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I picked the D-Bee one b/c I like non-human PCs more. My philosophy is that I'm human in real life, so why be the exact same in a game if you don't want to? Of course I still love playing human chars too, but I think that D-Bees make for great diversity in-game too.

If I could've pick others too, I'd also have picked the neo-nazi one (minus the part about wanting total world conquest), and the ignorant one, and the magic one too. What can I say? Cannon provides a lot to hate them for.

Outside the game, I hate the CS because it has all the hallmarks of a GM's favorite character/organization. It's a huge pet peeve of mine. But it's relatively easy to over look since once the books leave the hobby store shelves and are securely in my hands, no one can protect their contents from my imagination.

Inside the game, I hate the CS not for what they do to D-Bee's (although it's wasteful and stupid) or magic users (again, wasteful and stupid) or that they are slowly expanding their territory (happens all the time in human society). I hate them (as in the government) for what the CS does to its own people and even to other humans. And what they don't do to help other humans (the burbs, among other things). Contrary to popular opinion, the CS are not human supremists, their power mongers who use that line of beliefs to further their agenda.

In the end, the CS government has to be brought down. Which is a the major point of a campaign I just started.

I don't think I hate the CS, but so far, I've never wanted to play any toon who was a part of it. My toons tend to be very tolerant (and mostly mutant) so...


Now... I've always found Joseph Prosek rather fetching, so maybe if he was Supreme Ruler of hawtness... I'd like the CS a whole lot more.

They are hardly Humanity's last chance, even for only the humans on Rifts Earth.

Toc Rat wrote:They are hardly Humanity's last chance, even for only the humans on Rifts Earth.

TOC!

Your alive!

Nice to hear from you again.

BTW, you're wrong.

Nxla666 wrote:TOC!

Your alive!

Nice to hear from you again.

BTW, you're wrong.

Was there any doubt my friend?

Sorry for my absence of late but I have been rather pre-occupied with my new job. I am happy to report however, that I will soon be getting a L O T more free time. In this instance the word "soon" means next month.

Toc Rat wrote:

Nxla666 wrote:TOC!

Your alive!

Nice to hear from you again.

BTW, you're wrong.

Was there any doubt my friend?

Sorry for my absence of late but I have been rather pre-occupied with my new job. I am happy to report however, that I will soon be getting a L O T more free time. In this instance the word "soon" means next month.

I've got free time to, its slow at work so I'm off more than anything.

I just have to fight with my wife and kids for computer time.

Sun-Tzu also said something along the lines, of when a nation turns to peace over war, that nation falls. Or something along those lines. I'd have to bust out my art of war and find the direct quote, and well its late, and I'm lazy.


Also I don't hate the CS. There are things about it I dislike, hence I tend to play FQ. But if someone just changed the whole " Keep the people uneducated, then I'd be all about it.

Toc Rat wrote:The only ones? Have you read any of the other books? What about the NGR? The New Navy? The Republic of Japan? Heard of them? The list goes on and on too.

Same argument still applies.

I find them a little tacky. Ya, I know that black goes with everything, but there is such a thing as to much black. I mean don't they have old vid disk of America's Next Top Model or anything?

K20A2_S wrote:

Toc Rat wrote:They are hardly Humanity's last chance, even for only the humans on Rifts Earth.

Yeah, you could just be a puppet for Dragons who runs a whole city/country like lazlo

CS tried to live in peace with diffrent people once, the FoM ruined it.

They simply go by what they have seen, and obviously the d-bees/magic users seem to show their darkside more than good......

And as the war on tolkeen showed magic users ALWAYS turn to demons when in a corner, further proof that in the end, magic is all about demons consuming souls.

Azrael wrote:I love the Coalition States. They provide me with an ample supply of D-Bee souls and spill the blood of countless innocents to help me reawaken my sleeping masters. Keep it up boys, good work.

That was all kinds of awesome!

Novastar wrote:

Azrael wrote:I love the Coalition States. They provide me with an ample supply of D-Bee souls and spill the blood of countless innocents to help me reawaken my sleeping masters. Keep it up boys, good work.

That was all kinds of awesome!

Yes!!!

Where's the "I could care less" option?

Shadyslug wrote:Where's the "I could care less" option?

same here, I have no hatred. Though My Psi-tech, Aster, would dislike many of there policies he would understand the situation.

