Coalition-saviors of humanity?

[KillWatch]

SO I have run into more people than I thought I would that defend the coalition and say they are just misunderstood.

However, I still note war against other humans, totalitarian state, misinformation propaganda, genocide and imperial aggressive expansion.

I kinda feel out of place being completely disheartened by the success of the coalition with them being the "best hope" for humanity despite magic and psychics and godly beings all of whom could do a lot to stabilize the rifts, fight off baddies, and rebuild a more sustainable and balanced world. but no, palladium chooses the xenophobic as the last best hope for humanity? Is this war with hades et al supposed to be a earth unifying event showing the coalition that they need help and finally bringing all the people and beings of earth together to fight this foe ala ww2?

I just can't play in a setting where the good guys are nazis and are being praised instead of razed.

Or am I missing something...

[Nightmask]

You're not, the CS is not the good guys and have never been the good guys and other nations like the New German Republic have done far more as the good guys to protect everyone human and not than the CS ever did to help any human. The CS exists as the evil empire like Atlantis with the Splugorth or the Vampire kingdoms as an example of the evil that resides in all races including humans to show how easily one can slide into evil for ostensibly good reasons, engaging in acts of genocide that make the most evil of demons envious and take notes.

[Mack]

Neither, and both.

The CS is intended to be gray, not black or white. Depending on which passage we focus on we come away with different opinions.

[Blue_Lion]

Personally I think they may have originally been one way but are intended to be more in the grey now.

[Pepsi Jedi]

You're not, the CS is not the good guys and have never been the good guys and other nations like the New German Republic have done far more as the good guys to protect everyone human and not than the CS ever did to help any human. The CS exists as the evil empire like Atlantis with the Splugorth or the Vampire kingdoms as an example of the evil that resides in all races including humans to show how easily one can slide into evil for ostensibly good reasons, engaging in acts of genocide that make the most evil of demons envious and take notes.

As has been pointed out, your statement just isn't true on the face of it. the NGR is only a few percent 'less dark gray' than the CS. They do allow some Dbees to work as cannon fodder for decades against supernatural foes for the possibility of living as second class citizens if they some how make it through their terms of service against said supernatural MDC enemies.

They do allow 'reading' in the NGR, but with how silly not having it in the CS is if you look at it, that's not a complete bump.

Past that the NGR is just as bad as the CS. It's just flavored different. Instead of an 'openly hostile' face put on by the NGR they put on a passivly hostile face. Any Dbee could only be at the very best a second class citizen (The one toiken rhyu man, being the exception that proves the rule). And most of their Dbees are 'Relocated out side the NGR's boarders. Which sounds alot better than it actually -is-.

When you understand the NGR is and has been under seige by supernatural evil forces for decades on end, any 'relocation out side of NGR protection/borders is basicly throwing them into the mouth's of the Gargoyles and the Gargoyle empire.... quite literly... When the NGR relocates Dbees out... they're rining the bell for he (sub) Demons to come get snacks.

The NGR -IS- The CS with different press corps. lol that's what's ironic about it. That you take and spin just a few minor things and some people make the mistake of thinking the NGR as angels and the CS as devils. It's funny as they're just slightly different reflections of one another. Not polar oppisites. Just two different flavors of the same. It's why they're such willing and staunch allies. You don't see the NGR demanding the CS change their views. Why? Cuz they don't care. the CS don't demand the NGR change thiers because... they can look past the polish on the surface and go "Oh well they throw their Dbees out and feed them to the surrounding gargoyles."

[Pepsi Jedi]

SO I have run into more people than I thought I would that defend the coalition and say they are just misunderstood.

However, I still note war against other humans, totalitarian state, misinformation propaganda, genocide and imperial aggressive expansion.

I kinda feel out of place being completely disheartened by the success of the coalition with them being the "best hope" for humanity despite magic and psychics and godly beings all of whom could do a lot to stabilize the rifts, fight off baddies, and rebuild a more sustainable and balanced world. but no, palladium chooses the xenophobic as the last best hope for humanity? Is this war with hades et al supposed to be a earth unifying event showing the coalition that they need help and finally bringing all the people and beings of earth together to fight this foe ala ww2?

I just can't play in a setting where the good guys are nazis and are being praised instead of razed.

Or am I missing something...

What you're missing is the "point of view" from the people with in the CS. You're looking down from above in a Meta sort of capacity. You can read all the books, know all the 'facts' and 'reality' of situations, that the people 'in' the situations don't have.

Imagine the world in which the CS exists.

Humanity was tromping along. having a grand ol time in the 'Golden Age of Science" people were living 150.. 200 years, science had eradicated most if not all disease, and sickness. We'd mastered the genome. We had mastered technology. Then BOOM out of left field the world goes totally haywire. Natural disasters on the scale that have never before been imagined happen. Not in once place but all places. All at once. Mile high tidle waves. 1000s of tornadoes, earth quakes, all happening at once all across the globe. Billions dieing and their death's just fuel the chaos that's happening. While all this is happening all communication goes down. Power goes out. That golden age of Tech which humanity survived with, dissapeared in minutes. The ones that didn't some how die in natural disasters all over the globe are plunged into an age of darkness.

As if that wasn't bad enough, literal holes int he fabric of reality open. Demons, devils and every manner of alien ever dreamed and 1000s more that had never been dreamed poured out. They rip and rend their way through humanity, what little was left of it, with out even slowing down. Humanity's defenders ae few and far between. If you some how survived the first days of this ungodly onslaught you still had to exist in the world gone mad. The cities were razed, the world forever changed. No power sources. You're back to middle age technology for the most part. if that. With a flash light here or there. Till the batteries ran out.

You could be sitting around a camp fire, with 4 other survivors, and a scraggly looking cat walk up. Your wife died in a earth quake. your daughter died when she stepped on a nail and got an infection, one you couldn't cure because there's no medicine. No doctors. You're with 4 other survivors same as you and you're slowly starving to death because.. no food. No stores. and as you grew up in a golden age of technology, you don't know how to make food for yourself or really hunt. even if you did, all the animals are suffering through the natural disasters too... so you're sitting there and the scraggly cat walks up. Bitter from your wife dieing. from your daughter dieing from what a $5 shot of pennacillin could have cured.. you kick the cat out of frustration....

And you break your foot. What?? Suddenly the cat reveals it's true shape. A great horned dragon 60 feet tall. It was thinking about helping you poor humans till you kicked it. So it reaches down and picks up two of your 4 friends and bites off both their heads. then spits them at you. Ptew! ptew! Crack crack! you're hit with the severed skulls of their bodies. The dragon then breathes fire on one of the remaining. FHOOSH he's uip in flames. Then he casually tosses the headless bodies at you, and you're pinned under their twitching corpses. he makes you watch as he grabs the last woman in your little survivor group.. and pulls off her leg.... then her other leg.... then her arm.... then her other arm.... then as she's screaming in shock, casually walks away, munching on her torso. Why? because you kicked a cat.

You crawl out from under the bodies dazed.. your arm burnt as it was too close to some mega damage fire.... some how you manage to survive that encounter... but what now? you're in a world with no society.. no tech. no food. no shelter and some cat you kicked turned into a dragon and killed your friends casually and left you to suffer.... Maybe you stumble on some more survivors or maybe you die.

Now... that's pretty grim... now imagine that going on for THREE HUNDRED YEARS. Not 3 hours or 30 hours or 3 days or 30 days or 300 days, or 3 years, or 30 years... but 300 years. That and worse, happening all over the globe. Humanity doesn't know what these alien dimensional beings are. Just that they're inhuman monsters spawned from the rifts. They don't know what magic is, other than some unholy power wielded by the alien inhuman monsters from the rifts. They don't see supernatural things as 'cool' because they eat you, kidnap you, enslave you, rape you ,ill you or use you as tooth pics at their leisure.

Days pass. years. Decades. -Literal Generations pass- with humans being preyed on by supernatural and alien creatures not from our planet. Truly alien beings who's motivations are unknown. It's not like they speak English or choose to. It's not like you suddenly pick up Simvan. Those guys are cannibals riding monsters. You don't pall around with them.

This goes on, generation after generation after generation. Your kids, their kids and their kids kids suffer in this world.

Then.... the scraps of humanity start to pull together.... a nation of magic users is some what friendly at first.. but just when you're pulling together the magic nation turns on your small group of surviving humans and tries to wipe them out too. The humans rally and fight off the evil magic users. They suffer great losses but they push those treacherous evil magic users back. They almost wiped out what the rifts and all the natural disasters and 100s of years of dark ages didn't... so yes. you out law magic. You outlaw the DBees.

Why? because you can't tell a good DBee from a bad Dbee looking at them, and humanity has been preyed on by the DBees for literal 100s of years. TheCS forms. They reclaim technology. They form up around the overall principal is "This is Earth. It's ours and these aliens are invading and trying to kill us. United we'll stand against them"

It works. why? because it's actually true. They are humans the earth is theirs by birthright. There are countless aliens and supernaturals trying to kill them.

After a month... year.... 5 years... a decade... 2 decades... 10 decades... generation after generation of humanity being preyed on by the things that came from the rifts. Noone's going to take a chance and see if THAT Dbee is going to be chill. There's been 100s of years of them trying rape... kidnap... eat.... slaughter humanity for no reason we could ever understand. There's not going to be 'benifit of the doubt."

Sure.. "A" DBee might not be that bad, but who on earth would ever risk it? It's better and safer to treat them all as the dangerous invaders they -are-, and to protect your own. (Humanity)

That.. is where the CS is coming from. Yes, their methods are harsh. They're harsh because humanity was almost wiped out. It very nearly dissapeared. Yes their policies are extreme. But why? Why so harsh? Why so extreme? They didn't used to be. The CS used to have mages. They even tried to ally with the magic kingdom..... and the magic kingdom damn near wiped out humanity again for trusting them.

The CS is harsh because the world of Rifts earth is Harsh. They don't trust magic users because as a group, magic users tried to kill them and all of humanity (In their eyes) they don't trust DBees because DBees have been preying on humanity for literal generations.

People forget that, as they read the entire book. They see Lazlo described as peaceful magic users. Well that's great for them, but if you look at the above history, would you ever risk it? If so why? Why would you go against not only the upbringing you had, but your father, your father's father, his father and his father's experiences? if humanity had ---literally--- been preyed upon for --Three hundred-- years... would you risk going against what is known, to give these alien things a ---chance--- to destroy you and all you love and care for?

Don't forget, it's not like the CS has to 'make up' enemies. All these things actually happened, and still happen. Dbees, aliens, magical bandits still do prey on humans. The CS can record the results of these raids on outlying villages. They can record and show battles with dragons and Dragons ripping the heads off of dead boys. Everyone in the CS knows someone who died at the hands of a Dbee.. or a mage... or a supernatural creature.. If not your mom, or your dad, maybe your brother in the army, or your cousin, or the guy two doors down. Yes the CS has a propaganda machine (So does the US. lol)) But it's not like they have to make up the threat. It's very real.

Tolkeen's decent into evil, shows the citizens of the CS their mindset is not only valid, but 100% right. And when Tolkeen -decided- to go evil, they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the CS was 'right' in their convictions.

The CS don't have books about the rest of the world that show peaceful nations. They only know what they've seen, and they've only seen threat, death, destruction and devastation from non humans. Betrayal and attempts to eradicate humanity at every turn. Any mercy shown by the CS is re-payed, not by mercy but by death. So yeah, after a while after a few years, decades, generations of that, they've stopped walking into that punch like idiots.

Now we, as readers can read about lazlo, and don't see them as a threat, but the people in the CS, only know what they've experienced for generations. And for generation after generation it's been "Humanity Vs everything in the universe" and humanity was losing for the most part. Now they're slowly rebuilding. The entire CS is less than a third of the US now. They're still crawling up out of that nadir of darkness and having to fight for every inch of traction.

So yes, if you look at it from the CS side, they very much are heroes of humanity. But -only- humanity, as their efforts have been for humanity and not 'Rifts earth" but instead 'Human's Earth'. they don't have the luxury of caring about nice friendly Dbees, because that cat might suddenly become a dragon and eat your 4 friends and leave you with an arm burned off.

[KillWatch]

1) Man was a victim of man. Man caused the problems and I think one reason they don't want people to read is because they might learn the truth, that this is really all their fault.

2) The germans loved hitler because he was vilifying "the other" - mentally retarded, gays and most importantly dirty greedy jews. They were the reason germany was failing, not the germans, not forces outside their control. Which mirrors humanity is the coalition. Yes the world is a scary place now, and to keep the coalition in control is to keep the fear going, keep them ignorant. Yes there are good humans out there but why risk it?

3) As the books point out many of the DBs are here against their will, or escaping some other terrible place that is, some how, in some really hellish way, worse than rifts earth where the native people are trying to kill you before they even ask your name. This itself is mirroring mexican immigration to the US, human trafficking, and the asylum seekers in europe.

4) I understand the human perspective, and its terribly ignorant, and happy to be there. Magic is something we don't understand EVIL although it could help us with all sorts of things like disease, protection, detection, and hell, even sending the unwanted DBs away. A TW scanner that can see aura would do wonders for calming nerves. Something that has always been a part of human history and persecuted. Again aligning humanity with the lowest common denominator, moving from nazis to the inquisition or the colonial witch trials. Ok so this is something you have to learn and master, but then psychics and mutants are evil, again, somehow not human. Technology is the only way for humans to be human, which, ironically, is exactly how they got to where the world is now. but let's keep the world ignorant of benefits of the things we don't like and play up the benefits of the things we approve of, no objectivity whatsoever. Kinda like the war on drugs.

5) The perspective that humans have that the coalition is all good, is a selfish one, alignment wise. They are grateful for the protection and as long as they get their, food, shelter, water, tech toys, etc and are not affronted by the "undesirables". They don't want to know, they don't want to look too deeply into issues because they are safe, and they see their soldiers doing what needs to be done to keep them safe. And here you can draw your own parallels. People of good alignments wouldn't cast the grand dispersions. Yes some DBs are bad and if 3 out of 3 splugorth try to eat you, maybe you can make an informed decision, but every thing? everywhere? and again, draw your own parallels

6) Your dragon analogy is a poor one. either the dragon had severe emotional issues or was retarded. A clumsy human trips over it and its reaction, despite its original intention to help the lowly humans is to destroy them, for not even causing any damage,....? That was an evil dragon looking for an excuse...

