Siege on Tolkeen Series

[Akashic Soldier]

This is getting silly guys.

MmmmHmmm.

*listens to sound of rotting horse flesh being flensed off of a very much EX-equine via 3m long peice of braided & toughend cow-hide*

HA! Whipping a dead horse I get it.

[Vrykolas2k]

Could we keep the idiotic semantic arguements to stuff that's actually game-related, please?
It's still a waste of thread, but at least it would cut down on the irrelevancies.

[Akashic Soldier]

Could we keep the idiotic semantic arguements to stuff that's actually game-related, please?
It's still a waste of thread, but at least it would cut down on the irrelevancies.

Would you mind clarifying your statement a little?

[Armorlord]

While he sees things from the CS perspective far too easily, Pepsi Jedi is essentially correct in this thread.

I think it's pretty clear that initially, the CS were the bad guys in the Tolkeen war, and by the end of it, both sides were the bad guys.

Indeed.

Once upon a time fear cultivated an army and drove it forward beyond the measure of its sacrifices to stand against the house of wizards.

The house if wizards saw their sky filled with fire and though they stood at the threshold of a thousand door ways their pride closed those doors.

The army of fear marched and in their pride The house of Wizards called into the darkness and the fear of the legions took form and walked the earth.

But the House of Wizards had underestimated the zeal of the legion and their conjuring merely bolstered the resolve of the army and sured their aim. For though driven by fear the legion would never have marched were it conquered by it.

And so though a house of wizards they were but house and though a city of doors they remained locked and in this folley, conquered by pride, broken by their owns hands and vice the house burned and their flags vanished beneath the mud with the corpses of all those sacrificed to pay the price for a fear cultivated within the human spirit for nearly three hundred years...

This is legacy of Tolkeen, listen and heed the warning, no house may stand alone. No pride is bright enough to eclipse fear... and no magic strong enough to conquer sacrifice.

A very poetic way of putting it, and accurate as well.


ExoKnight,
As for your original question, the basic break down is this:
The Coalition States unveils its revamped war machine and promptly ends up at war with Free Quebec for being too independent, and the Kingdom of Tolkeen for being to magicy and DB-lovin'.
Conflict sees the largest deployments of MD war tech in known history of NA, ditto for magical combatants.
Tolkeen gets prideful, opts to hold their ground.
War goes poorly for then, anger leads to hate which leads to the dark side.
Tolkeen begins contracting darker and darker forces, culminating in freeing a previously unknown race of demons unto the Earth and giving them more power in the form of techno-wizard implants. This act loses Tolkeen the support of the psi-stalkers and most of the Cyber-Knights that had joined the fighting against their leader's wishes.
Coalition War Machine still chugs along, abet slower.
Tolkeen devises a plan to unleash a ritual of legend to super-charge their troops and drive back the enemy.
The Sorcerers' Revenge, as it is called, goes off perfectly, with super-charged and power-drunk forces routing the Coalition. Seeming to end with them completely dominating the region.
Free Quebec troops sacrifice themselves fighting an army of demons aiming to take on Chitown.
Between this reminder of both of them being against the inhuman, and the losses during the Sorcerers' Revenge, the Coalition and Free Quebec kiss and make up. Bringing relations from 'at war' to merely cold.
Veterans from the Free Quebec front join the regrouping forces.
Meanwhile, Tolkeen's counter was TOO successful. Mercenaries and adventurers begin leaving, believing the battle to be done.
Tolkeen itself gets caught up in celebrating.
Between celebrations and fighters leaving, the northern front is left lightly watched, most looking toward the south where the surviving CS units lie.
Further misfortune for Tolkeen, in addition to the Coalition forces grouping for a major counter attack to the south, to the north a group has survived by exploiting a little known theory on Xiticix behavior. Retreating into the hivelands they were set upon, but moved slowly and acted completely passively toward the swarm, and though they still lost hundreds to the harassment, the ploy worked in keeping the insects from becoming aggressively hostile and wiping them out.
Which left that group coming back out into the undefended north, out of contact with everyone, planning their own surprise attack.
Then everything went wrong for Tolkeen at once, with the refreshed CS force from the south moving in and a surprise attack from the northern group damaging all manner of technowizard infrastructure, just in time for a period of high PPE and Rift activity.
Tolkeen's magical infrastructure critically failed and suddenly magic is going haywire and random rifts are opening and the entire CS army is coming to dinner.
In the chaos, some efforts finally turn to evacuation, even the King finally sees the folly of the path of hate that he had lead his people down.

Tolkeen is now occupied territory. Fortune hunters often try to get past the CS troops to pick at the remains and Tolkeen Revenge squads of varying degrees of fanaticism plague the CS.
Oh, and instead of fighting, when the magic disruption began the population of the City of Dragons promptly get out'd. Angering some, while others like myself wondered if it was disrupting whatever was keeping them around in the first place, considering how much the place went against normal dragon behavior.

Meanwhile Lazlo struggles to take in the new element of war-torn survivors with nothing personal trauma to their names that are now causing a population (and crime) boom in the nation.

All in all, a good series, and I recommend reading the whole thing before implementing any of it. Even if your players don't get involved, it makes good 'elsewhere in the world, events are happening' sort of living world aspect.
As for the events themselves, people will argue that one side of the other should have done blah blah and blah to win.
Someone put it best at one of the Open House events, that if you let both sides use player character levels of planning, the results would still be fairly closely matched, only a lot messier for both sides.

[Armorlord]

The Sorcerers' Revenge, as it is called, goes off perfectly, with super-charged and power-drunk forces routing the Coalition.

Oh, and the violence of this, along with Tolkeen's demonic allies, ends up perfect fodder to reaffirm everything the CS Propaganda machine has told its citizens about magic and dbees. Reinforcing their desire to wipe out Tolkeen, instead of sending them home scared as the kingdom had hoped.

All in all, the Sorcerers' Revenge was tactically great, but ultimately the strategy that lead to their defeat.

[Giant2005]

Does no-one else find it a little disturbing that people are so ready to support Genocide? Not just ready to support it but fully willing to blame the victims for their extinction.
Sure this is just a game but morality is universal - it extends to all mediums.
Roleplaying someone with such a dispassionate view of genocide is fine, actually believing in that sentiment isn't quite so fine.

[Nightmask]

Does no-one else find it a little disturbing that people are so ready to support Genocide? Not just ready to support it but fully willing to blame the victims for their extinction.
Sure this is just a game but morality is universal - it extends to all mediums.
Roleplaying someone with such a dispassionate view of genocide is fine, actually believing in that sentiment isn't quite so fine.

No, you are not alone in finding the vehement defense of the CS's actions as being perfectly acceptable behavior to the point it sounds like an endorsement of that from a real life stance as being more than a little disturbing. There is a lot wrong with arguing in such defense of it that it's hard to not feel that the person is actually endorsing it as acceptable RL behavior.

[Giant2005]

I have a question to all of you who endorse the CS's actions as perfectly acceptable behavior.
How do you feel about the Mechanoids?
They are a life-form who's objective is to wipe out all non-Mechanoid life in the Megaverse.
The CS are a life-form who's objective is to wipe out all non-Human life on Earth.

The Mechanoids might be a more capable force and more ambitious but the sentiment is exactly the same.

It actually makes sense that if/when the CS were ever successful in their goals with Earth, they would spread their plague to other worlds. "Protecting" mankind can't stop at "liberating" the Earth when there are portals opening to other hostile worlds every minute, you would have to wipe out life in all those connecting worlds or find some other means of preventing them coming here before you could consider the planet safe.

[Akashic Soldier]

I think I said this once before but to answer your question Giant and to clear up any misunderstandings.

I support the CS as an organization for a few reasons.

