The Invincibility of the CS?

[Killer Cyborg]

broadly speaking, genocide is to attempt/intend to kill all members of a nation, culture, etc purely because they are members of that nation, culture, etc.

the CS wants to commit genocide because it doesn't care if the d-bees are dangerous warriors or babies that were born a minute ago, the d-bee needs to be killed as far as they're concerned. the CS wants to commit genocide because all mages, whether they are dangerous or not, need to be killed as far as they are concerned.

in contrast, if you want to kill someone because they are currently trying to kill you (which is the case with the xiticix), that is not genocide. so, for example, when we know that lazlo has attempted communication with the xiticix and has tried other means to keep the xiticix from killing everything in their path, we know that lazlo is not interested in genocide, they're interested in protecting themselves from a real threat. all signs point to the fact that if the xiticix suddenly proposed a peace treaty with lazlo, lazlo would accept it.

so no, people wanting to kill the xiticix is not necessarily genocide. it could be (the CS as an organization, for example, would likely want to kill the xiticix even if the bugs were completely peaceful and harmless). but if you're just wanting to do it to keep yourself and your family (friends, home, etc) safe, then it isn't genocide.

Hold on a sec.
Nannies as a rule don't currently want to kill you. Neither do Nits or other certain xiticix.
Genocide against the xiticix includes them. It is NOT self-defense, not in the immediate sense of the term. It's only self defense in the sense of "any _____ is a threat to us and our way of life, because of what it is" kind of logic.
Which is the same logic that the CS uses.

Again, some of this comes down to a wide spectrum of possible meanings of the term "the CS."
Some of the leaders might not care if a mage is dangerous, but the rule is that members of the CS--leaders included--believe that mages are inherently dangerous, because of what they are.

(Disclaimer: The CS leaderhip is evil. The population is generally not. This does not mean that all evidence that the CS is evil is equal. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily evil. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily proof of evilness.)

[Shark_Force]

broadly speaking, genocide is to attempt/intend to kill all members of a nation, culture, etc purely because they are members of that nation, culture, etc.

the CS wants to commit genocide because it doesn't care if the d-bees are dangerous warriors or babies that were born a minute ago, the d-bee needs to be killed as far as they're concerned. the CS wants to commit genocide because all mages, whether they are dangerous or not, need to be killed as far as they are concerned.

in contrast, if you want to kill someone because they are currently trying to kill you (which is the case with the xiticix), that is not genocide. so, for example, when we know that lazlo has attempted communication with the xiticix and has tried other means to keep the xiticix from killing everything in their path, we know that lazlo is not interested in genocide, they're interested in protecting themselves from a real threat. all signs point to the fact that if the xiticix suddenly proposed a peace treaty with lazlo, lazlo would accept it.

so no, people wanting to kill the xiticix is not necessarily genocide. it could be (the CS as an organization, for example, would likely want to kill the xiticix even if the bugs were completely peaceful and harmless). but if you're just wanting to do it to keep yourself and your family (friends, home, etc) safe, then it isn't genocide.

Hold on a sec.
Nannies as a rule don't currently want to kill you. Neither do Nits or other certain xiticix.
Genocide against the xiticix includes them. It is NOT self-defense, not in the immediate sense of the term. It's only self defense in the sense of "any _____ is a threat to us and our way of life, because of what it is" kind of logic.
Which is the same logic that the CS uses.

Again, some of this comes down to a wide spectrum of possible meanings of the term "the CS."
Some of the leaders might not care if a mage is dangerous, but the rule is that members of the CS--leaders included--believe that mages are inherently dangerous, because of what they are.

(Disclaimer: The CS leaderhip is evil. The population is generally not. This does not mean that all evidence that the CS is evil is equal. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily evil. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily proof of evilness.)

there's a difference between having evidence (or as a bare minimum at least actually trying to obtain evidence) to support the belief that not fighting these creatures will result in the death of yourself and everything you care about, and having no real evidence of that at all, and in fact mounting evidence that it is actually false and doing it anyways.

practically speaking, the xiticix have declared war against everything else with the only end conditions being complete extermination of one side or the other. you don't need a specific xiticix to attack you in order to be threatened by that xiticix. in fact, considering the nature of hive insects, where they essentially function as a single organism, it is entirely possible that practically speaking once any xiticix from any given hive has decided to try to kill you, all xiticix from that particular have have decided to kill you.

shooting enemy soldiers in a war is not genocide, because you're not trying to kill them just for being from a nation, culture, etc, you're shooting them because they are at war and it is their duty to shoot you as well.

so, like i said... other places tried to make peaceful contact with the xiticix, as i recall. and if the xiticix could be reasoned with, likely would accept them as neighbours. this is not at all the same thing as the CS, where they would want to kill the xiticix even if the xiticix were not an aggressively expansionist species that are essentially impossible to reason with.

the CS has a policy of genocide. whether or not they have fully succeeded is irrelevant. the CS wants to kill them because of who they are, not because of what they have done. and considering we know that significant portions of the population of the 'burbs include exactly the groups that the CS would like to murder, meaning that much of the population not only lacks any evidence to prove that every member of the group is a threat, and in fact in many cases will have evidence to the contrary, lack of information is a remarkably flimsy excuse. (and no, the fact that the CS has not murdered those people *yet* doesn't mean the CS doesn't have the intention to do so; whether they have fully succeeded or not is irrelevant. there were still jews, russians, roma, homosexuals, handicapped, etc, people in the world and even some in territory occupied by the germans after WW II in spite of the fact that the nazis tried to exterminate those groups. nobody says the nazis are not guilty of genocide for failing, so the CS doesn't get to use that as a defense either).

simply put, it isn't just the leadership that can be implicated here. certainly, they are far more guilty of the misdeeds of the CS than anyone else. that doesn't mean the soldier who pulls the trigger while an infant d-bee is in the crosshairs is free of guilt. particularly when that soldier was recruited from the 'burbs where peaceful interaction with d-bees likely happened fairly regularly. deciding to ignore evidence of innocence so that you can murder someone does not make you a basically good person.

and yes, genocide pretty much does make you evil, at least in palladium terms. none of the good or selfish alignments allow you to kill an innocent (anarchist allows reckless endangerment, which can potentially lead to the death of innocents, but not murder). the rest don't even allow harming innocents, let alone killing them. so, if you are willing to kill innocents (including unarmed d-bee farmers, for example) based on the fact that there could theoretically be a threat, maybe, somewhere, at some point in time, you've ruled out all the non-evil alignments.

[Thias]

In my eyes the Coaltion States are not evil nor nazis. At least not more nazi-influenced than the USA throughout history. If I have not alienateed you by this sentence, please read on and I will explain it without trying to insult any US citizen. Now I do not have all the books, and thus I might not know every tidbit of infomation that PB have written about CS - but in any case, this is how I see it and it is from this perspective that I will argue.

I see the people of Coalition States including past and present leaders as not being purely evil. Yes Prosek and some of his Inner Circle might have an evil alignement. I do not refute this, but I try to understand why they have it and the first thing I think we as GMs/Players and readers needs to understand is that we have more information than they have. We know more of Rifts Earth than the characters that are portrayed and thus have another perspective than they have. I do not believe that Grandfather Prosek said to a couple of pals "Hey, lets build a totalitarian state where we have absolute control and lets kill all those whom we do not like". Instead they were survivors of various horrors who banded together to survive what shaytstorm that had befallen Earth. They even tried to accept magic and mages in the beginning if I recall correctly - now I have not read the books in a couple of years.

I am not trying to make an apology for Coalition States here, I want to try to understand them, without a bias for or against them. Sure they have done some horible things, started a war against Tolkeen and killed many thousands of human, monsters and D-Bees. But looking from their perspective, they are the last bastion of hope for mankid together with Free Quebec and possible New German Republic. And althhough I know that Ley Lines, PPE and magic is not evil or good in nature, It is just a force that exist which can be tapped by people from any part of the moral compass, the Coalition States thinks of it as unnatural, probably because it feeds the various of monsters that appear from the magical rifts that can be found with contact to the ley lines and the power appears to come from outside the person who wields it, thus it is supernatural. Psionics on the other hand is something that comes from a person and needs not any ley lines to gather power. Also, there are more evidence that magic is horrible, with its more obvious links to demons, monsters and other things that an uninitiated witness can see as evil. Psionic powers have a tendency to affect the user more and is more subtle and thus can be disregarded easier.

Moreover, I do not think that Prosek and those with evil alignments in the CS consider themselves evil. Personally I think that they see themselves as very pragmatic and they do what needs to be done to save humanity and reclaim our world from various monsters and alien invaders, not to speak about those strange mages who can open rifts to summon more monsters and demons. If they most eliminate a particular species of demons or whatnot, they will do so becase they are a threat to humanity. Please bear in mind that I do not think that these people are alturistic or lie to themselves that they do it in the name of good. They are intelligent to understand that what they do might not be approved by the history books of the future - but they most do it for those books to be written. The best way then can save humanity is to control their people and maybe it is not a good way in which they do, but at one time it was the easiest way. Look at Free Quebec, they have another approach to this, but they still hate magic, and will not allow D-bees. But they still educate their people. Soomething that CS will not do.

If we look back a couple of hundred years to the year 1602 when Mayflower came to what would become USA and the hundreds of years that followed, USA became a country by Europeans invading another countries/claimed territories. They could have shared the land - but no, they wanted it all. They fought against the natives and put them in huge concetration camps, where the natives could not farm their land enough to live well. Whole tribes where slaughtered and murdered for land and subjugated before the invaders. When World War II came, the young nation of USA incarcerated japanese-americans for years in camps. Let us not forget the slavery and the way the African-american were treated up until the 60's. Jump forward another 40-50 years and we have Trump and his muslim ban and his wish to build a wall against Mexico. Sure in rifts I would understand it as Mexico is a country filled with vampires, but I do not think that there are demons now, despite the fact that Robert Rodrigez movie From Dusk to Dawn... I would prefer a large canal or moat instead if that were the case

So if you claim that Coalition States act like nazis, I will claim that USA have done the same before and is not better. But I do not see the Coalition States as being Nazi. Yes they do not allow 100% freedom to their people, they fear and hate magic and D-bees and will use weapons and their immense army against these things and persons.

The Nazi were better than the Coalition States and they were worse. The Nazi Party gave hope to the german people who had been squashed beeath the winning side in WWI and they rebuilt Germany, showed the people that if the country tries, the german people might come out on top. They rebuilt the infrastructure, the economy and the self-image. They lifted up a country from poverty and it did not take many years. They gave people hope and pride. - Now I will not glorify the Nazi Party, they did so much horrible things that are unspeakable and things I hope will never again be done in the course of human history.

The Coalition states are doing things like this, and it has been done by so many other countries in history. We just tend to forget or just look towards the most obvious: Khmer Rouge, Communist China & Russia, North Korea and Nazi Germany. But other countries have done the same: France, Sweden Japan and other countries we today consider very civilized and treat with respect. But I refuse to call CS a Nazi nation. They have similiarities, but they also have similarities with USA, Sweden, apan, Korea, Former Yugoslavia and lots of other countries as well as the British Empire or the Netherlands and their colonies in South Africa.

When it comes to thir invulnerability and ivincibility, yes it is a plot device, just like when you play Middle Earth RPG which is set some 1400 years before the Lord of the Rings. Sauron is a plot device, it will more or less be iimpossible for the players to defeat the hosts of Mordor. Coud Siembieda made it better and less obvious - Oh yes. But now it is made, people - you dont have to be rude to eachother just because to view things in different ways. We all accept that Siembieda is not a military genious. He wants to tell a story about how a war between the Coalition States and Tolkeen went and looking at the two nations, Tolkeen was doomed before the first shot was fired. Could Tolkeen have made more damage to the CS to make it more logical...oh yes. But consider it like this instead:

The CS leadership nows that after the Tokeen War they are drained in manpower and resources, so they do what they must - Avoid at all costs to look weak. If they show weaness, the vultures will come and feed from their still warm carcas. Just like the US did with the invasion of Grenada. They need to appear stronger than they are and mass conscripts 'burb humans and psionics to the military. They show off all they can in order to look invincible.

But yes, it is siembeda's plot deice and it is needed. CS is needed to act as a buffer between chaos and anarchy from one side and humanity from teh other side. They are logical, because I see very much that if there was such a catastrophe and dragons and monsters would invade our planet, nations like CS would arise. It is just a human way to form such societies if we feel we have to survive. Just look trhoughout history.

Do we have to fight over it? No, but it is interesting to discuss it - but please be more civil.