7) foot infection - gee if only humans went back to tribalism, hebalism and shamanism and found tech alternative ways of healing,....

and that not grim that god aweful game and a series of events that defy any kind of reason

9) Out law magic? how about outlawing technology that got you there in the first place, and magic puts power in the hands of the people, something you can learn and don't need a warehouse of tools to do something useful

10) Humanity is preyed upon by DBs - sure, just like they have for thousands of years by jaguars, wolves and lions. But somehow not all animals are "evil and we even learned to live with them in many ways. And in the last 200 years, there really really should have been plenty of positive interactions, even emissaries who want to help heal the planet, civilization and learn how to be at peace with one another. But instead we have the south park perspective ITS COMIN RIGHT AT US. The more you look at it the more it just rings so terribly forced and false.

And if you are right that even Northern Gun isn't so lilly white then there is no hope for the planet. there is no hero, there is no good guys, and it makes me root for the demons, because its so much better to be directly evil and subtly. at least you know where you stand. YOu got vampires to the south, Demons in the east, splugorth in the atlantic and the coalition in the US. There is no place of good, or sanity. just evil pricks trying to grab as much as they can as possible. and with the forced plot every other book, the actions of my players have NO consequence. Pepsi - I thought I didn't like it before. You have made me hate it

[Tor]

I have run into more people than I thought I would that defend the coalition and say they are just misunderstood.

Everyone or everything that is misunderstood is always other things in addition to that.

I still note war against other humans

What's the problem? Evil humans exist and endanger other humans, summon demons and stuff. A bunch of them invaded Chi-Town. There is no inherent problem with warring against humans, sometimes doing so it necessary to save humanity. These humans endanger their own species and strengthen others.

totalitarian state

Humans are fragile, freedoms are restricted for their protection.

misinformation propaganda

Please give examples of what you mean, I can't remember anything.

genocide

Certain groups are a danger and threaten humanity and need to be wiped out, what's the problem? I'd commit genocide against dangerous viruses if I could.

imperial aggressive expansion

Example? Much of CS exansion is towns petitioning to join for shared protection, who are you talking about?

I kinda feel out of place being completely disheartened by the success of the coalition with them being the "best hope" for humanity despite magic and psychics and godly beings all of whom could do a lot to stabilize the rifts, fight off baddies, and rebuild a more sustainable and balanced world.

The nice mages and psychics are doing their part, but their approach relies upon strengthening their own personal power rather than empowering their fellow man. While they learn to cast a stronger lightning bolt, a non-mage human is building a factory to equip his people with robots to protect them.

Those godly beings want worship, they put themselves first, too afraid to expose themselves in a battle to save humans lest their rivals strike them down. Would they even save a human who refused to kneel to them?

palladium chooses the xenophobic as the last best hope for humanity? Is this war with hades et al supposed to be a earth unifying event showing the coalition that they need help and finally bringing all the people and beings of earth together to fight this foe ala ww2?

To be clear: where does Palladium say the CS is the 'best' hope again?

I could possibly see strange alliances in this event leading the CS to be more like Cordoba/Columbia/Japan/NGR/Patagonia.

I just can't play in a setting where the good guys are nazis and are being praised instead of razed. Or am I missing something...

You are missing that the Coalition States are not nazis. Karl thought Hitler was insane. He saw some stuff in his regime worth emulating just like he did in a lot of conquerors like Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and some other guy. Doesn't mean he agreed with their philosophies.

the CS is not the good guys and have never been the good guys

I think there are millions of humans able to survive in North America who might disagree with you on that. Same with those townfolk saved from being enslaved by a Lorica Wraith by Dead Boys while Erin Tarn just stood around and watched.

other nations like the New German Republic have done far more as the good guys to protect everyone human and not

How exactly would you determine that? NGR has helped to stabilize Europe in the same way the Coalition has helped to stabilize North America, but I don't exactly know how to weigh who has done more, it's too complicated.

How did NGR help protect all the not-human guys by shoving them as border flesh-shields, again? How are they protecting the Gargoyles they're committing genocide against by nuking innocent eggs?

The CS exists as the evil empire like Atlantis with the Splugorth or the Vampire kingdom

Seriously? As a starting point, pretty sure eating humans and enslaving humans is illegal in the CS. How can you put them on par?

as an example of the evil that resides in all races including humans to show how easily one can slide into evil for ostensibly good reasons, engaging in acts of genocide that make the most evil of demons envious and take notes.

Everyone loves to leap on that word, even though the examples we found of it weren't all too impressive. I think there was the Bloody Campaign (vs FoM), the Slurmph, the ... gun-stealing things, and some rogues doing it in the Siege on Tolkeen without high command approval.

They do allow some Dbees to work as cannon fodder for decades against supernatural foes for the possibility of living as second class citizens if they some how make it through their terms of service against said supernatural MDC enemies.

I always took this as an indication of desperation. The CS seems a lot more secure so they can afford to let their bias shine. The NGR really needs boots on the ground and factory workers to keep the gargoyles back so they're willing to temporarily work with these things they'd otherwise kick out.

They do allow 'reading' in the NGR, but with how silly not having it in the CS is if you look at it, that's not a complete bump.

NGR hasn't had to deal with FoM-like entities and scroll-based terrorism and stuff. The CS has made North America so peaceful that enemies can just mass-produce dangerous books outside their borders, go in and strike, and run off to some safe haven. Europe is too dangerous for this, there's fewer places for scroll manufacture and fewer places for terrorists to flee. There's also less incentive for it: potential FoM-like enemies realize the danger of the Gargoyle Empire and view the NGR as the lesser evil and don't want to harm it.

If NGR won against the Gargs, you can bet pretty soon they'd be dealing with similar problems and may need similar literacy-restriction measures.

Any Dbee could only be at the very best a second class citizen (The one toiken rhyu man, being the exception that proves the rule).

Bleh, that expression. Rasheen doesn't prove anything except that exceptions exist to an overall trend of anti-D-Bee sentiment, the text itself describing D-Bee treatment is what proves rules.

They even tried to ally with the magic kingdom..... and the magic kingdom damn near wiped out humanity again for trusting them.

I wouldn't go THAT far. Wiped out Chi-Town, sure, but that's not the sum of humanity

we, as readers can read about lazlo, and don't see them as a threat

I wouldn't say that, they've already started genocide against one species (Xiticix), who knows where they'll stop? They haven't even gotten a world book, and not enough is told about them in Canada, so I'm still left guessing as to how nice they are.

I used to think Tolkeen was a lot nicer place too until the SoT series came out and I got a look at their leaders.

1) Man was a victim of man. Man caused the problems and I think one reason they don't want people to read is because they might learn the truth, that this is really all their fault.

You're clearly abusing meta-knowledge here, which is what PJ is talking about.

Even if you can read, that doesn't mean you know that humanity caused the Coming of the Rifts. It's possible that Erin Tarn might've made the claim somewhere (although I can't say for sure, anyone remember her doing that?) but even if she did, why believe her? Where's her proof?

Look at what the Nightlords did with "Dark Day". Look at what Dyval is plotting in "Armageddon Unlimited". Why wouldn't people think something like this happened, that otherworldly forces invaded, rather than saying "oh, we must've done this to ourselves!"

2) The germans loved hitler because he was vilifying "the other" - mentally retarded, gays and most importantly dirty greedy jews. They were the reason germany was failing, not the germans, not forces outside their control. Which mirrors humanity is the coalition. Yes the world is a scary place now, and to keep the coalition in control is to keep the fear going, keep them ignorant. Yes there are good humans out there but why risk it?

I have no idea what you're trying to argue here.

As bad as things were in 1920s Germany after WW1 and paying reparations, the problems that led up to the rise of Hitler, those problems are nothing compared to Chaos Earth. The only plus side might be possibly less of a food shortage as a result of demons coming and killing 90% of your community on a semi-annual basis.

3) As the books point out many of the DBs are here against their will, or escaping some other terrible place that is, some how, in some really hellish way, worse than rifts earth where the native people are trying to kill you before they even ask your name. This itself is mirroring mexican immigration to the US, human trafficking, and the asylum seekers in europe.

Also not seeing the point of mentioning this. The CS has no easy way of knowing who came against their will or who came seeking asylum. At present they just want a piece to themself, they haven't yet sought out D-Bees on every corner of the globe and wiped them out. They even let some live in their burbs, long as they don't present a threat and stay out of the way.

4) I understand the human perspective, and its terribly ignorant, and happy to be there.

There is no singular human perspective, and even if one reaches such conclusions about today's humanity, we should not extend them to the attitudes held by a post-Golden-Age society.

Magic is something we don't understand EVIL although it could help us with all sorts of things like disease, protection, detection, and hell, even sending the unwanted DBs away.

The CS explored these, but realized it was too hard to control and created too many risks. They allowed their mages a chance to go on their way peacefully.

Mages have plenty of other continents to go live on. The CS is even considering an alliance with a country full of Dwarven Techno-Wizards. The CS just wants a BIG buffer zone, which is entirely reasonable. They tried negotiating with nearby magic kingdoms before and got attacked as a result.

A TW scanner that can see aura would do wonders for calming nerves.

The CS has a Psi-Division to handle the aura-seeing without needing to rely on wizards to construct devices.

Rather than a minority of wizards to mass-produce possibly biased tech, they would rather have a larger group of psychics with individual testimonies.

aligning humanity with the lowest common denominator, moving from nazis to the inquisition or the colonial witch trials.

Lowest? Does that mean that enslaving humans and eating them (Atlantis, Vampire Kingdoms) is higher?

psychics and mutants are evil, again, somehow not human.

You are overlooking that the CS allows citizenship to Psi-Stalkers and other psychics. Reasonably not putting them in charge of the country and questioning their humanity isn't calling them evil. They do the same things with Psi-Hounds and those mutant mutts are beloved.

Technology is the only way for humans to be human, which, ironically, is exactly how they got to where the world is now.

Which we should expect the CS to be aware of because... ?

BTW: would Earth have ever been set up for this Cataclysm if not for the weird experiments that True Atlantean Stone Masters were up to centuries ago?

Isn't it a bit of a coincidence that the Coming of the Rifts happened at exactly the right time?

Who's to say it was entirely humanity's fault? Pantheons talks about evil death goddesses disguised as the wives of military commanders pulling strings on other planets, why not here?

5) The perspective that humans have that the coalition is all good, is a selfish one, alignment wise.

Who exactly is taking this "all good" stance. I think your opposition is of the more moderate "some good" or "lots of good" stance, not "all".

They are grateful for the protection and as long as they get their, food, shelter, water, tech toys, etc and are not affronted by the "undesirables". They don't want to know, they don't want to look too deeply into issues because they are safe, and they see their soldiers doing what needs to be done to keep them safe. And here you can draw your own parallels.

Indeed, I can draw it to modern society, where a lot of the time the majority of the population could care less about individual court cases or military skirmishes, except for a small group who bother to investigate and try to get others to care.

People of good alignments wouldn't cast the grand dispersions.

No? Anything in the alignments preventing racial profiling?

Yes some DBs are bad and if 3 out of 3 splugorth try to eat you, maybe you can make an informed decision, but every thing? everywhere? and again, draw your own parallels

Please be more specific about where you're going with this. The CS doesn't take extreme stances like 'every D-Bee wants to kill and eat you', they simply go on the side of caution, don't protect them, and don't punish a lot of acts against them.

6) Your dragon analogy is a poor one. either the dragon had severe emotional issues or was retarded. A clumsy human trips over it and its reaction, despite its original intention to help the lowly humans is to destroy them, for not even causing any damage,....? That was an evil dragon looking for an excuse...

You are misrepresenting the story, PJ wrote about the human intentionally kicking the kitten, not tripping over it.

7) foot infection - gee if only humans went back to tribalism, hebalism and shamanism and found tech alternative ways of healing,....

Which is oh so easy? Some of them did, but it was a rough road.

9) Out law magic? how about outlawing technology that got you there in the first place

Implying that the CS knows that it was a nuclear exchange and not an Alien Intelligence copulating with a Demon Lord which caused the Coming of the Rifts.

magic puts power in the hands of the people, something you can learn and don't need a warehouse of tools to do something useful

Power in the hands of the people who can use it. Many people are not intelligent enough, strong-willed enough, physically enduring enough, etc. to learn magic.

It also puts power in the hands of the people to summon a Deevil to invisibly slit their neighbours' throats.

10) Humanity is preyed upon by DBs - sure, just like they have for thousands of years by jaguars, wolves and lions. But somehow not all animals are "evil and we even learned to live with them in many ways.

Jaguars/Lions/Wolves are a simpler issue. It's not the same thing as Changelings taking your place and sleeping with your wife and throwing out your pickles.

And in the last 200 years, there really really should have been plenty of positive interactions, even emissaries who want to help heal the planet, civilization and learn how to be at peace with one another. But instead we have the south park perspective ITS COMIN RIGHT AT US. The more you look at it the more it just rings so terribly forced and false.

Diplomacy has been attempted, but egos got in the way. The CS is actually the biggest North American example of successful diplomacy. Look at all the states and towns and cities it has joined!

They gave it a shot with Great City, they invaded. Tolkeen attacked the CS over a dead diplomat (whatever caused that) so the CS neutralized that threat. Hopefully other magic kingdoms show better manners, and there could be hope for them. The "we built Anti-Monsters and have Techno-Wizardry" allies in South America clearly are acting properly and not being fighty-bitey like Dunscon/Creed were.

And if you are right that even Northern Gun isn't so lilly white then there is no hope for the planet. there is no hero, there is no good guys, and it makes me root for the demons, because its so much better to be directly evil and subtly.

What, no appeal to Psyscape? They're probably the 'most explicitly good' force on North America. Although not sure if they qualify since they partially live in another dimension. The 3rd eye thing also makes it hard to be subtle about intentions since you broadcast emotions. That's personally why I'm willing to sacrifice that double damage/range/duration for a super psi they offer.

vampires to the south, Demons in the east, splugorth in the atlantic and the coalition in the US. There is no place of good, or sanity. just evil pricks trying to grab as much as they can as possible.

Cept the CS isn't evil, the average citizen is good to selfish. They want to protect their childrens, it isn't just a bunch of cyber-docs and lawyers counting their money and cutting into people and going home to rape a hooker before turning in. It's farmers, masons, paramedics, etc.

[Pepsi Jedi]

1) Man was a victim of man. Man caused the problems and I think one reason they don't want people to read is because they might learn the truth, that this is really all their fault.

No. Noone on Rifts Earth know why the rifts came. The CS doesn't know and is just keeping it to themselves. They don't know. They 'do' know about the old American Empire but not the causation of the Rifts.

