Traditionalist Rikti Are Bigots? *Spoilers*

Yeah, it's one of those dichotomies.
The traditionalists could ultimately be seen as 'nicer' if only because they probably don't want to kidnap homeless people in the first place to fuel their war making abilities.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Probably because Rikti society is so different from human society, that a human can't become a full member of Rikti society without those years of preparation. I'd guess the traditionalists are probably more interested in integrating the converted Lost into their society as equal, contributing members. Whereas the Restructurists don't care. Their vision is just fine with a caste system, where the converted Lost are the dregs that do what the Restructurists tell them to.

Its the Converted Lost who tell us that they are being treated as second class citizens by the Traditionalists. And one of the Converted Lost Restructurists has risen to the rank of Ambassador status (Kuhr'Rekt in Grandville.) And in Angus McQueen's arc one of the Lost you meet has later risen to command status in the Rikti after undergoing full conversion, so it does seem like the Restructurists are doing more than just using them as troops. (Besides, the Rikti Magus would HAVE to be Converted Lost as there is no magic left on Rikti Earth, right?)

The Traditionalists are wanting the Lost to undergo at least 30 years of training and education before giving them the rights of full Ritki citizenship.

I don't think it's ever been established Tradigtionalists aren't willing to use Lost as Cannon Fodder; they just won't give them Rikti citizenship right away even if they DO fight for the Rikti.

Well the lead Restructurist IS called Me't H'ed.

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All of this is only true for the Rikti on Primal. I expect that if the Restructuralists suddenly had full access to their homeworld, the recent converts would find their stock suddenly crashed.

This, I'd say. The Restructurists are a small society of soldiers isolated in enemy territory, plus their hawkish allies in the homeworld high command. They only care about victory and they're happy to use the limited resources available to them to that purpose, regardless of the greater societal consequences. Their stake in Primal Earth is a tiny dungheap, and a recent convert with military knowhow can rise very high on that dungheap.

Traditionalist-dominated Rikti Earth is a vast and complex civilisation. A recent convert would not fit in at all. They'd probably appear terribly nouveau ricti to the locals. Even if a Traditionalist/Human alliance could be secured, the Lost converts (and, for that matter, the Rikti converted to live among humans) would likely spend a long time stuck in the middle, neither one nor the other - at least until natural curiosity started prompting a lot of back-and-forth converting not for military purposes.

And the Rikti are telepaths, so they have a kind of hive mind going. A recent convert would stick out just because they still think like a human. Add in too many, and it could cause a disruption to their society that Traditionalist Rikti would deem unacceptable.

I'd argue that's not necessarily the case. The Rikti Ambassador had to struggle to think/speak like a human again. B'na'dk (or however it's spelled) was fitting in just fine until he saw his brother and that "broke." Had he been in there longer, it's quite possible it wouldn't have.

It's a question, I suppose, of just how "recent" the conversion was - but it doesn't seem to take a long time for full "riktithink" to set in. At first they might sound like "I am a happy to seeing you be" to a native Rikti, but given the 'hive mind,' I'm fairly sure that they'd learn quickly.

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We don't know how sophisticated and wide-spread the Rikti mental network is on Earth, considering there aren't that many Rikti, not to mention how much the Restructurists care about maintaining a pure and orderly mental network to begin with. Both of your examples are Restructurist agents operating on Earth, which doesn't necessarily apply.

As for the Traditionalists, they aren't necessarily bigots, so much as... Well, traditionalists. Isolationists. They come from a stable, peaceful, perfect society, and they seek to preserve that society as-is, instead of letting it evolve into something which could potentially be a lot worse. They require a 30 year education process, because they only accept Rikti into their society, and they require any converts to BECOME Rikti, rather than be converts with only partial cultural and ideological commitment. What we know of the mental network on Rikti Earth suggests that it is rather very wide-spread and offers little privacy, so errant thought would indeed be dangerous.