/Thias


P.s. And lets us not remember that most ingame texts we have in the books are written by Erin Tarn, is she actually telling the whole truth or is it as Kosh says in babylon 5. Truth is a three-edged
sword...The CS side, the Tarn side and the Truth

/Cheers

[Mech-Viper Prime]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

[HWalsh]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

[Killer Cyborg]

broadly speaking, genocide is to attempt/intend to kill all members of a nation, culture, etc purely because they are members of that nation, culture, etc.

the CS wants to commit genocide because it doesn't care if the d-bees are dangerous warriors or babies that were born a minute ago, the d-bee needs to be killed as far as they're concerned. the CS wants to commit genocide because all mages, whether they are dangerous or not, need to be killed as far as they are concerned.

in contrast, if you want to kill someone because they are currently trying to kill you (which is the case with the xiticix), that is not genocide. so, for example, when we know that lazlo has attempted communication with the xiticix and has tried other means to keep the xiticix from killing everything in their path, we know that lazlo is not interested in genocide, they're interested in protecting themselves from a real threat. all signs point to the fact that if the xiticix suddenly proposed a peace treaty with lazlo, lazlo would accept it.

so no, people wanting to kill the xiticix is not necessarily genocide. it could be (the CS as an organization, for example, would likely want to kill the xiticix even if the bugs were completely peaceful and harmless). but if you're just wanting to do it to keep yourself and your family (friends, home, etc) safe, then it isn't genocide.

Hold on a sec.
Nannies as a rule don't currently want to kill you. Neither do Nits or other certain xiticix.
Genocide against the xiticix includes them. It is NOT self-defense, not in the immediate sense of the term. It's only self defense in the sense of "any _____ is a threat to us and our way of life, because of what it is" kind of logic.
Which is the same logic that the CS uses.

Again, some of this comes down to a wide spectrum of possible meanings of the term "the CS."
Some of the leaders might not care if a mage is dangerous, but the rule is that members of the CS--leaders included--believe that mages are inherently dangerous, because of what they are.

(Disclaimer: The CS leaderhip is evil. The population is generally not. This does not mean that all evidence that the CS is evil is equal. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily evil. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily proof of evilness.)

there's a difference between having evidence (or as a bare minimum at least actually trying to obtain evidence) to support the belief that not fighting these creatures will result in the death of yourself and everything you care about, and having no real evidence of that at all, and in fact mounting evidence that it is actually false and doing it anyways.

I would say that while the CS has come to an erroneous conclusion, they DO indeed have evidence to support their believe that not fighting mages will result in the death of the CS individual doing the thinking, and/or everything that they care about:
One lone mage trying to show off summoned the Mechanoids to Earth.
Again, that's just the single clearest example of mages being a threat. The Coalition has countless others, since mages keep attacking them, summoning monsters, and generally causing trouble (in the eyes of the CS).

practically speaking, the xiticix have declared war against everything else with the only end conditions being complete extermination of one side or the other. you don't need a specific xiticix to attack you in order to be threatened by that xiticix. in fact, considering the nature of hive insects, where they essentially function as a single organism, it is entirely possible that practically speaking once any xiticix from any given hive has decided to try to kill you, all xiticix from that particular have have decided to kill you.

But Nits and Nannies don't actually try to kill you, except maybe in self-defense.
And HAVE the xiticix effectively declared war against everything else?
You and I have read the books, so we have the metagame knowledge that the bugs will indeed engulf the entire world if they can, but do the people of Rifts Earth know that?
The bugs haven't communicated any doctrine or philosophy to anybody, so their intentions haven't been announced.
They're expansionist, but many human civilizations also are.
For all the people of Rifts Earth know, might it not be possible that the bugs have a Manifest Destiny kind of plan that will stop their growth when they reach certain borders?
It's been a while since I've read the full XI book, but I don't remember people having in-game knowledge of the bugs' plans and behaviors.

shooting enemy soldiers in a war is not genocide, because you're not trying to kill them just for being from a nation, culture, etc, you're shooting them because they are at war and it is their duty to shoot you as well.

Agreed.
Nannies and nits are not soldiers.

so, like i said... other places tried to make peaceful contact with the xiticix, as i recall. and if the xiticix could be reasoned with, likely would accept them as neighbours. this is not at all the same thing as the CS, where they would want to kill the xiticix even if the xiticix were not an aggressively expansionist species that are essentially impossible to reason with.

Point.
So not all genocides are equal.

simply put, it isn't just the leadership that can be implicated here. certainly, they are far more guilty of the misdeeds of the CS than anyone else. that doesn't mean the soldier who pulls the trigger while an infant d-bee is in the crosshairs is free of guilt. particularly when that soldier was recruited from the 'burbs where peaceful interaction with d-bees likely happened fairly regularly. deciding to ignore evidence of innocence so that you can murder someone does not make you a basically good person.

Would it change the picture if you'd seen countless films where infant D-Bees NOT killed in cold blood changed into monsters the moment your back was turned, and killed some of your comrades in arms?
Would it change the picture if you'd actually seen it happen in person?

and yes, genocide pretty much does make you evil, at least in palladium terms. none of the good or selfish alignments allow you to kill an innocent (anarchist allows reckless endangerment, which can potentially lead to the death of innocents, but not murder). the rest don't even allow harming innocents, let alone killing them. so, if you are willing to kill innocents (including unarmed d-bee farmers, for example) based on the fact that there could theoretically be a threat, maybe, somewhere, at some point in time, you've ruled out all the non-evil alignments.

I disagree, in that the alignment descriptions are based in the points of view of the aligned.
If a player character has zero reason to believe that an NPC is innocent, and many reasons to believe that the NPC is a guilty and immediate threat, and they fully believe that they're acting in self-defense, does the player character's alignment change when they act wrongly on their beliefs?

[Mech-Viper Prime]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

In enemy territory, everybody is a combatant, is that a dragon or mage in disguise or is it a child, and if it is why is it shrugging rail gun bursts? Hmmm don't seem like a harmless child to me.

[HWalsh]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

In enemy territory, everybody is a combatant, is that a dragon or mage in disguise or is it a child, and if it is why is it shrugging rail gun bursts? Hmmm don't seem like a harmless child to me.

You are misrepresenting the facts.

The CS went into territory controlled by Tolkeen and started wiping out villages. These weren't women and kids who were shrugging off railgun fire. These were women and children, human and non-MDC dbees who were gunned down and died like any other SDC being shot by an MDC weapon. The CS weren't defending themselves.

You know what... Let us flip this... I'm going to make a new thread... Why Mages and Dbees should not be seen as evil for attempting an act genocide the Coalition States based on the precept that they are just acting in self-defense.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

In enemy territory, everybody is a combatant, is that a dragon or mage in disguise or is it a child, and if it is why is it shrugging rail gun bursts? Hmmm don't seem like a harmless child to me.

You are misrepresenting the facts.

The CS went into territory controlled by Tolkeen and started wiping out villages. These weren't women and kids who were shrugging off railgun fire. These were women and children, human and non-MDC dbees who were gunned down and died like any other SDC being shot by an MDC weapon. The CS weren't defending themselves.

You know what... Let us flip this... I'm going to make a new thread... Why Mages and Dbees should not be seen as evil for attempting an act genocide the Coalition States based on the precept that they are just acting in self-defense.

Enemy combatants in an hostile area.

[boring7]

I'm not going to research a claim that nobody here has made.
The claim is that the Great Cataclysm was caused by magic, not that it was caused by a magic ritual.

You made the claim when you made the analogy.

Nope.

You made the analogy, you defended the analogy as legitimate.

(insult, fallacy, insult)

That's nice.

Hey, does that mean that you agree that magic is dangerous?

Everybody you are disagreeing with has said that, using those words, followed with, "magic is no more dangerous than technology." You are the one who has chosen to keep arguing after that.

Why are you still arguing?

(Repeat of previous strawman)

See above.

(Repeat of previous strawman)

see above.

Cite your sources, if you have any.

My source is your posts. Double check, yep, you din't mis-quote RUE, though arguably you misapplied it.

If your source is p. 113 of RUE, then no, human children do not "detect as magic."
Mages can detect the magic energy within them, but that's not the same thing as the children "detecting as magic."
Do you understand the distinction?

No, I don't.

(More pointless insults)

That's nice.

If you're...quite done...shall we return to the Original Topic?

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm not going to research a claim that nobody here has made.
The claim is that the Great Cataclysm was caused by magic, not that it was caused by a magic ritual.

You made the claim when you made the analogy.

Nope.

You made the analogy, you defended the analogy as legitimate.

The analogy is legitimate.
It is also an analogy.
You're asking me to defend an analogy as a statement of fact, when by definition it is not one.

(insult, fallacy, insult)

That's nice.

You seem to have confused questions with insults, and accidentally thereby dodged the questions.

Hey, does that mean that you agree that magic is dangerous?

Everybody you are disagreeing with has said that, using those words, followed with, "magic is no more dangerous than technology."

Which is NOT the same as saying: "magic is dangerous."
Notice that you still didn't manage to say those words here.

You are the one who has chosen to keep arguing after that.

Why are you still arguing?

Because you are trying to turn the question of "is magic dangerous" into a "is it more dangerous than technology" comparison [u]without actually answering the original question[u], and instead pretending that raising the comparison answers the original question.

(Repeat of previous strawman)

See above.

(Repeat of previous strawman)

see above.

Seen above. Addressed above.
Was ignored by you in this post.

Cite your sources, if you have any.

My source is your posts.

Links to those posts?
Direct quotes?

Double check, yep, you din't mis-quote RUE, though arguably you misapplied it.

Not sure what you're referring to here, because you give no context.

If your source is p. 113 of RUE, then no, human children do not "detect as magic."
Mages can detect the magic energy within them, but that's not the same thing as the children "detecting as magic."
Do you understand the distinction?

No, I don't.

Okay. I'll explain.
Children are NOT PPE.
Human children are not composed of PPE, and they are not a kind of PPE.
Human children are not a subset of PPE.
Children and PPE are not the same thing.
Mages can not detect children with their ability to sense magic energy, because children themselves are NOT magic energy.
Mages can detect the PPE within children, provided that there is enough magic energy inside the children for the mage to sense.

It's like how a person with a geiger counter might be able to detect the radiation emanating from irradiated children, but that radiation is NOT the children themselves, and it would be incredibly incorrect to say that "children are radiation."
Children are not energy (not beyond the possible argument that all things are energy, and even then, that doesn't mean that children are all specific kinds of energy: children are not electricity, for example, even though there is some level of electricity within them).

Does that help?

(More pointless insults)

That's nice.

If you're...quite done...shall we return to the Original Topic?

The alleged invincibility of the CS?
I don't see why; I came into the conversation specifically to address the sub-issue of whether or not magic was dangerous, and potentially the sub-sub-issue of whether or not magic is more dangerous than technology within the setting of Rifts Earth.
And after that, I'd be game with discussing the sub-sub-sub-issue of whether or not the danger level of magic justifies the CS' overall philosophy and behavior.

But the alleged invincibility of the CS itself isn't of much interest to me.
If you're done discussing things with me, then stop discussing things with me.
If you're not, then actually discuss things with me instead of dismissing them. Make clear claims, support your claims, cite your sources, and admit it when you are proven to be wrong about something.

[Freemage]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

In enemy territory, everybody is a combatant, is that a dragon or mage in disguise or is it a child, and if it is why is it shrugging rail gun bursts? Hmmm don't seem like a harmless child to me.

You are misrepresenting the facts.

The CS went into territory controlled by Tolkeen and started wiping out villages. These weren't women and kids who were shrugging off railgun fire. These were women and children, human and non-MDC dbees who were gunned down and died like any other SDC being shot by an MDC weapon. The CS weren't defending themselves.

You know what... Let us flip this... I'm going to make a new thread... Why Mages and Dbees should not be seen as evil for attempting an act genocide the Coalition States based on the precept that they are just acting in self-defense.

Enemy combatants in an hostile area.

To be a combatant, you actually have to be capable of combat. Most of the d-bees slaughtered in the invasion of Tolkeen were anything but, as evidenced by the fact that the CS was able to roll through them so readily. (Much like the justification for the Salem Witch Trials being the danger the alleged witches posed to the community--if they were that dangerous and powerful, they never would've been captured and tied to a stake in the first place.)

If they're not combatants, they're civilians. If you're slaughtering civilians who pose no military threat, that's a wartime atrocity.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

Somehow I don't think they didn't have any means to defend themselves , it's was the fact the coalition had superior numbers and firepower.

[Eagle]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

Well now you're getting into arguments about who owns what territory. From the CS' perspective, they are the legitimate government of the entirety of the old territory of the United States. They see themselves as driving out invaders who had seized territory that didn't belong to them centuries before. In real life, most border disputes work that way. "You took this land from my ancestors!" "Well your ancestors stole it from my ancestors!"

If aliens from space came down and seized Minneapolis, do you think the US government would be keen about letting them keep it?

[Killer Cyborg]

From the CS' perspective, they are the legitimate government of the entirety of the old territory of the United States. They see themselves as driving out invaders who had seized territory that didn't belong to them centuries before. In real life, most border disputes work that way. "You took this land from my ancestors!" "Well your ancestors stole it from my ancestors!"

