Discussion: Divided We Fall

Honestly, would you rather he makes his dissent private so nobody gets the message "don't kill civilians"?

The "public" display doesn't point to either option. There is a reason criminal punishment used to be, and still is relatively, a public affair.

Deterrents don't work in secret.

It's very likely that the Cole we met in the Power storyline was the only real one we ever met (not counting the Maria Jenkins arcs or the recent Freedom-server invasion). For starters, we met him in Praetoria rather than Primal Earth, and he had an actual reason for being there - the player summoned him to snitch about Synapse's little side project. Then there's the fact that Cole was actually surprised to learn about Project Olympus, making it much more believable that the other Praetors might be keeping their own dirty laundries from him. Cole did not rant like a madman in the Power storyline, instead he seemed genuinely upset, disappointed and mostly tired of all the plotting, contrasting sharply with the grinning psychopath we met in Primal Earth.

But most of all, my lvl 20 Responsibility character survived. He actually came face to face with Cole on Primal Earth, showed him the finger and lived to tell the tale. Now I don't know about you, but in my mind either Cole's not the monster I suspected him to be or that "Cole" was the same shapeshifting guy who had just released an evil clone of my toon into Faultline just as he set foot into Paragon City.

Personally, I think Cole is at least somewhat evil, but nothing *yet* suggests he's Nemesis-like evil, mwahahah fear my 150-year-old masterplan! Rather, Cole's probably a very cold person who had to make very hard decisions in the midst of a very real vegetable apocalypse, and has since withdrawn himself from the world, keeping his interference to a minimum while letting the Praetors handle day-to-day affairs. It's very likely that he doesn't know alot of what's happening in Praetoria, and mostly because he chooses not to get involved. From what I saw in the Powers storyline, Cole's very much afraid, not of the world ending, but rather of what else the world might demand of him to ensure its survival. Just picture how the pilot who dropped the Nagasaki bomb must have felt...

Or he could be a really good actor and fooled me along with the rest

That'd be like an X-Files forum where you can't talk about government conspiracies

It's evil and unnecessary - that's why he's the bad guy the Heores have to fight

Independent thinkers are kept independent because they have Vanessa DeVore's psychic protection to shield them from the enslaved thought police on every corner.

The drugs int eh water supply make people more likely to accept what the dictatorship says, which means that they think they're safe under Tyrant's "protection" when they're not really safe at all - Enriche makes people not want to ask questions, so they don''t wonder what the Seers actually are, or why people disappear, or where the Ghouls come from, or why the "popular" emperor has such a massive armed uprising going on in his "perfect" empire.

Tyrant and his loyalists stormtroopers certainly are

And strangely, Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx haven't deciced to set up a dictatroship to make Primal Earth "safer", and no one in any of the blue side content even seems to consider it for a moment - which is why they're heroes and not villains

So in the list of evil plans, where would you rank trying to enslave all of exisitence, and exterminate any sentient being that opposed you, as well as any that even thought about resisiting you?

I haven't seen Cole doing any of those things.

The invasion of Primal Earth was more than justified in my eyes, considering that Praetoria was attacked by Ultimatum, Malta, Arachnos, Longbow, Vanguard and the entire Freedom Phalanx before they finally decided to strike back in 2011. You were there during the invasion, as was I, and thanks to Synapse's blunder we both heard Cole's broadcasts live. Apart from threatening to tear off Synapse's head if he didn't shut up, I didn't hear anything that suggests Cole is a murdering psychopath willing to commit genocide, only an opposing general trying to win a war he didn't start.

Then why are we meant to empathize with him?
It does not make sense if he is "pure evil", plus he sure doesn't seem pure evil like Lord Recluse or Nemesis or even Hamidon.

Oh come on!?!
What about all the loyalist scientists who are not part of the Resistance, having no shielding and still drink Enriche?

You can't, CAN NOT, have a stable system of government or scientific advances, especially one able to stand against a supposedly free-thinking opposing force, when the people that make those scientific advances and police/govern the people are mindless idiots.


You can't tell me that all independent thinkers, or even most, are helped by Vanessa DeVore when many of them are working against her, obviously against her, and her Resistance friends.



1) We're unsure how big the uprising is. All we see if the capitol city of an entire planet where the Resistance is very likely focusing most of their efforts while the other side has to spread efforts over an entire planet.