Rimmerdal wrote:

Shadyslug wrote:Where's the "I could care less" option?

same here, I have no hatred. Though My Psi-tech, Aster, would dislike many of there policies he would understand the situation.

I just don't think that I need to hate the CS.

I don't like them...I don't think I'd ever play one...but no sweat off my satchel...

I just looked at the results and find it amusing that nobody cares that they hate magic.

Viva Free Quebec!!!! The true last great hope for humanity

Lobotaru wrote:Um, Emperor Prosek has taken a once good nation and twisted it into a hideous, hateful, and evil thing. At this point even after removing his regime it would take over a century to repair the sociological and psychological damage done to the once proud nation. The CS is not humanities last great hope, and has actually proved the opposite... under such a regime, things are only get worse, not better.

Here here!

Also, I'd like to say in response to the posts about not hating CS b/c it makes a great story, etc. that I agree in that respect, but I really don't look at them like that if trying to decide whether or not I approve of them in an in-game sort of way (I thought that was the point).

Hope that wasn't confusing... I'm not sure if that made perfect sense. Sorry if it didn't.

Lobotaru wrote:I want to obliterate the CS from the face of the Earth even more than Splynn just because they annoy the CRAP out of me! There, now I feel better.

now you know how we feel about lazlo,new navy and the rest of the goody nation in rifts earth.

DogBoyDetroit wrote:My characters are about to run into a very unusual npc (from their perspective).

A rogue scholar who views the cataclysm and rise of the coalition as a necessary step in the survival of mankind.

He has some crackpot idea about how before the coming of the rifts, humans fought wars and waged campaigns of genocide against eachother. Damned fool has some crazy thought in his head that even in safeholds of freedom and justice like the American Empire, people were regularly disicriminated against, attacked, and even killed because of how they looked or their ancestry. Such a thing is unimaginable for a Coalition citizen...humans discriminating against one another? How could such a thing have existed?

Sounds like a really good NPC. Maybe give your players more of a "Rifts earth native" view rather then metagame thinking.

K20A2_S wrote:

Lobotaru wrote:I want to obliterate the CS from the face of the Earth even more than Splynn just because they annoy the CRAP out of me! There, now I feel better.

Yeah, it's much cooler to be human slave stock than a CS soldier.

I don't think that was to say they're worse than Splynn, just that The CS is more annoying (ie to fight maybe?). Just hazarding a guess there. You probably are more likely to run into them in North America than people/enemies from Splynn in the average campaign after all.

Chello!

CS supporter here...I agree that they need to go after the dangerous D-Bees...however, the Vanguard is dangerous and should never be allowed to rise again. Remember tolkeen and teh Sorceror's Revenge. Mages cannot not be trusted. All Psychics must register and join the ISS.

Remember: Trust no one. Keep your laser handy. Obey the Emperor!

Would you like to know more?



Tony

Actually, I just realized when you mentioned vagabonds that another reason I'm not a big fan of the CS (but not by any means a source of hatred) is b/c you can't make uber munchkins out of them very well since they only use tech and psionics. For the record though, I'm not a powerfreak, I just make munchy characters for fun or when I'm bored, and the CS doesn't give much in that respect (unless you just use their whole army or something...).

I dislike the CS for a few reasons:

1: They keep the people ignorant.
Dumbest thing ever.

They could have the next Albert Einstein in Chi-Town, and never get the next genius in physics on their side because he's an illiterate, ignorant idiot that probably isn't quite sure how the power grid works, let alone the basics of physics in general.


2: Complete waste of time and resources with their attacks.

They will mow down a village of D-bees with a company of soldiers and call it a victory, even if a pair of incompetent idiots with SDC weapons/armor could have done the same themselves.

Sure, they claim one of those d-bees could be a baby eating demon, but the problem is, they have tons of Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers that are there to seek out such things, meaning there is no reason to go scorched earth on every last little D-bee community they come across.
Besides, any baby eating demom with half a brain cell will disguise itself as a human, to avoid detection from trigger happy humans, rather than as something trigger happy humans are going to shoot on sight.

As others have mentioned, while the CS is squashing these non-threating things and things of little real danger, the major/real threats to humanity are running around with little opposition.

3: They got a good idea of what needs to be done, but go around doing everything in the wrong way.