Yes, that, exactly.
The CS is behaving the way that nations commonly behave throughout history, and the way that they commonly behave today.

[Nightmask]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

Well now you're getting into arguments about who owns what territory. From the CS' perspective, they are the legitimate government of the entirety of the old territory of the United States. They see themselves as driving out invaders who had seized territory that didn't belong to them centuries before. In real life, most border disputes work that way. "You took this land from my ancestors!" "Well your ancestors stole it from my ancestors!"

If aliens from space came down and seized Minneapolis, do you think the US government would be keen about letting them keep it?

No, the CS feels like CLAIMING it owns the entire world, starting with North America, but it's an upstart kingdom that formed long after the collapse of the US and has ZERO claim to the rest of the country. Which is why your example fails, it's more like the US trying to kill a group of aliens that landed on an unclaimed island and set up home there by insisting that the island really belonged to the US when it never did. The CS never had claim to Tolkeen's land, the CS is by the book an expansionistic evil empire, it's actions against Tolkeen (and others) were very clearly for the purposes of genocide and theft of land that they had no claim over.

[Killer Cyborg]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

Well now you're getting into arguments about who owns what territory. From the CS' perspective, they are the legitimate government of the entirety of the old territory of the United States. They see themselves as driving out invaders who had seized territory that didn't belong to them centuries before. In real life, most border disputes work that way. "You took this land from my ancestors!" "Well your ancestors stole it from my ancestors!"

If aliens from space came down and seized Minneapolis, do you think the US government would be keen about letting them keep it?

No, the CS feels like CLAIMING it owns the entire world, starting with North America,

Does the CS ever make that argument in the books?

but it's an upstart kingdom that formed long after the collapse of the US and has ZERO claim to the rest of the country.

Read up on the history of the wars in the Middle East.

Which is why your example fails, it's more like the US trying to kill a group of aliens that landed on an unclaimed island and set up home there by insisting that the island really belonged to the US when it never did.

I'd say that its more like the US trying to kill a group of aliens that landed on an unclaimed island and set up home there, with the US using the justification of "This planet belongs to humanity, not to you."
And I don't think that justification would be necessarily unwarranted.
Interesting idea for any number of science fiction stories, though.

[Eagle]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

Well now you're getting into arguments about who owns what territory. From the CS' perspective, they are the legitimate government of the entirety of the old territory of the United States. They see themselves as driving out invaders who had seized territory that didn't belong to them centuries before. In real life, most border disputes work that way. "You took this land from my ancestors!" "Well your ancestors stole it from my ancestors!"

If aliens from space came down and seized Minneapolis, do you think the US government would be keen about letting them keep it?

No, the CS feels like CLAIMING it owns the entire world, starting with North America, but it's an upstart kingdom that formed long after the collapse of the US and has ZERO claim to the rest of the country. Which is why your example fails, it's more like the US trying to kill a group of aliens that landed on an unclaimed island and set up home there by insisting that the island really belonged to the US when it never did. The CS never had claim to Tolkeen's land, the CS is by the book an expansionistic evil empire, it's actions against Tolkeen (and others) were very clearly for the purposes of genocide and theft of land that they had no claim over.

I haven't seen the CS ever claim that it owns the entire world. They are allied with the NGR. I think plans of world domination are way too far in the future for the CS to contemplate at this time.

As far as continuity of leadership, while the CS doesn't claim to be a continuation of the old US government, they are certainly successors in interest. When we're talking about centuries-old claims anyway, I don't know how much connection the current US government has to the administration of Martin Van Buren either. The CS is using NEMA equipment and NEMA factories. They're as much descendants of the US as anybody in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world.

[Axelmania]

Because the CS is the Xictic here?
The CS is the ones invading the other nations, killing them and taking their land.
The CS is the cancer here.

Dragons and inter dimensional wizards conquered a devastated Minneapolis and laid claim to the countryside. The CS is simply reclaiming the state for humanity.

Then there is the little matter of Self Defense,
The CS is the aggressor, Lazlo and Tolkeen are acting in defense from attackers who are trying to kill them.
The argument that since someone has a right to defend themselves against you, you have the right to attack them is simply ludicrous.

The CS is the evil here.

Tolkeen is the one summoning more demons to invade the earth and letting dragons have a city where humans are second class. Acts of war.

broadly speaking, genocide is to attempt/intend to kill all members of a nation, culture, etc purely because they are members of that nation, culture, etc.

How often is Tolkeen called a nation? I usually see it called a kingdom. Is it really a culture? Is every community a culture now and any land dispute isnnow genocidal because it inconveniences someone's culture?

the CS wants to commit genocide because it doesn't care if the d-bees are dangerous warriors or babies that were born a minute ago, the d-bee needs to be killed as far as they're concerned. the CS wants to commit genocide because all mages, whether they are dangerous or not, need to be killed as far as they are concerned.

The CS does not want anything. We need to get out of this habit of referring to things as if they are people. Certain CS citizens may feel that way. Many Dbees survive in the Burbs and the CS imprisoned some Dbees insteae of killing them. They hire mage mercs..they negotiate with south America techno wizards.

in contrast, if you want to kill someone because they are currently trying to kill you (which is the case with the xiticix), that is not genocide. so, for example, when we know that lazlo has attempted communication with the xiticix and has tried other means to keep the xiticix from killing everything in their path, we know that lazlo is not interested in genocide, they're interested in protecting themselves from a real threat. all signs point to the fact that if the xiticix suddenly proposed a peace treaty with lazlo, lazlo would accept it.

Nits and grubs aren't invading Lazio. Xiticix won't kill you if you stay out of their path. They just want to claim territory in earth.

Who cares if Lazlo occupied the land first? Apparently its okay for dragons to claim human land as their Freehold so why can't Xiticix come claim land that Plato's claimed?

so no, people wanting to kill the xiticix is not necessarily genocide. it could be (the CS as an organization, for example, would likely want to kill the xiticix even if the bugs were completely peaceful and harmless). but if you're just wanting to do it to keep yourself and your family (friends, home, etc) safe, then it isn't genocide.

The CS just want to keep family safe too. Tolkeen attacking them when they try to maneuver in Minnesota prevents them from holding back Xiticix.

Imagine if Lazio was trying to stop Xiticix and the Tundra Rangers blockaded them every time they tried, but then just ran off and let the Xiticix thrive afterward. By interfering with a peacekeeping force they become we facto Xiticix allies and would need to be stopped. This is what Tolkeen did.

[Nightmask]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

Well now you're getting into arguments about who owns what territory. From the CS' perspective, they are the legitimate government of the entirety of the old territory of the United States. They see themselves as driving out invaders who had seized territory that didn't belong to them centuries before. In real life, most border disputes work that way. "You took this land from my ancestors!" "Well your ancestors stole it from my ancestors!"

If aliens from space came down and seized Minneapolis, do you think the US government would be keen about letting them keep it?

No, the CS feels like CLAIMING it owns the entire world, starting with North America, but it's an upstart kingdom that formed long after the collapse of the US and has ZERO claim to the rest of the country. Which is why your example fails, it's more like the US trying to kill a group of aliens that landed on an unclaimed island and set up home there by insisting that the island really belonged to the US when it never did. The CS never had claim to Tolkeen's land, the CS is by the book an expansionistic evil empire, it's actions against Tolkeen (and others) were very clearly for the purposes of genocide and theft of land that they had no claim over.

I haven't seen the CS ever claim that it owns the entire world. They are allied with the NGR. I think plans of world domination are way too far in the future for the CS to contemplate at this time.

As far as continuity of leadership, while the CS doesn't claim to be a continuation of the old US government, they are certainly successors in interest. When we're talking about centuries-old claims anyway, I don't know how much connection the current US government has to the administration of Martin Van Buren either. The CS is using NEMA equipment and NEMA factories. They're as much descendants of the US as anybody in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world.

Of course the CS has claimed it owns the entire world, that's it's entire' taking Earth back for Humanity' flag-waving patriotic declaration. They're only allied with the NGR out of convenience, if they could they'd destroy the NGR just as they did Tolkeen to eliminate it as a threat to their goals. They are also NOT 'successors in interest', they have ZERO right to anything that belonged to the US particularly when it's already owned by someone else. They bear no connection at all to the former US, they've equipment that they salvaged/stole while massacring those that held it and gives them no more claim to ownership of the US than my owning a pre-US tomohawk would give me a right of ownership to the US.

Seriously, there is no valid argument that the CS had a right to anything that belonged to Tolkeen or anyone else and no right to murder them to take it. They have no right to claim everyone that's not one of them needs to die let alone act on it as they have, something that by this point they've murdered millions to further their greed and prejudice. Yes murdered, they've no claims to self-defense against their victims, there is no 'well I thought they could be a shapeshifter so I killed them just to be sure they weren't a threat' justification that's just trying to find an excuse for murder.

[eliakon]

As far as continuity of leadership, while the CS doesn't claim to be a continuation of the old US government, they are certainly successors in interest. When we're talking about centuries-old claims anyway, I don't know how much connection the current US government has to the administration of Martin Van Buren either. The CS is using NEMA equipment and NEMA factories. They're as much descendants of the US as anybody in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world.

Just to be clear.
This claim is utterly, 100% totally just CS propaganda

The Republicans and/or A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 might have a valid claim to being possible successors to the US.
But even then they would all face the issue that they have no claim
None

Sorry, they all abandoned their claim when they sat back and abandoned their territory for 300 years.
And no, the argument "but they couldn't defend it" doesn't wash.
Because the US claim to North America is only valid if the Native American claim to North America is invalid.
And the Native claim is only invalid if conquest is a valid means of transferring.
So the argument becomes the silly one that the CS can inherit a 300 year old claim, because no one else can do anything to break the custody of that claim...
...but that the claim itself can be founded on conquest, and that the CS can then engage in conquest. Because they are the CS.
Its not a 'logic' it is saying that the CS just ahs the special right to kill and conquer because they are the pet favorites of the person making the claim

I am rather sick of seeing the Coalition Defense Force try to peddle this claim. And having to point out this same hypocrisy every few months.
So can we stop seeing it?

[Killer Cyborg]

Of course the CS has claimed it owns the entire world, that's it's entire' taking Earth back for Humanity' flag-waving patriotic declaration.

Okay.
Where in the books (quote and page number) was this stated?

[HWalsh]

Well,

Guys, I'm out. This is already going down the route all of our discussions go. Circular arguments that derail it until it gets locked. My attempt to move it out of that cycle didn't work. So I'm going Wargames on it...

The only way to win... Is not to play.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well,

Guys, I'm out. This is already going down the route all of our discussions go. Circular arguments that derail it until it gets locked. My attempt to move it out of that cycle didn't work. So I'm going Wargames on it...

The only way to win... Is not to play.

[Shark_Force]

broadly speaking, genocide is to attempt/intend to kill all members of a nation, culture, etc purely because they are members of that nation, culture, etc.

the CS wants to commit genocide because it doesn't care if the d-bees are dangerous warriors or babies that were born a minute ago, the d-bee needs to be killed as far as they're concerned. the CS wants to commit genocide because all mages, whether they are dangerous or not, need to be killed as far as they are concerned.

in contrast, if you want to kill someone because they are currently trying to kill you (which is the case with the xiticix), that is not genocide. so, for example, when we know that lazlo has attempted communication with the xiticix and has tried other means to keep the xiticix from killing everything in their path, we know that lazlo is not interested in genocide, they're interested in protecting themselves from a real threat. all signs point to the fact that if the xiticix suddenly proposed a peace treaty with lazlo, lazlo would accept it.

so no, people wanting to kill the xiticix is not necessarily genocide. it could be (the CS as an organization, for example, would likely want to kill the xiticix even if the bugs were completely peaceful and harmless). but if you're just wanting to do it to keep yourself and your family (friends, home, etc) safe, then it isn't genocide.

Hold on a sec.
Nannies as a rule don't currently want to kill you. Neither do Nits or other certain xiticix.
Genocide against the xiticix includes them. It is NOT self-defense, not in the immediate sense of the term. It's only self defense in the sense of "any _____ is a threat to us and our way of life, because of what it is" kind of logic.
Which is the same logic that the CS uses.

Again, some of this comes down to a wide spectrum of possible meanings of the term "the CS."
Some of the leaders might not care if a mage is dangerous, but the rule is that members of the CS--leaders included--believe that mages are inherently dangerous, because of what they are.

(Disclaimer: The CS leaderhip is evil. The population is generally not. This does not mean that all evidence that the CS is evil is equal. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily evil. This does not mean that genocide is necessarily proof of evilness.)

there's a difference between having evidence (or as a bare minimum at least actually trying to obtain evidence) to support the belief that not fighting these creatures will result in the death of yourself and everything you care about, and having no real evidence of that at all, and in fact mounting evidence that it is actually false and doing it anyways.