Lets start at the begining... in a time so long ago that the stark black and whites of morality have greyed and faded into history... I talk of course... of the coming of the Rifts!

*Akashic Soldier makes a bold gesture that is followed by a whirlwind journey through the time*

In the begin there was the sin of the fathers, important men now struck nameless--their faces burned from history like so much tissue paper yet their actions set in motion a catastrophe that tore at the very fabric of space-time and gave birth to the first of Rift!

From these Rifts came creatures the likes of which man had only ever dreamed, abominations and devils, and all manner of beastie... then came magic passed like the flame of Prometheus and every bit as all-consuming. Humanity fought, they fought hard, many innocent people died, and countless homes were destroyed. Families wept and for a long time chaos reigned and fear forced the survivors to huddle together while creatures from beyond the world took their land...

*Scenes of commando Floopers using MD rifles to murder fleeing women and children.*

Humanity was decimated.

Our world was all but lost.

Then, from the ashes of man one brave soul had the courage to say "No more!" and take up arms against their oppressors, one soul joined by another and another! This was the new genesis of man! The next generation of humanity! And together, they triumphed. For the first time in many generations man had hope. These were the brave souls who founded the organization that would become the Coalition States. Soldiers fighting to reclaim their world from countless inter-dimensional alien beings, menaces that greedily gulp up their power or preyed on or otherwise exploited them.

*another grand gesture brings us closer to the PA109 and an army of Deadboy's marching like storm troopers*

These are the children of the souls brave enough to rise up and fight for their world. These are humanities legacy. The evolution of man that can retake their world and drive back the enemy. They have already succeeded once with the Naruni and as long as the fires of the human spirits burn they will not fail! This is manifest destiny! What right do these abominations have to take their world from them? What right do they have to surf the cosmic leylines and settle any world and drain it of resources?

What rights do men have to meddle with the leylines to conjure demons or play god or invite nightmares into the dreams of their fellows? To stir the attention of the Old Ones and arouse their ires with such carelessness? Are they not as disruptive to society as any other criminal?

Are the Coalition an evil society? Yes.
Were they always an evil society? No.
Will they always be an evil society? Unlikely.

Right now the Emperor has focused the entirety of the will of the people to driving the war machine that will purge the land of the invaders and threats. Many innocent D-Bee's who are just as stranded as you or I may be on Wormwood will suffer and die but in the grand scale of things much fewer will die than the throngs of humanity who died at the hands of D-Bees. However... if... just if the Coalition is successful and reclaims the earth in the name of the human race and unite the world under a single government. Then all it takes is human sympathies to spark one great cultural revolution and overthrow the military rule for a more peaceful and cooperative approach to inter-dimensional travelers.

In this future I see, a future just one of many, there is a world at peace... a utopia where all men are free and D-Bee's have legal visas like you or I must to travel to other countries. Earth serves as a buffer between dimensions and establishes a Megaversal Law Enforcement that protects other realms from suffering the same way their great ancestors did.

But none of this can happen if the Coalition are not allowed to walk their path and make their errors. Magic and Alien Life are the biggest threats and instigators of injustice in existence. The First allows one man an advantage over another by breaking the very laws of reality and twisting them against him and the latter are the decedents of invaders or peoples that are at the least very different to humanity and may not be relate to human thinking and culture.

This grand victory, this utopia and triumph of the human spirit, this ascension from darkness and realization of our evolutionary potential is why I will do what I can to support the Coalition States and allow them to plunge deep into the darkest places of their souls so they might learn their limits... face themselves... and ultimately, rise from it. Necessary evil is ugly but in a world where time and space lay shattered like broken glass across the landscape and distant hills glow like latticeworks and breed demons and bedlam... let me assure you all, as much as you might hate them, as much as their values sicken you, the Coalition States are very necessary.

And where I'd join them willingly given the chance, that doesn't mean I have to let myself become a monster. Don't let them fool you, every man and woman behind that Deadboy helmet is a person first and a soldier second. They can't help it, its.. in their blood.



The Mechanoids

I'll keep this one simple for now until I see what everyone else says but the Mechaniods are evil, irredeemably so. They are cruel, calculating man-machines bent on destroying and tormenting everything that lies in their path. They are not protecting anything, not even pretending to, they are an expansive invasion force bent on genocide on a massive scale... but most importantly of all... they have no promising culture to speak of. As far as I know when they're not "killing all humans" they're sitting in vats musing over "killing all humans." They have no music, no love, no diversity... they are abomination and as such should be burnt away in the white-hot fires of justice!

[Giant2005]

I think I said this once before but to answer your question Giant and to clear up any misunderstandings.

I support the CS as an organization for a few reasons.

Lets start at the begining... in a time so long ago that the stark black and whites of morality have greyed and faded into history... I talk of course... of the coming of the Rifts!

*Akashic Soldier makes a bold gesture that is followed by a whirlwind journey through the time*

In the begin there was the sin of the fathers, important men now struck nameless--their faces burned from history like so much tissue paper yet their actions set in motion a catastrophe that tore at the very fabric of space-time and gave birth to the first of Rift!

From these Rifts came creatures the likes of which man had only ever dreamed, abominations and devils, and all manner of beastie... then came magic passed like the flame of Prometheus and every bit as all-consuming. Humanity fought, they fought hard, many innocent people died, and countless homes were destroyed. Families wept and for a long time chaos reigned and fear forced the survivors to huddle together while creatures from beyond the world took their land...

*Scenes of commando Floopers using MD rifles to murder fleeing women and children.*

Humanity was decimated.

Our world was all but lost.

I don't know if you realize this or not but you have just described the colonization of America from the view of a Native American. Obviously things like Rifts were replaced with Ships but it is to the same effect.

Then, from the ashes of man one brave soul had the courage to say "No more!" and take up arms against their oppressors, one soul joined by another and another! This was the new genesis of man! The next generation of humanity! And together, they triumphed. For the first time in many generations man had hope. These were the brave souls who founded the organization that would become the Coalition States. Soldiers fighting to reclaim their world from countless inter-dimensional alien beings, menaces that greedily gulp up their power or preyed on or otherwise exploited them.

*another grand gesture brings us closer to the PA109 and an army of Deadboy's marching like storm troopers*

These are the children of the souls brave enough to rise up and fight for their world. These are humanities legacy. The evolution of man that can retake their world and drive back the enemy. They have already succeeded once with the Naruni and as long as the fires of the human spirits burn they will not fail! This is manifest destiny! What right do these abominations have to take their world from them? What right do they have to surf the cosmic leylines and settle any world and drain it of resources?

What rights do men have to meddle with the leylines to conjure demons or play god or invite nightmares into the dreams of their fellows? To stir the attention of the Old Ones and arouse their ires with such carelessness? Are they not as disruptive to society as any other criminal?

This is where the Native Americans and the CS differ. The native Americans may have viewed the lifestyle of the Invaders in a similar way to how the CS views magic but there is one significant difference. The Native Americans learned to co-exist peacefully.

Are the Coalition an evil society? Yes.
Were they always an evil society? No.
Will they always be an evil society? Unlikely.

That last point is very debatable. The CS isn't all about genocide - their secondary objective is the oppression of their own people. They purposefully keep their people stupid to ensure that last statement is incorrect.
The only time that is likely to change is when they are sure the threat is eliminated. For the threat to be eliminated, either the magic energies of Earth have to dissipate or they have successfully caused the extinction of all non-CS lifeforms.

Right now the Emperor has focused the entirety of the will of the people to driving the war machine that will purge the land of the invaders and threats. Many innocent D-Bee's who are just as stranded as you or I may be on Wormwood will suffer and die but in the grand scale of things much fewer will die than the throngs of humanity who died at the hands of D-Bees. However... if... just if the Coalition is successful and reclaims the earth in the name of the human race and unite the world under a single government. Then all it takes is human sympathies to spark one great cultural revolution and overthrow the military rule for a more peaceful and cooperative approach to inter-dimensional travelers.