The last chance for humanity has an 'inhuman' design style.... Really, is any d-bee or demon even going to give a rat's tail end about armor and vehicles with the death's head motiff, or is it mainly other humans that are going to be unnerved by it? I bet necromancers loved using dead CS soldiers to make zombies, because of the irony that they probably actually like the death's head motif more than the CS does, and find entertaining irony in using zombies in armor with a death's head motiff...

Instead of people fighting to protect their culture and society, there are ignorant people who are fighting out of stuff based on fear, ignorance and mountains of unqestioned propoganda.

They attitude and 'shoot anything that isn't human or that uses magic' tactics is probably going to make them enemies as fast as friends. The CS is but a speck of dust in the mountain of dirt that is the megaverse. It won't be long before the CS ticks off something that is going to crush them like a tin can under a steam roller.

At least the Vanguard is around, some threats can only be dealt with using magic.

If the CS is anti-magic to the extrme, and the Vanguard has to operate 'separate' of the CS, why horde magic items in the black vault? Seriously, get a few nega psychics and psi-nullifiers around someone with a good aligned rune hammer and let them party with smashing any and every non-rune magic item they get... Then go encase the rune stuff in a block of wought iron, then a layer of lead, then a few layers of MDC alloys, polymers and ceramics, then stick that in a block of concrete, and go bury the darn thing in a mine field with a bunch of Claymore mines attached to the block, ones filled with iron, silver, wood, etc...

And don't get me started on the Burbs... Between the ISS and the CS' tons of dog boys, and with all their 'save humanity, kill everything else' boasting, it seems the best place for D-bees to survive with the CS around is in their backyard, in the Burbs... and the fact the Burbs oddly seems to double as one big human shield that keeps 'good' powers from trying to attack the CS due to high casualty rates of non-combatants if one tries to wage a war against a fortress city in general...

4: SoT fiasco.

The CS are the whole reason that mess got started. They constantly waged skirmish battles and launched raids on Tolkeen territory, and then they modernized their entire army, and kept pressuring Tolkeen, giving the 'evil' people and warlords more and more excuses to get more going their way and eventually leading to the use of the Deamonix.

It's akin to constanly poking an animal with a stick until it gets really ticked off and tries to rip your arm off.

Thanks to the CS, there are now a bunch of Deamonix and other nasty things running around. If the CS had gone around dealing with 'real' threats instead of creating a new major enemy, then maybe Tolkeen would still be around and able to keep the FoM with just one more obstacle to keep an eye on.

There is also the thing with the CS death camps... if your policy is to kill your enemies on sight, then why capture them, toss them in a prison, and waste precious resources to partial borg a magic user to mess up their magic?

There is also the fact that with Tolkeen in general out of comission, it seems like the CS is going to start to have to devote resources to keep the Xiticix in check.

5: The CS is more or less by a facist regime.

Sure, the Emperor actually gives a darn about his people, but there isn't much else good to say about them.

It's a good thing they keep their people ignorant, because they might loose a lot of support if the people found out that 'world wars' have started up with multiple nations teaming up to eliminate such 'axis of evil' types.

They could have NOT built more SAMAS than they had soldiers in general, and have had plenty of money left over for other things, like doing something useful with the Burbs, like making it an orderly and well mapped area that is well patrolled, resulting in a lot of happy non-citizens and gain much more praise for the CS as trying to save humanity in general.... heck, wall in the burbs, a wall on the outside, and a wall between the burbs and Chi-town itself to create a well monitored no-man's land to make it next to impossible for anyone to get to Chi-Town (or the other fortress cities) on foot without going through the well defended check points.
Chi-Town alone could have a few million more 'loyal' people in such a scenerio without empty promisies for citizenship through military service.

6: They claim to be pro human...

But they love to use mutant animals, psi-stalkers (mutant humans), psychics (that are claimed by many to be human mutants) cyborgs, and even juicers.
If they were truly pro-human, they wouldn't use so many non-humans/human mutants as a major/important part of their military, and they would greatly frown upon full conversion borgs (makes someone less than human) and juicers (I'd rather have 2 soldiers that are good for a few decades rather than one better soldier who will only last a few years)

7: Lack of creativity/development

They don't seem to come up with 'new' tech often, much of their stuff is either based on pre-rifts stuff, anew design with few real improvements, or made using stuff they got from others.