2) The germans loved hitler because he was vilifying "the other" - mentally retarded, gays and most importantly dirty greedy jews. They were the reason germany was failing, not the germans, not forces outside their control. Which mirrors humanity is the coalition. Yes the world is a scary place now, and to keep the coalition in control is to keep the fear going, keep them ignorant. Yes there are good humans out there but why risk it?

You might want to rephrase that... as written, it's not done in a hypothetical, but as if the reason you think Germans were failing were those reasons listed. Could get you warned or banned.

3) As the books point out many of the DBs are here against their will, or escaping some other terrible place that is, some how, in some really hellish way, worse than rifts earth where the native people are trying to kill you before they even ask your name. This itself is mirroring mexican immigration to the US, human trafficking, and the asylum seekers in europe.

But that doesn't change the fact, that they are still, alien invaders on humanity's planet, with out humanity's permission, and often attack and prey on humanity. They may not have asked to tresspass on our planet, but they're here just the same. Squatting.

4) I understand the human perspective, and its terribly ignorant,

Is it? Was anything that I pointed out in my post untrue? You're looking down from a gods eye view, top down. Not from their perspective.

and happy to be there. Magic is something we don't understand EVIL although it could help us with all sorts of things like disease, protection, detection, and hell, even sending the unwanted DBs away.

They tried that. The CS used to have mages. They tried to make friends with the Magic Kingdom, they were slaughtered and almost wiped out due to it. They fought back from the brink of the abyss and narrowly triumphed over the magic weilders that would see humanity destroyed.

You're acting like ..... walking into a yard with a pit bull and getting your leg and arm ripped off, but you fight it off and survive, you get a replacement arm and leg, but see the next yard with a different pit bull and go 'Oh, What's the worst that could happen? He could be nice!" and walk on in there. As if you didn't get your arm and leg ripped off and nearly died. Like you wouldn't care and would just try it again and again.

A TW scanner that can see aura would do wonders for calming nerves. Something that has always been a part of human history and persecuted. Again aligning humanity with the lowest common denominator, moving from nazis to the inquisition or the colonial witch trials.

Except in this case the fear isn't 'Imaginary' it isn't 'made up' it isn't 'hypothetical'

Humanity -was- almost destroyed. The aliens and Dbees, ARE from other planets and dimensions. They --have-- preyed on humanity for 300 years, and still do. The threat is real and very easy to prove. It's not speculation, that's hyped up with PR. (Though it IS hyped with PR, it doesn't have to be)

Ok so this is something you have to learn and master, but then psychics and mutants are evil, again, somehow not human.

The CS has tons of psychics. They have mutants too. Just on their terms. By their laws.

Technology is the only way for humans to be human, which, ironically, is exactly how they got to where the world is now. but let's keep the world ignorant of benefits of the things we don't like and play up the benefits of the things we approve of, no objectivity whatsoever. Kinda like the war on drugs.

..... but Drugs -are- bad for you, and thousands end up in the hospital or dead every year. lol.

5) The perspective that humans have that the coalition is all good, is a selfish one, alignment wise.]

Humanity, by and large is selfish alignment wise. Not really touching the black and white nature of the palladium alignment system, humans as a species, often are selfish in most all things. We 'can' act for the collective good, but seldom do so unless it's for the personal good too. If there's one thing you can almost universally count on, is that nature of humans. Can a single human step out of that 'norm' sure, but don't bet on it.

They are grateful for the protection and as long as they get their, food, shelter, water, tech toys, etc and are not affronted by the "undesirables".

Yes. Most people are. Look around the world now.

They don't want to know, they don't want to look too deeply into issues because they are safe, and they see their soldiers doing what needs to be done to keep them safe

Exactly. That's human nature.

And here you can draw your own parallels. People of good alignments wouldn't cast the grand dispersions. Yes some DBs are bad and if 3 out of 3 splugorth try to eat you, maybe you can make an informed decision, but every thing? everywhere? and again, draw your own parallels

How many people do you need to see eaten by different Dbees before you write them off as a whole? Reading the books we know this Dbee is nice, that one's evil, this one's medium, that one's ok. But Humanity as a whole, has been preyed upon by the bad ones for dozens of generations at this point.

How many dogs kill members of your family or town, before you just don't trust dogs? Big dogs, little dogs it doesn't matter? How many brothers and sisters do you see with their throats ripped out before you just see all dogs as a threat? That's humanity right now. Sure, some Dbees might be nice. in theory, but for countless generations the Dbees have slaughtered humanity.

Think of this... Humanity has suffered predation and death, by creatures from the rifts, for longer, in 112 PA (Time of the books) Than the US Has been a country, today in 2015. We became the US in 1776. That was 239 years ago. Humanity took 300+ years from the day the rifts happened to 'current' time frame in the books. That's alot of history to just put aside. Act like it didn't happen.
239 years ago, people were still plowing their fields with plows like they had in 1476... they'd just invented the indore stove, the industiral revolution was in it's infancy. The first manned flight wouldn't come for 127 years.

So in just that time, from 1776 to now. Think of how far we've come. Now add on another 60 years.. and that's how long humanity has been preyed upon since the coming of rifts. that's how long humanity has been conditioned not to trust and to fear Dbees and supernatural creatures.

6) Your dragon analogy is a poor one. either the dragon had severe emotional issues or was retarded.

No it's not. it's a Dragon. Mortals mean little to it. Someone kicked it, so it retalaliated in kind. If an ant bites you, do you gently pick it up and usher it away and put it down ever so gently and pet it softly on the head and allow it to go about it's day? No you squish it. If a mosqito bites you, do you let it drink it's fill? If a wasp stings you, do you just go "ouch' and let it fly away? No you sqush them.

Someone kicks a mega damage supernatural creature, then it squishes them. Or maybe the Dragon's evil. Just because it kills humanity doesn't mean it has severe emotional issues or is retarded. Any more than you're retarded for killing that mosquito.

A clumsy human trips over it and its reaction,

You should read closer. In no point did I ever say trip. I said the human purposefuly kicked it out of frustration over losing everything in his life. I mean.. not trying to nitpick but that wasn't even close.

despite its original intention to help the lowly humans is to destroy them, for not even causing any damage,....? That was an evil dragon looking for an excuse...

Or a moderate dragon that was affronted by mere mortal humans kicking it. It's an alien creature with an alien mindset. It may have been thinking of helping till the dumb human showed that humans are jerkfaces and deserved to die.

Just like the ant that steals your food at a picnick isn't evil. it's just hauling off food. If you goosh it, you're not some sort of sadist psycho. you're killing a pest. One that doesn't matter to you, or in the great scheme of things. There's millions and millions of ants. YOU are a human. You're so far above them it's not even funny.

You know.... Like a dragon is... over humans.

7) foot infection - gee if only humans went back to tribalism, hebalism and shamanism and found tech alternative ways of healing,....

Could you do it if your daughter stepped on the nail tomorrow? Would you instantly revert back to a tribal society? Do you know what herbs to use to stop the infection? Tetnis? Other blood born pathegons? Shamanisim? You could develop that in days?

No? *Shakes head* Didn't think so.

Not trying to be snippy but needing to know something doesn't mean you instantly know it. Even knowing things don't mean you can instantly use them or fix them. Even if you're a doctor, and you can diagnose..... an appendicitis, it doesn't mean you can perform field surgery with a rusty pocket knife and have the person live. Humanity was knocked down from the Golden age of science to near stone age tech in most places. Pretty much overnight.

How much do you really know how to do, right now, sitting behind your computer screen. Could you even plow a field? Do you know how to make a plow? how to plant? how to harvest? how to keep the plants alive between the two? When to do it in the spring and in the fall? how many times you can do so in the same field? how to rotate them? Sure you know in general concept but unless your a farmer you don't know how to actually DO it.

And chances are VERY HIGH you don't have the seeds to do it even if you know how.

Sure people have been tending fields since the middle ages and before, but you very very likely couldn't do it if you tried. You know how to put something in the microwave for 3 minutes on high and stir it up before you eat it. Or how to use processed food to make your dinner.

Yes, something as simple as stepping on a rusty nail, could --easily-- lead to death, when society collapses and there's no doctors and no pharmacies. An absessed tooth could kill you. Child birth is STILL a leading cause of death in women these days. Try doing it with out a hosptial. That number is going to sky rocket. People used to die of the Flu. (Still do really) Imagine all that where in society has failed and you're living in the woods.

Heck. Watch "Naked and afraid." for a few episodes. (Not the one where they allow the teams, the ones where there's just the two of them) Those people are "Survival experts" They're people that run survival schools andmake their living 'training' people how to live in the wild. When put to the test. Many of them end up tapping out before the 21 days is over. --experts-- tap out. Those that don't still lose 20...30... 40 pounds in under a month and are near hosptialization when they make it to the end, by the skin of their teeth. And that's just existing with out technology or support (They each get one item) For experts. That's with OUT monsters trying to eat them or earth quakes or tidal waves, or mutant rhino buffalo, or a literal TRex coming by to nibble on them.

and that not grim that god aweful game and a series of events that defy any kind of reason

Yes. that's exactly the point. It DOES defy any sort of reason and that's what humanity has to put up with for 300+ years. People fail to inturnalize that when they look at Rifts/The CS. That the earth WAS that horrifingly scary for 100s and 100s of years. That's the point.

9) Out law magic? how about outlawing technology that got you there in the first place,

Because noone knows what got them there in the first place. "you" know because you read the book. Noone on Rifts earth knows. Basicly you're using out of character information. lol.

and magic puts power in the hands of the people, something you can learn and don't need a warehouse of tools to do something useful

So? We've been over this. Magic nearly destroyed the humans on North America. It betrayed them and tried to wipe them out. Again we're back around to someone having multiple limbs ripped off by a dog, thinking the next dog he sees is going to be fine and petting it, instead of hating dogs forever for ripping off his arm and leg.

10) Humanity is preyed upon by DBs - sure, just like they have for thousands of years by jaguars, wolves and lions.

Right. How many of those do you see when you go to the 7-11 or Walmart? I'm betting not many. Why ? because we've killed them and chased them off and pushed them back and driven them almost to the point of extinction.

But somehow not all animals are "evil and we even learned to live with them in many ways.

lol No we haven't. Humanity has KILLED anything that has preyed on us. (And things that haven't, like wolves) From the start. You don't get jumped by a lion when you're walking to your car in the morning. You don't worry about mountain lion attacks when you're shopping at the mall. You don't fear wolf attack sitting in the park.

I live in the UP of MI. I live n a place where there -are- wolves. I don't fear those things. I know there's not been documented cases of a non sick wolf, killing a human in the lower 48. Ever. but every year, some wolves take out a cow up here and people lose their bloody MINDS. For weeks you'll hear them on the news. "THEY'LL GET YOUR KIDSAT THE BUS STOP!!! THEY'LL COME INTO YOUR HOMES NEXT!!!"

it's 2015 and I've heard that stuff this year. People lose their bloody MINDS when a wolf kills a cow, or eats a little yappy dog, someone tied up out side as a wolfy snack. They want to hunt them all and kill them all and Wolves don't hurt people.

Humans do not abide other predators. We hunt them down and destroy them when we can. Yes, some people are more enlightened in 2015, but NOT a majority. Most people would happily kill any predator with in 50 miles of their house to not have to worry about it.

Now... make those predators 1) thinking and 2) Truely, honestly aliens from another planet or dimension. lol

And in the last 200 years, there really really should have been plenty of positive interactions, even emissaries who want to help heal the planet, civilization and learn how to be at peace with one another.

I'm sure some have happened. But seldom on a large scale. *motions* Rifts earth doesn't have that many 'friendly' communities of such things. They exist, but they're few and far between. There's many many more evil nations of monsters and supernatural evil, then there are 'good' nations of dbees and supernaturals.

But instead we have the south park perspective ITS COMIN RIGHT AT US. The more you look at it the more it just rings so terribly forced and false.

lol No. Because despite what you say, most of them WERE Comin' right at us. You act like it's made up, but if you read the books it's not. That's how it happened. Sure this Dbee or that Dbee might be nice, but for the one or two nice ones, you'd get 20 that were mean, evil and eating your sister's face.

And if you are right that even Northern Gun isn't so lilly white then there is no hope for the planet.

I love northern gun, but they're 'not' 100% lily white. They're better than most. But due to their allies they still treat Dbees like 2nd hand citizens. 2nd hand citizens that they're willing to take their money.. but shhhh on the side, or out back of the store. Not where humans can see you.

Remember. NG was also the ones that pretty much got the CS to commit Genocide on the Naurni. As they were 'competition'. They had the CS kill off and chase off all the Naurani in the US. Because it was cutting into sales. lol. (Now it sounds a bit more horrible than it was. There was something like 20-40 of them total but it sounded alot bigger)

You may mean the NGR. which is the New German Republic, which I mentioned in the other post, and yes, the NGR is just "CS with better paint and less Skulls to scare people"

there is no hero, there is no good guys,

If you're HUMAN, the CS does a pretty good job. -For humans-.

If you're a Dbee... well you're on the wrong planet.

and it makes me root for the demons, because its so much better to be directly evil and subtly.

Evil is subjective for the most part. If you read in CWC, the average citizen of the CS is of good or selfish alignments. The LEADERship is pretty dark but the people are mostly good or selfish. Troops too.

at least you know where you stand. YOu got vampires to the south, Demons in the east, splugorth in the atlantic and the coalition in the US. There is no place of good, or sanity. just evil pricks trying to grab as much as they can as possible.

Well you've partially pointed out the CS's point.

"Vampires to the south. Something EVERYONE Agrees are Evil and must be destroyed before they take over the planet, enslave us for blood cattle or kill us all
To the north we have the Xits. Evil bugs (Well utterly alien bugs that might as well be evil) Spreading and tryng to engulf the planet. Killing with out mercy if they encounter other races. Another evil everyone can agree on, that will kill everything else if left unchecked.
To the east we have Atlantis. Run by the Sploogs. Evil, slavers and supernatural evils. Pretty much everyone agrees they're evil too.

The west is the only thing not fully surrounding the CS that has almost unstoppable evil about to wipe out humanity (and a goodly portion of the Demons and Devils areappearing in the mid west, from where tolkeen was.)

So yes.. Humanity is surrounded by or nearly surrounded by countless armies of millions and billiojns of MDC evil/supernatural beings. lol

You wonder why they have a hate on for them?

