Discussion: Divided We Fall

Except that's not the choice before humanity today. I should say, that's not the choice before Cole today. Humanity has no choice. So the real question is: should humanity get to choose its fate, or is it acceptable for someone else to choose for them, whose primary qualification for the position of Judge of All the World is that he can beat up everyone else on it.

It is, ultimately, black and white because Cole offers no other choice. Either you are with him or against him. So everyone must choose. If you think he's right, you're on his side. If you don't, you're not. Cole isn't offering the third choice of conscientious objector. If you object to his rule, and take any steps that have any chance of weakening any part of it, he'll squash you like a bug. It gets no more black and white than that. Ask Duray's teeth.

I'm not saying its obviously black and white against Cole. I'm saying you either oppose Cole or you don't. Maybe you don't know if he's "evil" or "bad" or whatever else you want to call it, and maybe you'll never know, and maybe you think that's unknowable. But within the fiction of the game, you will still have to make your choice. "I don't know" is making a choice, its ultimately choosing to let others make the choice for you.

"Ask Duray's teeth" That needs to be on a City of Heroes poster.

The more appropriate question is "what would you let others do to you to ensure the survival of humanity?"

We're not in Cole's position, and not being given his options. We as players are being given the option to let him succeed, or try to get him to fail. The moral question is, how far would you let someone go to save humanity.

Up to this point (on the Live servers), how much do the characters (Primal, Praetorian, Loyalist, Resistance, Hero, Villain) actually know? What do they believe themselves to be stopping or propagating?

As far as the subjective moral question goes, there are parallels currently in RL that could answer that for some people (although its more likely to cause more chaos than clarity)

That is good point.

We are playing empowered individuals who could concievably surpass Cole so our characters are in a position to directly affect the outcome. This passes the question on to our characters as well doesn't it? They have the power to choose how far they might as well go in protecting humanity.

I know eventually there is supposed to be content where players face the Emperor in a showdown. I hope the Devs give us some sort of moral choice at the end or even at the beginning.

as an example:
Does your stalwart team depose Cole and usher in a new regime or do they defend the emperor in order to ensure Praetoria does not fall apart. Either choice could then be consdiered a success. deafeating cole for a new more free praetoria or showing him that he should put more faith in his fellow humans leading him to become a more magnanimous leader.

Sure, but you're not taking it far enough. Just who is the expert in modifying memories? Praetor Tilman. She's the one who is REALLY in charge. Think about it. In the BAF Trial, doesn't she say something along the lines of, "If I'm happy, you know our dear Emperor is happy."

If she saw herself as subordinate to Cole, she would have phrased it the other way around, that if Cole was happy, then she would be happy. But no, her happiness is paramount, even over Cole's. If she's happy, Cole can be happy. But if she's not happy, everyone will suffer.

Do you have any idea how prolific Mortimer Kal is? I think it's the beard. The astonishing thing, though, is that he only has daughters.

Now that would be an awesome perfectly comic book fitting plot twist. =)

It would also explain how Tilman has such leeway. All of the Cole's are invulns right? Just sucks to be them when attacked with Psi.

He's been very quiet since we messed up his little Rikti invasion plot

Not true, mission Tips have him repeatedly replacing high-profile heroes (and villains) with his automatons. Who knows how many of our NPC peers have been replaced already?

For Nemesis, that is quiet

Talking of that, on one of the UStream broadcasts a while back, John "Protean" Hegner claimed that quite a few of the NPCs that we interacted with in the 1-20 GR content were actually Protean in disguise - but it was hard to tell is he was just joking or beingh serious about it

You forgot option 3:

If it wasn't true before, it will be as soon as he gets a hold of a text editor.

Didn't know that, but I always suspected that Tami Baker (Praetor Sinclair's assistant) was Protean in disguise. She was just way too creepy to be true ^_^

I don't think that the resemblance to military discipline in another evil empire was an accident

Morality as a whole is not one of those things, though the morality of specific actions in specific circumstances can be.

And, actually, there are people out there who do just that.

It always interests me when a fictional setting spontaneously generates responses and arguments that you can find in regard to real world events. To me it's a sign that the writers are hitting a pretty good note with how they're presenting Praetoria.

True, but whatever evils Cole is guilty of, one thing we cannot deny is that he in, in fact, keeping them. While I agree that what his utopia is costing humanity is vile, humanity is still there. That means that as a race they still have the possibility to recover their 'souls' (for lack of a better word ATM).

Is he the villain? Sure. Is there nothing redeeming that can be said about him and his actions? No, there are definitely redeeming things that
can be said about him and his actions. He's still the villain, but those things justly must be acknowledged as well.

Of course, we still don't have the full story, and thus we still don't know how culpable Cole is for the current state of the world to begin with.