Geez, they can't even make a cheap copy of a GB... Apply the armor tech to something that isn't a shiny mirror, and then make a big mass driver gun where a CS death squad is on hand and odered to shoot anyone who tries to also duplicate whatever pointless useless nonsense garbage in the aft 3in of the GB shell that makes insane noise and produces absurd amounts of recoil...
Now, if the so called high tech power can only come up with stuff on par with NG and Wilks tech... Slap 10 pounds of NG 6 explosive into a small missile, and you don't need nuke LRMs to ruin someone's day big time...

R Ditto wrote:I dislike the CS for a few reasons:

1: They keep the people ignorant.

You make it sound like they have no way of testing who has potential and in what. Just because they don't teach everyone how to read doesn't mean everyone are a bunch of rednecks. You fail to take into account methods of testing for such things, using tech and psionics.


[b]2: Complete waste of time and resources with their attacks.[/quote]

They also count taking out a large city state filled with demon summoning wizards on their list of victories. I'm not getting where you see that CS isn't attacking major threats. CS is probably largly responcible for the death of most demons in NA, as well as evil dragons and other things. They don't just attack weak and helpless dbees, they attack major enemies and they are the reason that demons and monsters ARN'T running freely doing as they please. ALL dbees and magic users are a threat to human life just as much as any demon.

3: They got a good idea of what needs to be done, but go around doing everything in the wrong way.

As stated many times in the game, most Dbees are scared of the deathhead motief as much as any human. And all they do is fight to protect their culture and society. CS doesn't need friends and while in the grand scheme of the megaverse, CS is but a speck of dust, in the place where it matters (RIfts earth) They are a powerful and feared army known nearly the world wide. Who's CS going to tick off that can hurt them? Splug? He has fun with them and isn't interested in harming them because they cannot harm him. NGR? THey are friends...Anyone else is just too far away to "crush" them. FInally the Vangard is like 12 guys. CS can do just fine without them.

If the CS is anti-magic to the extrme, and the Vanguard has to operate 'separate' of the CS, why horde magic items in the black vault?

you don't take a sword to a gun fight. Even if it is magical. Besides that you don't want to your soldiers to become comfortable with soul-eating magic. They should never use magic nor should they ever be comfortable with it. Rune magic is probably the most evil magic there is, and your suggesting that CS actually use it? No...

4: SoT fiasco.

Final proof that any magic user when pressured will sell his soul to surivive.

5: The CS is more or less by a facist regime.

They are. They are human supremisists, as it should be.

6: They claim to be pro human...

Juicers and cyborgs are still human. Psi-stalkers and psychics are still human, though mutated. Mutant animals are the one place where they use non-humans, but the animals are loyal to the CS and are created by the CS.

7: Lack of creativity/development

Missed WB: 10 the War Machine then did you?

I looked back over the topic, and I never really posted a set of reasons.

• Karl Prosek: The man is too stereotypically corrupt and evil. His influence on who serves in the CS' government and military means that they are as corrupt and evil as hey. Their influence radiates downward and outward to influence the whole CS. It has been happening for decades, and is now thoroughly entrenched. This makes the CS seem rather cookie-cutter and flat. SB1 and WB11:CWC, take some steps to correct this monolithic vision.
• Tolkeen Campaign: The Tolkeen series comes along and plops down an impossible-to-believe series of events. The CS' military is even bigger than before. Their losses would gut the core of the nation's entire effective workforce and burden them (unless they kill all of their own wounded) for decades at impossible-to-support levels.
• Impossible Numbers: The CS' population is too low to support the military's given size. It is also too low to support an industry necessary to produce the military's stated equipment and vehicle assignments. The entire reasonably generated tax-base of Chi-Town is barely enough to generate sufficient funds to pay the salaries of their military, much less buy them clothing, or food, or basic gear, or weapons, or armor, ad infinitum.
• The CS Electronic Credit: In a post-apocalyptic society, with no instantaneous central transaction-clearing server, their can be no electronic credit system that is universally accepted. (I realize that this is a meta-gizmo made to simplify the game so that a lot of inconvenient concerns about how money is carried, transported, and otherwise cared for, but honestly, it irritated me to no end.)
• The CS Goes Against its Own Best Self-Interest: The CS' baseline anti-magic/anti-Dbee attitude makes them do things that are against their own clear best self-interest. However, exactly how they reach their decisions is not clear. The decision not to diplomatically accomodate Free Quebec's military equipment and literacy differences was stupendously stupid, especially when Free Quebec hates magic and Dbee's as much as Chi-Town. Chi-Town attacked their own CS member over that same stupdendously stupid issue, too. This makes it essentially impossible for anyone (including the CS' other states, like Iron Heart, Missouri, and Lonestar) to figure out which way Chi-Town (the core of the CS) will jump. This unpredictability means that no other nation can trust anything Chi-Town's leadership says or does. It's like having a sociopathy/psychopathic individual, with very large and powerful weapons, standing in the same room. Not a good situation.
• General Evil and Corruption and the Military: Karl Prosek's influence extends most strongly into the CS military. Now, let us not conflate tough-as-nails ruthlessness with evil and corrupt behavior. With profit mongering sectors of the CS (most like cabals of generals) selling out the CS' military equipement to the Black Market (where else would it come from in such quantities; that was a rhetorical question), and general behaviors motivated more from desires for violence, the whole structure of discipline in the CS military would, perforce, hardly be ideal. If you have a Diabolic Evil Colonel commanding a large unit, and he sees a sergeant beat the snot out of a Lt., and the Col. laughs the whole time through it, only to march the sergeant up in front of a wall to be shot for assaulting a superior officer afterward, well, let us say, the situation is not a good one. Why? It will be mirrored further on down the line, that's why. Men in military units often take their examples from their leaders, and if their leaders are Diabolic Evil (or Miscreat, or even Aberrant) . . .