As for 'non pricks' There is Lazlo and to a some what lesser extent new Lazlo, but in the grand scheme of things they're smaller, and are easily dwarfed by the bigger scary things.

and with the forced plot every other book, the actions of my players have NO consequence. Pepsi - I thought I didn't like it before. You have made me hate it

There's very little forced plot in Palladium. In 25+ years of rifts the time line has only moved forward like 4 years time in game. 1 war with Tolkeen. Some events of the 4 horsemen, and now the minion war which we're in the middle of. Any of which you can ignore in your game if you choose to.

[Tags]

+facepalm+

The Coalition aren't "good guys" but they are saviors of humanity, and for a while they even allowed magic. But it's like being bitten by a dog, you get bitten and there is a good chance you'll be Leary around dogs the rest of you life. Though in this case the magic users are the dogs.

And frankly your suggestion that wolves actively hunt humans is insulting. Lions are likely to view humans as a food source, jaguar too... but cats are jag offs anyway.

Of course if you have such a hate on for the Coalition and dislike Palladium for for elevating them, why are you here.

[Fell]

Another way to look at it:
Just because a title says "Heroes of Humanity" doesn't mean they are. Keep them as Bad Guys in your game. The lines blur because the CS might work alongside some mages and DBees.

I like the CS. I like to use them as good guys and bad guys in my game.

Say:

World Book 36: Tolkeen's Return, Heroes of Humanity.

Warlord Fell and the Elder Dragons return to Tolkeen and route the CS out of their fallen City and rebuild a Nation of Mages and Dragons. Together the citizens of New Tolkeen take on the Demons of Hades and Dyval.

Warlord Fell desires to return the city of Tolkeen to its former glory and destroy the Demons and Deevils that plague humanity.

Calling upon all to band together and fight the common enemy those in Tolkeen are spearheading the campaign to free Earth.

Willing to work with CS troops Warlord Fell is a hero to all.

Does that sound better. Even though Fell employes Necromancers and sub demons in his attack on the Hell Pits of North America? Ultimately Warlord Fell will turn his hatred towards the Coalition after he becomes a hero for attacking the demons.

Just because the title says Hero of Humanity doesn't mean he is.

Is the CS being glorified unjustly, sure, they took the reigns and stated hey, look at us, we call on everyone to join together. Any other nation or force could have said that too.

Play it how you want to. Have your Player Characters join the CS in fights but be wary of their true intentions. Just have fun with it.

[drewkitty ~..~]

As a Whole the CS are human Supremacists. This is even while there are Nazis (who tend to be in charge) and heros (who tend to be on the front lines) within it.

[Killer Cyborg]

I just can't play in a setting where the good guys are nazis and are being praised instead of razed.

Or am I missing something...

There's a Harry Turtledove series of novels that deal with an alternate history where aliens invade the Earth in the middle of WWII, forcing the axis and the allies to unite with each other in order to survive.
For many readers, that premise--a setting/scenario where something even more dangerous than the Axis powers shows up, muddling our previous standards of Good and Evil--is one of the big draws of the series.

Rifts is pretty much the same way.

It's not that the CS are not as a nation Evil.
It's that Rifts is a somewhat gritty setting with levels of moral ambiguity well beyond "These are the Bad Guys, and these are the Good Guys."
Like the real world, politics and morality are far more complex than that.
For me, that's a plus. That's something that I look for in a game setting. For other people, that's apparently a drawback, although I don't know why.

If you're missing something, then I think it's that your poll should have an "All of the Above" selection, because that would be the most accurate.

In Kevin's own words (RUE 230):
Rifts and many of Palladium's games are filled with clear-cut villains. I love villains. I'm good at making them. And I too love the dispicable evildoer that everyone knows is bad to the core and must be stopped at all cost. However, with the Coalition States, I wanted something different. I wanted to show how the philosophy of might makes rigfht is not good or just. I wanted to show how one man and those who implement his dreams of power (i.e., the Emperor and the military and government leaders who carry out his agenda) can corrupt a nation. I wanted a human monster.
Rifts is supposed to offer limitless possibilities and cover every possibility. The CS is one of those possibilities. An adversary that is not black-and-white, but every shade of gray. A villain (and I do see the CS as villains) who can be rotten to the core or surprisingly heroic and compassionate, sometimes even to those that they are supposed to hate and destroy. A villain who has the promise of redemption and the potential for true greatness. If you think about it, the CS reflects our own duality and capacity for good and evil. They reflect the worst and best humans have to offer, and the promise of greatness so often left unrealized.

[Killer Cyborg]

Out law magic? how about outlawing technology that got you there in the first place, and magic puts power in the hands of the people, something you can learn and don't need a warehouse of tools to do something useful

That's what makes magic a threat, not just to governments and existing power structures, but to the entire planet.

Remember, the Mechanoids got to Rifts Earth because a single Shifter wanted to demonstrate how opening a random rift works.
One mage wanted to do what he considered a rather simple magical task, and the entire planet (well... solar system, really. Or galaxy. Or more than that) was put into significant jeopardy as a result.

I'm not saying that I'd outlaw magic entirely if I was a government on Rifts Earth.... but I can certainly see reasons for that kind of ban.

[Tags]

The new Coalition book may label the Coalition as humanities best hope... : / Though I fail to see why that's so bad. And while I'd hate to suggest Killwatch is right, the Coalition can be expansionist, they did invade a town in Texas to build a naval base, and there was GAW. However why this would make them so evil I have no idea. By KillWatchs logic every empire ever formed is evil including the U.S. Guess that makes us all evil.

[Wooly]

The problem with calling the CS Nazis is that the enemies of the Nazi regime were largely contrived. The enemies of the CS were calling the shots for 300+ years and had pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.

The policies of the CS are a very human and reasonable response to centuries of being hunted and eaten by the supernatural.

Damning the CS as inexcusable villians is the worst sort of meta gaming and oversimplification of a lengthly and complex backstory.

[Shark_Force]

the NGR is pretty different from the CS.

first off, expelling d-bees is very clearly not a death sentence, otherwise they'd have to do it once, and then after that there likely wouldn't be enough d-bees to make a settlement outside of their borders. it obviously isn't as good living outside the NGR as it would be in the NGR (otherwise those d-bees would not be trying to move in), but it is also very obviously not guaranteed instant death at the hands of the gargoyles or brodkil.

secondly, the way they treat their own citizens is vastly different. they don't rely on keeping people uneducated so they're easier to manipulate, they don't (so far as we know) attribute crimes to whoever is most convenient for that crime to have been committed by, they don't deny their citizens access to equipment they can use to defend themselves (in fact, the NGR, in spite of having a major tie-in with the triax corporation, has outlawed no other company from trading within their boundaries so far as i'm aware... the CS has outlawed one and invaded another, as a bare minimum).

thirdly, their attitude towards other communities that they don't approve of seems to be far more "live and let live" where possible. the NGR has never invaded england for being too magical, and iirc even has official trade set up with them, for example. the NGR are in a war with the gargoyles and brodkil which they did not start, and while their actions have not all been particularly noble within that war (including slaughtering a number of d-bees that got caught in the middle, for example), they are not at war to conquer other lands and expand their territory at the expense of others... they are at war to protect their own lives. they've certainly done some unadmirable things in the process of defending themselves, but their motivation is survival, not greed, and that makes a huge difference. if a person steals a loaf of bread because they're starving to death, that is not the same as stealing someone's wallet so you can afford a big-screen TV.



and as i've said elsewhere: the CS may be a very human sort of evil, one which i can understand and even relate to on some level. i don't know that i'd recognize what they were doing if i did not have the advantage of a bird's-eye view, so to speak. but that doesn't make them not evil (taken as a whole... i certainly would expect a number of people who are at least selfish, if not outright good, to be within the organization). it just makes them understandable.

[Pepsi Jedi]

the NGR is pretty different from the CS.

first off, expelling d-bees is very clearly not a death sentence, otherwise they'd have to do it once, and then after that there likely wouldn't be enough d-bees to make a settlement outside of their borders. it obviously isn't as good living outside the NGR as it would be in the NGR (otherwise those d-bees would not be trying to move in), but it is also very obviously not guaranteed instant death at the hands of the gargoyles or brodkil.

Wait wait wait..... So you're saying that the NGR military. Showing up and forcing the Dbees on their own Trail of Tears, marching them out of the safe and protected borders of the NGR. Which has existed under literal supernatural siege by armies of demons for years and years... isn't a death sentence? Your defense is "once they did it once they'd be done". You do realize you don't find all the (pardon the double indenture here) Illegal aliens at one time. That if you find a village here and march them out to be eaten by the gargoyles, that you might find a second village a week later and have to march them out, and a third village two weeks after that.. and oops... there was a rift and 300 more aliens arrived on Tuesday, well they can't stay here. March um to the border. Wednesday might see three rifts occur and 738 new Dbees show up. Then it's the weekend. Whoo. Many rifts on theweekend. you know shifters get busy. So now there's 7,377 Dbees over in that Provence(State? County? whatever) that need to be expelled.... etc etc etc

What's at the border? LITERAL ARMIES OF 1000s of giant flesh/people eating demons! Oh... they'll be finnnnnne. Suuuuure they will. That's why the nation is repeatedly mentioned to be surrounded and under seige by those evil armies of demons.

Yes, Expelling the Dbees from the NGR is throwing them to their deaths at the hands of the Gargoyles and Brodkil. Gargoyles and Brodkil, not being known for their accepting and benevelent behavior on the whole, and their murderous and dastardly demon behavior instead.

secondly, the way they treat their own citizens is vastly different. they don't rely on keeping people uneducated so they're easier to manipulate,

So? PR is PR. Manipulation is manipulation. All governments manipulate their people to some extent. And that's with out even touching the impossibiltiy of the CS illiterate thing. (which is silly on it's face) Yes, the NGR is a touch better in that it lets it's people read, but that doesn't change their overall outlook on things. Their behavior remains what it is.

they don't (so far as we know) attribute crimes to whoever is most convenient for that crime to have been committed by,

Nor do the CS. There's very little written about the criminal/legal system of the CS. The Dogboys are about as close as you get and the ISS but those are thecops. not the actual legal system and all.

they don't deny their citizens access to equipment they can use to defend themselves (in fact, the NGR, in spite of having a major tie-in with the triax corporation, has outlawed no other company from trading within their boundaries so far as i'm aware... the CS has outlawed one and invaded another, as a bare minimum).

Pretty sure you're wrong there. I don't have the book open but I think it's illegal for people in the NGR to have the armored cars or guns or something. *shrugs* But I'm not 100% sure on that. But when you're talking about the CS, yeah they outlawed the Naurani. They were inter-dimensional alien armes dealers distributing high powered, even higher than military grade, MDC weaponry to all and Sundry. That's not the CS being crazy putting the kabosh on that. That's a dangerous thing. The CS works with NG (Who got them to take out the naurlni) NG stuff is legal under the normal restrictions of the law. Wilks weaponry is now not allowed, but again it's not like it's insane. The US government allows it's people to have a mind numbing number of guns, but even they have limits. You can't get a mini gun with out special licenses that cost a fortune and tons and tons and tons of paperwork. The MD weapons are strong enough to take out a(current day) battle tank with one shot. That's some big stuff. Of course a government is going to have rules about it.

thirdly, their attitude towards other communities that they don't approve of seems to be far more "live and let live" where possible.

Not really. the NGR isn't expressionistic not due to lack of will, but lack of ability. They're under siege by armies of supernatural demons. If the gargoyles wern't there, they'd be expanding same as the CS. They're buddies with the CS. Currently they just 'can't'.... due to those armies of demons haulting the outward push.

the NGR has never invaded england for being too magical, and iirc even has official trade set up with them, for example. the NGR are in a war with the gargoyles and brodkil which they did not start, and while their actions have not all been particularly noble within that war (including slaughtering a number of d-bees that got caught in the middle, for example), they are not at war to conquer other lands and expand their territory at the expense of others... they are at war to protect their own lives. they've certainly done some unadmirable things in the process of defending themselves, but their motivation is survival, not greed, and that makes a huge difference. if a person steals a loaf of bread because they're starving to death, that is not the same as stealing someone's wallet so you can afford a big-screen TV.

And here's the thing.... the NGR don't expand.... because of the Gargoyles. It's another example of them being a mirror of the CS. The CS do expand (A bit) because they can. the NGR is just like the CS but can't expand. So the NGR are paraded as heroes, while the CS are painted as villians. They're the same though, just different ciumstance. if the CS couldn't expand because foes circled them that tightly (They are surrounded but much more loosely) Then it wouldn't suddenly make the CS saints. The NGR would expand if it could (has sort of in the newer book if memory serves. They broke out to the west a bit)

They accepted tens of thousands of CS troops to help in their war. It's not like they're all 'Oh.. the CS.. those guys are nuts.. No.. we can't stoop to their level" They were like 'help killing demons? SURE MAN!! COME ON OVER!!"

Can't blame them. They're fighting literal demons, but it's not like they're disgusted by the CS. The main differences between the CS and the NGR is one dresses in black with a skull motif, and one is in white(Gray) with a futureistic cyclops type friendly looking helmet.

and as i've said elsewhere: the CS may be a very human sort of evil, one which i can understand and even relate to on some level. i don't know that i'd recognize what they were doing if i did not have the advantage of a bird's-eye view, so to speak. but that doesn't make them not evil (taken as a whole... i certainly would expect a number of people who are at least selfish, if not outright good, to be within the organization). it just makes them understandable.

*nods* It does depend on your point of view.

looking down from the birds eye, it's easy to say 'man they're REALLY harsh about the Dbees and mages. That's just not right' but on the ground, as you said it's totally understandable, and seeing a nation that has suffered like the CS has, and NOT turn out that way would be weird. We'd be complaining about how they suffered all those things but ignored them and how it's not realistic to human behavior.

I mean look at what happened when terrorists killed about 3000 americans. The reaction from that is still going on over a decade later. Multiple wars. The humans of rifts earth lost billions and billions and billions of people and their entire way of life for three centuries. That's a big thing.

[ShadowLogan]

The problem with calling the CS Nazis is that the enemies of the Nazi regime were largely contrived. The enemies of the CS were calling the shots for 300+ years and had pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.

The policies of the CS are a very human and reasonable response to centuries of being hunted and eaten by the supernatural.

Damning the CS as inexcusable villians is the worst sort of meta gaming and oversimplification of a lengthly and complex backstory.

Calling the CS "Nazis" is appropriate though since the CS is borrowing from Hilter's playbook.