In this future I see, a future just one of many, there is a world at peace... a utopia where all men are free and D-Bee's have legal visas like you or I must to travel to other countries. Earth serves as a buffer between dimensions and establishes a Megaversal Law Enforcement that protects other realms from suffering the same way their great ancestors did.

But none of this can happen if the Coalition are not allowed to walk their path and make their errors. Magic and Alien Life are the biggest threats and instigators of injustice in existence. The First allows one man an advantage over another by breaking the very laws of reality and twisting them against him and the latter are the decedents of invaders or peoples that are at the least very different to humanity and may not be relate to human thinking and culture.

This grand victory, this utopia and triumph of the human spirit, this ascension from darkness and realization of our evolutionary potential is why I will do what I can to support the Coalition States and allow them to plunge deep into the darkest places of their souls so they might learn their limits... face themselves... and ultimately, rise from it. Necessary evil is ugly but in a world where time and space lay shattered like broken glass across the landscape and distant hills glow like latticeworks and breed demons and bedlam... let me assure you all, as much as you might hate them, as much as their values sicken you, the Coalition States are very necessary.

And where I'd join them willingly given the chance, that doesn't mean I have to let myself become a monster. Don't let them fool you, every man and woman behind that Deadboy helmet is a person first and a soldier second. They can't help it, its.. in their blood.

I understand this argument: The end justifies the means.
That would be a fair argument if it were possible. The CS keeps their citizens stupid as a means to prevent the kind of rebellion you are describing from occuring. The odds are surely against such an event but the rebellion could occur.
What does ensure the impossibility of that outcome is the simple fact that the CS believes in genocide. They can't eventually exist peacefully with the DBees if they have already caused their extinction. Not without excessive use of Necromancy at least, which would be a very ironic conclusion.

The Mechanoids

I'll keep this one simple for now until I see what everyone else says but the Mechaniods are evil, irredeemably so. They are cruel, calculating man-machines bent on destroying and tormenting everything that lies in their path. They are not protecting anything, not even pretending to, they are an expansive invasion force bent on genocide on a massive scale... but most importantly of all... they have no promising culture to speak of. As far as I know when they're not "killing all humans" they're sitting in vats musing over "killing all humans." They have no music, no love, no diversity... they are abomination and as such should be burnt away in the white-hot fires of justice!

That is said from the viewpoint of a human.
Now change your perception to that of an Amana living in Tolkeen who's only ambition is to keep people alive. Would you say the same statement about the Coalition?

[Akashic Soldier]

Now change your perception to that of an Amana living in Tolkeen who's only ambition is to keep people alive. Would you say the same statement about the Coalition?

Oh Gawd No. But considering my race is naturally empathic I could understand it very easily and I would have been the first to jump ship and return to my home world where I could live peacefully with my own people.

I didn't mention the native American intentionally but I too find this interesting.

The keeping them ignorant thing is important to understand I think. The Emperor in all his infinite wisdom isn't trying to oppress his people, he is trying to control them. Of course rationally this is a form of oppression but its no more oppressive than German schools being forbidden to teach their youth about Hitler. Of course the average citizen cannot read (but that is unnecessary to function in their culture with all of the technology available) the primary reason for this is that The Emperor doesn't want subversion among the populous. He wants to keep them focused on the task at hand and if someone shows up with a pre-Rifts Holy Bible thats a whole bunch of mess that they've got to deal with. If the people can't read then they can't read dangerous material that could cause cultural division, God knows there are enough sides for that to already be a big issue as it is without him needing to contend with human purists as well.

He needs the average citizen to go to work, do their job, have children, and support the army (think WWI) or else the whole CS will collapse. Right now everything is held together by an idea of elitism, righteousness and fear of the unknown (which is the world of Rifts is very justified the Unknown isn't something to take lightly it normally has MDC and can rip tanks apart, God forbid what happens if it gets its hands on your children!)

Try not to think of the average citizen as stupid or repressed they're not. They have great healthcare, safe homes, some of the most cutting edge conveniences on Rifts Earth. They're just specialized, kind of like how you might imagine a communist country almost. Everyone has what they do, they do it well, they have what they need to do it well and if they don't its provided for them... and everyone is happy working 9 to 5. Or they buck the system and make a living selling drugs or stealing and cutting out a name for themselves in the Burbs (but in The Emperors vision I highly doubt those people would exist.)

The goal of the Emperor ISN'T to breed a nation of bumbling idiots, its to breed a nation of soldiers, people who know how to take orders, fall in line, and focus. As much as the CS are harped on for being "too powerful" or able to handle just about any single threat that might come up... thats their weakness. Sure, they can handle a superhuman living nuclear werewolf with probability only a few casualties after its first couple of successful attacks on them... Leyline Walkers BAH! Rogue Crazy that think collects skulls (from living people)--NO PROBLEM!

...every nation on Earth who doesn't agree with their rather xenophobic notions?

Well, that's another story. The only way for a single army to be able to stand against so many powerful enemies is if it has an equal amount of equally powerful allies (and lets face it -- that won't happen) or they are a well oiled-war machine that functions much more efficiently than their enemy and so can do more damage without squandering as many resources and sacrificing as many troops.

Luckily for the CS people's natural mentality is to take a step back and go WHOA WHOA WHOA! after something like Tolkeen and go on the defensive instead of the offensive because they are afraid they could be next. But the CS is weakened, maybe it could take down another world power right now (I doubt it) or hell... maybe two (I highly doubt it) but then its third enemy would easily crush it and take dominion over all its newly conquered land and push the CS back into the dark ages (or completely eradicate it).

The CS needs to gain numbers so it can hold the land it has expanded on and unfortunately that is harder to do than killing enemy soldiers. Fortunately since Tolkeen dropped the ball people who might have once thought that the propaganda of the CS was outlandish and overkill (after seeing the horror Tolkeen was capable of) are probability lining up around the block to become part of the Coalition States but not every enemy is going to vilify itself and fighting forces like Free Quebec which are mostly human are going to be hard to justify without giving people the ability to quote Martin Luther King at the Emperor from the crowd.

I have no doubt (like Australia) women are likely paid by the government to have children and can simply get by with having child after child but even that takes time. In short the CS is hardly perfect but that's part of being human. We're not. In retrospect everything is clearer, a step removed everything seems so simple... but when you hate your job and know that if you get pregnant you can just sit around all day and play video games and the government will pay your wages... well, guess what you're gonna pick? Won't be until you're stuck with a screaming kid you dont know what to do with that you're going to start regretting it... and even then... if money is tight the next baby is never too far away. (This is HONESTLY what it is like over here in a lot of places, I am not making this up! I know women who have had children to buy plasma TV's).

The D-Bee situation (and I like Almana so good choice ), it sucks... but the fact is that if space-time was not tore (something that is NOT supposed to happen) they wouldn't be on Rifts Earth. Most of the time they'd be on their home world. Few D-Bee's that I've seen in Rifts Earth are naturally space fairing... so the fact that they're even here at all (if I am to be brutally honest) is against the natural order of the cosmos. They are an invasive species in a foreign environment. This never goes down in nature well. If we are to caste to one side all moral quandaries and just look at the facts then D-Bee's should be sent home at the VERY least. Especially since all it takes is one good aligned Shifter to do it.

I like a lot of D-Bee's but the truth is the world isn't being controled by good D-Bee's like the Almana its being controled by

"Hey Guys!" *waves tentacles and opens up a fresh bottle of baby blood*

Oh my God its Splyncryth again.. ignore him and he might go away.