If I think of anything more, I'll post again.

I also didn't spellcheck/reread this, as I'm about to run out the door.

Psi-stalkers and psychics are still human, though mutated

I never exactly understood why this was tolerated but other human mutants (even those who have totally human appearance and not extrememly dangerous powers) are "officially" not tolerated at all and are considered dangerous d-bees to be eliminated. Take for example a human mutant with the superpower of APS:Fire. Now, this is quite similar to the powers of a burster, but since the abilities can't be determined to stem from psionics, they are considered an inhuman menace.

My same sort of confusion extends to 100% human people from other planets. They aren't from Rifts Earth, but they're still human, and many (ie: those from HU or BTS) are actually from parallel dimensions. Why aren't they tolerated either? It just seems like a blatant double standard, and highly counterproductive.

Crazy Lou wrote:

Psi-stalkers and psychics are still human, though mutated

I never exactly understood why this was tolerated but other human mutants (even those who have totally human appearance and not extrememly dangerous powers) are "officially" not tolerated at all and are considered dangerous d-bees to be eliminated. Take for example a human mutant with the superpower of APS:Fire. Now, this is quite similar to the powers of a burster, but since the abilities can't be determined to stem from psionics, they are considered an inhuman menace.

My same sort of confusion extends to 100% human people from other planets. They aren't from Rifts Earth, but they're still human, and many (ie: those from HU or BTS) are actually from parallel dimensions. Why aren't they tolerated either? It just seems like a blatant double standard, and highly counterproductive.

Where does it say there not?

Crazy Lou wrote:I never exactly understood why this was tolerated but other human mutants (even those who have totally human appearance and not extrememly dangerous powers) are "officially" not tolerated at all and are considered dangerous d-bees to be eliminated. Take for example a human mutant with the superpower of APS:Fire. Now, this is quite similar to the powers of a burster, but since the abilities can't be determined to stem from psionics, they are considered an inhuman menace.

My same sort of confusion extends to 100% human people from other planets. They aren't from Rifts Earth, but they're still human, and many (ie: those from HU or BTS) are actually from parallel dimensions. Why aren't they tolerated either? It just seems like a blatant double standard, and highly counterproductive.

part 1, I agree with. Don't understand it.

Part 2. They are from a different world. This is important to note because while we the reader may see them at 100% human they (the CS) may never have a way to be 100% sure that these are human and not some other kind of being, and they won't risk their security. For example, Auto-G's can mimic humans very closely, but are not human. If not for the 1 enzime in their body, you wouldn't be able to find out if someone was an auto-g or not.

In response:

SUFFER NOT THE ALIEN TO LIVE!


But I actually see your point. And belive it or not agree. I feel that same towards education of CS citizens. And truth be told, my CS has always worked this way. Ofcoarse my CS is a little more influenced by 40k then it is by the book. For instance, there isn't the overwhelming Nazi like actions. My CS is very much a religous state, the Emperor didn't assume command, his family has "Divine Ordanship".

I think it's pretty interesting that a lot of people are excusing the CS's Nazi-like actions "because they have reasons to act like that, and that the average CS citizen isn't evil."