According to Rifts Main Book pg191-3/RUE pg229, Tarn sees distinct similarities to the Prosek Regime and the Hilter Regime in the 20th Century. We also know that Prosek is quite aware of Hilter having written an essay on him that Tarn quotes from.

According to Rifts CWC pg36 "Emperor Prosek makes it no secret among his elite, that he has found many of the practices, approaches and world views of the 20th Century Dictator, Adolf Hilter, to be insightful and brilliant. As a result, the Emperor has adopted many of Hitler's methods and practices, particularly the manipulation of the people through a powerful sense of unity, patriotism, purpose and power. Like Hilter, he uses war as a vehicle to unite and motivate his people.... Prosek has found and borrowed a number of things from the German Chancellor....

The CS also manufactures enemies (Rifts SB1o pg21): "Whatever motives need to be concocted to declare war on neighbouring territories will be artfully designed to appear as true and noble as possible....this may include seizing a town for the alleged purpose of their own security/protection, or staging an assassination or full scale battle to eliminate enemy spies, sympathizers, terrorists, men of magic and non-humans. "

Yeah the CS as an entity is quite certainly the bad guys here. Humanity though is ultimately responsible for pushing itself to the brink of extinction on Earth given its own actions contributed to the coming of the Rifts and the dark age.

[eliakon]

Answer:
Based on your initial moral presumptions, and based on which parts of which books you choose to weight over other books the CS (and virtually every organization/group/race in the game) can either be the vilest evil, the noblest of good or some place in-between. It is really hard to 'prove' that one group is one way or the other. Especially since once you start talking about groups you get into generalizations about who is in that group (all Members are Such and Such is a generalization that can, and is often argued).

This also runs into arguments on what sort of morality we want to use as the definition. There are many different schools of thought on what is good, and what is moral. And of course since different people ascribe to different views then they will come to different conclusions based on the same data.

Another huge issue that is hard to separate out is that this is not an abstract debate. Many (I would hazard to guess most) of the people involved here have been in games with the CS. This means that they have personal experiences on how the CS 'works'....experiences that are not canon per se, but it is hard to separate out which parts are canon and which are not. It is like how talking to a room full of 100 people, each of whom has had some sort of encounter with the job marked. Some of them will have differencing views on "is there institutional racism in the job marked"....based on their personal experiences. And it is really hard to tell the person who has been discriminated against that there is no real problem, that its only a small percentage of people that do that.....when they have been one of that small percent. Just the same, if your gaming experiences have been ones where the nobility and tragedy of the CS are played up then you will have less sympathy for the view that they are evil. Conversely a person whose gaming experiences have been ones that emphasized the cruelty and depravity of the CS is going to no believe that they are good. Both of them have personal experiences with the CS coloring their view.....personal experiences that have valid book support by the way.

[Kagashi]

The CS as an entity is an evil, human supremacist society filled with racism and run with a totalitarian style dictatorship. However, individuals whom serve within the CS may or may not be themselves evil. They may believe the hype and brainwashing the higher ups do, but they themselves may even be of good alignment. A good natured person can be lied to, told that magic is evil, and all dbees are marauding aliens hell bent on destruction of the human race and to occupy Earth.

Some people may be simply victims of society and are trying to have their basic needs met. They need food, clothing, and a roof over their heads, and are providing for themselves and families. Sometimes that means obeying orders and doing things that go against their conscious. To do otherwise means risking not getting citizenship and throwing their families back into the demon infested wilderness. No different than many of the Germans whom served with the Nazis in WWII. They needed jobs, food, and money, and the Nazi party provided it after the Great Depression.

Many Germans in WWII wore the swastika on their uniform, but were not themselves Nazis. They were lied to and had the truth bent so it seemed believable. For example, many Germans on the Eastern Front gave up their rations to Russian civilians thinking they were doing good deeds, when the leadership had fully intended on letting them all starve.

Thats not to say that there were not some who truly believed in the Nazi tag line, blaming Jews for the worlds problems. Plenty of those guys served too. I suspect the CS are in the same boat.

For sure CS leadership is evil. The higher up the ranks you get, the more evil and corrupt you have to be. Im sure good aligned officers never seem to get promoted past Captain or assigned risky missions to weed them out...in the name of saving the human race of course.

[Nightmask]

The new Coalition book may label the Coalition as humanities best hope... : / Though I fail to see why that's so bad. And while I'd hate to suggest Killwatch is right, the Coalition can be expansionist, they did invade a town in Texas to build a naval base, and there was GAW. However why this would make them so evil I have no idea. By KillWatchs logic every empire ever formed is evil including the U.S. Guess that makes us all evil.

They aren't humanity's best hope, and it's bad because the last thing you want representing your race being those who actively encourage and engage in acts of atrocity and genocide towards others because they aren't human and no other reason. Do you really think people who will and have killed babies in their cribs because they weren't human should even remotely be considered what you want representing you and presented as shining examples of your race?

EDIT:

I shouldn't also have to point out that the CS's behavior is pretty much indistinguishable from the behavior of your average demonic race and if you're 'saviors' behave like that you don't really have any room to complain when other races/groups want to kill you since you're demonstrably as much a villainous threat as said demons. You lay with dogs you get fleas, you back mass murder and genocide you lose any freedom to complain about everyone wanting to kill you because you've already declared you're fine with your representatives killing them even when they're peaceful and doing nothing to threaten you.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The problem with calling the CS Nazis is that the enemies of the Nazi regime were largely contrived. The enemies of the CS were calling the shots for 300+ years and had pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.

The policies of the CS are a very human and reasonable response to centuries of being hunted and eaten by the supernatural.

Damning the CS as inexcusable villians is the worst sort of meta gaming and oversimplification of a lengthly and complex backstory.

Calling the CS "Nazis" is appropriate though since the CS is borrowing from Hilter's playbook.

According to Rifts Main Book pg191-3/RUE pg229, Tarn sees distinct similarities to the Prosek Regime and the Hilter Regime in the 20th Century. We also know that Prosek is quite aware of Hilter having written an essay on him that Tarn quotes from.

According to Rifts CWC pg36 "Emperor Prosek makes it no secret among his elite, that he has found many of the practices, approaches and world views of the 20th Century Dictator, Adolf Hilter, to be insightful and brilliant. As a result, the Emperor has adopted many of Hitler's methods and practices, particularly the manipulation of the people through a powerful sense of unity, patriotism, purpose and power. Like Hilter, he uses war as a vehicle to unite and motivate his people.... Prosek has found and borrowed a number of things from the German Chancellor....

The CS also manufactures enemies (Rifts SB1o pg21): "Whatever motives need to be concocted to declare war on neighbouring territories will be artfully designed to appear as true and noble as possible....this may include seizing a town for the alleged purpose of their own security/protection, or staging an assassination or full scale battle to eliminate enemy spies, sympathizers, terrorists, men of magic and non-humans. "

Yeah the CS as an entity is quite certainly the bad guys here. Humanity though is ultimately responsible for pushing itself to the brink of extinction on Earth given its own actions contributed to the coming of the Rifts and the dark age.

By this logic, isn't most every country based on Nazi's? They all use such things to their betterment, and use senses of unity, patriotism, purpose and power, etc. Likewise countries constantly manufacture enemies... I mean.. have you turned on the news?

[Pepsi Jedi]

The new Coalition book may label the Coalition as humanities best hope... : / Though I fail to see why that's so bad. And while I'd hate to suggest Killwatch is right, the Coalition can be expansionist, they did invade a town in Texas to build a naval base, and there was GAW. However why this would make them so evil I have no idea. By KillWatchs logic every empire ever formed is evil including the U.S. Guess that makes us all evil.

They aren't humanity's best hope, and it's bad because the last thing you want representing your race being those who actively encourage and engage in acts of atrocity and genocide towards others because they aren't human and no other reason. Do you really think people who will and have killed babies in their cribs because they weren't human should even remotely be considered what you want representing you and presented as shining examples of your race?

This is not genuine though as a comment. The CS don't kill people 'because they aren't human and no other reason'. I've written thousands of words pointing out the reason. The CS has reason. it has ___EXCELLENT___ Reason to kill non humans. 300 years of reason. Literal dozens of generations worth of Reason.

You only can get to 'no reason' if you blatently ignore that as if it didn't happen. Thus the post is false.

Secondly, and I could be wrong here but your appeal to emotion about "People who will and have killed babies in their cirbs" is calculated to jerk the emotional heartstrings. can you cite a source in canon where this was described?

I might be wrong but that seems beyond Palladiums normal 'PG' rating for their books and sounds like something you've manufactured for your purpose of making a point.

[Tags]

The new Coalition book may label the Coalition as humanities best hope... : / Though I fail to see why that's so bad. And while I'd hate to suggest Killwatch is right, the Coalition can be expansionist, they did invade a town in Texas to build a naval base, and there was GAW. However why this would make them so evil I have no idea. By KillWatchs logic every empire ever formed is evil including the U.S. Guess that makes us all evil.

They aren't humanity's best hope, and it's bad because the last thing you want representing your race being those who actively encourage and engage in acts of atrocity and genocide towards others because they aren't human and no other reason. Do you really think people who will and have killed babies in their cribs because they weren't human should even remotely be considered what you want representing you and presented as shining examples of your race?

This is not genuine though as a comment. The CS don't kill people 'because they aren't human and no other reason'. I've written thousands of words pointing out the reason. The o CS has reason. it has ___EXCELLENT___ Reason to kill non humans. 300 years of reason. Literal dozens of generations worth of Reason.

You only can get to 'no reason' if you blatently ignore that as if it didn't happen. Thus the post is false.

Secondly, and I could be wrong here but your appeal to emotion about "People who will and have killed babies in their cirbs" is calculated to jerk the emotional heartstrings. can you cite a source in canon where this was described?

I might be wrong but that seems beyond Palladiums normal 'PG' rating for their books and sounds like something you've manufactured for your purpose of making a point.

How many nations on Rifts Earth are actively fighting for humans, and of those how many have a well equipped standing army. By default they are humanities best hope.

Now by your logic, the activities of the leadership dictate the behavior or every citizen in the Coalition. If we take that to an real world perspective, what does that say about you, afteI'llr all look at everything our government has done. So do the sins of the government get passed on to us? Do you believe everything the government tells you? How can you just assume every Coalition citizen just swallows the cool-aid.

Never read anything about this baby killing you speak of, that doesn't even sound like something Palladium would write.

You seem to be very selective about which aspects of the Canon you choose to acknowledge and which parts you choose to ignore, fine for your personal games, but invalidates any argument you try to make. This is an all or nothing situation.

[Tags]

So far Pepsi Jedi is one of the few making valid points.

[eliakon]

The new Coalition book may label the Coalition as humanities best hope... : / Though I fail to see why that's so bad. And while I'd hate to suggest Killwatch is right, the Coalition can be expansionist, they did invade a town in Texas to build a naval base, and there was GAW. However why this would make them so evil I have no idea. By KillWatchs logic every empire ever formed is evil including the U.S. Guess that makes us all evil.

They aren't humanity's best hope, and it's bad because the last thing you want representing your race being those who actively encourage and engage in acts of atrocity and genocide towards others because they aren't human and no other reason. Do you really think people who will and have killed babies in their cribs because they weren't human should even remotely be considered what you want representing you and presented as shining examples of your race?

This is not genuine though as a comment. The CS don't kill people 'because they aren't human and no other reason'. I've written thousands of words pointing out the reason. The CS has reason. it has ___EXCELLENT___ Reason to kill non humans. 300 years of reason. Literal dozens of generations worth of Reason.

You only can get to 'no reason' if you blatently ignore that as if it didn't happen. Thus the post is false.

Secondly, and I could be wrong here but your appeal to emotion about "People who will and have killed babies in their cirbs" is calculated to jerk the emotional heartstrings. can you cite a source in canon where this was described?

I might be wrong but that seems beyond Palladiums normal 'PG' rating for their books and sounds like something you've manufactured for your purpose of making a point.

Actually the CS has one generation of a reason. And as has been pointed out many MANY times, that reason boils down to "we don't like X, and so we are going to make the (demonstrably false) claim that all of X are evil and should be killed." The entire CS policy of genocide, conquest and xenophobia is recent (as in the last few decades). It is explicitly the design decision of the Prosek family, and has been explicitly said to be being used as a path to power. The simple fact that there are other nations that do NOT have to do this to survive (or the fact that the CS survived with out doing these things before) gives lie to the claim that it is the only way, and that it is justified.
Yes I will say that an appeal to emotion is not good. But if the CS is demonstrably committing genocide then they should be labeled as genocidal...with all that that entails. When the CS (as a national whole) chooses to undertake actions then they willingly choose the consequences of those actions. When you choose to tell your neighbors that you plan to murder them all, then you accept that they will fight. It is aggressor fault not the victims fault. One can not blame the victim for not meekly submitting to their murder as proof that the aggressor was in the right to attack them.
Thus when the CS engages in campaings of genocide against D-Bees, when the CS explicitly says that they outlaw magic and that magic practitioners need to be killed....then the CS is choosing to invite those D-Bees and Magic Users to fight them. The CS is making that choice not their victims, the CS is.

[say652]

Coalition States, good guys.

As bad as that sounds evil is merely what side of line your standing on when snit happens.

[Nightmask]

So far Pepsi Jedi is one of the few making valid points.

You've a skewed idea of valid if you think his points actually have validity.

[Alrik Vas]

As a fascist regime, everyone is under Karl Prosek's thumb and the people believe in this will of his, to purge the inhuman from the human world. Magic users have been shown to bring things that do not belong into the world of Rifts. Allowing them to practice their craft invites further disaster.

If psychics could open portals to other dimensions and invite endless numbers of alien creatures through, the CS government would probably outlaw them too.

About them being the Heroes of Humanity: They absolutely are without question. They made themselves into such a position with their propaganda.

We know the CS government isn't the good guy. They're just a bunch of humans who want everyone off their lawn. That doesn't make them the moral water carriers of Rifts. The fact that they "evict" by violent methods, usually resulting in massive deaths tells us they easily fall into the category of "enemy", so long as you don't believe in their cause.

This doesn't change the heroism their army will show on the field against hordes of Hades and Dyvaal. If anyone here thinks them forging an alliance to save their planet from Armageddon, and then leading the charge isn't heroics, I don't know what to tell you. Wait and see. They'll save North America, then they'll betray a few allies, gain a bit more territory and ultimately the power picture of the region will change.