I would say that while the CS has come to an erroneous conclusion, they DO indeed have evidence to support their believe that not fighting mages will result in the death of the CS individual doing the thinking, and/or everything that they care about:
One lone mage trying to show off summoned the Mechanoids to Earth.
Again, that's just the single clearest example of mages being a threat. The Coalition has countless others, since mages keep attacking them, summoning monsters, and generally causing trouble (in the eyes of the CS).

practically speaking, the xiticix have declared war against everything else with the only end conditions being complete extermination of one side or the other. you don't need a specific xiticix to attack you in order to be threatened by that xiticix. in fact, considering the nature of hive insects, where they essentially function as a single organism, it is entirely possible that practically speaking once any xiticix from any given hive has decided to try to kill you, all xiticix from that particular have have decided to kill you.

But Nits and Nannies don't actually try to kill you, except maybe in self-defense.
And HAVE the xiticix effectively declared war against everything else?
You and I have read the books, so we have the metagame knowledge that the bugs will indeed engulf the entire world if they can, but do the people of Rifts Earth know that?
The bugs haven't communicated any doctrine or philosophy to anybody, so their intentions haven't been announced.
They're expansionist, but many human civilizations also are.
For all the people of Rifts Earth know, might it not be possible that the bugs have a Manifest Destiny kind of plan that will stop their growth when they reach certain borders?
It's been a while since I've read the full XI book, but I don't remember people having in-game knowledge of the bugs' plans and behaviors.

shooting enemy soldiers in a war is not genocide, because you're not trying to kill them just for being from a nation, culture, etc, you're shooting them because they are at war and it is their duty to shoot you as well.

Agreed.
Nannies and nits are not soldiers.

so, like i said... other places tried to make peaceful contact with the xiticix, as i recall. and if the xiticix could be reasoned with, likely would accept them as neighbours. this is not at all the same thing as the CS, where they would want to kill the xiticix even if the xiticix were not an aggressively expansionist species that are essentially impossible to reason with.

Point.
So not all genocides are equal.

simply put, it isn't just the leadership that can be implicated here. certainly, they are far more guilty of the misdeeds of the CS than anyone else. that doesn't mean the soldier who pulls the trigger while an infant d-bee is in the crosshairs is free of guilt. particularly when that soldier was recruited from the 'burbs where peaceful interaction with d-bees likely happened fairly regularly. deciding to ignore evidence of innocence so that you can murder someone does not make you a basically good person.

Would it change the picture if you'd seen countless films where infant D-Bees NOT killed in cold blood changed into monsters the moment your back was turned, and killed some of your comrades in arms?
Would it change the picture if you'd actually seen it happen in person?

and yes, genocide pretty much does make you evil, at least in palladium terms. none of the good or selfish alignments allow you to kill an innocent (anarchist allows reckless endangerment, which can potentially lead to the death of innocents, but not murder). the rest don't even allow harming innocents, let alone killing them. so, if you are willing to kill innocents (including unarmed d-bee farmers, for example) based on the fact that there could theoretically be a threat, maybe, somewhere, at some point in time, you've ruled out all the non-evil alignments.

I disagree, in that the alignment descriptions are based in the points of view of the aligned.
If a player character has zero reason to believe that an NPC is innocent, and many reasons to believe that the NPC is a guilty and immediate threat, and they fully believe that they're acting in self-defense, does the player character's alignment change when they act wrongly on their beliefs?

- nannies want to turn you into a nutrient paste. nits want to eat you. while they probably wouldn't particularly care if you were to somehow go through that process alive (so long as you remain a nutrient paste or are eaten), practically speaking those goals will intersect with killing you so frequently that the extremely rare instance of the opposite is not worth mentioning.

- given that i very much doubt ARCHIE ever mentioned to anyone else (CS or otherwise) where the mechanoid invasion came from, i very much doubt that the CS can point to the mechanoid invasion for anything whatsoever. so far as they know, the mechanoids came from a random rift. also, the mechanoids turned out to be an extremely implausible threat to the world. i mean, theoretically if they took over ARCHIE's facility, built up their forces for a few decades, *maybe* they could've had a chance. maybe. instead, i don't think the number even broke 10,000. i'm not even certain it was more than a couple thousand total, though i don't have the book on hand to check. what they do have, if they had paid even the list bit of attention, is the efforts of spellcasters (and others too of course) trying to stop that threat. in fact, they even have lazlo, a city largely ruled by the creatures they hate (we don't know the full list of the government to my knowledge, but we do know there is at least a dragon), sent them a warning - as well as sending that warning to everyone - in an effort to defend all living things, including the CS, in spite of the fact that the CS would have killed them (though to be equally fair, the rank and file of the CS may not be particularly aware of that warning).

- people attacking you *after* you have threatened to murder them in cold blood does not constitute evidence of those people being a threat, except inasmuch as they are a threat now that their survival is threatened by you.

- as noted, other nations have actually attempted to make contact with the xiticix and failed. those other nations at least care whether the xiticix can be reasoned with. that is why it isn't genocide when they try to kill the xiticix. and yes, by invading the territory of other nations, you are declaring war on them. as to nannies and nits not wanting to kill you, well, first off, see above (their goals essentially involve killing you), and secondly, a hive of creatures are like a single organism. if i tried to murder you, then you fought back, and then i tried to argue that my liver or my eyeball which you harmed while i was trying to kill you were not trying to kill you, therefore you are also guilty of attempted murder for harming them, well... i would hope there isn't a court in existence that would buy that argument.

- not all genocides are equal in success, but they are all equal in being evil. the actual difference is that not everything is a genocide. genocide happens when you try to exterminate a group because they are that group. for example, while the CS has an equally murderous policy against unregistered psychics, that policy is not genocide because if those psychics accept registration the CS is willing to accept it. if the CS had a similar "registered mage" law, they might still be guilty of doing any number of horrible things because of their prejudice (and would still largely be horrible people), but it would not be genocide against mages. likewise if they had a similar program with d-bees.

- if a single instance of something happening once outweighed hundreds or thousands of instances of it not happening... an infant transforming once might change the picture. however, there are a lot more instances of infants not transforming into horrible monsters and murdering people, and since that one instance does not outweigh the far larger number of instances of that not happening, no, it doesn't really change the picture. otherwise, the argument would need to be made that since a human once murdered a human while initially looking harmless (which has most likely happened fairly often), all humans must be killed to protect humanity. it is even less reasonable of an assumption if that one super-rare thing happened while you had the stated goal of murdering whatever creature had assumed the shape of a d-bee infant. soldiers are in danger of being ambushed lots of times while attacking enemy soldiers. that doesn't justify murdering innocent civilians just in case they might turn out to be dangerous.

- again, willingness to deliberately murder innocents on the basis that you are also killing something dangerous does not get you even as high as anarchist. and no, willfully ignoring evidence available to you so that you can insist that all d-bees, or mages, or whatever, are an imminent deadly threat to you is not the same thing as not having evidence. these people have in many cases lived peacefully with some d-bees. they know that not all d-bees want to kill them, because they've met d-bees that don't want to kill them. this is especially true as a larger proportion of the CS army comes from recruiting people in the 'burbs. you might be able to argue ignorance on the part of someone who has been sheltered from all contact with d-bees, or at least, ignorance for the first time. once they've slaughtered a bunch of helpless d-bees that didn't even have the means to fight back, it gets a lot harder to make that argument.

a willingness to murder innocents in cold blood rules out a number of alignments in the palladium system, including all of the good and selfish ones.

[Axelmania]

Baby wolves probably want to eat me too. Is genocide against wolves okay?

[eliakon]

Baby wolves probably want to eat me too. Is genocide against wolves okay?

Well, first off your making an inflammatory statement there
Second off your making a false one

1) genocide is defined in ways that preclude animals from being included in the definition
2) your trying to make a false equivalency between "a being that might, want to do something, if it were available and there were no other options." and a being that has an action as a deliberate, intentional goal.

The Xicitic are explicitly said to want to exterminate all other races.
Wolves do not do that.
Therefore... fake equivalency

[boring7]

(big ol' pile o' projection and derp)

Magic is dangerous. As dangerous as tech. I done said it again, yee-haw. Now let's see you continue to somehow argue while pretending its everyone else' fault.

[Killer Cyborg]

- nannies want to turn you into a nutrient paste.

1) Source?
2) And? Simvan want to turn you into stew. Does that mean they're not civilians? Or that genocide is required?

nits want to eat you.

Same as above.

- given that i very much doubt ARCHIE ever mentioned to anyone else (CS or otherwise) where the mechanoid invasion came from, i very much doubt that the CS can point to the mechanoid invasion for anything whatsoever.

True.
The CS, though, does have plenty of other examples that we don't. Albeit ones that are not likely to be as massively destructive.

so far as they know, the mechanoids came from a random rift.

Sure. A random magical event.

also, the mechanoids turned out to be an extremely implausible threat to the world. i mean, theoretically if they took over ARCHIE's facility, built up their forces for a few decades,

Not just Archie's facilities; they could convert any number of other facilities, or build their own.

*maybe* they could've had a chance. maybe. instead, i don't think the number even broke 10,000.

They're good at making more of them.

i'm not even certain it was more than a couple thousand total, though i don't have the book on hand to check. what they do have, if they had paid even the list bit of attention, is the efforts of spellcasters (and others too of course) trying to stop that threat. in fact, they even have lazlo, a city largely ruled by the creatures they hate (we don't know the full list of the government to my knowledge, but we do know there is at least a dragon), sent them a warning - as well as sending that warning to everyone - in an effort to defend all living things, including the CS, in spite of the fact that the CS would have killed them (though to be equally fair, the rank and file of the CS may not be particularly aware of that warning).

IIRC, the CS troops sometimes looked the other way about mages fighting the mechanoid threat.

- not all genocides are equal in success, but they are all equal in being evil. the actual difference is that not everything is a genocide. genocide happens when you try to exterminate a group because they are that group. for example, while the CS has an equally murderous policy against unregistered psychics, that policy is not genocide because if those psychics accept registration the CS is willing to accept it. if the CS had a similar "registered mage" law, they might still be guilty of doing any number of horrible things because of their prejudice (and would still largely be horrible people), but it would not be genocide against mages. likewise if they had a similar program with d-bees.

So... it's just as evil for Tolkeen to genocide the Xiticix as it is for the CS to genocide mages...?

- if a single instance of something happening once outweighed hundreds or thousands of instances of it not happening... an infant transforming once might change the picture. however, there are a lot more instances of infants not transforming into horrible monsters and murdering people, and since that one instance does not outweigh the far larger number of instances of that not happening, no, it doesn't really change the picture.

Source on the statistics on shapechanging "babies"...?

- again, willingness to deliberately murder innocents on the basis that you are also killing something dangerous does not get you even as high as anarchist.

How about "Deliberately kill beings that you honestly believe are an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others?"

[Shark_Force]

- nannies want to turn you into a nutrient paste.

1) Source?
2) And? Simvan want to turn you into stew. Does that mean they're not civilians? Or that genocide is required?

nits want to eat you.

Same as above.

- given that i very much doubt ARCHIE ever mentioned to anyone else (CS or otherwise) where the mechanoid invasion came from, i very much doubt that the CS can point to the mechanoid invasion for anything whatsoever.

True.
The CS, though, does have plenty of other examples that we don't. Albeit ones that are not likely to be as massively destructive.

so far as they know, the mechanoids came from a random rift.

Sure. A random magical event.

also, the mechanoids turned out to be an extremely implausible threat to the world. i mean, theoretically if they took over ARCHIE's facility, built up their forces for a few decades,

Not just Archie's facilities; they could convert any number of other facilities, or build their own.

*maybe* they could've had a chance. maybe. instead, i don't think the number even broke 10,000.

They're good at making more of them.

i'm not even certain it was more than a couple thousand total, though i don't have the book on hand to check. what they do have, if they had paid even the list bit of attention, is the efforts of spellcasters (and others too of course) trying to stop that threat. in fact, they even have lazlo, a city largely ruled by the creatures they hate (we don't know the full list of the government to my knowledge, but we do know there is at least a dragon), sent them a warning - as well as sending that warning to everyone - in an effort to defend all living things, including the CS, in spite of the fact that the CS would have killed them (though to be equally fair, the rank and file of the CS may not be particularly aware of that warning).

IIRC, the CS troops sometimes looked the other way about mages fighting the mechanoid threat.

- not all genocides are equal in success, but they are all equal in being evil. the actual difference is that not everything is a genocide. genocide happens when you try to exterminate a group because they are that group. for example, while the CS has an equally murderous policy against unregistered psychics, that policy is not genocide because if those psychics accept registration the CS is willing to accept it. if the CS had a similar "registered mage" law, they might still be guilty of doing any number of horrible things because of their prejudice (and would still largely be horrible people), but it would not be genocide against mages. likewise if they had a similar program with d-bees.