2) They are safe under the protection of Emperor Cole/tyrant. They have the sonic fencing and First Ward's "Seed of Hamidon" proves that Hamidon is out there and a huge threat, not to mention all the other references to the Devouring Earth and Hamidon such as the tentacle you can see from Praetoria past the zone boundaries in a certain place.

3) You quote canon background about Marcus Cole to use against him, but then you ignore the same canon that says he really did save the people of Praetoria and keeps them safe.
Ironic?

4) It's not in question that he protects the people. The issue is "how" he protects them.
He protects them through questionable methods, though he does protect them.


1) Primal Earth is still pretty corrupt in the newer stories, rather than the old "PPD are saints and the heroes are beneficent deities" stories.

2) There are plenty of villains in Primal Earth, one even controls a nation the size of Praetoria and treats the people a lot worse. Lord Recluse ring a bell?

3) Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx don't need to set up a dictatorship. They already have practically free reign, without the public scrutiny of being at the top. They're legally sanctioned hero groups that can get away with things such as invading sovereign nations to depose the leader(STF anyone?).





And as for canon, Praetoria is, and is supposed to be, a moral gray area.
That is why Emperor Cole is in power, as of the retcon with Going Rogue.

He is now forced to do the things the people need to survive and thrive as much as possible.


Do you think it is not morally questionable to go to war?
Do you think it is better to just let yourself be conquered rather than send soldiers to their deaths to ensure the safety of as many people in your country as possible?

War is sometimes a "necessary evil" but it is always "evil" because people die on both sides, all while the leader is safe behind fortifications and distance from the front lines.





Cole is a leader. He is forced to make hard decisions, as a vigilante, because that is the burden of leadership.

He literally can not do the "epitome of heroism" types of acts that the heroes in Paragon City do because they don't even work on the small scale in Paragon City.
Every arrested criminal of any higher stature is out of jail fast and at the same crimes again. They never ever do what is necessary to protect people forever.

Seriously, the heroes of Paragon City are never execute anyone. They always have to be like the Doctor in Doctor Who and either hope the enemies end themselves or trick them into doing so.
Or, they just arrest them and turn them over to a completely inept police force and legal system.



So, if Emperor Cole was as "heroic" as the "heroes" of Paragon City then Hamidon would have won and the world would have burned in nuclear fire.
All because he would have been too much of a wuss to stand up and say "ENOUGH!" and end the clearly repeating and absolutely evil threats that his world has to face.


After all, Paragon City sure has a lot of "the world is going to end" crises compared to Praetoria, which is remarkably stable.
It sure looks like Cole is doing a better job than Primal Earth could ever do.

You obviously haven't read the invasion plans - or even the out-of-game announcements for each new Issue

1) The old Maria Jenkins version of Tyrant was retconned out with Goign Rogue. He is now not "blatantly enslaving his people in a broken shell fo a world form atop a throne of human bones" like he was portrayed as first.

It's not "goatee Statesman" anymore.


2) He is not enslaving people. They have clockwork robots for that. They do all the manual and dirty labor and even fight the wars.

Or did you forget that the invasion forces in the Tin Mage and Apex TFs were almost entirely robots and the forces in the trials are mostly robots and highly trained soldiers who volunteered for missions such as they are in?

Sure, the seers are enslaved, but that is psycho Mother Mayhem's doing.




Everywhere you turn, you can't write off Emperor Cole as "pure evil" but you can call him "a strong leader" and "a protector of the people" even if he is leaning evil because he has twisted "protector of the people to add "....from themselves" as well as outside threats.


If he is "pure evil" then so are you Golden Girl, because you seem plenty willing to absolutely "HATE" him without acknowledging his motivations, that his actions may often be necessary and that he does some good.
All you do is look for conspiracy theories, non-canon theories, and want to write him off as "an evil alien" just because he is from a world that works differently than our own.

Do you think the royal family of Britain is evil because they're still the royal family?
Do you think all foreigners are "pure evil" just because their values differe slightly and morals there permit what we may consider barbaric criminal punishment and different social norms?




Go ahead, continue writing off Emperor Cole as evil. I'll just write you off as prejudiced for no good reason then.