I think it's more interesting to think about what those changes will be, and if the CS changes as well. After allying with the "good guy" city states, things might go in a completely different direction.

[Nightmask]

The new Coalition book may label the Coalition as humanities best hope... : / Though I fail to see why that's so bad. And while I'd hate to suggest Killwatch is right, the Coalition can be expansionist, they did invade a town in Texas to build a naval base, and there was GAW. However why this would make them so evil I have no idea. By KillWatchs logic every empire ever formed is evil including the U.S. Guess that makes us all evil.

They aren't humanity's best hope, and it's bad because the last thing you want representing your race being those who actively encourage and engage in acts of atrocity and genocide towards others because they aren't human and no other reason. Do you really think people who will and have killed babies in their cribs because they weren't human should even remotely be considered what you want representing you and presented as shining examples of your race?

This is not genuine though as a comment. The CS don't kill people 'because they aren't human and no other reason'. I've written thousands of words pointing out the reason. The CS has reason. it has ___EXCELLENT___ Reason to kill non humans. 300 years of reason. Literal dozens of generations worth of Reason.

You only can get to 'no reason' if you blatently ignore that as if it didn't happen. Thus the post is false.

Secondly, and I could be wrong here but your appeal to emotion about "People who will and have killed babies in their cirbs" is calculated to jerk the emotional heartstrings. can you cite a source in canon where this was described?

I might be wrong but that seems beyond Palladiums normal 'PG' rating for their books and sounds like something you've manufactured for your purpose of making a point.

However many words you use they won't make a weak or utterly invalid point valid. 'Some aliens attacked and killed some of us so we need to kill all aliens' is not a valid reason for killing anyone, that's an excuse made to justify engaging in evil actions.

I wasn't 'appealing to emotion' I was pointing out the clear immorality of the CS's policies which do indeed include killing infants in their cribs simply for not being human, or do you think when they carpet bomb a peaceful alien village that there can't possibly be any infants or children asleep in their beds when they attack?

I also have no idea what you think a PG rating is but Palladium doesn't have a PG rating for its books, they haven't shied away from including examples of evil or depraved behavior to show just how evil a particular person or group might be. When they describe someone engaging in genocide that makes it quite clear a set of actions of purely evil nature have been done that we can determine from their actions being genocidal. When they say someone destroyed an entire peaceful village (as Larson's replacement did when he refused the direct command to kill everyone) we can infer that a complete range of age-groups of people were killed, that they were killed during normal pursuits which would mean some most likely children were killed while asleep in their beds or cribs and that was the intent when the order was given because one can't give such an order without knowing how their victims would be doing things when attacked.

[Alrik Vas]

Nightmask, it's pretty clear you don't agree, but I'd still like to ask you to consider the following:

You're a wilderness scout in a frontier town. The village down the way just got run over by dimensional raiders. You can't tell the difference between them and other people. They use magic to do combat and can disguise themselves.

One day, a group of refugees arrives seeking shelter and food. You recognize some but not all of them from your travels. Do you interrogate them? Let them into your town? Send them away? Shoot at them and hope they flee? If you let them get close, and some.of them are the raiders in disguise, you'll probably die and your town well be destroyed next.

What do you do?

[Tags]

Well this is one hot mess.

Seems some people are taking this rather personally. It is just a game... Sure it can be argued some imaginary deebee children may have been killed in a Coalition attack, of course it can also be argue that millions of human children died at the hands of deebees during the 200 year dark age.

Ultimately, the Coalition remains the best equiped standing army in the Americas, good or bad the CS is the best hope for humanity. Sure the CS has it's faults but try and name a faction Rifts that doesn't, so the question remains, who has the strength and will to stand up for humanity.

Of course it seems everyone is going to argue about is the CS good or evil... Honestly there will likely never be an answer everyone will agree to, no one is going to change their minds, more likely things will degrade into a flame war.

The CS is just another shade of grey with spots through out... Certainly there are evil aspects but for the most part the CS is made up of men and woman with their own minds. Calling the CS evil is an over simplification at best and just lazy, lacking any thought or attempts at thought.

In the end everyone will play the CS as they want... Is the CS the saviors of humanity, well once again everyone will play that as they want. What I find so amusing is how some people take this so personally. I'm guessing these same people will boycott the new book just because of their feelings on the CS. Keep in mind the CS is just part of a game.

[Tags]

So far Pepsi Jedi is one of the few making valid points.

You've a skewed idea of valid if you think his points actually have validity.

LoooooL

[say652]

Still feel the cs policies are from centuries of being food.

Hunting isn't fun when the rabbit has a SAMAS.

[Tags]

Still feel the cs policies are from centuries of being food.

Hunting isn't fun when the rabbit has a SAMAS.

It certainly doesen't help.

[eliakon]

Still feel the cs policies are from centuries of being food.

Hunting isn't fun when the rabbit has a SAMAS.

It certainly doesen't help.

Except of course that most of the policies don't actually reflect this. Especially since most of the rest of the world managed to avoid these same policies and lived through the same dark ages....and the policies are new, not centuries old.
The centuries of the Dark Ages are the justification used certainly. But they are not the causation. There is a very important difference there.

[say652]

I have a back burner munchkin that can one shot a Glitter Boy. Lol.


But back to the subject, the needs of the many out weighing the needs of the few.

The cs isn't evil as in a minion of chaos seeking only death and destruction, nope the are aggressive expansionists with an agenda and a very oiled war machine.

[eliakon]

I have a back burner munchkin that can one shot a Glitter Boy. Lol.


But back to the subject, the needs of the many out weighing the needs of the few.

The cs isn't evil as in a minion of chaos seeking only death and destruction, nope the are aggressive expansionists with an agenda and a very oiled war machine.

Chaos isn't Evil and Evil isn't Chaos.
Palladium has some pretty good in universe definitions of Evil....and the CS's actions tend to fall in that area (torture, murder the innocent, abuse the law...that sort of thing) They are organized sure...but that doesn't make them any less Evil, just as AD&D would say "Lawful Evil" instead of "Chaotic Evil".

[Alrik Vas]

I agree that when morality is applied, you come up with less "kill everything" answers than you had before. I think, though, that given the state of life in the dark ages, the conclusion many came to would be, "kill them before they get close enough to eat us."

Japan and the NGR are also great examples of this. Is it evil? Honestly, I don't care. Survival takes precedent in that situation. Now...The current model of the CS doesn't require that method, not really. They should be working toward a more "moral" society where they consider neighbors as allies instead of hated enemies. When Prosek dies or steps down, I'm looking forward to see if anything changes.

[say652]

Morality has no place in a battle for survival, the goal is to live.

[say652]

I have a back burner munchkin that can one shot a Glitter Boy. Lol.


But back to the subject, the needs of the many out weighing the needs of the few.

The cs isn't evil as in a minion of chaos seeking only death and destruction, nope the are aggressive expansionists with an agenda and a very oiled war machine.

Chaos isn't Evil and Evil isn't Chaos.
Palladium has some pretty good in universe definitions of Evil....and the CS's actions tend to fall in that area (torture, murder the innocent, abuse the law...that sort of thing) They are organized sure...but that doesn't make them any less Evil, just as AD&D would say "Lawful Evil" instead of "Chaotic Evil".

Not much different that Palladian kingdom that killed every evil person they encountered that crossed into their land in Faerun.

And ABERRANT is a good guy with the stones to make the hard choices.

Sometimes you have to torture, sometimes you're a baby killer but at the end of the day, the moron insulting the soldier at Wal-Mart has that freedom because of the guy he is insulting.

in Rifts, sleeping a full night without getting killed is a blessing.

You do what you have to so you those you care about and hopefully your offspring live long enough to repeat the cycle.

[eliakon]

Morality has no place in a battle for survival, the goal is to live.

Which is a great sentiment if you want to advocate that particular view of morality sure.

This however presumes several things
1) That this view of morality (Hobbesian) is actually the One True Way
2) That this is a battle for survival
3) That this is not a discussion about if something is or is not evil

I would argue that all three premises are false.
I would say that the morality of the Rifts Universe is pretty clearly one where morality is important, and that it has a place at all times.
I would say that the many, many examples of people surviving with out turning to genocide (even the CS until recently) prove this isn't a battle for survival
I would say that this is thus not a discussion about a hypothetical case where there is no morality (in which case a moral discussion would be moot anyway because anything at all is justified) nor is it a battle of survival. Thus it is an analysis of the deliberate moral choices of the CS state.

[Nightmask]

Nightmask, it's pretty clear you don't agree, but I'd still like to ask you to consider the following:

You're a wilderness scout in a frontier town. The village down the way just got run over by dimensional raiders. You can't tell the difference between them and other people. They use magic to do combat and can disguise themselves.

One day, a group of refugees arrives seeking shelter and food. You recognize some but not all of them from your travels. Do you interrogate them? Let them into your town? Send them away? Shoot at them and hope they flee? If you let them get close, and some.of them are the raiders in disguise, you'll probably die and your town well be destroyed next.

What do you do?

The problem with your challenge here is it doesn't really fit the topic, it also ignores the answer we get from the CS which would be to simply kill EVERY refugee without even making an effort to determine whether or not their victims are a threat and instead simply calling everything a threat. There's also the matter that we aren't talking about some Wilderness Scout guarding some small town we're talking a standing and massive army with some of the most advanced tech around who raze entire villages simply because they looked, saw that they weren't human or used magic, then killed them all because policy is 'if it isn't CS kill it'.

So if I were said Wilderness Scout behaving like the CS I'd be most certainly evil because my choice would be to kill them all the moment I saw them rather than even attempt to determine if I were killing innocent people who only sought help. I would NOT be a moral person nor would my killing everyone 'just in case' because someone attacked the village prior make my actions acceptable or right.

[eliakon]

I have a back burner munchkin that can one shot a Glitter Boy. Lol.


But back to the subject, the needs of the many out weighing the needs of the few.

The cs isn't evil as in a minion of chaos seeking only death and destruction, nope the are aggressive expansionists with an agenda and a very oiled war machine.

Chaos isn't Evil and Evil isn't Chaos.
Palladium has some pretty good in universe definitions of Evil....and the CS's actions tend to fall in that area (torture, murder the innocent, abuse the law...that sort of thing) They are organized sure...but that doesn't make them any less Evil, just as AD&D would say "Lawful Evil" instead of "Chaotic Evil".

Not much different that Palladian kingdom that killed every evil person they encountered that crossed into their land in Faerun.

Which I would say is also quite possibly evil (though in worlds with explicit detectable morality you can get some interesting philosophical debates going on the justification of crusade)

And ABERRANT is a good guy with the stones to make the hard choices.

No, Abberant is an evil person with a code of honor that they hold as being more important than good or evil, right or wrong, legal or illegal.

Sometimes you have to torture, sometimes you're a baby killer but at the end of the day, the moron insulting the soldier at Wal-Mart has that freedom because of the guy he is insulting.

Except that that's not actually morally or ethically honest.
You don't actually have to ever torture, and in many philosophical systems there is never a justification for doing so. Certainly in the Palladium universe torture is considered an evil act. Always.
And the two things are not the same. The protection of the right of free expression is not predicated on a necessity of torture or murdering children. Thus claiming that the one is a defense of the other is fallacious. The soldier is the defense of the persons freedom yes. But there is nothing in being a soldier that requires evil, and in fact philosophically the commission of evil in 'protecting' those freedoms undermines the very claim of freedom and rights that the evil doer professes to uphold.

in Rifts, sleeping a full night without getting killed is a blessing.

You do what you have to so you those you care about and hopefully your offspring live long enough to repeat the cycle.[/quote]

[Nightmask]

I have a back burner munchkin that can one shot a Glitter Boy. Lol.


But back to the subject, the needs of the many out weighing the needs of the few.

The cs isn't evil as in a minion of chaos seeking only death and destruction, nope the are aggressive expansionists with an agenda and a very oiled war machine.

Chaos isn't Evil and Evil isn't Chaos.
Palladium has some pretty good in universe definitions of Evil....and the CS's actions tend to fall in that area (torture, murder the innocent, abuse the law...that sort of thing) They are organized sure...but that doesn't make them any less Evil, just as AD&D would say "Lawful Evil" instead of "Chaotic Evil".

Not much different that Palladian kingdom that killed every evil person they encountered that crossed into their land in Faerun.

And ABERRANT is a good guy with the stones to make the hard choices.

Sometimes you have to torture, sometimes you're a baby killer but at the end of the day, the moron insulting the soldier at Wal-Mart has that freedom because of the guy he is insulting.

in Rifts, sleeping a full night without getting killed is a blessing.

You do what you have to so you those you care about and hopefully your offspring live long enough to repeat the cycle.

No, Aberrent is NOT 'a good guy with the stones to make the hard choices', it's an evil guy who just has some standards.

Also no, Rifts actually is NOT a death world where getting a full night's sleep without getting killed is somehow miraculous or uncommon, it's in fact the norm. If it were such a death world there would be no CS or much of anything else outside a few major demons, dragons, and the like that require an inordinate amount of work to kill.

[say652]

The cs is like Kanye, every body hates him but, still nod your head to his music.

Imo The Cs is looking at the big picture, this is our land lets rise up the food chain and take it.

Not that evil to want civilization and after they win and edit history, the savage land was inhabited by blood thirsty natives and had to be cleansed. Sounds familiar??

[say652]

A survivor doesn't need morals, they need to live by any means necessary.

[Tor]

Noone on Rifts Earth know why the rifts came.

I wouldn't go THAT far. I'd say the vast majority don't, but odds are there's some gods or powerful psychics/wizards who might be able to put together the pieces and put together a solid theory, particularly the ones who lived through it like Dreamer/Rama-set. Even in their case, or anyone who might find communication recordings from The Cataclysm, the problem would be that it's all fragmented data you'd have to construct theories based on. There'd by no narrator to put it together and say 100% for sure the sequence of events.

Even those who manage to puzzle out that a nuclear exchange releasing PPE causing a domino effect was a big factor, they couldn't know it was the exclusive factor, they still might theory a Dyval/Nightlord type influence in bringing about the apocalypse at the right time.

The CS doesn't know and is just keeping it to themselves. They don't know. They 'do' know about the old American Empire but not the causation of the Rifts.

I don't recall anything about the CS knowing. The closest I could think is if Erin Tarn said something about it in one of her many writings, since KS is prone to Tarn dropping OOG knowledge into her stuff. Even if Tarn's writings brought the idea forth to the CS though (which I can't affirm) this wouldn't mean she's believed though, probably just dragon-fed lies.