So... it's just as evil for Tolkeen to genocide the Xiticix as it is for the CS to genocide mages...?

- if a single instance of something happening once outweighed hundreds or thousands of instances of it not happening... an infant transforming once might change the picture. however, there are a lot more instances of infants not transforming into horrible monsters and murdering people, and since that one instance does not outweigh the far larger number of instances of that not happening, no, it doesn't really change the picture.

Source on the statistics on shapechanging "babies"...?

- again, willingness to deliberately murder innocents on the basis that you are also killing something dangerous does not get you even as high as anarchist.

How about "Deliberately kill beings that you honestly believe are an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others?"

- turning living creatures into nutrient paste (and using it to fast-grow more xiticix) is what nannies do.
- i would say simvan probably don't have civilians, other than very young children. genocide is never justified; defending yourself from attacking simvan, even if that results in killing all of them in a given group, generally is (an exception could include if the only reason you need to defend yourself from them is that you threatened to murder them all in cold blood).

- the CS also has plenty of examples of technological threats. i never said magic can't be dangerous. i simply contest the claim that it is always dangerous no matter what and that being a mage means that you're inherently an awful person that needs to be killed. it is possible for someone to kill you with their bare hands, but you would not be justified in a decision to murder everyone who has hands based on that information, even though hands *could* be dangerous if used in a dangerous way.

- a random magical event that would not be stopped in any way by murdering mages, and which has nothing to do with mages themselves. one which, i hasten to add, there are no known technological means of preventing on rifts earth that i am aware of offhand, but for which a few magical means of preventing do exist, which would indicate that the proper and safe use of magic could prevent untold disasters, which indicates that if random rifts are such an existential threat the appropriate response is to try to harness magic and use it in a safe way (probably including regulating the use of magic to summon dangerous beings and open random rifts among other things).

- maybe they could've. maybe not. the fact is that they attacked too soon rather than waiting to build power, and as a result turned out to not be a very credible threat. perhaps they could have in some alternate universe, but they didn't.

- right, CS sometimes looked away, acknowledging that sometimes mages don't need to be killed... and then went right back to murdering them, with full knowledge of the fact that magic can be used to accomplish good things, not just horrible things. kinda like technology that way, really.

- at this point, i'm not sure you understand what genocide is. genocide is not killing all of a certain group. if your actions are not being taken with the intention of exterminating some group purely because of their membership in that group, it isn't genocide. if tolkeen wanted to kill the xiticix (which they probably did, though i don't think that particular plot element ever got off the ground because the CS kinda destroyed tolkeen), but it wasn't just because they hate xiticix and want them all to die, then it isn't genocide. fighting a war of defense against invaders, even if you kill all the invaders as a result, is not genocide. that's the difference: the CS wants to exterminate d-bees because they are d-bees. not because they are all dangerous. not because it is impossible to live beside them in peace. they have clear proof that both of those things are false. when the CS encounters peaceful d-bees that pose no threat, they still want to exterminate that group of d-bees. that is why tolkeen (or, as i suspect you intended, lazlo) are not committing genocide against the xiticix, while the CS is committing genocide against d-bees; if tolkeen had a peaceful means of coexisting with the xiticix as neighbours, they might take it, because their goal is not the extinction of the xiticix, it is the preservation of their own rights and lives. the CS, in its current form at least, would not accept peaceful coexistence, as demonstrated by their refusal to accept the presence of any diplomats from the groups they intend to exterminate. their goal is the extermination of those groups, not their self-preservation, which could just as easily have been accomplished by simply making peace with their neighbours. in fact, making peace with their neighbours would have left them with more resources to deal with other threats, like the current "megaverse in flames" events, and might have given them additional allies in those fights.

- you brought up shapechanging babies, you prove that it's actually happening and is a problem. you find some evidence that this is a legitimate problem that comes up regularly, more often at least than humans killing humans while appearing harmless at some point. then, once you've got any evidence to support your claim, you get to challenge people to disprove your claim.

- "Deliberately kill beings that you honestly believe are an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others?" doesn't work when you have experience showing that something is not inherently an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others. like i said, complete ignorance might be argued on the part of some citizens, particularly those who are extremely sheltered and have never met d-bees in person (but that pretty much goes away after you start experiencing what d-bees are actually like). once you know that d-bees are not inherently a threat, that they can be innocents, but you're still willing to murder them even if they are innocent just in case they might possibly turn out to be a threat, your grounds for arguing anything even remotely approaching a good alignment are gone. if the d-bee is charging at you while brandishing a vibro-blade, sure you can shoot them, and even if it turns out they were just holding a vibro-blade while running from something else, you might have a good alignment (though i would expect to see some remorse for any good alignment... you could easily claim anarchist even without showing remorse, i'd say). but not for cold-blooded murder. well, not unless you are literally insane.

[Killer Cyborg]

- turning living creatures into nutrient paste (and using it to fast-grow more xiticix) is what nannies do.

It's not ALL they do, and there's nothing saying that it's what nannies want per se.

- i would say simvan probably don't have civilians, other than very young children.

I would disagree.
That's like saying that Native Americans and Mongols had no civilians, just because some of their tribe was focused toward war/combat.

genocide is never justified;

Again, I disagree.

defending yourself from attacking simvan, even if that results in killing all of them in a given group, generally is (an exception could include if the only reason you need to defend yourself from them is that you threatened to murder them all in cold blood).

Can you rephrase?

- the CS also has plenty of examples of technological threats. i never said magic can't be dangerous. i simply contest the claim that it is always dangerous no matter what and that being a mage means that you're inherently an awful person that needs to be killed. it is possible for someone to kill you with their bare hands, but you would not be justified in a decision to murder everyone who has hands based on that information, even though hands *could* be dangerous if used in a dangerous way.

Magic is not always dangerous. That's one thing that the CS is wrong about.
But magic overall is dangerous, and could lead to the extinction of life on Rifts Earth and the rest of the known universe.
(at least, non-mechanoid, or non-xiticix, or non-whatever threat life)

- a random magical event that would not be stopped in any way by murdering mages, and which has nothing to do with mages themselves.

Agreed.
It's support for the CS's fear of magic, not of mages.

one which, i hasten to add, there are no known technological means of preventing on rifts earth that i am aware of offhand, but for which a few magical means of preventing do exist, which would indicate that the proper and safe use of magic could prevent untold disasters, which indicates that if random rifts are such an existential threat the appropriate response is to try to harness magic and use it in a safe way (probably including regulating the use of magic to summon dangerous beings and open random rifts among other things).

I agree that magic is the best way to contain/fight magical threats of many kinds (including the worst kinds).
This is one of the key things that the CS has wrong.

- maybe they could've. maybe not. the fact is that they attacked too soon rather than waiting to build power, and as a result turned out to not be a very credible threat. perhaps they could have in some alternate universe, but they didn't.

It's one of those "if any one of them escapes and captures the right tech, then they can rebuild the army from scratch" deals.
People complain about the CS being protected by "plot armor," but plot armor is the only reason why the Mechanoids didn't take over.

- right, CS sometimes looked away, acknowledging that sometimes mages don't need to be killed... and then went right back to murdering them, with full knowledge of the fact that magic can be used to accomplish good things, not just horrible things. kinda like technology that way, really.

Ideoligical differences. That's how the world works.

- at this point, i'm not sure you understand what genocide is. genocide is not killing all of a certain group. if your actions are not being taken with the intention of exterminating some group purely because of their membership in that group, it isn't genocide. if tolkeen wanted to kill the xiticix (which they probably did, though i don't think that particular plot element ever got off the ground because the CS kinda destroyed tolkeen), but it wasn't just because they hate xiticix and want them all to die, then it isn't genocide.

You contradicted yourself.
Is genocide:
a) killing members of a group because they are members of that group?
or
b) killing members of a group because of hatred of that group?

fighting a war of defense against invaders, even if you kill all the invaders as a result, is not genocide.

Well, that would certainly be the CS's argument.

that's the difference: the CS wants to exterminate d-bees because they are d-bees.

i.e., "invaders" by the CS's standards.

not because they are all dangerous. not because it is impossible to live beside them in peace. they have clear proof that both of those things are false.

THAT depends entirely on who you're talking about when you say "the CS."
The leadership has evidence. The soldiers and civilians, not so much.

- you brought up shapechanging babies, you prove that it's actually happening and is a problem.

Do you need me to list all of the ways that mages and monsters can use to assume innocent, harmless looking forms?
Or do you need me to explain that rare PCs are NOT the only minds likely to think of such a possibility, and/or to use it...?
It is both an obvious and an easily accomplished tactic.
Can you think of any reason why it wouldn't be commonly used?

- "Deliberately kill beings that you honestly believe are an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others?" doesn't work when you have experience showing that something is not inherently an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others.

What kind of experience are you talking about, and who do you think has it...?

[Pepsi Jedi]

I think we should distinguish between our metagame knowledge of what caused the Coming of the Rifts and what various factions in Rifts Earth actually know (or merely guess at) when it comes to these things. What do we know they know, for example?

Who actually knows that nukes>PPE>Rifts? Even if you find evidence of nuclear war you don't necessarily know if that happened before monsters invading (causing it) or after (fighting back against it)

Chi-Town had a small magical divison of ~100 so no, they weren't 100% anti-magic always. I expect back then it was like psi-bat except much smaller and even more heavily regulated. Chi-Town dipped its toe in the water but the Invasion of Chi-Town ruined that by changing the people's mind about magic.

Eliakon has there been a universal statement if CS genocide against all mages and all aliens? I only recall more specific statements like genocide against Xiticix (like Lazio) or genocide against the City of Tolkeen.

Genocide against a city is kind of a vague idea to me. Once you disband it there are no more Tolkeenites. Theres nothing about the CS chasing escaping citizens into other dimensions or even into Lazlo.

Genocide against a city is like genocide against a UAR-1 Enforcer. Sure, there are people inside, and attacking their shelter endangers them. If they leave they are heavily inconvenienced. They lose their (mobile) home and the crew might be split up, disrupting their culture.

But it isn't genocide in the classic sense of trying to wipe out an ethnic group. Bulldozing homes certainly sucks but if there is ample warning to leave it, it isn't genocide, it is simply war.

My gash so much propaganda your statement is beyond wrong.

Killing every one in a city is genocide, killing every one in a robot is not. War becomes genocide when you target non combatants of group X for death.

No, genocide means killing everyone of a particular ethnic group.

No, genocide covers killing everyone or trying to kill everyone in a particular group, it does not have to be a particular ethnic group. The CS meets and exceeds every definition and classification of genocide that exists. It's not a matter of opinion, it's not debatable, it's the fact of the matter. It has committed genocide against countless groups large and small, the largest when it waged unjustified war against Tolkeen, that's the reality of the CS.

By that logic Cyberknights are guilty of Genocide because they try and kill all demons and Deevils, and other supernatural evil.

[Pepsi Jedi]

It's ethic cleansing, not genocide. Besides it was war, they had a chance to leave , they choose to stand and fight, under the banner of tolkeen, so they were armed combatants.

Negative.

The women and children mages who were non-coms weren't combatants or even in Tolkeen. Also, "You didn't flee" isn't a valid determination of threat.

The CS had no right to tell any of those people in Minnesota to flee. The CS was a hostile invading force.

Also ethnic cleansing IS a form of genocide.

The beings in Minnesota, where already a hostile invading force, that were in legue with evil and had -literal- armies of thousands of demons.

The CS, being decendants of American Humans, couldn't 'invade' land that was via history 'theirs'. Nor could they 'invade' land, that -Aliens- and -Dimensional beings from other universes/dimensions- were squatting on.

[Pepsi Jedi]

To be a combatant, you actually have to be capable of combat. Most of the d-bees slaughtered in the invasion of Tolkeen were anything but, as evidenced by the fact that the CS was able to roll through them so readily. (Much like the justification for the Salem Witch Trials being the danger the alleged witches posed to the community--if they were that dangerous and powerful, they never would've been captured and tied to a stake in the first place.)

If they're not combatants, they're civilians. If you're slaughtering civilians who pose no military threat, that's a wartime atrocity.

You're assuming that the CS is holding to some sort of article of war, that gives alien invaders and dimensional beings from other realities 'rights' and what have you on Earth. I would bet pretty heavily that's not the case.

More over your justification for they're not dangerous is "Evidence by the fact that the CS was able to roll through them so redily" The CS can roll though any group pretty readily. Heck they've TAKEN a Xit hive now. As in.. Cleared it out.. Dug it up and TOOK IT. Not just 'occupied' it, but took it as in picked it up from point A, and moved it to point B.

Secondly it's sort of like the witch trials. lol By your logic the only way the CS would know if the person is NOT a witch is if they died due to MD firepower.... and if they WERE a witch they'd be able tos tand up and fight. that boggles the mind.