"So I heard you guys were talking about genocide. Genocide is totally sick-house! One time I killed a whole race because I stole all their first born children and they had the hide to rise up against me instead of buying them back. Something about selling the wrong families back the wrong children... but who gives a damn right? Your turn!"

...

"Ok I'll go again... this other time I tricked this race into thinking I was their god and that drinking my excrement fluids would give them divine powers, only it really gave them incurable diseases several months after ingesting it and then I sold them the cure and made a tidy profit. Well, I sold them what I TOLD them was the cure.. This is a conversation about Genocide after all! FuFufu!"

Anyway, you get my point... when the world is in peril and who ya gonna call?

We need an army that isn't afraid to make the hard choices and do what needs to be done.

--to him. *stares at Splyncryth.*

EDIT: Also, if anyone knows ANYTHING about Mechanoid culture or how they spend their down time I would love to know. I don't like judging whole species harshly but from everything I've read they just float around hating everything and replacing lost members of their own race with new clones. No mentions of funerals or families or any redeeming qualities. If there are ANY I would really like to know about them. Thanks again guys!

[Vrykolas2k]

Actually Splynncryth, being Anarchist, likely hasn't engaged in any genocide.
It's not good for business.

[Akashic Soldier]

Actually Splynncryth, being Anarchist, likely hasn't engaged in any genocide.
It's not good for business.

First up, its a carry over joke form another post I made.
Sorry if it seems misplaced.

Secondly, completely eradicating an inferior species and taking their natural resources for yourself is the Splugoth equivalent of a bar mitsva.

And let me assure you... it can be very profitable.

Your things are now my things by way of my actions.

[DhAkael]

-meh- argue how ever much you like.
my campiagn verse, the Coalition as it stands in irredeemable until the Prosseks are DEAD and all their cabinet.
Tolkeen was WRONG thinking in their use of magic but they were not wrong to defend themselves...they just chose a morally untenable way to do so.
Re; America using Fat-man and Littleboy on Japan (who, let us be clear, did NOT follow the Geneva conventions); morally wrong but at the time, expediant and efficient. Just like Tolkeen using daemons. BOTH are destructive forces; full-stop end-of-line. However just like America in ww2, Tolkeen was backed against a wall by an agressive and fanatical agressor.

Only in the case of the Siege of Tolkeen, Tolkeen lost.

Now, as for the CS states; they keep their populace ignorant. They keep their populace (except the elite) hungry and destitute, just on subsistience level ("There's a war on kids. Buckle up and stop complaining, ya got a roof over yer head and yer soylent green dontcha?"), and are more than willing to have "brave loyal patriots" enlist to fight the good fight against the unholy invaders.

Check that; unholy invaders.
MOST of the P.C. playable D-B races are NOT unholy. MAGIC is not unholy. Like anything, individuals may be evil, and the use of technology or powers may be used for evil. Just like the average mook in the CS is not EVIL per-se, but they have been brainwashed to act evil and do evil things by their "glorious and couragous" Emporer.

No ammount of justification or arguing will have me run my campign other than the CS leaders as evil self serving tyrants, willing to see their nation burn for their own glory.

Now, here's the other side of the coin; Lazlo. Golden hope for a new-age?
Sorta.
IF you ignore the fact that Plato, though being a dragon, is kinda, well ... gutless and unwilling to take up the mantle of TRUE leadership, so any decisions tend to be bogged down in beauratic debates and comittees (Like the vote on what to do with the Xiticix), which allow harm to come about through inaction. Ditto their inaction on dealing with Dunscon Jr. or the abuses of magic that Tolkeen were doing during the seige. THAT being said, the ability for human, humanoid and non-human to interact without killing or eating each other and the equal use of magic AND technology is the only way for Terra to drag its self back from the brink. Ignoring or supressing magic & psi, and trying to kill anything NOT hairless monkey will only lead Earth down into the pit of becoming a lifeless, burned out cinder...permanently OR infested with daemonic spawn.

Now here's a thought. The minion war spills into Rifts Terra, The prosseks, refusing any help whatsoever from the "magic using scum" decide to go it alone. They fail and are consumed in their own nuclear hell-storm along with the luaghing daemons, immune to such petty toys via their own unnatural composition, dance on the radioactive graves and drink down the souls of those immolated. THEN they go after Lazlo and Triax and...well you get the gist.
Same if Lazlo doesn't get some powerful allies to deal with the more mundane minions of the devil / deamon armies who DO use tech and are more numerous than the infernals.
The only way it can end in at least a sembelance of victory is if the Prosseks are DELT with, their successors put aside the propaganda, and unite with "the inhuman xeno scum" and fight UNIFIED against the deamon swarms.

But, since no one ever listens anyways, this has just been a waste of 20 minutes of my time. *shrugs*

Dr. Who is sitting on the 'Iron Throne'; all your arguments have been rendered invalid.

[Vrykolas2k]

Actually Splynncryth, being Anarchist, likely hasn't engaged in any genocide.
It's not good for business.

First up, its a carry over joke form another post I made.
Sorry if it seems misplaced.

Secondly, completely eradicating an inferior species and taking their natural resources for yourself is the Splugoth equivalent of a bar mitsva.

And let me assure you... it can be very profitable.

Your things are now my things by way of my actions.

Except that keeping the race around and selling them for the next few thousand years is more profitable.

[Akashic Soldier]

-meh- argue how ever much you like.
my campiagn verse, the Coalition as it stands in irredeemable until the Prosseks are DEAD and all their cabinet.
Tolkeen was WRONG thinking in their use of magic but they were not wrong to defend themselves...they just chose a morally untenable way to do so.
Re; America using Fat-man and Littleboy on Japan (who, let us be clear, did NOT follow the Geneva conventions); morally wrong but at the time, expediant and efficient. Just like Tolkeen using daemons. BOTH are destructive forces; full-stop end-of-line. However just like America in ww2, Tolkeen was backed against a wall by an agressive and fanatical agressor.

Only in the case of the Siege of Tolkeen, Tolkeen lost.

Now, as for the CS states; they keep their populace ignorant. They keep their populace (except the elite) hungry and destitute, just on subsistience level ("There's a war on kids. Buckle up and stop complaining, ya got a roof over yer head and yer soylent green dontcha?"), and are more than willing to have "brave loyal patriots" enlist to fight the good fight against the unholy invaders.

Check that; unholy invaders.
MOST of the P.C. playable D-B races are NOT unholy. MAGIC is not unholy. Like anything, individuals may be evil, and the use of technology or powers may be used for evil. Just like the average mook in the CS is not EVIL per-se, but they have been brainwashed to act evil and do evil things by their "glorious and couragous" Emporer.

No ammount of justification or arguing will have me run my campign other than the CS leaders as evil self serving tyrants, willing to see their nation burn for their own glory.

Now, here's the other side of the coin; Lazlo. Golden hope for a new-age?
Sorta.
IF you ignore the fact that Plato, though being a dragon, is kinda, well ... gutless and unwilling to take up the mantle of TRUE leadership, so any decisions tend to be bogged down in beauratic debates and comittees (Like the vote on what to do with the Xiticix), which allow harm to come about through inaction. Ditto their inaction on dealing with Dunscon Jr. or the abuses of magic that Tolkeen were doing during the seige. THAT being said, the ability for human, humanoid and non-human to interact without killing or eating each other and the equal use of magic AND technology is the only way for Terra to drag its self back from the brink. Ignoring or supressing magic & psi, and trying to kill anything NOT hairless monkey will only lead Earth down into the pit of becoming a lifeless, burned out cinder...permanently OR infested with daemonic spawn.