Guess what: the average German citizen under the Nazis wasn't evil either! And the Nazis had reasons for what they were doing too.

Honestly, if the Coalition is humanity's best chance to survive in Rifts (I don't agree that it is), humans don't deserve to make it.

Not trying to defend the CS totally or anything, but they're not flying around all day long looking for helpless women and children to kill just for sh!ts and giggles.

Sure there are some evil CS squads that might do this. Sure sometimes units are told to "Clear such and such area of Dbees in preperation of ____"

But by and large the CS isn't a genocidal nature. It's more an attack of oppertunity sort. The Burbs, right out side the CS cities abound with DBees. If they were really that opposed to them they simply wouldn't allow the burbs to exist.

Sure if the Dbee does _____ anything______ that the CS doesnt like it might get harrassed, roughed up, blown to smitherines. But by and large the CS have things like demons and the like to worry about first.

There's just a discongruity here. People act like the CS see a Dbee and scream bloody murder and call in a nuke strike.

It's very likly more like cops rousting bums. And if the bum back talks or does anything, they shoot um.

I"m sure it's much easier to go though and burn a village and send the DBees on there way from where ever the CS don't want them than become genocidal mass murderers on a daily basis.

You have to read between the lines to see it but the CS have nicknames and stuff for DBees from the burbs and what they regularly run into. So not all are being slaughtered on site.

Just... the "EVIL" sort of squads that plague player char's are the ones doing that. Your adverage CS grunt is probalby more happy sending the cute lil elf girl off into the woods for a few hours while they "question the suspishious Elf guys of the town" than screaming "KILL UM KILL UM ALL EVEN THE CUTE LITTLE GIRLS!!!!"

mattyj77 wrote:

Talavar wrote:I think it's pretty interesting that a lot of people are excusing the CS's Nazi-like actions "because they have reasons to act like that, and that the average CS citizen isn't evil."

Guess what: the average German citizen under the Nazis wasn't evil either! And the Nazis had reasons for what they were doing too.

Honestly, if the Coalition is humanity's best chance to survive in Rifts (I don't agree that it is), humans don't deserve to make it.

Ah, yes but the british and french are not fire breathing dragons and gibbering drool beasts that steal your children and set fire to your cat.

Not Mr. Spoodans! Those inhuman's will pay for burning my kitty!

Pepsi Jedi wrote:Not trying to defend the CS totally or anything, but they're not flying around all day long looking for helpless women and children to kill just for sh!ts and giggles.

Sure there are some evil CS squads that might do this. Sure sometimes units are told to "Clear such and such area of Dbees in preperation of ____"

But by and large the CS isn't a genocidal nature. It's more an attack of oppertunity sort. The Burbs, right out side the CS cities abound with DBees. If they were really that opposed to them they simply wouldn't allow the burbs to exist.

Sure if the Dbee does _____ anything______ that the CS doesnt like it might get harrassed, roughed up, blown to smitherines. But by and large the CS have things like demons and the like to worry about first.

There's just a discongruity here. People act like the CS see a Dbee and scream bloody murder and call in a nuke strike.

It's very likly more like cops rousting bums. And if the bum back talks or does anything, they shoot um.

I"m sure it's much easier to go though and burn a village and send the DBees on there way from where ever the CS don't want them than become genocidal mass murderers on a daily basis.

You have to read between the lines to see it but the CS have nicknames and stuff for DBees from the burbs and what they regularly run into. So not all are being slaughtered on site.

Just... the "EVIL" sort of squads that plague player char's are the ones doing that. Your adverage CS grunt is probalby more happy sending the cute lil elf girl off into the woods for a few hours while they "question the suspishious Elf guys of the town" than screaming "KILL UM KILL UM ALL EVEN THE CUTE LITTLE GIRLS!!!!"

thank you for you honest opinion

Janissary wrote:Rain of Steel's issues are also very good and I agree, particuarly the point on the impossible CS numbers.

Janissary wrote:

Janissary (in another post) wrote:A little while back I put up a topic that dealt with this issue. Here is a reposting of one of my posts there.
[...]

You are correct on all points, that would be the more rational thing to do.

However, this presupposes that the CS, and most especially Karl Prosek, is possessed of rational motivations and thought processes.