1) You use extreme disregard of scientific fact as a metaphor for the "stupidity of believing actions are 'not so bad'".
Seriously, human behavior is as malleable as the wind. Emperor Cole is not "absolute evil" when Lord Recluse obviously is supposed to be that and does it better.

There is a balancing scale for Cole. He does some evil and some heroic things, putting him at the balance point between the two and generally tipping more towards evil every day, but not absolutely evil yet.



2) War is bad, always.
Is there ever a "good war"?

Human history is full of "heroes" doing things that are sad and bad and evil, when viewed in a vacuum, but make them heroes in the eyes of others.

You want to cite real life as an example of "absolute evils are easy to spot and Cole is absolute evil"? You failed at that before you even finished the thought because perception is what matters and such things as "necessary evils" exist(such as imprisoning criminals which would be evil to somebody who did not deserve it).

Just look at the debate over the death penalty for murder.
There are people who believe the death penalty is immoral and wrong no matter how heinous the crime or how likely it is for the killer to kill again and despite the fact that they gave their victim(s) the death penalty when their victims did not deserve it.

This is the same problem in Primal Earth, where criminals are arrested and free again very quickly committing the same crimes and more.



I would rather live with necessary evils, like the death penalty for murder crimes, than in a world of "absolute good" that allows people to be absolutely evil without consequence.



So go ahead, believe that Emperor Cole is absolutely doing everything just because he wants to, like the Joker just a crazy psycho, but I'm smarter than that and see his reasons and the alternatives as just bad enough to put him in the moral gray area.

After all, how do you stop war? You either submit to being conquered and oppressed or you "war right back".


The simple inevitable truth is "when given a choice, some humans will choose evil".
You'll never get people to stop killing and creating wars so you need to have laws and punishments to deter and prevent evil and punish those who do evil.





That is why Cole is the most believable, "real", character in all of City of Heroes and resides firmly in the moral gray area.
He embodies our real human desire for justice, peace and safety, a desire that we would give almost anything for as many people say.



"Is it better to die free than live in tyranny?"
You may say "it's is better to die", but nobody ever even considers actually dying, except when they believe in a better "afterlife" or put the lives of others above their own and believe it will make things better.

When you fear death, and rightly so, then living in tyranny is logically preferable to death.
It's even more preferable when that tyranny is so supposedly comfortable as Praetoria, with robots doing every manual task for you and absolute safety from outside forces.




Yes, Cole has done and allowed evil to happen, but are those evils worse than all the other probable evils without him?

Would you free all murderers and eliminate all anti-murder laws just because "it's inhumane to imprison or kill someone"?



"si vis pacem, para bellum"
"If you want peace, prepare for war."
I learned that from "The Punisher" and this very game's Midnight Squad entry arc.

There is always a balance between good an evil that needs to be maintained. That balance is justice.






Edit:
It all comes back to the Golden Rule...."treat others as you wish to be treated".

The Golden Rule was never "don't give a murderer the death penalty"; it was always "don't murder unless you want to get the death penalty".
Even that rule is only a deterrent and punishment idea that people can choose to accept or ignore and face the consequences.

I find it fitting that gold is such a prevalent color in Praetoria where they apparently make the "Golden Rule" as absolute a law as possible.

They fight back, inevitably doing "evil", or die as the other side wishes.

No war is "good", and both sides have to agree to the rules of the "Geneva Conventions".


All the Geneva Conventions do is provide a set of guidelines that they hope both sides of a war will follow.
Humans can choose not to follow the conventions, but they must then win the war or suffer the consequences of not following those rules.


Essentially, the Geneva Conventions is just any old ordinary "don't hurt people" set of laws.

People can choose to ignore them, win the war and strike down that set of laws.

The only time they matter is when the side that adheres, by choice, to them wins the war.




Good and evil are choices. You can't prevent evil without doing some other evil, that is perhaps lesser or justified such as death penalties for murder.



Do you choose "the lesser of two evils" when that is the best option you can possibly choose, or do you choose to submit to absolute evil?

In Praetoria: "do we die to the Hamidon or nuclear weapons used against the Hamidon or other governments that fight for land and resources that are now questionably claimed or other enterprising conquerors.......or do we choose a leader we know has been our staunch defender to keep us safe now and forever?"

It's not that unbelievable that they would choose and support emperor Marcus Cole so willingly when our own real history has shown people all too willing, with logic to back it up often, to support obviously less noble humans.



This is why Praetoria is completely morally gray. It has good and it has many evils, but some of those evils are just and necessary, even if others need to be stopped.

Where do the scales lay in Praetoria? Good? Evil? Balanced? Close to balanced?

Maybe this is true, but the people will live and the species will continue, with opportunities to gain influence and power within the organization, under Cole's vision.
Hamidon just wants to end the species.


Life or death?
Tyranny or nothingness?


I guess it's more of a question of "do you believe in a better life after death or the absolute tyranny of nothingness after death?".