Now here's a thought. The minion war spills into Rifts Terra, The prosseks, refusing any help whatsoever from the "magic using scum" decide to go it alone. They fail and are consumed in their own nuclear hell-storm along with the luaghing daemons, immune to such petty toys via their own unnatural composition, dance on the radioactive graves and drink down the souls of those immolated. THEN they go after Lazlo and Triax and...well you get the gist.
Same if Lazlo doesn't get some powerful allies to deal with the more mundane minions of the devil / deamon armies who DO use tech and are more numerous than the infernals.
The only way it can end in at least a sembelance of victory is if the Prosseks are DELT with, their successors put aside the propaganda, and unite with "the inhuman xeno scum" and fight UNIFIED against the deamon swarms.

But, since no one ever listens anyways, this has just been a waste of 20 minutes of my time. *shrugs*

Dr. Who is sitting on the 'Iron Throne'; all your arguments have been rendered invalid.

I hear ya boss and in your game I will act acordingly but out here I would rather cling to the hope that there is some light and good in these poor misguided fools.

EDIT: If they're going down nuclear style will you at least have them selfishly try to nuke everyone else as a final hate filled act of spite? It doesnt have to work but it would be better than just rolling over and dying. lol

[Pepsi Jedi]

Does no-one else find it a little disturbing that people are so ready to support Genocide? Not just ready to support it but fully willing to blame the victims for their extinction.
Sure this is just a game but morality is universal - it extends to all mediums.
Roleplaying someone with such a dispassionate view of genocide is fine, actually believing in that sentiment isn't quite so fine.

No, you are not alone in finding the vehement defense of the CS's actions as being perfectly acceptable behavior to the point it sounds like an endorsement of that from a real life stance as being more than a little disturbing. There is a lot wrong with arguing in such defense of it that it's hard to not feel that the person is actually endorsing it as acceptable RL behavior.

For the record, to both Nightmask and Giant2005, I never said the CS"s actions are 'perfectly acceptable behavior'

I repeatedly..... repeatedly said that both sides conducted horrors during the war. Both sides. Tolkeen and CS.

I'm explaining the 'justification' of the CS in the war and how, Tolkeen lived up to every fear the CS had and the _________ CS's _________ reasons for conducting the war.

Personally. I'd probably live right where I do today. In Upper Michigan. Northern gun. I'd be in a human country that accepts Dbees but not the freaky freaky stuff. If not here. I'd be in New Lazlo, Lazlo or Merc town.

I know the current leadership of the CS is 'evil' but as pointed out by Akashic, you can see their motivations. he did a pretty good write up there. I applaude him.

But I'm not stupid. The leadership of the CS need to change. And it can change. Akashic is right in that "For right now.. we need a leader that can keep humans going and keep expanding to retake our country.. our hemisphere.. our planet.

AFTER we've retaken what we lost, we can down grade the military and re-embrace humanity. But right 'now' humanity even with the CS and the NGR are holding on by a thread.

And remember. The CS aren't alone. FQ is WORSE than the CS. They don't accept Dbees. Magic, or even psionics, and they...... those Frenchies... don't even like the DOG BOYS!!!! Don't trust those guys man......

the NGR.... Don't Accept magic. Don't accept Dbees, and don't have Dog boys! (( though that one's not 100% their fault.))

So the other two standing 'modern' nations out there have the same views as the CS. One a bit worse.... the only thing they have that the CS doesn't is more than just barely functional literacy... and.. even with literacy...

They're against Dbees and Magic, just as bad if not worse than the CS.

EDIT: As to the Genocide thing...... I don't think many people really concider it Genocide when they're fighting armies of LITERAL Demonic monsters from nether realms invading and eating humans. You throw it around like a buzzword, but.... this isn't even figerative... they really ____ARE____ Diabolical demons from some version of hell invading our plane of existance and trying to whipe out a human nation. So... you can scream "Genocide" for the impact it has... but..... come on.

[Pepsi Jedi]

-meh- argue how ever much you like.
my campiagn verse, the Coalition as it stands in irredeemable until the Prosseks are DEAD and all their cabinet.
Tolkeen was WRONG thinking in their use of magic but they were not wrong to defend themselves...they just chose a morally untenable way to do so.
Re; America using Fat-man and Littleboy on Japan (who, let us be clear, did NOT follow the Geneva conventions); morally wrong but at the time, expediant and efficient. Just like Tolkeen using daemons. BOTH are destructive forces; full-stop end-of-line. However just like America in ww2, Tolkeen was backed against a wall by an agressive and fanatical agressor.

Only in the case of the Siege of Tolkeen, Tolkeen lost.

Now, as for the CS states; they keep their populace ignorant. They keep their populace (except the elite) hungry and destitute, just on subsistience level ("There's a war on kids. Buckle up and stop complaining, ya got a roof over yer head and yer soylent green dontcha?"), and are more than willing to have "brave loyal patriots" enlist to fight the good fight against the unholy invaders.

Check that; unholy invaders.
MOST of the P.C. playable D-B races are NOT unholy. MAGIC is not unholy. Like anything, individuals may be evil, and the use of technology or powers may be used for evil. Just like the average mook in the CS is not EVIL per-se, but they have been brainwashed to act evil and do evil things by their "glorious and couragous" Emporer.

No ammount of justification or arguing will have me run my campign other than the CS leaders as evil self serving tyrants, willing to see their nation burn for their own glory.

Now, here's the other side of the coin; Lazlo. Golden hope for a new-age?
Sorta.
IF you ignore the fact that Plato, though being a dragon, is kinda, well ... gutless and unwilling to take up the mantle of TRUE leadership, so any decisions tend to be bogged down in beauratic debates and comittees (Like the vote on what to do with the Xiticix), which allow harm to come about through inaction. Ditto their inaction on dealing with Dunscon Jr. or the abuses of magic that Tolkeen were doing during the seige. THAT being said, the ability for human, humanoid and non-human to interact without killing or eating each other and the equal use of magic AND technology is the only way for Terra to drag its self back from the brink. Ignoring or supressing magic & psi, and trying to kill anything NOT hairless monkey will only lead Earth down into the pit of becoming a lifeless, burned out cinder...permanently OR infested with daemonic spawn.

Now here's a thought. The minion war spills into Rifts Terra, The prosseks, refusing any help whatsoever from the "magic using scum" decide to go it alone. They fail and are consumed in their own nuclear hell-storm along with the luaghing daemons, immune to such petty toys via their own unnatural composition, dance on the radioactive graves and drink down the souls of those immolated. THEN they go after Lazlo and Triax and...well you get the gist.
Same if Lazlo doesn't get some powerful allies to deal with the more mundane minions of the devil / deamon armies who DO use tech and are more numerous than the infernals.
The only way it can end in at least a sembelance of victory is if the Prosseks are DELT with, their successors put aside the propaganda, and unite with "the inhuman xeno scum" and fight UNIFIED against the deamon swarms.

But, since no one ever listens anyways, this has just been a waste of 20 minutes of my time. *shrugs*

Dr. Who is sitting on the 'Iron Throne'; all your arguments have been rendered invalid.

Addressing the minion war thing. It's been different sizes on different planets. On Heroes Unlimited Earth.. it was pretty tiny. A Nazi mad scientist on an island.

On Rifts earth, if they were fully invaded it might have a chance of going the way you said. (( though not likely as it'd make a lot of books obsolete))

But I figure we'll get just enough of an invasion from the Demons and Deevils to really put the fear of.. well not god, but you get the idea, into the CS and other people in NA. It won't be a total planet invasion. Then the writers would have to write for everyone from the CS and FQ, to Lazlo, to the Vamp kingdoms, to Atlantis, to NGR, the Gargolye empire... allll those Russians. China and their own demon stuff. ect ect ect.