It also ignores the fact that a fresh born dragon hatchling only a few hours old, can shape shift into a cat, walk into the middle of the CS Cap and start breathing mega damage fire over all the exposed troops around it.

Or.. can shape shift to look like a 3 year old little girl, and again, limp into a CS Camp, begging for help, only to rip the arms off the guy that tried to pick her up, beat him to death with them and breathe mega damage fire all around her.

When faced with threats of that nature, yes... -all- members not of your 'side' in a combat zone are legitimate threats in a war situation. That's with out even touching "Aid to the enemy" type things, or 500 different magic spells a HUMAN kid might be able to cast. Many of them, again, Mega damage offensive spells, that can't be seen till the spell caster starts to cast. Magic is the ultimate 'Concealed weapon"

If a group of 80 year old ladies sewing blankets in town square could all stand up and with a few words fire off mega damage fire balls and destroy an infantry platoon with literal magical fire out of no where.... -yes- ... everyone in that war could be a threat.

You can't take time to weed out the 'non dangerous' from the 'dangerous' because you never know. The cat could pop into a 40 foot tall dragon and eat you, or the crying child could suddenly do the same. Or the 80 year old lady could say 5 words and literally vaporize your upper torso.

Even the crying child that's taken in and protected by your platoon for a month, could suddenly shape shift into that dragon. Laughin, pick you up by the leg and use your body to beat to death all your friends.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Of course the CS has claimed it owns the entire world, that's it's entire' taking Earth back for Humanity' flag-waving patriotic declaration. They're only allied with the NGR out of convenience, if they could they'd destroy the NGR just as they did Tolkeen to eliminate it as a threat to their goals. They are also NOT 'successors in interest', they have ZERO right to anything that belonged to the US particularly when it's already owned by someone else. They bear no connection at all to the former US, they've equipment that they salvaged/stole while massacring those that held it and gives them no more claim to ownership of the US than my owning a pre-US tomohawk would give me a right of ownership to the US.

Seriously, there is no valid argument that the CS had a right to anything that belonged to Tolkeen or anyone else and no right to murder them to take it. They have no right to claim everyone that's not one of them needs to die let alone act on it as they have, something that by this point they've murdered millions to further their greed and prejudice. Yes murdered, they've no claims to self-defense against their victims, there is no 'well I thought they could be a shapeshifter so I killed them just to be sure they weren't a threat' justification that's just trying to find an excuse for murder.

No.. the CS has said that Earth belongs to HUMANS... not "JUST THE CS" as pointed out, the CS have sent literal armies, at great cost, to fly over hostile oceans to back up other groups of humans in their wars. (The NGR) Nor does the CS just invade everyone they meet. They have a great working Relationship with NG for example.

You claim they'd destroy the NGR if they could, that's a bold statement, please cite anywhere in the books this claim is made. (More over the NGR aren't a threat to the CS goals. They share them. They just don't wear black so they get away with it.)

By your logic noone ever has right to any land. Which just isn't how human civilization works.

You say there's no valid claim, there's a quite simple one. Humans evolved on earth and held dominion on it for tens of thousands of years. 300 years ago (By the calender in the books) uncounted aliens from other planets and dimensions invaded the human planet and set up beach heads. As humanity was not 100% destoryed, they still hold -claim- to the planet they evolved on. Earth. Thus... there's the claim. That's all they need. By aspect of BEING on earth, those Aliens and DBees came from other planets and dimensions. The humans (For the most part) "Came".... from Earth.

[Pepsi Jedi]

As far as continuity of leadership, while the CS doesn't claim to be a continuation of the old US government, they are certainly successors in interest. When we're talking about centuries-old claims anyway, I don't know how much connection the current US government has to the administration of Martin Van Buren either. The CS is using NEMA equipment and NEMA factories. They're as much descendants of the US as anybody in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world.

Just to be clear.
This claim is utterly, 100% totally just CS propaganda

The Republicans and/or A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 might have a valid claim to being possible successors to the US.
But even then they would all face the issue that they have no claim
None

Sorry, they all abandoned their claim when they sat back and abandoned their territory for 300 years.
And no, the argument "but they couldn't defend it" doesn't wash.
Because the US claim to North America is only valid if the Native American claim to North America is invalid.
And the Native claim is only invalid if conquest is a valid means of transferring.
So the argument becomes the silly one that the CS can inherit a 300 year old claim, because no one else can do anything to break the custody of that claim...
...but that the claim itself can be founded on conquest, and that the CS can then engage in conquest. Because they are the CS.
Its not a 'logic' it is saying that the CS just ahs the special right to kill and conquer because they are the pet favorites of the person making the claim

I am rather sick of seeing the Coalition Defense Force try to peddle this claim. And having to point out this same hypocrisy every few months.
So can we stop seeing it?

They didn't 'sit back and abandon their territory for 300 years"

They were decimated in the attacks of the alien invaders, and the natural disasters brought about by magic. But humans, indeed, Americans existed in NA the entire time. From the first day of theRifts till "Modern times"

They fought for every breath and bite of food for those 200 years of 'Dark ages' but they were still present. Then roughly 100 years ago they started to climb back up out of the abyss and reclaim their rightful lands. Till we get to present.

The Humans didn't "LEAVE Earth" then come back and be like "Dude we were getting Tacos. This is OUR planet" They were decimated and culled on a global scale, but have risen up from those losses and again are making headway against the invaders.

By your logic anyone could go and just claim 1000s of miles of Alaska, cuz noone was using it at the time. Thus making it theirs.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Baby wolves probably want to eat me too. Is genocide against wolves okay?

Well, first off your making an inflammatory statement there
Second off your making a false one

1) genocide is defined in ways that preclude animals from being included in the definition
2) your trying to make a false equivalency between "a being that might, want to do something, if it were available and there were no other options." and a being that has an action as a deliberate, intentional goal.

The Xicitic are explicitly said to want to exterminate all other races.
Wolves do not do that.
Therefore... fake equivalency

Not true. I belive that one cat, on an island some where was able to actually commit genocide against an entire spercies of bird that was found only on that island. Hunted down and killed every single one. I seem to remember reading about that atsome point.

Wolves though, generally don't attack humans.

That said, Is it genocide when the Cyberknights try and kill all the demons?

[Axelmania]

Baby wolves probably want to eat me too. Is genocide against wolves okay?

Well, first off your making an inflammatory statement there
Second off your making a false one

1) genocide is defined in ways that preclude animals from being included in the definition

Inflammatory why, because we think baby animals are cute?

Defined where? Which are we going by?

Whatever definition Palladium uses, it is applicable to the Xiticix, so we need to keep that in mind.

2) your trying to make a false equivalency between "a being that might, want to do something, if it were available and there were no other options." and a being that has an action as a deliberate, intentional goal.

The Xicitic are explicitly said to want to exterminate all other races.
Wolves do not do that.
Therefore... fake equivalency

Where does it say all Xiticix want that? You sure it isn't just the queens?

If that's the case, why would they simply "buzz" invaders instead of always trying to kill them?

Do you think Nits, Grubs and Diggers all have in mind genocide of all races? Or is pushing out other races simply an unavoidable aspect of the Xiticix expanding into new territory?

As far as I know the Xiticix can't breath underwater. Would they be genocidal against Dolphins?

I'd have trouble believing that. They might hunter other beings as a PPE source to feed their young, but wiping them out completely wouldn't serve that aim since it would remove a renewable resource.

turning living creatures into nutrient paste (and using it to fast-grow more xiticix) is what nannies do.

It's not ALL they do, and there's nothing saying that it's what nannies want per se.

Xiticix Invasion 61 refers us to Chemical Description #6 which can be found on 41.

"This is done only when the hive colony needs to grow rapidly."

Interestingly under 'Components Required' it mentions that crippled or mortally wounded Warriors or other Xiticix will volunteer to be turned into sludge, which would also cut down on the amount of hunting done during rapid-growth periods.

The one problem with this description is I can't figure out how long 1 pound of sludge can feed a Nit/Grub for. Knowing this would help get an idea of how much sludge it takes per Xiticix to get to adulthood in half the time.

nits want to eat you. while they probably wouldn't particularly care if you were to somehow go through that process alive (so long as you remain a nutrient paste or are eaten), practically speaking those goals will intersect with killing you so frequently that the extremely rare instance of the opposite is not worth mentioning.

WB23p43 quotes for you:

The baby is completely helpless.
Nits are not aggressive and will not attack except when they are trapped, terrified and see no other alternative.
Even when they are attacked, their first instinct is to flee.
if such a course of action is not possible they will lash out (often ineffectually) with toothless bites

Their bites inflict 1D6 SDC so they are tougher than human adults but still relatively helpless against weapons. AR 7 doesn't help much.

The nutrient paste you are referring to, "Sludge", is not mandatory for Xiticix life. It is is an optional dietary supplement (a magic-laced nutrient) which doubles the growth rate of Nits and Grubs.

We can't expect these creatures to be aware of what they're eating any more than toddler Alistair Duscon might've been aware if Nostrous Dunscon laced his applesauce with elf blood.

[Shark_Force]

- turning living creatures into nutrient paste (and using it to fast-grow more xiticix) is what nannies do.

It's not ALL they do, and there's nothing saying that it's what nannies want per se.

- i would say simvan probably don't have civilians, other than very young children.

I would disagree.
That's like saying that Native Americans and Mongols had no civilians, just because some of their tribe was focused toward war/combat.

genocide is never justified;

Again, I disagree.

defending yourself from attacking simvan, even if that results in killing all of them in a given group, generally is (an exception could include if the only reason you need to defend yourself from them is that you threatened to murder them all in cold blood).

Can you rephrase?

- the CS also has plenty of examples of technological threats. i never said magic can't be dangerous. i simply contest the claim that it is always dangerous no matter what and that being a mage means that you're inherently an awful person that needs to be killed. it is possible for someone to kill you with their bare hands, but you would not be justified in a decision to murder everyone who has hands based on that information, even though hands *could* be dangerous if used in a dangerous way.

Magic is not always dangerous. That's one thing that the CS is wrong about.
But magic overall is dangerous, and could lead to the extinction of life on Rifts Earth and the rest of the known universe.
(at least, non-mechanoid, or non-xiticix, or non-whatever threat life)

- a random magical event that would not be stopped in any way by murdering mages, and which has nothing to do with mages themselves.

Agreed.
It's support for the CS's fear of magic, not of mages.

one which, i hasten to add, there are no known technological means of preventing on rifts earth that i am aware of offhand, but for which a few magical means of preventing do exist, which would indicate that the proper and safe use of magic could prevent untold disasters, which indicates that if random rifts are such an existential threat the appropriate response is to try to harness magic and use it in a safe way (probably including regulating the use of magic to summon dangerous beings and open random rifts among other things).

I agree that magic is the best way to contain/fight magical threats of many kinds (including the worst kinds).
This is one of the key things that the CS has wrong.

- maybe they could've. maybe not. the fact is that they attacked too soon rather than waiting to build power, and as a result turned out to not be a very credible threat. perhaps they could have in some alternate universe, but they didn't.

It's one of those "if any one of them escapes and captures the right tech, then they can rebuild the army from scratch" deals.
People complain about the CS being protected by "plot armor," but plot armor is the only reason why the Mechanoids didn't take over.

- right, CS sometimes looked away, acknowledging that sometimes mages don't need to be killed... and then went right back to murdering them, with full knowledge of the fact that magic can be used to accomplish good things, not just horrible things. kinda like technology that way, really.

Ideoligical differences. That's how the world works.

- at this point, i'm not sure you understand what genocide is. genocide is not killing all of a certain group. if your actions are not being taken with the intention of exterminating some group purely because of their membership in that group, it isn't genocide. if tolkeen wanted to kill the xiticix (which they probably did, though i don't think that particular plot element ever got off the ground because the CS kinda destroyed tolkeen), but it wasn't just because they hate xiticix and want them all to die, then it isn't genocide.

You contradicted yourself.
Is genocide:
a) killing members of a group because they are members of that group?
or
b) killing members of a group because of hatred of that group?

fighting a war of defense against invaders, even if you kill all the invaders as a result, is not genocide.

Well, that would certainly be the CS's argument.

that's the difference: the CS wants to exterminate d-bees because they are d-bees.

i.e., "invaders" by the CS's standards.

not because they are all dangerous. not because it is impossible to live beside them in peace. they have clear proof that both of those things are false.

THAT depends entirely on who you're talking about when you say "the CS."
The leadership has evidence. The soldiers and civilians, not so much.

- you brought up shapechanging babies, you prove that it's actually happening and is a problem.

Do you need me to list all of the ways that mages and monsters can use to assume innocent, harmless looking forms?
Or do you need me to explain that rare PCs are NOT the only minds likely to think of such a possibility, and/or to use it...?
It is both an obvious and an easily accomplished tactic.
Can you think of any reason why it wouldn't be commonly used?