IMO, the CS is written as though it were, specifically, not operating upon rational motivations. Karl Prosek is noted as being possessed of numerous psychological difficulties, not the least of which is being Diabolic Evil in alignment. This makes the possibility that my assertion is true more understandable. "The influence of the leader" and all.

I think he should have been drawn up as Aberrant, but that's just me.

This would make him less totally evil, and provide for the "sympathy for the devil" factor.

This is one of the most frustrating things about the CS. It is just so easy to hate them and all they do. It also makes it seem like they should fail in certain areas due to historical precendence (troop discipline), and when they do not without explanations regarding these matters, it boggles the rational mind.

Ravenwing wrote:"Ordanship".

Can you enlighten?

Pepsi Jedi wrote:Not trying to defend the CS totally or anything, but they're not flying around all day long looking for helpless women and children to kill just for sh!ts and giggles.

[...]

But by and large the CS isn't a genocidal nature. It's more an attack of oppertunity sort. The Burbs, right out side the CS cities abound with DBees. If they were really that opposed to them they simply wouldn't allow the burbs to exist.

It's very likly more like cops rousting bums. And if the bum back talks or does anything, they shoot um.

There really is a giant incongruity in described CS behavior.

What you describe seems true, pre-Siege on Tolkeen. Only select groups of CS troops obliterate every non-human living thing in their path. Most simply treat non-humans with varying degrees of suspicion and prejudice, bullying, short-changing, theft, eviction, etc.

Post-Siege on Tolkeen, it's a different story, and what you describe goes by the wayside as the CS spends several years dramatically upping their own rhetoric to the point where the entire army (almost all the adult population of the Chi Town, if you believe the given numbers) is constantly whipped into a "kill all non-humans" on sight fervor. The civilian population will hardly receive much less in the way of propangadistic bombardment.

RainOfSteel wrote:

Ravenwing wrote:"Ordanship".

Can you enlighten?

In my rifts game, the Proseks, much like royal families of europe are given the right to rule by God himself. Like I stated earlier, my CS is more influenced by the imperium of warhammer 40k, and has no nazi influence. The goverment of my CS is much like the old Roman empire, plus a strong church influence. There is also a Pope, in my CS for example. Who's job is the same as it is today, the head of the church. Despite the name, the CS religion isn't catholisim, but a hodgepodge of judeo-christian, catholic, and islamic faiths. During the Dark ages, these faiths just melded together as the survivors went about well, surviving. As these people advanced and relearned technology, they naturally kept there faith.
Also my Karl Proseks not Diabolic evil, but Scrupulous good, he is still a scholar, as well as a man of faith. The cause for the human supremest movement in the CS of my rifts is due partially from religous reasons, as well as common sense. Non-humans and mages are generally evil in my campaign world. This has always been the norm in my game.

Ravenwing wrote:

RainOfSteel wrote:

Ravenwing wrote:"Ordanship".

Can you enlighten?

In my rifts game [...]

I was actually looking for a definition of "ordanship", never having seen the word before, and Google not returning any results for it.

I realize it might have been a typo, but I could not figure out any other word based on possible letter switches (I'm pretty bad at that type of word game).

RainOfSteel wrote:

Ravenwing wrote:

RainOfSteel wrote:

Ravenwing wrote:"Ordanship".

Can you enlighten?

In my rifts game [...]

I was actually looking for a definition of "ordanship", never having seen the word before, and Google not returning any results for it.

I realize it might have been a typo, but I could not figure out any other word based on possible letter switches (I'm pretty bad at that type of word game).

Oh
Sorry man, I can't spell,and half the time spellchecker on the boards, can't figure out what I'm trying to say.

Ravenwing,

Can you please tell me what "Ordanship" means, or what word you meant to write?

ok, my best spelling of it. Or-dane-ship. It means "meant by God"

Ravenwing wrote:ok, my best spelling of it. Or-dane-ship. It means "meant by God"

Thank you!

I think you were looking for "Divinely Ordained".

RainOfSteel wrote:

Ravenwing wrote:ok, my best spelling of it. Or-dane-ship. It means "meant by God"

Thank you!

I think you were looking for "Divinely Ordained".

lol, but see when I first wrote my post Ordained didn't sound right in the sentence, so I used ordainship.

I just spotted an excellent example of why some of us think the CS is very strongly and indiscriminately reactionary with the use of lethal force against anything, regardless of whether its identity has been established.

The reference is from p.114 of Rifts:Mercenaries, and the discussion of the AC-29 Air Castle Bomber.