His plans are, as far as canon, "to wipe out the threat of Primal Earth with as few civilian casualties as possible".

That doesn't sound very evil, even if war is inherently evil.


Was the American and British side of World War 2 evil for trying to stop Germany with an invasion?

It's no different than Cole's Invasion, especially since America only had one attack made against it, but Praetoria has had several before Cole even acted.





Emperor Cole is very much justified in all his actions, though his actions are a bit extreme and his motivations are a bit extreme(though starting from good intentions).

Emperor Cole is almost as evil as Statesman. He is just a little more evil than statesman.

Emperor Cole is a leader which is why he does more evil. Statesman is not a leader so he doesn't have the burden of doing what is necessary even if it is morally questionable, like ordering soldiers to their deaths in war.


All Statesman has to consider is sacrificing himself, but Emperor Cole has to consider asking others to make the sacrifice when necessary because he commands the military of Praetoria. He can't do ti alone and the responsibility was placed on his shoulders by the people, when they were not drugged.

Actually, this is kind of ironic. Without the sonic fencing and whatever else Cole & Co. pulled out of their butts [and the maintenance of such]; this conversation would be irrelevant. There would be no Resistance, no Ghouls, no Praetoria... nothing.

[And w/o getting into too much detail; he's pretty much damned if he does and damned if he doesn't]. The term collateral damage comes to mind.


And aren't almost all depicted utopias pretty much like Praetoria (nice on the surface but subject to either the catastrophes of the strictest controls or catastrophes of hedonist excess)?

There's kind of a 'The Matrix' parallel at work here. Cole would be akin to the big facey thing in 'Revolutions'; creating and maintaining a system of controls. [I guess the Praetors would be more like the Architect and the Oracle]. The dutiful Agents/Squids; more like the Seer Network. The Resistance would be like the citizens of Zion and First Ward is kind of like the whole Rogue program scenario.

The people are 'doped' for the entirety of their lives and serve to maintain the 'utopian' system while threats to that system are weeded out.

The system itself is no more evil than our food chain system. It just is; no matter what feelings may be manifested by those involved.

There's no wholesale slaughter or destruction of humanity; just pruning when necessary to preserve the stability of the system.

[Okay, I'm done editing this thing... anything else comes to mind; I'll put it in a new post, lol]

It's world wide - the Resistance is found wherever Tyrant has trapped the survivors of the Hamidon Wars.
And like all his problems, the Resistance are Tyrant's own fault - by crushing humanity under his evil dictatorship, he's losing the chance to face the Hamidon with a united front, and driving people to take up arms to regain their freedom - if Tyrant wasn't a monster, the Resistance wouldn't exist.

Or like the Devouring Earth that Tyrant asked Maelstrom to summon to attack Resistance sympathizs in the Magisterium, to both get rid of them and set up another chance for Tyrant to prove to his slaves how only he can "protect" them - those DE really are useful for him - again

Even a broken clock is right twice a day
He keeps them safe only if they obey him - and kills or imprisons anyone who opposes him -

Brainwashing, torture, slavery and mass murder are a little beyond the "questionable" stage of actions - they're pure evil.

I'm surprised there's no resistance movement on Primal Earth to try and stop Statesman and the heroes

And according to canon, the loyalists are Villains, the Resistance are Heroes, Tyrant's thugs are the biggest threat to Praetoria, and Tyrant is Praetorian Earth's greatest villain

Enslaving all of existence and exterminating anyone who opposes you or even thinks of opposing you isn't a "necessary evil" - it's the actions of supervillain on a cosmic scale

I'm surprised he's so keen to take on the bruden or ruling the entire mutliverse

Enslave them?

The sonic fences keep the Hamidon out - the mass-murder, "disappearances", brain-washing, torture, thought police, drugged water supply and propaganda are there to keep Tyrant in power - they'e not connected to each other - just like the war walls were built in Paragon City without turning it into a fascist dictatorship.
The heroes of Paragon City are heroes because they protect the people wothout enslaving them.

Dictatorships usually are stable - they have more ways of keeping stability

Of destroying humanity, yes

And kill anyone who opposes him, then have the entire surviving population of Primal Earth mind scanned by thre Seers to identify potential "troublemakers", who will then be slaughtered - after that, he'll move onto the next world, and then the next, and then the next, until the whole multiveverse is enslaved by the loyalists.