It'll be pretty localized. ANd if memory serves they're coming through in Calgary. So it'll be

Larsens Brigade, the CS, FQ,................ maybe Lazlo, New Lazlo, the Cyber knights.................................. Maybe the bugs.... Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Atlantis (( but I really doubt that. they're likely to sit back annd make bets and only step in if the Demons and Devils try and step foot off of NA.))

(( Edit for stupid spelling))

[The Beast]

So to sum things up
pepsi mind set, is Tolkeen had what was coming to them, for using D-Bee's and demons.
Lenwen Argues there are no native Americans inside the coalition, though we have no break down of racial groups in the CS to begin with so one can argue they are all white, or all black, or all Hispaniola!
This is getting silly guys.

QFT

[Pepsi Jedi]

That's not my mindset. That's the "CS's Mindset"

[Giant2005]

Does no-one else find it a little disturbing that people are so ready to support Genocide? Not just ready to support it but fully willing to blame the victims for their extinction.
Sure this is just a game but morality is universal - it extends to all mediums.
Roleplaying someone with such a dispassionate view of genocide is fine, actually believing in that sentiment isn't quite so fine.

No, you are not alone in finding the vehement defense of the CS's actions as being perfectly acceptable behavior to the point it sounds like an endorsement of that from a real life stance as being more than a little disturbing. There is a lot wrong with arguing in such defense of it that it's hard to not feel that the person is actually endorsing it as acceptable RL behavior.

For the record, to both Nightmask and Giant2005, I never said the CS"s actions are 'perfectly acceptable behavior'

I repeatedly..... repeatedly said that both sides conducted horrors during the war. Both sides. Tolkeen and CS.

I'm explaining the 'justification' of the CS in the war and how, Tolkeen lived up to every fear the CS had and the _________ CS's _________ reasons for conducting the war.

Personally. I'd probably live right where I do today. In Upper Michigan. Northern gun. I'd be in a human country that accepts Dbees but not the freaky freaky stuff. If not here. I'd be in New Lazlo, Lazlo or Merc town.

I know the current leadership of the CS is 'evil' but as pointed out by Akashic, you can see their motivations. he did a pretty good write up there. I applaude him.

But I'm not stupid. The leadership of the CS need to change. And it can change. Akashic is right in that "For right now.. we need a leader that can keep humans going and keep expanding to retake our country.. our hemisphere.. our planet.

A very good answer.
One thing I'd ask you to consider are your borders, this quote in particular: "For right now.. we need a leader that can keep humans going and keep expanding to retake our country.. our hemisphere.. our planet."
Why are you limiting the border to the planet? I don't see any reason why they would stop there.
They are rightful citizens of their City, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.
They are rightful citizens of their State, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.
They are rightful citizens of their Country, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.
They are rightful citizens of their Continent, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.
They are rightful citizens of their Planet, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.
Aren't they citizens of their Megaverse? Wouldn't the next logical step be to kill everything they need to to keep it that way?
The Mechanoids are the exact same way - they don't slaughter life out of boredom, they are methodical. They do it because: "The tormented aliens seek to stop their anguish and pain by destroying all humanoid life - the ultimate evil." (Mechanoids 31).
That is the exact motivation of the CS. They seek to stop their own suffering by destroying all non-human and all magic-using life, which they consider the ultimate evil.
The Mechanoids are the closest parallel to the CS we have and yet they didn't stop after purging their own planet, I don't see why the CS would be any different.
Akashic suggested eventually when things were safe there would be some kind of rebellion and after overthrowing the regime, peach would return. that is exactly what happened with the Mechanoids, except the rebellion failed and the regime continues.
The Mechanoids are the future of the CS. Nothing will change if they aren't stopped.

AFTER we've retaken what we lost, we can down grade the military and re-embrace humanity. But right 'now' humanity even with the CS and the NGR are holding on by a thread.

And remember. The CS aren't alone. FQ is WORSE than the CS. They don't accept Dbees. Magic, or even psionics, and they...... those Frenchies... don't even like the DOG BOYS!!!! Don't trust those guys man......

the NGR.... Don't Accept magic. Don't accept Dbees, and don't have Dog boys! (( though that one's not 100% their fault.))

So the other two standing 'modern' nations out there have the same views as the CS. One a bit worse.... the only thing they have that the CS doesn't is more than just barely functional literacy... and.. even with literacy...

They're against Dbees and Magic, just as bad if not worse than the CS.

You are forgetting the Geofront.
The Geofront are exactly what I would hope would become of Mankind if such a tragedy would occur. They are accepting of all intelligent life - they are a pre-Rifts society with unparalleled technology and the advantage of DBees, magic and psionics in their arsenal. While the CS makes enemies of the world, the Geofront makes alliances.
The CS can't be the hope of humanity because they have pretty much given up their humanity. The Geofront got it right.

EDIT: As to the Genocide thing...... I don't think many people really concider it Genocide when they're fighting armies of LITERAL Demonic monsters from nether realms invading and eating humans. You throw it around like a buzzword, but.... this isn't even figerative... they really ____ARE____ Diabolical demons from some version of hell invading our plane of existance and trying to whipe out a human nation. So... you can scream "Genocide" for the impact it has... but..... come on.

The CS didn't invade a nation of Demonic Monsters, they invaded a nation of DBees and magic users - their intent was to wipe out intelligent, peaceful life, not to destroy a bunch of demons.
If some kid gets stung because he thought it was a good idea to hit a bee's nest a few times with a stick, I'm not going to blame the Bees for using their stingers - it is the most powerful defense they have and they have a right to live.
I'm certainly not going to suggest exterminating every bee on the planet.
I like honey.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Does no-one else find it a little disturbing that people are so ready to support Genocide? Not just ready to support it but fully willing to blame the victims for their extinction.
Sure this is just a game but morality is universal - it extends to all mediums.
Roleplaying someone with such a dispassionate view of genocide is fine, actually believing in that sentiment isn't quite so fine.

No, you are not alone in finding the vehement defense of the CS's actions as being perfectly acceptable behavior to the point it sounds like an endorsement of that from a real life stance as being more than a little disturbing. There is a lot wrong with arguing in such defense of it that it's hard to not feel that the person is actually endorsing it as acceptable RL behavior.

For the record, to both Nightmask and Giant2005, I never said the CS"s actions are 'perfectly acceptable behavior'

I repeatedly..... repeatedly said that both sides conducted horrors during the war. Both sides. Tolkeen and CS.

I'm explaining the 'justification' of the CS in the war and how, Tolkeen lived up to every fear the CS had and the _________ CS's _________ reasons for conducting the war.

Personally. I'd probably live right where I do today. In Upper Michigan. Northern gun. I'd be in a human country that accepts Dbees but not the freaky freaky stuff. If not here. I'd be in New Lazlo, Lazlo or Merc town.

I know the current leadership of the CS is 'evil' but as pointed out by Akashic, you can see their motivations. he did a pretty good write up there. I applaude him.

But I'm not stupid. The leadership of the CS need to change. And it can change. Akashic is right in that "For right now.. we need a leader that can keep humans going and keep expanding to retake our country.. our hemisphere.. our planet.

A very good answer.
One thing I'd ask you to consider are your borders, this quote in particular: "For right now.. we need a leader that can keep humans going and keep expanding to retake our country.. our hemisphere.. our planet."
Why are you limiting the border to the planet? I don't see any reason why they would stop there.

It'll take us a very very long time to retake earth, if it's ---ever--- possible to fully do so. To be honest I don't see it happening with out aid from the 3 galaxies. But in theory it'll take us a long long time.

They are rightful citizens of their City, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.

Please note.. it need not be this way. If the invaders simply left, that's a perfectly ok result as well. No need to kill everything.