- "Deliberately kill beings that you honestly believe are an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others?" doesn't work when you have experience showing that something is not inherently an immediate threat to your safety and the safety of others.

What kind of experience are you talking about, and who do you think has it...?

- whether nannies want it or not, it's what they do. that's their goal.

- so far as i can tell, all simvan are monster riders. you can't be controlling a 20-ton monster that is trained for war, can rip apart a tank, and shrug off a small nuclear explosion and be expected to not count as a combatant.

- why do i need to rephrase? genocide is killing things for one specific reason (a desire to exterminate the group of things). if you are killing things for another reason, it might still be a crime, and it might still be evil, but it isn't genocide.

- technology is also dangerous. almost anything is dangerous if you use it wrong. it doesn't justify genocide.

- the mechanoids failed because they were insane. that isn't plot armour. that's the mechanoids acting like you would expect for something that is so completely insane that they cannot restrain themselves from doing something (killing humanoids) even when it would be in their best interests to delay it. they have an obsession. they acted according to that obsession. nothing screwy going on there. it's much like how the four horseman got stomped. there's nothing surprising. a group of several hundred people with MD weaponry kicking their butts is totally expected if those groups ever face each other.

- ideological differences don't make it any less evil when you use them to attempt to justify doing evil things. i never said it isn't *understandable* that the CS might act the way they do. it's a very human sort of evil, really. i can understand the idea of them not caring about obvious evidence which they have seen and acknowledged. but it's still evil.

- if you must split hairs, i suppose it is killing members of the group purely for the purpose of exterminating the group.

- the CS can argue all they want. when they're deliberately ignoring evidence that proves their position wrong, their argument is also wrong, and they all have access to that information. they know full well that a random rift can pull things through. it's a danger of their lives as well, and that is true whether you're a prosek or some random nameless factory worker who lives on level 17 in one of their fortress cities.

- yes, i get that the CS is ignoring evidence and making false claims in an attempt to justify what they're doing. that doesn't make it any less murder when they murder someone in cold blood.

- the soldiers and civilians have lived in relative peace with some d-bees (i mean, peace seems a bit strong of a word when they could shoot a d-bee in the head in cold blood and it wouldn't even be a crime, but they seem to have managed to avoid doing that most of the time). they may not know for 100% sure that a specific d-bee standing over there is definitely not a threat. but they do have hard evidence that d-bees are not all dangerous, and that it is possible to live beside them in peace.

- i didn't say show that it could be a problem. you want me to show that it isn't a problem. well, first you show me that this is a thing that comes up sufficiently often that it could be used to justify murdering everyone. you've shown that it could potentially happen often enough to be a problem, but you haven't shown that it does happen often enough to be a problem, or something that a typical CS soldier has experienced and could point to. i mean, theoretically a random child could run up to you with a grenade and detonate it, killing you both. in fact, for some people in real life, this has actually happened. is that justification to shoot every child on sight?

and the reason it wouldn't commonly be used is that there is no reason to expect the CS soldiers to hanging out next to a d-bee child in the first place, unless the CS is trying to murder d-bees there already, in which case they probably were killing the child anyways, just not directly.

- as i've mentioned several times, the fact that the CS, and yes this means a major portion of the regular people, not the leadership, have personal experience dealing with d-bees in ways other than both groups trying to murder the other. particularly as the CS army recruits more and more from the 'burbs, where people will be experiencing that daily, this becomes even more true. it also becomes more true as soldiers gun down innocent and defenseless d-bees that clearly were not threats because they had no way of defending themselves from a CS kill squad, thus gaining proof for those in the kill squad that not all d-bees are legitimate threats.

someone who has only experienced rabbits by watching monty python's holy grail might be arguably justified in thinking that rabbits are cold-blooded killers with huge, nasty, pointy teeth for a while... but when they start encountering rabbits that never once attack anything, and which distinctly lack huge, nasty, pointy teeth, are not surrounded by the bones of their victims, and which quite frankly seem to be perfectly happy to just eat plants like any other herbivore, they now have proof that the monty python killer rabbit is not what actual rabbits are like, and would no longer be justified in that belief.

[Freemage]

To be a combatant, you actually have to be capable of combat. Most of the d-bees slaughtered in the invasion of Tolkeen were anything but, as evidenced by the fact that the CS was able to roll through them so readily. (Much like the justification for the Salem Witch Trials being the danger the alleged witches posed to the community--if they were that dangerous and powerful, they never would've been captured and tied to a stake in the first place.)

If they're not combatants, they're civilians. If you're slaughtering civilians who pose no military threat, that's a wartime atrocity.

You're assuming that the CS is holding to some sort of article of war, that gives alien invaders and dimensional beings from other realities 'rights' and what have you on Earth. I would bet pretty heavily that's not the case.

No, rather I'm stating that ~I~ hold to such scruples, and am judging them according to those standards. The fact that they do not acknowledge the rights of other sentient beings in no way invalidates those rights; rather, it invalidates their position.

More over your justification for they're not dangerous is "Evidence by the fact that the CS was able to roll through them so redily" The CS can roll though any group pretty readily. Heck they've TAKEN a Xit hive now. As in.. Cleared it out.. Dug it up and TOOK IT. Not just 'occupied' it, but took it as in picked it up from point A, and moved it to point B.

The claim necessary to justify a scorched-earth policy of ethnic cleansing is that the D-bees are uniquely dangerous, on some level that, say, Free Quebec isn't. The vast majority of the D-bees slain in the course of the invasion were non-combatants, both by choice and capabilities.

Secondly it's sort of like the witch trials. lol By your logic the only way the CS would know if the person is NOT a witch is if they died due to MD firepower.... and if they WERE a witch they'd be able tos tand up and fight. that boggles the mind.

Or if they happened to have allies with the ability to discern between 'witch' and 'non-witch'. You know--like the ability to detect internal PPE stores well above the human norm.

It also ignores the fact that a fresh born dragon hatchling only a few hours old, can shape shift into a cat, walk into the middle of the CS Cap and start breathing mega damage fire over all the exposed troops around it.

Or.. can shape shift to look like a 3 year old little girl, and again, limp into a CS Camp, begging for help, only to rip the arms off the guy that tried to pick her up, beat him to death with them and breathe mega damage fire all around her.

Or you have the dog-boy give her a sniff, first. But hey, let's just ignore the presence of the ability to detect the supernatural, because that might make it harder to justify slaughtering children.

When faced with threats of that nature, yes... -all- members not of your 'side' in a combat zone are legitimate threats in a war situation. That's with out even touching "Aid to the enemy" type things, or 500 different magic spells a HUMAN kid might be able to cast. Many of them, again, Mega damage offensive spells, that can't be seen till the spell caster starts to cast. Magic is the ultimate 'Concealed weapon"

If a group of 80 year old ladies sewing blankets in town square could all stand up and with a few words fire off mega damage fire balls and destroy an infantry platoon with literal magical fire out of no where.... -yes- ... everyone in that war could be a threat.

You can't take time to weed out the 'non dangerous' from the 'dangerous' because you never know. The cat could pop into a 40 foot tall dragon and eat you, or the crying child could suddenly do the same. Or the 80 year old lady could say 5 words and literally vaporize your upper torso.

Even the crying child that's taken in and protected by your platoon for a month, could suddenly shape shift into that dragon. Laughin, pick you up by the leg and use your body to beat to death all your friends.

Well, then, clearly, Prosek needs to not merely conquer the planet, but actually destroy it, because the capacity for magic exists in virtually all humans, and therefore even Prosek himself should be executed as a possible magical threat. Heck, they might not even really be human. Maybe Prosek is just a dragon who is able to conceal his true nature from everyone and therefore he should be executed for the good of humanity.

Furthermore, you don't get to define "combat zone" as "any place we choose to invade" and then state, "Hey, let's kill everyone here because we're too lazy, stupid and evil to bother applying any sort of sorting technique."

[Axelmania]

Requesting clarification from SharkForce regarding what evidence the CS is ignoring.

Requesting clarification from FreeMage regarding the majority of Dbees killed in invasion (of Minnesota?) being noncombatants.

Pages and so forth.

[Freemage]

Requesting clarification from FreeMage regarding the majority of Dbees killed in invasion (of Minnesota?) being noncombatants.

Well, let's start with the first town hit by the CS with Scorched Earth tactics: Hillcrest (Sedition, Page 120). The town has a population of 897 inhabitants, "comprised mostly of farmers and sheepherders". The town was "completely obliterated right down to the last man, woman and child."

Or Page 127: "The war has already displaced thousands and many more will follow in the years to come. This means bands of refugees as well as travelers, adventurers and mercenaries can be found wandering the forests and fields in the Kingdom of Tolkeen. Those spied by Coalition forces are stopped and questioned. Any who flee, offer resistance or include even a single D-Bee or mage are slaughtered."

Bolded portion is key--a group of non-magical human refugees with a lone dwarven craftsman in their company will ALL be executed.

The wartime population of Tolkeen proper at the time of the Siege, by the way, breaks down (roughly) as follows (Final Siege, page 174):
260K Mages and psychics of various varieties
90K Soldiers and men-at-arms
15-20K Non-resident mercenaries
100K "Others"--demons and other monsters brought in to defend the city
530K Professionals, unskilled laborers and assorted street-life
400+K Refugees seeking shelter from the advancing army

Even if we accept that EVERY Psychic and Spellcaster is an enemy combatant (a somewhat tenuous claim, since many will have power-sets that actually aren't particularly useful for combat), that's a 2-to-1 imbalance in favor of non-combatants. Yet it's quite clear that the invasion of Tolkeen is using the same scorched-earth, take no prisoners tactics they started with in Hillside. The High Command's goal (whether successful or not) was to butcher over 900,000 civilians and refugees who wanted nothing more than to live their lives peaceably.

[boring7]

Wait the ravening cry that got repeated for several pages (thing about the mechanoids) wasn't even factually accurate?

That's hilarious.

Moving on, I think the only thing I really like about the Tolkeen War is the implication that the CS' face-tanking of the Minion War invasion is directly because of it. They uncapped nexuses, turbo-charged ley lines, and weakened the dimensional barriers such that the Rifts and Hellpits naturally gravitated right onto their doorstep...all while killing the people best-equipped to handle such things (the Close Rift spell is very useful when you've got a bunch of rifts to deal with). A classic case of "nice job breaking it, hero." Except the CS aren't heroes, except in their own foolish and tiny minds.

And why did they do it? The CDF likes to make tortured-logic arguments about a scary war-king or other silliness, but really it was just a Wag the Dog. Prosek wanted/needed a WIN so the Coalition would feel strong and self-actualized again, because the Juicer Uprising was (in terms of politics and propaganda) a small loss and FQ was a great big one. So he invaded a nearby neighbor and murdered everything that moved to win a propaganda coup.

We'll table the fact that by the numbers he still lost that war (losing the percentages both sides lost by book 3 is devastation and ruination IRL) because welcome to rifts, where the populations are made up and the deaths don't matter. I count it as a good day when a population break down doesn't add up to >150%.

[Killer Cyborg]

- whether nannies want it or not, it's what they do. that's their goal.

I prepare steaks sometimes.
I would not call that "my goal," except in a very limited sort of context.

- so far as i can tell, all simvan are monster riders. you can't be controlling a 20-ton monster that is trained for war, can rip apart a tank, and shrug off a small nuclear explosion and be expected to not count as a combatant.

By the standard of damage capability, there would seem to have been precious few civilians in Tolkeen.

- why do i need to rephrase? genocide is killing things for one specific reason (a desire to exterminate the group of things). if you are killing things for another reason, it might still be a crime, and it might still be evil, but it isn't genocide.

So if you're attacked by a tribe of orcs, and you then kill the orcs out of a desire to kill the tribe of orcs that attacked you, that's genocide?
And if you're attacked by a tribe of orcs, and you then kill the orcs out of a desire to make a bunch of orc steaks, that's not genocide?

- technology is also dangerous. almost anything is dangerous if you use it wrong. it doesn't justify genocide.

Because of your response technique, I have no idea what this part is intended to respond to.
I'm not going to back-page or scroll up and down every time you want to respond, and that limits my ability to understand what point you're trying to make.

- the mechanoids failed because they were insane. that isn't plot armour. that's the mechanoids acting like you would expect for something that is so completely insane that they cannot restrain themselves from doing something (killing humanoids) even when it would be in their best interests to delay it. they have an obsession. they acted according to that obsession. nothing screwy going on there.

Interesting claim.
Care to support it?

- ideological differences don't make it any less evil when you use them to attempt to justify doing evil things. i never said it isn't *understandable* that the CS might act the way they do. it's a very human sort of evil, really. i can understand the idea of them not caring about obvious evidence which they have seen and acknowledged. but it's still evil.

Again, not sure what you're responding to here.
But whatever it is, it seems to beg the question "why are you so certain that genocide is always evil?"