Liberating Europe from the Nazis isn't quite the same thing as trying to impose a modern version of the Nazis onto the entire multiverse.

How very 1930s Germany that all sounds

Lady Grey must be a monster then, as she has a lot of troops under her command.

Really?

He doesn't sound very open to the idea of freee will:

Really?

From the GR website:

From the main CoH website:

From the devs:



And there's more where that came from too

1) Those aren't in game canon, even the ones that appear to be are possibly from a biased source(written from the perspective of Resistance for one).

2) The developers did a crappy job then.
I seriously don't see Emperor Cole as a villain and certainly not all the Loyalist moral choices as villainous.

In fact, there are quite a few moral choice options that point to the Resistance choice clearly being evil and the Loyalist choice clearly being far better.

Take the choice to kill Cleopatra or Interrogator Washington for example. She tries to have your character killed, after you just kept trying to prevent crimes and brign in criminals, and your choice is "let the person who just tried to kill you go free and kill the witness"(Resistance side) or "give her the death penalty for murdering that PPD officer and attempting to murder you"(Loyalist option).

Obviously, that choice makes the Resistance look like the evil group.


therefore, the developers either did a horrible job or maybe you and many of them are misled to believe that the Resistance are "absolute good" and Loyalists are "absolute evil"(when they also said Praetoria was all moral gray)....

....or maybe they just say what you quoted to mislead people so they are surprised by future story twists, like the story that started this thread.





The devs are messing with your mind. They ARE Nemesis.(not even joking)

How do you not see a fasist dictator as a villian?

There are people in RL who are attracted to that kind of person and organization

Because those are not moral descriptors. They are just descriptors of a type of government that becomes bad if the dictator does the wrong things because they let themselves succumb to the corrupting temptation of the power they have.

That is why there are phrases such as "evil dictator" because "dictator" doesn't mean evil. A dictator can still listen to the people and do what the people want, just without needing a vote.



Honestly, I think things through, and use proper meanings, a lot more than most people.
I can easily see the moral gray of Praetoria.


By the way, Britain used to be a monarchy for a very long time, which is a dictatorship, but they had good times in that history where the people liked it. There are still countries in the world with monarchies that aren't horrible.




I don't like Emperor Cole, FYI, but only because he is too extreme. He makes choices I would not immediately make because I would give Primal Earth a chance to accept my help in pacifying the threats on their planet instead of just conquering saying "they would never change".
He doesn't seem as wise or patient as he probably should be as a leader. Thus, I don't like him.

I don't think he is definitely a villain yet though. He's a vigilante for sure, but not quite a villain yet. That can and will change as more story is revealed, likely.

I'm pretty sure Primal Earth would refuse your "help" if it was the same kind of "help" that Tyrant gives ot the people he rules

Dude. He plans to screen every person and to outright kill anyone who *may* be a dissinter when he conquers the planet. Of six billion plus people, nearly all of which are extremely used to a large amount of freedom, and will not like his ideas. He is going into this war with FULL AND COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE THAT IF HE WINS, HE WILL BE KILLING MULTIPLE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

He.
Is.
EVIL.

He may have STARTED as good but extreme, but he is so far beyond it now that the fact you even question whether or not he qualifies as evil would make me very, very nervous to know you in real life.

As an aside:
Nor do they work in the real world... for the most part. Might I add that hangings, in the past, were the site of a LARGE number of pickpocketing activities as well as other illegal acts. Also, might I also point out that th US has the LARGEST prison population in the developed world AND a crime rate that continues to climb... seems to me that the "Deterrence Method" never had a chance.

1) The US has a very lenient criminal punishment system. They get parole quickly, especially with good behavior.
If it was actually mandatory to serve the full time then people would likely be less willing to commit crimes, with less repeat offenses and less time on the outside for criminals to associate with other people and influence them to commit crimes, making it seem "so cool".
Violent crimes are the worst. You can attempt to murder someone and serve less than 10 years despite severely hurting them.

2) What would you have them do other than punishment and deterrence?
Would you have them figure out a "thought police" program?
Oh wait, Mother Mayhem did that and you hate it and she is enslaving people.