They are rightful citizens of their State, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.

Again, no need to fight they can simply depart and it'd be good.

They are rightful citizens of their Country, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.

Same as above. The killing isn't for the killing's sake. (( though in the case of the demons I'd say it's pretty good on the surface))

They are rightful citizens of their Continent, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.
They are rightful citizens of their Planet, so they kill everything they need to to keep it that way.

Same as above, though I would very seriously think there'd be a pause if the CS managed to get the continent. For one the other Continent's are seemingly more firmly held, just taking atlantis would be nigh on impossible with out help from the 3 galaxies, and just trying might end up with the planet decimated. So.. Jumping from Continent to planet is a big big deal. In theory, yes, it is Humans planet, but that's , well a planetary type effort. It's pretty hard.

Aren't they citizens of their Megaverse? Wouldn't the next logical step be to kill everything they need to to keep it that way?

This is where it differs. We don't have claim to the entire megaverse. We have a claim to OUR PLANET. When/if the timeline advances that far, we have claim to our planet, and many would argue our solar system as we were the intelligent beings that evolved here. But as soon as you start looking at other systems, they may be held by other people/beings. It would be wrong of us to just take them.

As shown in..... Thunderhead galaxy, there's plenty of non inhabited planets/systems out there that you need not invade if you don't choose to. It's actually a pretty big part of that book. (( and thhe humans out there in the 3 galaxies.... mmmmmmmmmm yeah.. they're invading when they can get away with it.. but so are the other super powers.. but we're talking about Earth's humans, not those ones. lol))

The Mechanoids are the exact same way - they don't slaughter life out of boredom, they are methodical. They do it because: "The tormented aliens seek to stop their anguish and pain by destroying all humanoid life - the ultimate evil." (Mechanoids 31).

Well the Mechanoids do, do it because they're evil. That's how they roll. They're not defending their own planet from which they naturally evolved from invading aliens that snuck in when a natural disaster happened. They're actively going out and killing everything they can, for their own selfish evil sake.

That is the exact motivation of the CS. They seek to stop their own suffering by destroying all non-human and all magic-using life, which they consider the ultimate evil.

Ehhh.. Again. I don't think the CS kill just to kill, like the Mechinoids do. the CS kill to protect their children and try and make OUR PLANET safe for OUR PEOPLE. Are they misguided? OFTEN. ___________VERY OFTEN_______________ In their fear have they painted all aliens and supernaturals with the same brush? YES. Is this wrong? YES!! VERY WRONG!!!

But if you take a moment and look at what happened to them, it's "understandable" as to how they got that mindset. The world was ripped apart and demons annd aliens came flying out of nowhere to attack and kill and eat humanity for 200+ Years. You can't blame them for being scared of it. It's the old once bitten twice shy thing. After 200 years of dark ages where every manner of monster, demon, supernatural menace that has come forth from the rifts has killed, slaughtered, raped, enslaved, eaten, ect people you know... you get pretty fed up with it and don't really want to extend an olive branch to the next alien whatever it is that comes sloughing into your human settlements.

Really think about that for a while. World wide ultra mega super natural disaster. Billions of humans dead in the first days. Earth quakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, dimensional shifting, the works. BILLIONS dead.. then.. suddenly there's a flash and then. RAR!!!! Monsters you've never even dreamed of are just swarming out killing and slaughtering the few survivors that are left..

And they kill and kill and kill and kill and kill for two hundred years. Your generation, your kids, your great grand kids. Their kids.. Their grand kids... For 100s of years, monsters from gods know where, slaughter the remainder of humanity. And for over 200 years there's little you can do about it. Finally mankind starts to crawl out of the ashes and regain power and it takes ANOTHER 100 years. The great great grandchildren if not the great great great grandchildren of those that were around in 1Pa are the ones alive now. After 200+ years of dark ages with every sort of magical, supernatural, alien, what-tha-frak killing and attacking humanity.... are you really going to pause and offer them the chance to eat some more humans? After 300 years of living in fear of these things, and having most of humanity killed and eaten or enslaved or whatever, for generations and generations and generations..... Out of NOWHERE.. .again all the rifts and god knows what that poured out of them didn't happen with a build up. It was 100% out of the blue. A multidimensional invasion during the largest natural disaster earth has ever faced, and it went on for 100s of years.

Do you BLAME humanity for not figuring out 'good' alien invaders from the ones that have been preying on them for 3 centuries? After 300 years of fear and just trying to survive against the often mega damage or supernatural things that can literally rip your head off your body with no effort, or punch a hole through your body as easily as you punch through paper... do you blame humanity for not stopping to cross reference just which kinda inter-dimensional freak they've seen and are reacting to?

Now... sitting back reading the book. It's easy to go "The CS goes too far" (( they do.)) "They shouldn't fear all the DBees" (( they shouldn't)) "The CS should give some of them a chance" (( They should))

But looking at the above... generation after generation after generation, your people have been prey, struggling just to exist on their own planet as they're hunted and destroyed by inhuman invaders from other dimensions.... do you BLAME them for their (( Very justified)) Fear?

The Mechanoids are the closest parallel to the CS we have and yet they didn't stop after purging their own planet, I don't see why the CS would be any different.

No they're really not. While the CS aren't choir boys. They're not just flying around the universe cackling madly as they kill kill kill.

Akashic suggested eventually when things were safe there would be some kind of rebellion and after overthrowing the regime, peach would return. that is exactly what happened with the Mechanoids, except the rebellion failed and the regime continues.
The Mechanoids are the future of the CS. Nothing will change if they aren't stopped.

See... I don't think so. 2 reasons stand out strongly to me.

1) The US was expansionist... right up till we were not. We're by FAR the strongest country on the planet. No country can stand against us. I know it might not be PC to sayy so but it's true. We can take out any other one country on earth with out much hassle. We have that ability.. but we haven't been expansionist in decades. We grew... till we hit a limit then we stopped. Our population has tripled since then but still we're not invading and CLAIMING other countries and moving in. The CS is based off the US. They will, in time get to that point too.

2) The CS is --already-- changing. Karl's son is a vector of change. He's not as far to the edge as his father is. And he's SMART... and he's LIKED.... and he's NEXT IN LINE. He's already accepting of magic. Once Karl is dead... his son will take over. He'll need some time to build a stable power base.. but then here come the changes. Bradford will be taken out and shot.. and..... after his power base is stable and strong. he's going to phase out some of the 'Evil" Leaders in the CS military... once they're gone, he's that much stronger... then here comes the re-introduction of Magic to the CS. Not "ALL MAGICS" but. "OUR MAGICS"

It'll (( likely)) be presented as "Turning our enemies powers back on them. Though ENDLESS Study of our dreaded enemies abilities we've learned how to CONTROL it.. and we will start to integrate it into our military to help defend against it" type deal. Very regulated. Very "MILITARY ONLY" (( at least to start)) and the Vanguard.. who have been keeping the faith all these years.. come back heroes.

That's step one..... once you get your populace used to and accepting magic to defend you.... You start bending a bit more. You find a race of near humans.... show that they're not evil... that they can live with and be allies of humanity. If you're smart you help them start a small kingdom (( even secretly fund it)) Show mutual defense. Let the population 'get to know them' and slowly accept them. "Separate but equal" to start. (( I know what it was for us. Don't kill me. I'm talking about a fictional universe stepping away from their human supremacists viewpoints. it's not going to happen overnight. Baby steps)) Build on that... in a few decades we're suddenly a human society that has limited magic use and a few Dbee allies...... then.. just keep going with integration.

150 years ago, if you told people in the US that one day the black's would be free and the MOST POWERFUL MAN ON PLANET EARTH would be the black president of the USA.... they'd laugh. White people would laugh and black people would laugh. They'd think you were an idiot. Hell it might even get you killed. Just for saying that. They would tell you they KNOW that'd NEVER happen. That they KNOW you're wrong...