Look at it from their perspective - they come from a world where there is no war and there is no hardship, where everyone is mostly peaceful and happy. Why would they WANT to take us into their world when most of what we do is find still more reasons to kill each other? Remember, the Traditionalists are comprised of scientists and intellectuals - idealists, in a sense. The society they seek to build may not be entirely practical, but they're not building it for the pragmatism, but for the idealism of recreating what was, back home, a perfect society.

Finally, I don't believe the Traditionalists can be seen as bigots at all. That's how the Lost see them, obviously, but the Lost are biassed. They were poor, disillusioned people who bought into the Rikti propaganda because it promised them a better life. Once they realise they will pretty much never be accepted as true equals into Rikti society, they will obviously see that as unfair and hateful, when it is more a question of conservationism. The Traditionalists have, after all, shown no compunctions towards cooperating with humans, nor have they shown any abject hatred or mistrust towards us. They are, in every sense of the word, our allies. They simply don't want to be our brethren and, to be fair, they don't HAVE to be for us to coexist in a peaceful and mutually-beneficial manner.

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.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

This raises another interesting question: We chide the Rikti Traditionalists for not accepting us into our society unless we convert completely and fully, but were they to attempt to enter our society, how accepting would WE be of them? Even getting past the "Icky aliens!" rash of xenophobia, how far would humans be willing to accept and integrate what are factually alien beings of a completely different mentality, morality and ideology into their inner society?

How willing would people be to share their apartment buildings with aliens, when they will likely have to have weird vats of glowing green good and toilets made of anti-matter or some such? How accepting would people be of calling "these things" equals and sharing our homes, our jobs and out hang-out spots with them? It's a good idea to consider those questions first before we brand them as bigots. After all, the "Earth is for humans!" billboards are still up throughout the city.

I don't think things should ever come down to a matter of accepting "aliens" into one's society. No-one should ever feel obligated to do this. Even the idea of a human global society is flawed in its inception, because different cultures are and will remain different, and they cannot expect the rest of the world to "convert" to their ways. Yet we manage to coexist just fine, for the most part. I see no particular need for the Rikti society to change so as to accommodate humans any more so than I see a need for human society to change so as to accommodate them. The two societies should be perfectly capable of coexisting and cooperating without melding into one entity, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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.

Are we talking real world or Paragon?

In the real world you have a very valid point.

In COX, you have mothers running up to PCs who happen to be bipedal tigers, robots, glowing squids, or demonspawn, and say, "I wish my children would grow up like you!"

Yeah, I've often wondered how Khledians would feel about those....

Aside from Bluebattler's comment, there's one other item that would make a big difference when it comes to accepting Rikti (as opposed to Kheldians, or player-created "races.")

The Rikti didn't just show up here as visitors. They showed up as invaders, for (as far as the rest of the world was concerned) no good reason and launched a sneak attack. They decimated the population, destroyed major cities, and were only pushed back after horrendous losses and the sacrifice of a number of heroes.

That's a very recent event in COH history. (With "Round two" having kicked off - invasion was, what, issue 9? - and still having the occasional attack by fractured forces.)

It was easier for us (speaking from a Western world viewpoint) to forgive the Germans, even after finding out about the Holocaust, because they "looked like us." Admittedly, being in a divided nation and being the focal point of the Cold War helped that, but so did the overall European heritage of the western world. Fighting against the "funny little" Japanese tended to be more vicious on both sides, not because of things like Nanking but because they were different - they were "not us." Fortunately we had saner heads at the end of the war when it came to rebuilding, and I'm sure the Korean war did much of the same work as the Cold War when it came to accepting them again.

Now take a visibly different race. Most people aren't going to know about the "mutated human" bit - though I suspect, if COH ever went far enough lorewise into integration of the Rikti into society, that information would be released. But it would be far harder to overcome that distrust of someone so "other" who, from your point of view, attacked you from out of nowhere and slaughtered millions.

Heck, look how hard it is for some of the Rikti to accept - accepting (or not accepting) that we didn't actually do that to THEM is part of the reason for a schism in *their* society.

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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.

On the floor: Rolling
My @ss off: Laughing