If you want freedom, you need to work for it and to ensure it.

This is why I don't see Cole as outright evil.

1) Primal Earth attacked several times before Cole attacked. They asked for military action which any country would do against any other country that attacked.

2) You give people the absolute freedom that the Resistance supposedly wants and you get Primal Earth. You get a lot of people that think "I have the freedom to hurt others" which is never a freedom that anyone should have.

You think we would allow evil in our own world if we had the means to prevent it?


Cole is right in one way.
There are certain "freedoms" that people should not have because they are not freedoms at all; they are anarchy and evil.

Without laws to deter, punish and even prevent crime then crime will happen unchecked.

Do you think legalizing murder would make people stop murdering others?
Do you think eliminating all laws would prevent people from doing the things that would have broken those laws?



You have all been corrupted by propaganda of our own society and authors of books like 1984 and Brave New World.

I read those books and understood them and their warning.
Praetoria has some similarities, but Praetoria is also much better than the societies of those books.


Sure, the people of Praetoria have no control over their world, but is that any different than us electing leaders and just hoping they do what we want?
They're protected, happy and can pursue whatever work or ideas they want, so long as they don't lead to others being harmed(and yet they also have enough freedom to harm).

In our real world, people suffer every day and have to take what they can get; people don't have robots doing all the manual labor that sucks to do; people are far from safe, even in the most "civilized" country, from their fellow citizens and their murderous desires.


I can see exactly why the people of Praetoria elected Cole and continue to support him.
Sure, Mother Mayhem and her seer slavery program need to go, but the rest of the governmental system isn't bad.

And even with the seer program and some sort of "happy pill" in the water....I would probably like to live in Praetoria if it were real.

I would gladly trade "the freedom to murder" for safety and happiness.






Really, what freedoms are the people of Praetoria actually losing?
What freedoms are the Resistance members willing to destroy a whole working and relatively safe society for?

If they have the essential freedoms, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"(liberty actually means freedom from persecution without cause such as being a criminal), then how is that not good?

How is Praetoria a horrible nightmare society if people have the very freedoms the foundling fathers of the USA said every person deserves?


Those are the freedoms that matter, not the freedom to kill other people which isn't freedom at all; it's psychopathic selfishness.

For one, I would gladly trade the "right to bear(right word?) arms" for the "right to not be killed by a person with a gun".




You see, there are some things people just can't do.
They can't, as individuals, stop another individual from killing them.

Praetoria saw the US president nuking their world, causing countless civilian deaths just to try to keep the Devouring Earth from other population centers.

Do they use nukes anymore? Nope. now they actually have working fences and a stronger smarter military that is actually not willing to sacrifice everyone else just so that their little group can survive.



People need to band together to protect each other, always through electing/appointing a leader and group of protectors.

We in the real world have our leaders and military controlled by those leaders. Praetoria has Emperor Cole and a much more effective military despite a much more dangerous constant enemy.





If you want to compare Praetoria to the real world then Praetoria really is a utopia by comparison, despite the bad things about Praetoria.
At least the people there are free to do anythign that doesn't harm others, are fed, are clothed, can choose what work they want to do or no work and are happy.

Those that dissent in Praetoria do so for only one or two reasons:

1) They know the lessons of "power corrupts" and think "Cole will go too far" so they want to preemptively take him out rather than ensure the system doesn't become corrupt from the inside(and cut out the corruption already there).
They would sacrifice a working system and safety and happiness just so they don't have a risk of corruption, but every system can be corrupt so all they would be choosing is a small group of more evil Tyrants instead of one Tyrant that is apparently not that bad.

They would open the world up to civil war and would-be conquerors rather than the Emperor they elected.

2) They just don't like anybody having power but themselves.
This is the primary motivator for all power struggles, including the Resistance of Praetoria. More of the Resistance is evil and just after power than those that are out to "protect the people" because they sure don't "protect the people" and always claim "we are freedom fighters trying to give people freedom" without ever saying what freedoms or how other than "taking down Cole" who is actually protecting people.

They're trying to "protect the people" by taking out the one group that is already "protecting the people" and has proven themselves better at it than any other group in history with a much happier and more comfortable world created by them.






By the way, there are plenty of examples of "freedom fighters" in our own real world history who were actually after nothing but power and ended up much worse than the government they overthrew shortly after gaining power.

