are:
1. Resistance = Good. Loyalist = Evil
2. Resistance = Chaotic. Loyalist = Lawful.

In other words do you consider the two primary factions to be engaged in a struggle of Good versus Evil or Order versus Chaos? In both cases the other axis describes the difference between the two sub-factions within the main faction.

I don't believe that which faction you support has to influence which way you feel about this debate. For example you and I both support the Resistance (at least I do and your comments suggest you do) but we disagree on the categorization of alignments.

He actually tells you, to your face, if you do the Loyalist -> Paragon City choice in the final transition from Praetoria. Cole believes, and not without some evidence to support him, that people, given freedom, make stupid, dangerous, destructive choices - and it only takes one man (Hamidon Pasalima) to make a choice stupid, dangerous and destructive enough to threaten the entire species.

Cole might be wrong in the extreme to which he's taken his conclusion, but it is, at the very least, an understandable, if not acceptable, conclusion.

"Might" be wrong? That's like saying Mother Mayhem might be mentally unstable

And how exactly are using brainwahsing, slavery, mass-murder, torture and repression to stop people from doing bad things understandable in any logical sense?

Like how exactly can Tyrant's thought process of "I think humans sometimes do bad things, so I'll brainwash, enslave, murder, torture and repress them to make sure they can't do any of that evil stuff" be understandable to any sane person?

I agree with this. And am Wholeheartedly in the Law/Chaos camp.

If Loyalist = Evil and Resistance = Good then the Crusaders wouldn't kill innocent civilians in their storyarcs. And Loyalists wouldn't stop serial killers.

It's Law and Chaos, not good and evil. Individual members of each group can be good or evil or neutral.

With that said, I do think Cole and his Praetors have created an, overall, Lawful Evil group. And the Responsible Loyalists are the minority in that group. While Scott and his thugs have created a Chaotic Evil group, with Wardens being the minority on that group.

Shades of Grey on both sides of the equation.

-Rachel-

Two ways.

The first way is understanding without accepting. It's generally called empathy, though many people (mostly those that don't have a lot of it) mistakenly assume empathy means sympathy and acceptance. It's completely possible to understand how someone is thinking, find their assumptions and conclusions entirely logical and reasoned, and still find those assumptions and conclusions wrong.

The second way is based on divergent value systems; this very "Law vs. Chaos" debate we've been bandying back and forth here. To one that does not view individual rights and freedom as paramount (those we'll call "Lawful" for this debate), Tyrant's actions can be completely justifiable. Compared to alternatives - the complete destruction of society and potentially humanity, for instance - the crimes Tyrant commits can be forgiven.

To those looking at the issue from the other side, those that would prefer pain, torture and death to slavery (we'll call them "Chaotic"), no danger can justify the oppression of Tyrant. To these folks, the right to make stupid decisions is more important than the threat caused by the stupid decisions, and so there is absolutely no justification whatsoever that can forgive Tyrant.

I understand your side. I just think you're wrong.

But under Tyrant, you can get all 4, with a side-order of brianwashing to go

The right to make any decision is a basic human right - it's what freedom and free will are all about.

Forgive, maybe - allow him and his stromtroopers to continue their crimes against humanity, no

*starts the Slow Clap*

-Rachel-

I would tend to agree with Cole except for one thing: He tacitly assumes that he is immune to the human tendency to make stupid, dangerous and destructive choices. He is just as guilty of it as anyone else, and given his superhuman, military and political powers, the results are awful.

Only an idiot would put idiots like Neuron and psychos like Mother Mayhem in charge of anything. Antimatter is the only one who actually makes anything that works, and he got demoted.

The problem with stupid humans making stupid choices is that there really aren't any alternatives. Tyrant, Recluse and Nemesis all think "but not me" when brooding on human stupidity. Especially you three.

We should all be confined to our play pens. No exceptions. But then nobody would feed us.

Always liked Churchill's line about democracy being the worst form of government ever devised, except for everything else that has ever been tried.

Very well said. I think there is one other factor as well and that is the long term stability. For some on the "Chaotic" side it's not entirely an issue of "Live Free or Die!" it's also an issue of stopping Cole before he makes things worse. In particular his attempt to invade Primal Earth is potentially* going to cause his regime to come crashing down at which point there's a mad scramble to try and pick up the pieces while fighting off Hamidon. Overthrowing him and making peace with Primal Earth before it gets that bad would be a pretty good idea (and for those of a more Neutral or Evil disposition if it happens to leave you in a position to take over where he left off all the better...).