Or a moderate dragon that was affronted by mere mortal humans kicking it. It's an alien creature with an alien mindset. It may have been thinking of helping till the dumb human showed that humans are jerkfaces and deserved to die.

I figured the dragon might be a cat-lover. As a dragon I might find it comical if a human kicked me while I was in the form of a giant dragon. But think how much you'd hate a human who kicked what they thought was an innocent kitten? A lot of people IRL are more offended by violence against animals (particular small cute ones) than other humans. Dragons might feel similar rage.

Watch "Naked and afraid." for a few episodes. (Not the one where they allow the teams, the ones where there's just the two of them) Those people are "Survival experts" They're people that run survival schools andmake their living 'training' people how to live in the wild. When put to the test. Many of them end up tapping out before the 21 days is over. --experts-- tap out. Those that don't still lose 20...30... 40 pounds in under a month and are near hosptialization when they make it to the end, by the skin of their teeth. And that's just existing with out technology or support (They each get one item) For experts. That's with OUT monsters trying to eat them or earth quakes or tidal waves, or mutant rhino buffalo, or a literal TRex coming by to nibble on them.

On my to-do list, sounds interesting. I would be worse off because unlike these guys I haven't had time to read books about it, practise it in peace-time, converse with other interested parties, etc.

noone knows what got them there in the first place. "you" know because you read the book. Noone on Rifts earth knows.

I'll realistically posit that human citizen of the CS knows for sure. Even object-reading psychics or rogue scholars who found news recordings from the time could only get a picture of some events that happened but not absolutely know the trigger point.

My theory, and good luck disproving it: is that a pair of death goddesses engineered the nuclear exchange so that it'd happen at the right time So it wasn't even humanity's fault, we were manipulated by the demons.

How many of those do you see when you go to the 7-11 or Walmart? I'm betting not many. Why ? because we've killed them and chased them off and pushed them back and driven them almost to the point of extinction

This makes me wonder if the CS might have "D-Bee zoos" or "Monster zoos" at some point in the future. I think for now they're keeping this to scientist-observed prisons. Exposure to the public can wait for more peaceful times. Kind of like how humans didn't bother with zoos until they were super-safe. The CS are much less safe compared to the monsters they exclude/cage compared to human security when zoos became widespread.

Humanity has KILLED anything that has preyed on us. (And things that haven't, like wolves) From the start. You don't get jumped by a lion when you're walking to your car in the morning. You don't worry about mountain lion attacks when you're shopping at the mall. You don't fear wolf attack sitting in the park.

Unless of course you live in the universe of the "Zoo" TV series Would make for an interesting RPG...

every year, some wolves take out a cow up here and people lose their bloody MINDS. For weeks you'll hear them on the news. "THEY'LL GET YOUR KIDSAT THE BUS STOP!!! THEY'LL COME INTO YOUR HOMES NEXT!!!"

it's 2015 and I've heard that stuff this year. People lose their bloody MINDS when a wolf kills a cow, or eats a little yappy dog, someone tied up out side as a wolfy snack. They want to hunt them all and kill them all and Wolves don't hurt people.

I bet these attitudes soften a bit in Rifts Earth, even with wild wolves, since they serve as anti-supernatural detection and (if you inherit the Chaos Earth rules) canines are able to inflict MD to any supernatural creatures.

NG was also the ones that pretty much got the CS to commit Genocide on the Naurni.

That word gets thrown around too liberally =/ Particularly in this case since I don't know if any True Naruni were ever present on Rifts Earth, and even the Uteni were pretty sparse, I think they were in many cases uses human agents like Robot Control to peddle stuff.

I don't think we should call anti-compete business practises genocide.

Also, since the Uteni are shape-shifters, did the CS really need egging on here? They hate those things, even when the CS accepted D-Bees in Chi-Town they had already purged shapeshifters like Dragons/Changelings, and I expect also Auto-Gs and would'be gone after the Uteni too if they'd been present. Uteni may be sub-par shifters but it's still enough to frighten you.

They had the CS kill off and chase off all the Naurani in the US. Because it was cutting into sales.

Selling superior tech that could present a threat against the CS probably had something to do with it too. We shouldn't give them too much credit. At best, NG might have helped educate the CS about Naruni's capabilities, but their reaction upon getting that info (from whatever source) is predictable.

the NGR is just "CS with better paint and less Skulls to scare people"

Cause there's nothing scary at all about 1-eyed machines and mace-wielding "Black Knights" and bug/crab shaped bots =/

There's a Harry Turtledove series of novels that deal with an alternate history where aliens invade the Earth in the middle of WWII, forcing the axis and the allies to unite with each other in order to survive.

For many readers, that premise--a setting/scenario where something even more dangerous than the Axis powers shows up, muddling our previous standards of Good and Evil--is one of the big draws of the series.

This sounded really interesting so I looked and found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar_series

Have not read Turtledove but am going to check if local libraries have anything.

Mechanoids got to Rifts Earth because a single Shifter wanted to demonstrate how opening a random rift works.

Pretty much also what happened in the Great City, some shifter opened a portal and an army of winged demons swarmed out and killed people in both the Great City and spread so far that they were also killing people in the Chi-Town burbs.

Although on the plus side: if not for that, Chi-Town might not have been prepared when Great City finally led the FoM in an invasion of Chi-Town, since Chi-Town were all so peaceful and talkative.

It's fortunate that happened, it got wary guys like Joseph Prosek I thinking of defenses and countermeasures. I think if not for that accident they'd have been caught more off guard when Nostrous invaded.

expelling d-bees is very clearly not a death sentence, otherwise they'd have to do it once, and then after that there likely wouldn't be enough d-bees to make a settlement outside of their borders.

Death by starvation, exposure or predation from wildlife is certainly more gradual than being shot or gassed, but it's still a death sentence. Death is still death even if it takes multiple generations to accomplish and is done through indirect actions.

it obviously isn't as good living outside the NGR as it would be in the NGR (otherwise those d-bees would not be trying to move in), but it is also very obviously not guaranteed instant death at the hands of the gargoyles or brodkil.

Nobody is saying it's an "instant" death sentence. But it's for the most part inevitable.

Technically getting shot in the head isn't an 'instant' death sentence or a 'guaranteed' death either. Some people have survived gunshot wounds to the head, or if they died, lingered for a while before doing so. That doesn't mean that the person firing the gun at the head wasn't intending for death.

the way they treat their own citizens is vastly different. they don't rely on keeping people uneducated so they're easier to manipulate

Aside from restricting literacy to a vetted-out elite, where is the CS described as intentionally keeping people uneducated, and where does it talk about doing so for the purposes of manipulating them?

This gets brought up a lot so I would like to know which source material we are consulting so I can analyze it specifically.

they don't (so far as we know) attribute crimes to whoever is most convenient for that crime to have been committed by

No? You think NGR goes to the trouble of verifying which Gargoyle killed whom? Or do Gargoyles attack them and they just attack any Gargoyles they encounter on sight?

they don't deny their citizens access to equipment they can use to defend themselves (in fact, the NGR, in spite of having a major tie-in with the triax corporation, has outlawed no other company from trading within their boundaries so far as i'm aware... the CS has outlawed one and invaded another, as a bare minimum).

What competitors exist in the area to pose a serious threat to Triax business though? Pretty sure Triax also has special contracts to experiment with certain technologies banned to all others, like MOM implants to transfer minds into robots.

their attitude towards other communities that they don't approve of seems to be far more "live and let live" where possible.

Unless it's a community of Gargoyles, in which case, torch the eggs. Never mind that there are Gargoyles living in Europe who are not part of the Gargoyle Empire.

the NGR has never invaded england for being too magical

The Coalition States has never invaded Atlantis or England for being too magical either. Sometimes you just have more pressing threats closer to home.

iirc even has official trade set up with them, for example.

That's because the NGR really needs trade, they're very short on supplies, it's for their benefit, not England's.

the NGR are in a war with the gargoyles and brodkil which they did not start

"Remember the Bloody Campaign!" (WB5p15)

Although in fairness, there were 'gargoyle invasions' in 3 PA and they, Brodkil and other intelligent monsters were pillaging human communities. However it's not known how many they were killing compared to the hundreds of thousands the NGR killed from 3 PA to 8 PA. NGR was wiping out tribes without mercy. There's no indication they were bothering to find out which monsters were living peacefully and which ones were raiding them. They were not considered 'valid' life and they 'needed to be destroyed'.

So you could argue that when the NGR was attacked in 38 PA that this was justified retribution from people who were previously attacked who may have been innocent.

they are not at war to conquer other lands and expand their territory at the expense of others... they are at war to protect their own lives.

The NGR wants the lands held by the Gargoyle Empire and other monster communities. At their expense. The CS also war to protect themselves. Not seeing a difference here.

their motivation is survival, not greed

Source? More likely it's BOTH, just like it'd be both for the CS. Greed and survival are often linked.

if a person steals a loaf of bread because they're starving to death, that is not the same as stealing someone's wallet so you can afford a big-screen TV.

I think a false dichotomy's being set up here, the CS may be slightly better off but that doesn't mean they're sitting pretty and not also desperate to protect people here.

that doesn't make them not evil

Nope, but being told the majority are good/selfish DOES.

i certainly would expect a number of people who are at least selfish, if not outright good, to be within the organization

and that 'number' is over 50%

the NGR is a touch better in that it lets it's people read, but that doesn't change their overall outlook on things.

Whenever people talk about how much better off and wise the NGR population is due to their literacy, I keep thinking to myself "don't they think Erin Tarn is a hot bikini model?" Wasn't there even a military officer who was surprised at Erin Tarn's appearance? Words apparently don't teach people research or neutrality or common sense. I mean heck, look at the state of our present world, plenty of literacy but still plenty of fools.

I don't have the book open but I think it's illegal for people in the NGR to have the armored cars or guns or something. *shrugs* But I'm not 100% sure on that.

Anything with a "black market" price is apprehended by the NGR military. So only gear with a non-B "market price" is permissible to retain within NGR territory. So for examples:

WB5p144 they would take a TX-11 Triax Sniper Laser Rifle
WB5p145 they would take Laser Pulse Rifles (either size)
WB5p146-8 they would take all 3 rail gun variants
WB5p149 they would take the TX-10 Mini-Missile Launcher (though not the TX-M4) or Fusion Blocks (but not grenades)
WB5p154 they would take your PL-31 Palm Laser Torch (I guess the NGR military don't mind Cyber-Snatching)
Terrain Hoppers appear to be the only power armor someone not in the NGR military is allowed to own, and I think you need to be in the NGR military to be allowed to use a robot vehicle.

Wilks weaponry is now not allowed, but again it's not like it's insane.

Isn't it only Wilks weapons which are made of plastic and able to pass through metal detectors which are illegal? I expect they treat the NG-H5 (JUp76) similarly.

Calling the CS "Nazis" is appropriate though since the CS is borrowing from Hilter's playbook.

Nope, they aren't. Karl Prosek isn't a huge Hitler fan even if he incorporated some of his methods.

This would be about as accurate as calling the CS "Mongol hordes" or "Centurions" or a "Grande Armée" since Karl also took inspiration from Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte, in that order. Hitler came 4th (the last) in the list of people that Karl likes to think of himself as "a combination of the best traits of".

According to Rifts Main Book pg191-3/RUE pg229, Tarn sees distinct similarities to the Prosek Regime and the Hilter Regime in the 20th Century.

So what? She's biased, of course she's going to focus on the guy who will provoke the most criticism even though Karl ranks 3 other guys higher than him.

We also know that Prosek is quite aware of Hilter having written an essay on him that Tarn quotes from.

I am interesting in checking which part Tarn quotes. I wonder if they reflect "Emperor Prosek also acknowledges that Hitler was a madman with delusions of grandeur and and insane agenda" and saying Hitler made mistakes and was dishonorable. My guess is, since Erin is always on Karl's case, probably not.

According to Rifts CWC pg36 "Emperor Prosek makes it no secret among his elite, that he has found many of the practices, approaches and world views of the 20th Century Dictator, Adolf Hilter, to be insightful and brilliant. As a result, the Emperor has adopted many of Hitler's methods and practices, particularly the manipulation of the people through a powerful sense of unity, patriotism, purpose and power. Like Hilter, he uses war as a vehicle to unite and motivate his people.... Prosek has found and borrowed a number of things from the German Chancellor....

So what? I notice you conveniently ignored the following part that I quoted from.

What's wrong with using war as a vehicle to unite and motivate? The NGR does that too. Heck even Psyscape probably does that in a war against Soul Harvesters. Prosek is borrowing the "best traits" of old warlords while not incorporating their worst traits. Just because Hitler had a trait or did something doesn't make it bad. What's next, no painting, because Hitler was a painter?

The CS also manufactures enemies (Rifts SB1o pg21): "Whatever motives need to be concocted to declare war on neighbouring territories will be artfully designed to appear as true and noble as possible

That's technically about Karl misrepresenting his motives in doing things. Just because Karl's prime concern is gaining power and securing his populace is secondary doesn't mean that these are not legitimate enemies and that invading them does not serve the purpose of securing his populace.

....this may include seizing a town for the alleged purpose of their own security/protection, or staging an assassination or full scale battle to eliminate enemy spies, sympathizers, terrorists, men of magic and non-humans. "

This is prefixed as being done to "secure the borders" and to "eliminate sources of potential trouble", which you left out. So he's still doing this to make his people secure and avoid trouble for them. He's just being proactive instead of reactive while trying to maintain a false air of reactivity.

Yeah the CS as an entity is quite certainly the bad guys here.

There's that "the" again.

Humanity though is ultimately responsible for pushing itself to the brink of extinction on Earth given its own actions contributed to the coming of the Rifts and the dark age.

So far as we know. No absolute proof non-humans weren't involved though, eh?

The CS as an entity is an evil, human supremacist society filled with racism and run with a totalitarian style dictatorship.

I take issue with one of the words used here, please support the assertion.

Im sure good aligned officers never seem to get promoted past Captain or assigned risky missions to weed them out...in the name of saving the human race of course.

Why so sure? Scrupulous with twisted perceptions can make you pretty capable at being uncaring for non-humans or supernatural enemies.

the last thing you want representing your race being those who actively encourage and engage in acts of atrocity and genocide towards others because they aren't human and no other reason.

Source on that last bit? The CS always has other reasons besides creatures not being human for which they target them for genocides.

I would argue there's a reason that Slurmphs explicitly have a genocide against them while Dwarves have no such explicit genocide.