Emperor Cole is right. You do need to protect people from other people, what is easily at least part of what he meant by "protect people from themselves".

Many people will eagerly hurt others for their own gains, even if the gains are as small and insignificant and stupid as a bottle of alcohol in exchange for the store owner's life.







Cole is only as "evil" as others force him to be and show him is required.
Yes, Mother Mayhem is evil and earns Cole "guilt by association" for "aiding and abetting", but even her program may not be completely evil, especially if it was changed to only use volunteers who retained individuality.

Cole used to be considered the savior of the people, elected Emperor by 99% of the people(according to canon).

So what do you think caused Cole to think he needs to "protect people from themselves" and perform a lot of arguably "necessary evils"?

Something tells me that 1% of the population didn't have all "altruistic" motivations and some of the other 99% probably are "bad weather fans"/"criminals asking for their victims' help" that returned to greed and desires for undeserved/unearned power after their lives were no longer in imminent peril from Hamidon and the Devouring Earth.


I don't see Cole as anything less than "lawful good"(to use a D&D term) even if he allows/does many things we consider morally wrong.
After all, somebody has to punish a murderer for committing murder, to prevent future murders and as a deterrent to others who may consider doing the same action.

Also, if someone could prevent murders then what price would they feel is worth paying to prevent that most heinous act?



Sure, some of the things in Praetoria are wrong, but I find it very hard to make a long list.
The things that are wrong:

1) The seer program is involuntary slavery.
This could be made right by making it a volunteer only force and not controlling the volunteer's minds while limiting them to "empathic sensing" only instead of keying off ordinary citizen's innocent thoughts. This would preserve the benefit of a seer surveillance network to alert police to crimes.

2) A few scientific experiments are not right.
Neuron's ghoul creations should never have happened. The scientific experiments need to be monitored and policed, especially when they affect people who would otherwise be healthy and fine.

3) Feeding the destroyers fixadine is wrong.
Dominatrix needs to be taken down a peg for stirring up crime while people cure the addicts so they don't require it anymore.

(Edit: Weigh those against a lot of the Resistance's methods, killing innocent civilians and blowing up water treatment facilities that prevent Devouring Earth spores from infecting people through the water and all sorts of other morally dubious acts, and it looks like both sides are at least evenly matched for evil, with the Resistance pulling ahead to more evil because they want to overthrow a government that protects the people and works relatively well, and most people are happy with and elected into power. The Resistance weren't elected, and I bet any vote on whether they should be listened to, even without drugged people, would be majority against them. The Resistance are no better than the perpetrators of 9/11.)


Other than that, Cole and his administration seems fairly justified in most actions, barring corrupt individuals that need some sort of "internal affairs" investigation.
Even the war with Primal earth is justified given the facts that Primal Earth attacked Praetoria first, several groups and several times, and really is a threat to Praetoria as Arachnos has proven by trying to blow away half of Praetoria with one of Anti-matter's reactors.




It seems to me you people just "believe what you are told" without question(remind you of your opinion of the Praetorian people?) and don't examine the evidence.
If you did, you wouldn't write Cole off as evil just yet, though you may not be happy from the perspective of "a super from Primal Earth that he has declared war against".


Are you analyzing this from the perspective of an outside objective observer or from a subjective position and possibly from a "Paragon City has always been heroes, anybody who opposes them is EVIL!"(how very totalitarian of you, and like you think Cole views things)?

You really do seem a lot more like Cole than you think.

Still all assumptions, supposition and conspiracy theories that have no basis in canon....yet.

In fact, there is no proof(and probably no mention as far as I can tell) of some desire of his to "conquer the multiverse".

He has good reason to attack Primal Earth because they attacked first(a few times according to canon) and they will attack again, especially Arachnos.


I haven't seen any proof in game, or in the official bio(which is perhaps biased to throw people off with later stories that make Cole seem very heroic; it makes sense), that he wants to "conquer the multiverse".
Every official source that I can think of in game indicates that he is perfectly fine with his own world and only attacks Primal Earth to prevent them from attacking after they opened the dimensional barrier to his world and stole stuff and attacked already.


Cole isn't looking very evil, either by dev design or dev mistake in making his actions too justifiable.