- if you must split hairs, i suppose it is killing members of the group purely for the purpose of exterminating the group.

So if you're killing them because you see them as a threat to your homeland, then it's not genocide?

- the CS can argue all they want. when they're deliberately ignoring evidence that proves their position wrong, their argument is also wrong, and they all have access to that information. they know full well that a random rift can pull things through. it's a danger of their lives as well, and that is true whether you're a prosek or some random nameless factory worker who lives on level 17 in one of their fortress cities.

Again, not sure what you're trying to address.
It seems to be a rebuttal to a claim that the CS believes that all creatures on Rifts Earth came here deliberately, or were deliberately summoned, but I've made no such claim.

- yes, i get that the CS is ignoring evidence and making false claims in an attempt to justify what they're doing. that doesn't make it any less murder when they murder someone in cold blood.

When you say "the CS," who are you talking about?
What evidence?

- the soldiers and civilians have lived in relative peace with some d-bees (i mean, peace seems a bit strong of a word when they could shoot a d-bee in the head in cold blood and it wouldn't even be a crime, but they seem to have managed to avoid doing that most of the time). they may not know for 100% sure that a specific d-bee standing over there is definitely not a threat. but they do have hard evidence that d-bees are not all dangerous, and that it is possible to live beside them in peace.

What evidence?

- i didn't say show that it could be a problem. you want me to show that it isn't a problem. well, first you show me that this is a thing that comes up sufficiently often that it could be used to justify murdering everyone. you've shown that it could potentially happen often enough to be a problem, but you haven't shown that it does happen often enough to be a problem, or something that a typical CS soldier has experienced and could point to. i mean, theoretically a random child could run up to you with a grenade and detonate it, killing you both. in fact, for some people in real life, this has actually happened. is that justification to shoot every child on sight?

I'm going to guess that you're trying to address the whole "you never know what or whom could be a shapeshifting evil mage or monster" thing here.
No, you don't shoot every child on sight.
But if a child is running toward you, and your commanding officer is ordering you to fire, and you've seen similar situations that resulted in your friends getting blown up (or even if you've seen them countless times in film and such), then yeah... most people are going to shoot.

and the reason it wouldn't commonly be used is that there is no reason to expect the CS soldiers to hanging out next to a d-bee child in the first place, unless the CS is trying to murder d-bees there already, in which case they probably were killing the child anyways, just not directly.

I'm not sure why the only scenario you can come up with is "a CS soldier hanging out next to a D-bee child."
I can think of countless situations in which a shapeshifter would try to assume a more innocent-seeming form than its natural one.

- as i've mentioned several times, the fact that the CS, and yes this means a major portion of the regular people, not the leadership, have personal experience dealing with d-bees in ways other than both groups trying to murder the other.

Source?

particularly as the CS army recruits more and more from the 'burbs, where people will be experiencing that daily, this becomes even more true.

Right, The Burbs: a crime-ridden den of iniquity where most every vice is available for the right price. Where Body-Chop-Shops, street gangs, bandits, slavers, vicious psychics, malicious D-Bees, and supernatural predators roam the streets looking for easy prey.
That place.
Yeah, I'm sure that it'd endear most of the human population to people who are different from themselves.

it also becomes more true as soldiers gun down innocent and defenseless d-bees that clearly were not threats because they had no way of defending themselves from a CS kill squad, thus gaining proof for those in the kill squad that not all d-bees are legitimate threats.

What is the proof that the D-Bees were "clearly not threats?"

someone who has only experienced rabbits by watching monty python's holy grail might be arguably justified in thinking that rabbits are cold-blooded killers with huge, nasty, pointy teeth for a while... but when they start encountering rabbits that never once attack anything, and which distinctly lack huge, nasty, pointy teeth, are not surrounded by the bones of their victims, and which quite frankly seem to be perfectly happy to just eat plants like any other herbivore, they now have proof that the monty python killer rabbit is not what actual rabbits are like, and would no longer be justified in that belief.

How many dragons disguised as rabbits would you need to have kill your friends before you stopped taking chances?

[Axelmania]

Requesting clarification from FreeMage regarding the majority of Dbees killed in invasion (of Minnesota?) being noncombatants.

Well, let's start with the first town hit by the CS with Scorched Earth tactics: Hillcrest (Sedition, Page 120). The town has a population of 897 inhabitants, "comprised mostly of farmers and sheepherders". The town was "completely obliterated right down to the last man, woman and child."

I'm thinking that under 900 is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the total D-Bee deaths in Minnesota, so I don't think we can draw any conclusions from Hillcrest as to overall demographics.

Also: how many of the 897 can you confirm are noncombatants? Even children can fight, Alistair Dunscon was a 4th level ley line walker at 12 years old if I recall right.

Or Page 127: "The war has already displaced thousands and many more will follow in the years to come. This means bands of refugees as well as travelers, adventurers and mercenaries can be found wandering the forests and fields in the Kingdom of Tolkeen. Those spied by Coalition forces are stopped and questioned. Any who flee, offer resistance or include even a single D-Bee or mage are slaughtered."

Being a refugee doesn't necessarily make you a noncombatant.

Bolded portion is key--a group of non-magical human refugees with a lone dwarven craftsman in their company will ALL be executed.

That's why dwarves should travel in pairs.

The wartime population of Tolkeen proper at the time of the Siege, by the way, breaks down (roughly) as follows (Final Siege, page 174):
260K Mages and psychics of various varieties
90K Soldiers and men-at-arms
15-20K Non-resident mercenaries
100K "Others"--demons and other monsters brought in to defend the city
530K Professionals, unskilled laborers and assorted street-life
400+K Refugees seeking shelter from the advancing army

It is possible to be a refugee sheeking shelter and still be a violent threat.

Even if we accept that EVERY Psychic and Spellcaster is an enemy combatant (a somewhat tenuous claim, since many will have power-sets that actually aren't particularly useful for combat), that's a 2-to-1 imbalance in favor of non-combatants.

I'm going to need a spot in the book saying all refugees are noncombatants.

Yet it's quite clear that the invasion of Tolkeen is using the same scorched-earth, take no prisoners tactics they started with in Hillside. The High Command's goal (whether successful or not) was to butcher over 900,000 civilians and refugees who wanted nothing more than to live their lives peaceably.

Where does it say that butchering civilians was the High Command's goal? I view it as more of an unfortunate cost of war.

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

[HWalsh]

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

If the CS represents humanity then I am ashamed to be considered human.

[Mack]

And why did they do it? The CDF likes to make tortured-logic arguments about a scary war-king or other silliness, but really it was just a Wag the Dog.

I hope you can continue this discussion without resorting to using derogatory names like "CDF" or other insults.

[Freemage]

Requesting clarification from FreeMage regarding the majority of Dbees killed in invasion (of Minnesota?) being noncombatants.

Well, let's start with the first town hit by the CS with Scorched Earth tactics: Hillcrest (Sedition, Page 120). The town has a population of 897 inhabitants, "comprised mostly of farmers and sheepherders". The town was "completely obliterated right down to the last man, woman and child."

I'm thinking that under 900 is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the total D-Bee deaths in Minnesota, so I don't think we can draw any conclusions from Hillcrest as to overall demographics.

Also: how many of the 897 can you confirm are noncombatants? Even children can fight, Alistair Dunscon was a 4th level ley line walker at 12 years old if I recall right.

"Mostly"--ie, more than half, at a minimum, are 'farmers and sheepherders'. The children are the children of shepherds, who will grow up to be shephards themselves--or at least, would've, if it weren't for the CS coming to town. At this point, I'm going to ask you the question you so dearly love-what's the page number where it's stated that a significant percentage of the children in Tolkeen are chucking around mega-damage spells?

Or Page 127: "The war has already displaced thousands and many more will follow in the years to come. This means bands of refugees as well as travelers, adventurers and mercenaries can be found wandering the forests and fields in the Kingdom of Tolkeen. Those spied by Coalition forces are stopped and questioned. Any who flee, offer resistance or include even a single D-Bee or mage are slaughtered."

This is true; that same section outlines a group of refugees who, in fact, are Tolkeen sympathizers who deliberately lure the CS to their deaths--by being women in a war zone, and thus considered a completely different sort of 'fair game' by the so-called heroes of humanity. Thinking with their southern brains, the boys from Chi-Town end up getting gutted.

Bolded portion is key--a group of non-magical human refugees with a lone dwarven craftsman in their company will ALL be executed.

That's why dwarves should travel in pairs.

That got a giggle from me, I admit. That said, it still establishes the point that it doesn't matter how harmless the group is--if they've got any D-Bees in their numbers, they're considered target-practice.

The wartime population of Tolkeen proper at the time of the Siege, by the way, breaks down (roughly) as follows (Final Siege, page 174):
260K Mages and psychics of various varieties
90K Soldiers and men-at-arms
15-20K Non-resident mercenaries
100K "Others"--demons and other monsters brought in to defend the city
530K Professionals, unskilled laborers and assorted street-life
400+K Refugees seeking shelter from the advancing army

It is possible to be a refugee sheeking shelter and still be a violent threat.

In the sense of, "I've been trapped in a corner and if I don't fight I'm going to die" sense, sure. But I'm now going to ask for the page where the general order went out to the CS troops to call for surrender, or take captives, or any other act of humane treatment for the citizenry of Tolkeen.

Even if we accept that EVERY Psychic and Spellcaster is an enemy combatant (a somewhat tenuous claim, since many will have power-sets that actually aren't particularly useful for combat), that's a 2-to-1 imbalance in favor of non-combatants.

I'm going to need a spot in the book saying all refugees are noncombatants.

Well, they weren't part of the armed forces--those numbers were listed separately. They weren't mercenaries in retreat, or anything of that nature. They were simply inhabitants of the other towns that had already been blasted to smoke and ash by the CS forces. If they fought at all, it was because they were in a kill-or-be-killed situation (or, more realistically, a 'be killed and decide if you are going to try to take some of them with you' situation).

Yet it's quite clear that the invasion of Tolkeen is using the same scorched-earth, take no prisoners tactics they started with in Hillside. The High Command's goal (whether successful or not) was to butcher over 900,000 civilians and refugees who wanted nothing more than to live their lives peaceably.

Where does it say that butchering civilians was the High Command's goal? I view it as more of an unfortunate cost of war.

If that was the case, then there would've been an order to take prisoners where surrender was offered. I've read Siege pretty thoroughly, and found no such thing. (There was the order to "mist" the camps, though, but admittedly that was from one of those rogue generals that seem to be so common in the CS.)

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

1: The CS is not 'humanity'. Most of the cities listed in the series were majority-human in population. That somehow didn't even give the CS troops pause.
2: This entire paragraph is begging the question by presupposing that the invasion was fully justified in the first place. If the invasion isn't justified, then the position that the inhabitants should've just packed up and moved away is fatally flawed.

[Eagle]

Wiping out a group when they have a D-Bee or magic user with them makes a certain sort of sense, though. Remember that the Coalition considers D-Bees and wizards to be monsters and terrorists. When SEAL Team Six raided Osama bin Laden's compound, they killed everybody there. I don't think there were any kids present, but Osama's wives and others who weren't combatants got shot as well. If there was a dude who was just there to fix the toilet, he still got a bullet in the head. We bomb terrorist enclaves all the time when they have their families with them. The US government makes a huge effort to avoid civilian casualties, but we've quietly adopted the policy that if you're living with the terrorist, you're fair game.

Nobody is saying the Coalition is this wonderful place. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. Of course I might feel differently if I just saw my family get eaten by some monster thing. But we all agree that it's not a friendly place. The problem with the stance that "the Coalition is the worst evil empire in the world", is that it wouldn't make the top 10 of "most oppressive countries to live in" today. It's a bad place, sure, but it's no North Korea. It's no Zimbabwe. It's not Syria.

We see the worst examples of CS behavior in the Tolkeen War, but they honestly can't be all Chaotic Evil all the time. For whatever reason, there are a lot of D-Bees living in the Burbs of Chi-Town. Why in the hell would they want to live there? If you're a rubber forehead alien, why would you want to live in a place where everyone wants to execute you? Particularly when New Lazlo is only a 4 hour drive away. For the most part, the CS seems to treat non-MDC D-Bees like an oppressed racial minority. You're gonna get harassed by the cops, but SAMAS patrols don't regularly gun your people down from the air. Again, the examples that everybody is using are the ones that happened in a war zone after 4 years of brutal conflict.

[dreicunan]

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

If the CS represents humanity then I am ashamed to be considered human.

A request for clarification: Would you rather humanity be represented by the people who knowingly allied with demons en route to getting rolled by the Coalition?

There were no good actors in the CS - Tolkeen war. Did the CS invade? Yes. Did Tolkeen become the monster that the Propaganda machine of Prosek regime made them out to be? Yes, unless allying with demons no longer makes you a monster, in which case Hey Cthulhu, 'sup?