Also: Psi-Hounds are not human, so there is more criteria than "not human" at play here, as they are not subject to genocide. The CS does not commit genocide against a species solely for not being human.

people who will and have killed babies in their cribs because they weren't human

LOL source?

you back mass murder and genocide you lose any freedom to complain about everyone wanting to kill you because you've already declared you're fine with your representatives killing them even when they're peaceful and doing nothing to threaten you.

That's certainly true of the minority elements of the CS who actually do back genocide and mass murder.

However they do not make up the majority of the CS, so this is not a criticism to be levied against the Coalition, but rather, the group of Droguephiles that cropped up during the Siege on Tolkeen.

The CS has reason. it has ___EXCELLENT___ Reason to kill non humans.

[/quote]
The CS does not kill kitties and giraffes, just certain species proven to be threats. Generally D-Bee ones, or things so different and unknown they figure they're D-Bees, occasionally wrongly if it's some creature that's been lurking around Earth since pre-Rifts times.

How many nations on Rifts Earth are actively fighting for humans, and of those how many have a well equipped standing army. By default they are humanities best hope.

Psyscape probably qualifies for the first but not the 2nd. By destroying Xiticix, I think Lazlo would also be serving human interests. I guess also those um... Canada guys. None seem to qualify for the well-equipped army bit though, at least not compared to what the CS has. Do we know if Tundra Rangers or Lazlo or Psyscape even have LRMs or even MRMs? Mini-missiles aren't as useful when alien bugs can fire from 4000 ft.

if the CS is demonstrably committing genocide then they should be labeled as genocidal...with all that that entails.

Sure, so long as people taking this stance also acknowledge that we should label Lazlo (dem 'most good of the mages' guys) as being genocidal... with all that that entails. They're also engaged in a campaign of genocide against D-Bees.

If psychics could open portals to other dimensions and invite endless numbers of alien creatures through, the CS government would probably outlaw them too.

This is probably the strongest evidence that the CS has yet to be aware of Astral Lords or Dream Makers even if their Lore: Psychic gives them some basic awareness of the Astral Plane and Dreamstream.

About them being the Heroes of Humanity: They absolutely are without question. They made themselves into such a position with their propaganda.

We know the CS government isn't the good guy. They're just a bunch of humans who want everyone off their lawn.

Or other humans' lawns, like when they go and help humans communities in Minnesota or rescue unaligned human coastal towns from Lorica Wraith slavery.

'Some aliens attacked and killed some of us so we need to kill all aliens' is not a valid reason for killing anyone, that's an excuse made to justify engaging in evil actions.

Tell that to Plato and the rest of Lazlo, they are being racist against bugs. Just because a lot of them have attacked the innocent doesn't mean they ALL are. Why is the CS being singled out here?

Heck, tell that to Psyscape! Just because you're a Soul Harvester doesn't mean you're guaranteed to open a portal to Nxla. You might opt to get by without creating Xombies. It also doesn't mean you'll kill good people to take their souls. You might opt to only kill evil souls (and use that PPE for good purposes to help people) or opt not to harvest souls at all, and use your soul-searching OCC ability to uncover evil and protect people.

the clear immorality of the CS's policies which do indeed include killing infants in their cribs simply for not being human

Since you keep bringing that up, we are curious where you get these specifics.

do you think when they carpet bomb a peaceful alien village that there can't possibly be any infants or children asleep in their beds when they attack?

It's possible there are, but it's also possible that there are not.

Even if there were, it does not actually make the infants the targets of the attack, any more than the US is targetting baby Arabs in the Middle East "for the crime of being Arab". In both cases this is what is called "collateral damage".

If a village was solely full of babies in cribs, it wouldn't be a threat and wouldn't get bombed. It's the other stuff, the parents and guardians, who are the threats. If they want to use their babies as non-human shields, too bad, the CS considers them acceptable losses and will not pull punches just because of their cowardly tactics.

[Shark_Force]

the NGR is pretty different from the CS.

first off, expelling d-bees is very clearly not a death sentence, otherwise they'd have to do it once, and then after that there likely wouldn't be enough d-bees to make a settlement outside of their borders. it obviously isn't as good living outside the NGR as it would be in the NGR (otherwise those d-bees would not be trying to move in), but it is also very obviously not guaranteed instant death at the hands of the gargoyles or brodkil.

Wait wait wait..... So you're saying that the NGR military. Showing up and forcing the Dbees on their own Trail of Tears, marching them out of the safe and protected borders of the NGR. Which has existed under literal supernatural siege by armies of demons for years and years... isn't a death sentence? Your defense is "once they did it once they'd be done". You do realize you don't find all the (pardon the double indenture here) Illegal aliens at one time. That if you find a village here and march them out to be eaten by the gargoyles, that you might find a second village a week later and have to march them out, and a third village two weeks after that.. and oops... there was a rift and 300 more aliens arrived on Tuesday, well they can't stay here. March um to the border. Wednesday might see three rifts occur and 738 new Dbees show up. Then it's the weekend. Whoo. Many rifts on theweekend. you know shifters get busy. So now there's 7,377 Dbees over in that Provence(State? County? whatever) that need to be expelled.... etc etc etc

What's at the border? LITERAL ARMIES OF 1000s of giant flesh/people eating demons! Oh... they'll be finnnnnne. Suuuuure they will. That's why the nation is repeatedly mentioned to be surrounded and under seige by those evil armies of demons.

Yes, Expelling the Dbees from the NGR is throwing them to their deaths at the hands of the Gargoyles and Brodkil. Gargoyles and Brodkil, not being known for their accepting and benevelent behavior on the whole, and their murderous and dastardly demon behavior instead.

secondly, the way they treat their own citizens is vastly different. they don't rely on keeping people uneducated so they're easier to manipulate,

So? PR is PR. Manipulation is manipulation. All governments manipulate their people to some extent. And that's with out even touching the impossibiltiy of the CS illiterate thing. (which is silly on it's face) Yes, the NGR is a touch better in that it lets it's people read, but that doesn't change their overall outlook on things. Their behavior remains what it is.

they don't (so far as we know) attribute crimes to whoever is most convenient for that crime to have been committed by,

Nor do the CS. There's very little written about the criminal/legal system of the CS. The Dogboys are about as close as you get and the ISS but those are thecops. not the actual legal system and all.

they don't deny their citizens access to equipment they can use to defend themselves (in fact, the NGR, in spite of having a major tie-in with the triax corporation, has outlawed no other company from trading within their boundaries so far as i'm aware... the CS has outlawed one and invaded another, as a bare minimum).

Pretty sure you're wrong there. I don't have the book open but I think it's illegal for people in the NGR to have the armored cars or guns or something. *shrugs* But I'm not 100% sure on that. But when you're talking about the CS, yeah they outlawed the Naurani. They were inter-dimensional alien armes dealers distributing high powered, even higher than military grade, MDC weaponry to all and Sundry. That's not the CS being crazy putting the kabosh on that. That's a dangerous thing. The CS works with NG (Who got them to take out the naurlni) NG stuff is legal under the normal restrictions of the law. Wilks weaponry is now not allowed, but again it's not like it's insane. The US government allows it's people to have a mind numbing number of guns, but even they have limits. You can't get a mini gun with out special licenses that cost a fortune and tons and tons and tons of paperwork. The MD weapons are strong enough to take out a(current day) battle tank with one shot. That's some big stuff. Of course a government is going to have rules about it.

thirdly, their attitude towards other communities that they don't approve of seems to be far more "live and let live" where possible.

Not really. the NGR isn't expressionistic not due to lack of will, but lack of ability. They're under siege by armies of supernatural demons. If the gargoyles wern't there, they'd be expanding same as the CS. They're buddies with the CS. Currently they just 'can't'.... due to those armies of demons haulting the outward push.

the NGR has never invaded england for being too magical, and iirc even has official trade set up with them, for example. the NGR are in a war with the gargoyles and brodkil which they did not start, and while their actions have not all been particularly noble within that war (including slaughtering a number of d-bees that got caught in the middle, for example), they are not at war to conquer other lands and expand their territory at the expense of others... they are at war to protect their own lives. they've certainly done some unadmirable things in the process of defending themselves, but their motivation is survival, not greed, and that makes a huge difference. if a person steals a loaf of bread because they're starving to death, that is not the same as stealing someone's wallet so you can afford a big-screen TV.

And here's the thing.... the NGR don't expand.... because of the Gargoyles. It's another example of them being a mirror of the CS. The CS do expand (A bit) because they can. the NGR is just like the CS but can't expand. So the NGR are paraded as heroes, while the CS are painted as villians. They're the same though, just different ciumstance. if the CS couldn't expand because foes circled them that tightly (They are surrounded but much more loosely) Then it wouldn't suddenly make the CS saints. The NGR would expand if it could (has sort of in the newer book if memory serves. They broke out to the west a bit)

They accepted tens of thousands of CS troops to help in their war. It's not like they're all 'Oh.. the CS.. those guys are nuts.. No.. we can't stoop to their level" They were like 'help killing demons? SURE MAN!! COME ON OVER!!"

Can't blame them. They're fighting literal demons, but it's not like they're disgusted by the CS. The main differences between the CS and the NGR is one dresses in black with a skull motif, and one is in white(Gray) with a futureistic cyclops type friendly looking helmet.

and as i've said elsewhere: the CS may be a very human sort of evil, one which i can understand and even relate to on some level. i don't know that i'd recognize what they were doing if i did not have the advantage of a bird's-eye view, so to speak. but that doesn't make them not evil (taken as a whole... i certainly would expect a number of people who are at least selfish, if not outright good, to be within the organization). it just makes them understandable.

*nods* It does depend on your point of view.

looking down from the birds eye, it's easy to say 'man they're REALLY harsh about the Dbees and mages. That's just not right' but on the ground, as you said it's totally understandable, and seeing a nation that has suffered like the CS has, and NOT turn out that way would be weird. We'd be complaining about how they suffered all those things but ignored them and how it's not realistic to human behavior.

I mean look at what happened when terrorists killed about 3000 americans. The reaction from that is still going on over a decade later. Multiple wars. The humans of rifts earth lost billions and billions and billions of people and their entire way of life for three centuries. That's a big thing.

- you can't send patrols face-first into an army, and yet the NGR sends patrols into gargoyle territory. conclusion: it isn't a solid wall of gargoyles at the border. the idea that there are is laughable. furthermore, the nature of the enemy means that no, they are not a besieging army. they're a bunch of encampments that conduct raids on a regular basis. in fact, that's what started the campaign to kill them all off in the first place. regular raids by the gargoyles made the NGR decide they needed to do something about it. but main point: no, the area on the NGR's borders are not a solid wall of gargoyles waiting to kill things. they're hunter-gatherers. they cannot sit on a wall all day, they cannot spend all of their time in one massive group, and over the many years since the NGR started evicting d-bees, they are either the most incompetent idiots on the face of the planet, or they've located all the d-bee villages by now. unless of course those villages keep coming back, and there is no indication whatsoever that rifts routinely drop entire villages worth of d-bees *anywhere* on rifts earth these days. more like a few small groups here and there. so if they're coming back, it must be from somewhere other than rifts. being in gargoyle territory is not the same thing as being dropped off right next to an army of gargoyles. that just isn't how gargoyles work.

- there's a difference between using PR and denying someone an education. they are not the same thing. uneducated people are easier to control because they have not been taught to think for themselves. the NGR allows their citizens to have an education that can allow themselves to improve, and helps them understand the world around them better allowing them to make better decisions (or at least, better-informed decisions). those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it. people in the NGR are permitted to know their history and learn from it. people in the CS are not. that is a key difference.

- the CS is explicitly noted as blaming things on people like magic-users and rogue scholars in the core book. as in, the book actually gives an example where a crime was committed (iirc a bomb goes off) and the crime is immediately attributed to the devious mind of a rogue scholar by the CS. because, you know, those rogue scholars, they're all about the bombs. yup, that's definitely what rogue scholars are known for in the setting. not teaching people how to read, or about the real history of the world. oh wait... huh, whaddya know, turns out that rogue scholars are actually known for teaching literacy and history, not for making explosives. it's almost like the CS came up with a total BS explanation and sacrificed finding the actual criminal so that they could pin the crime on someone they don't like.

- the CS has outlawed wilk's equipment and has invaded iron heart armaments. they've also subverted northern gun. none of those manufacturers are aliens or d-bees, none of them had a specific anti-CS position, and none of those had CS civilians as a primary market (but if they did, and it's acceptable for northern gun to sell laser rifles to civilians, then there is no reason it isn't acceptable to sell laser rifles made by wilks to civilians). the decision to ban those products had nothing to do with protecting anyone, and everything to do with the CS not liking those people for no valid reason.

- there is absolutely no indication that the NGR is interested in a militaristic expansion of their borders. in fact, after conducting a massive assault on enemy-held territory where they threw the enemy back miles and killed many of them, they willingly marched right back into their old borders. these are not the actions of an expansionistic state.

yes, they've allied with the CS. no, that doesn't mean they're comfortable with everything the CS does. but it does mean that they'll work with the CS as necessary, especially when they're fighting a worse enemy. the fact that the CS occupies a position higher than demons in the NGR's regard is no great accomplishment. the simple fact of the matter is that when the NGR went looking for a state in the CS to make special trade agreements with, it was the part that was isolationist, had no desire to start random wars, had the highest literacy/education rate iirc, and didn't employ dog boys as slaves. they didn't go to the manufacturing power of chi-town or the genetic technology of lone star. they courted free quebec. the one part of the CS that does not feature those attributes i mentioned above in nearly as great measures. the part of the CS that was most free from the prosek regime.

all signs point to the NGR being a better nation than the CS. not necessarily perfectly good-aligned. but there are distinct differences that place them on moral high ground relative to the CS. just because they made an alliance of necessity with the CS doesn't make the CS equally good, any more than britain, france, and the US allying with stalin made him equally as good as those nations. if the allies were kicking the crud out of the nazis without russia, it is quite improbable that they would have entered an alliance with russia.

there are certainly worse things out there than the CS. given a choice between living in a world ruled by the vampire kingdoms or the CS, it's a really easy decision; the CS are not great, but they're definitely better than demons, undead monstrosities, sub-demons, and even some of the other human factions (as another example, i'd rather live in the CS than in the city of brass, or even just some of the city-states on the border of the vampire kingdoms). that doesn't make them good. it certainly doesn't make them the saviours of humanity. it just makes them less bad than some of the other options.