R Ditto wrote:

Ninjabunny wrote:I think the Merc guide said something about the CS being able to shoot things down Miles outside their claimed territory?

Yeah, I know it is mentioned under the Air Castle Bomber description.
It says the CS will shoot down one if it comes within 100 miles of their airspace.
That's like shooting someone on the other side of town with a small howitzer because they have an ATV and you are afraid they are going to use it to tresspass on you property and tear up your front lawn with it...

RainOfSteel wrote:

Pepsi Jedi wrote:Not trying to defend the CS totally or anything, but they're not flying around all day long looking for helpless women and children to kill just for sh!ts and giggles.

[...]

But by and large the CS isn't a genocidal nature. It's more an attack of oppertunity sort. The Burbs, right out side the CS cities abound with DBees. If they were really that opposed to them they simply wouldn't allow the burbs to exist.

It's very likly more like cops rousting bums. And if the bum back talks or does anything, they shoot um.

There really is a giant incongruity in described CS behavior.

What you describe seems true, pre-Siege on Tolkeen. Only select groups of CS troops obliterate every non-human living thing in their path. Most simply treat non-humans with varying degrees of suspicion and prejudice, bullying, short-changing, theft, eviction, etc.

Post-Siege on Tolkeen, it's a different story, and what you describe goes by the wayside as the CS spends several years dramatically upping their own rhetoric to the point where the entire army (almost all the adult population of the Chi Town, if you believe the given numbers) is constantly whipped into a "kill all non-humans" on sight fervor. The civilian population will hardly receive much less in the way of propangadistic bombardment.

While I totally agree 100% that the incidence of "shoot first don't question later" Has risen with the war on tolkeen and the Sorcerers revenge, and... there is no doubt you are 100% right on that.

Each, and every book of ther Tolkeen series goes out of it's way to tell you straight up, in pure black and white, while this behavior is on the upswing, it is in no way universal. That there are always "good" people out there that will look the other way from the cute litl Fingertooth carpet bagger kid in the celler and tell their sergeant there's nothing there. There's a troop that will "Accidentally leave a MRE at a camp sight to be found by a Larmac woman he saw sulking in the shadows. Ect ect ect"

You're totally right that during the war and for a time after, the bloodthirstiness of the war and the Sorcerer's revenge will up the incidence of this behavior. I also see it petering off once the war's done. The front line war troops are rotated home. (( The sergent and his squad are a good example of this from the "Letters home" Sections of the Tolkeen books)) and new fresh faced recently trained recruits will rotate out.

While the incidences will be increased during and for a good while after the war, they will reduce back down.

I wonder if such a thing might be the focus of that new Lyboc splat book we'll be getting sometime around 2010 *Grins*

dark brandon wrote:

5: The CS is more or less by a facist regime.

They are. They are human supremisists, as it should be.

Racism -or rather speciesism in this case- does not necessarily go hand in hand with fascism. Dictators, aggressive nationalism, and all-around oppressive governments however...

Pepsi Jedi wrote:[...]

The front line war troops are rotated home [...] and new fresh faced recently trained recruits will rotate out.

Given the CS population and the given SoT casulaty figures, those fresh faced recruits will all be 12-17 years-old (or possibly younger).

<self-snip, I deleted a bunch here, no need to go off into that again at the moment />

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There isn't a lot of post-SoT material available (I include Aftermath in the SoT material) to make determinations on whether or not CS behavior gets worse or better.

You did read the read the section in Rifts: MercTown, where the intel briefing is being given, and the CS has pretty much already decided that it will wipe out MercTown if they are unable to convert it or any type of immediate threat to the CS is perceived? That doesn't sound "better", to me. The atmosphere meeting wasn't encouraging as far as I was concerned.

mattyj77 wrote:

Talavar wrote:I think it's pretty interesting that a lot of people are excusing the CS's Nazi-like actions "because they have reasons to act like that, and that the average CS citizen isn't evil."

Guess what: the average German citizen under the Nazis wasn't evil either! And the Nazis had reasons for what they were doing too.

Honestly, if the Coalition is humanity's best chance to survive in Rifts (I don't agree that it is), humans don't deserve to make it.

Ah, yes but the british and french are not fire breathing dragons and gibbering drool beasts that steal your children and set fire to your cat.

I don't know what Brits and Frenchmen you know, man, but in my neighborhood, that's exactly what they're like.