* Well actually we know it will come crashing down because it's a game and the good guys will eventually win but people in-universe aren't that genre-savvy.


His decision to try and invade Primal Earth being a prime example (pun intended).

There's nothing tacit about it, actually. He's explicit that decisions should be left to people like "you and me" (speaking to the character here).

No you don't, becuase then you'd be a hero and not the minion of a dictatorship

It isn't - for example, the freedom to murder, torture and enslave people isn't good - but Tyrant and his thugs seem to be pretty keen on that type of freedom.
The freedom to not be murdered, tortured and enslaved is good - although Tyrant and his stormtroopers don't seem to view this kind of freedom in the same way.

And we've all seen where that's left the people of Praetoria

I would argue that most people with this mindset would more correctly belong to the Responsible Loyalist faction than to either Resistance faction. Wardens want to tear down the system without harming others because they think the system itself is inherently flawed and cannot be redeemed. Responsibles don't think the system is inherently flawed, and instead want to prevent its worse excesses (Neuron, Tyrant) while keeping the system as a whole in place.

Ironically, the Power arc has a lot more to do with tramping down the excesses of the current system than all of the other arcs combined.

I did edit your post a bit, GG. I corrected your typo. I apologise if you think this impinges on your freedom to spell things wrong.

I think the view could reasonably expressed by both Responsibles and Wardens. This goes back to the argument I made a few pages back that the two groups actually have the same basic goals they just differ on implementation. Reform versus rebuild. Is the system flawed enough that the only option is to knock it down now or can it be reformed from within as a more gradual transition? Can it be reformed in time or does trying to reform simply mean we'll end up having to knock it down anyway but at a time when we can ill afford to do so? Obviously reform is preferable to rebuilding but for a person who doesn't believe reform is possible, or not possible in time...

But aren't the Resistance and their terrorists looking to exercise the rights to torture, enslave, and murder, too? They're keen to reprogram the clockwork into murder bots, enslave the Seers and turn them into Psychic bombs, and more than willing to torture, kill, and destroy everyone they can in order to "Free" them from their prison.

Wait. Don't bother to answer. You're just going to try and handwave the horror your side is not only WILLING to inflict, but does inflict by level 20 and libel everyone who doesn't adhere to your incredibly narrow perspective on what's going on.

The fact is, both sides create horrors, but individuals achieve great good or greater evil. You cannot see that, because you're unwilling to. And that's pathetic.

-Rachel-

Which is correct - there's nothing in the dictatorship that would have any place in a normal democratic society.

Everything in the dictatiorship is an excess - the only way to prevent them is to destroy them.
The Praetorian system is based on repression and the constant carrying out of crimes against humanity on daily basis - there's nothing in the system that needs to be - or should be - saved.

What about the sonic barriers keeping out Hamidon? I'd say those are worth saving. A gradual reform potentially allows for a transition to a more free society without the hardship and upheaval inherent in a violent insurrection.

Well there's that, and the schooling system, hospitals, roads, public works, libraries, the internet, the Magister system which is a democratically elected body and works fine for managing the day to day bureaucratic needs of Praetoria...

But, y'know, all those things need to be axed. We can't possibly just topple the Dictator himself and leave all the good he actually accomplished in place.

Narrow perspective, as I said before. If the Praetors and Cole were taken out, today, the government would just keep running smoothly. Sure there'd be a manhunt for his killer(s) and a national holiday put in place for mourning, but in the end the government would function fine. And democracy could declare the Seer program un-needed.

But people like Golden Cole can't accept compromise. It has to be her way or no way at all. So burn it all down, destroy the nuclear reactor, tear down the sonic walls, and let everyone die... Free.

-Rachel-

*edit* And when Golden Cole pops up and says "The Magisters are all appointed it's corruption corruption corruption evil!" just point her toward this Paragonwiki page which shows there are elected officials in office already, one of whom is a Warden.

Shouldn't someone tell Vanguard this, and especisally the two heroes Apex and Tin Mage, otherwise they might do something crazy, like organize teams to fight the dictatorship rather than the Resistance?
And surely someone needs to let Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx - along with the other heroes of Pirmal Earth - know that they're on the wrong side?

Libel isn't libel when it's true