To quote... "Imagine what you'll know... tomorrow."

(( now.. all this said... I don't expect it any time soon in Canon. Rifts has been out for over 20 years and we've only moved 8 years in canon time.... But it's ---possible---. I'm looking forward to the minion war thing.. I think it very well might throw the CS in with dbee and magical allies.... or.... drive the divide even deeper and frak things even worse.. ))

AFTER we've retaken what we lost, we can down grade the military and re-embrace humanity. But right 'now' humanity even with the CS and the NGR are holding on by a thread.

And remember. The CS aren't alone. FQ is WORSE than the CS. They don't accept Dbees. Magic, or even psionics, and they...... those Frenchies... don't even like the DOG BOYS!!!! Don't trust those guys man......

the NGR.... Don't Accept magic. Don't accept Dbees, and don't have Dog boys! (( though that one's not 100% their fault.))

So the other two standing 'modern' nations out there have the same views as the CS. One a bit worse.... the only thing they have that the CS doesn't is more than just barely functional literacy... and.. even with literacy...

They're against Dbees and Magic, just as bad if not worse than the CS.

You are forgetting the Geofront.

I'm not forgetting it. It's just a non-entienty. It's so far away "right now" and so cut off from.. everything.. that they might as well be on another planet. If the Geofront was doing.. You know.... ANYTHING since their conception it might be different. But they're not. They were introduced and are just chillin' over there. If they came over to pitch in a hand it might be one thing, but the separation right now is so big that it's easier to get to phase world or wormwood than it is to get from the Geofront to the CS.

The Geofront are exactly what I would hope would become of Mankind if such a tragedy would occur. They are accepting of all intelligent life - they are a pre-Rifts society with unparalleled technology and the advantage of DBees, magic and psionics in their arsenal. While the CS makes enemies of the world, the Geofront makes alliances.
The CS can't be the hope of humanity because they have pretty much given up their humanity. The Geofront got it right.

Eh.. the CS has it's humanity. They just put humans first. As stated way above, if the alien invaders would just leave, the CS would be happy. They don't all have to DIE. Just get out

EDIT: As to the Genocide thing...... I don't think many people really consider it Genocide when they're fighting armies of LITERAL Demonic monsters from nether realms invading and eating humans. You throw it around like a buzzword, but.... this isn't even figurative... they really ____ARE____ Diabolical demons from some version of hell invading our plane of existance and trying to whipe out a human nation. So... you can scream "Genocide" for the impact it has... but..... come on.

The CS didn't invade a nation of Demonic Monsters, they invaded a nation of DBees and magic users - their intent was to wipe out intelligent, peaceful life, not to destroy a bunch of demons.

And yet, when they invaded, armies of Demonic Monsters is what they found. It's not even a chicken or egg thing.

I've pointed out -repeatedly- that OFTEN, the CS' fear of Dbees and magic and the supernatural are UNFOUNDED. If not TOTALLY UNFOUNDED.

In this case.. their OFTEN unfounded fears, were 100% on the mark. Tolkeen was everything the CS feared given physical form.. lurking in the CS back yard.

If some kid gets stung because he thought it was a good idea to hit a bee's nest a few times with a stick, I'm not going to blame the Bees for using their stingers - it is the most powerful defense they have and they have a right to live.

Right, but if the bees suddenly waved their wings and giant demons came out, and raped your kid for days and days and days till they raped him to death, laughing the entire time.. then cut him up and had him for lunch.. before catching you and raping you to death and eating you.. annd everyone in your neighboorhood.. and your town... while laughing... and if the bees even tried to stop them.. killed and ate them too.....

You'd re-evaluate that 'powerful defense in right to live" wouldn't you?

That's what Tolkeen did.

I'm certainly not going to suggest exterminating every bee on the planet.
I like honey.

Yeah but if the above happened... You might change your mind. Right?


((Edited for... just.. truly horrid spelling. I apoligise to anyone who read it before I fixed some of it.

[Armorlord]

Guys, guys, let's not get caught up in arguing the semantics of good and evil.
By and large, the Coalition States are the boogeymen of North America. Oppressive, violently xenophobic, and human supremacists. Worse yet, they hate reading, beloved hobby of nerds everywhere, the Rifts setting equivelant of kicking the dog.
While they are certainly the 'bad guys' for most groups, it is worth noting that the Coalition States is not inherently evil. In fact it was a certain bit of the Tolkeen War that confirmed that: The Death Camps. To be precise, the secret death camps set up by a general without the permission or knowledge of the high command, and the revealing of that information being something that horrifies the people of the Coalition States and even the high command to an extent, ruining the general and shaming the CS. Even for 'inhuman invaders' there are lines that even the Coalition at large does not want to cross.

Tolkeen was a relatively strong magic using kingdom with several allied cities and towns in their region, and while they'd been blockaded and harassed for years with the threat of war looming, they didn't pick this fight, they just felt they could win when the CS did finally pick that fight.
When that turned out to be wrong, they turned to darker forces and went from innocent oppressed nation under attack to becoming the poster child for CS fears and hysteria. Tolkeen was within the right to stand and defend themselves from Coalition ambition and fear, the unfortunate thing was when they let their righteous anger turn into a festering hate during the course of the war.

Both had their good and their bad in this conflict, trying to hold up either side as being completely in the right is foolhardy.

[Lenwen]

Actually .. if were to get technical PJ .. the planet is not human's .. it is in fact the Flaura an Fauna's planet .. and yes there are those types of beings in Rifts north america dbee's book.

So does that mean its all good if they went on the warpath an started kicking humans off of their planet an their continents ?

No humans do in fact not predate flaura an fauna . So .. by your logic that means yep its ok for them to kick out the invaders right ?

[Pepsi Jedi]

Actually .. if were to get technical PJ .. the planet is not human's .. it is in fact the Flaura an Fauna's planet .. and yes there are those types of beings in Rifts north america dbee's book.

So does that mean its all good if they went on the warpath an started kicking humans off of their planet an their continents ?

No humans do in fact not predate flaura an fauna . So .. by your logic that means yep its ok for them to kick out the invaders right ?

Humans are the INTELLIGENT life that evolved on Earth, there Lenwen. Quit trying to argue just to argue. It's not cute.

[Lenwen]

Actually .. if were to get technical PJ .. the planet is not human's .. it is in fact the Flaura an Fauna's planet .. and yes there are those types of beings in Rifts north america dbee's book.

So does that mean its all good if they went on the warpath an started kicking humans off of their planet an their continents ?

No humans do in fact not predate flaura an fauna . So .. by your logic that means yep its ok for them to kick out the invaders right ?

Humans are the INTELLIGENT life that evolved on Earth, there Lenwen. Quit trying to argue just to argue. It's not cute.

only your allowed to on these boards ?

LMAO !!

[Giant2005]

Please note.. it need not be this way. If the invaders simply left, that's a perfectly ok result as well. No need to kill everything.

That isn't canon.
The Coalition Wars weren't based on conquest or liberation, the books stated several times that it was a "war of Genocide" (Coalition Wars 1, page 7).
Moving from your fortifications isn't a means of survival, it is a means of weakening your defense. If Tolkeen decided to pack up and leave, it would have just made the CS's job easier.

Aren't they citizens of their Megaverse? Wouldn't the next logical step be to kill everything they need to to keep it that way?

This is where it differs. We don't have claim to the entire megaverse. We have a claim to OUR PLANET. When/if the timeline advances that far, we have claim to our planet, and many would argue our solar system as we were the intelligent beings that evolved here. But as soon as you start looking at other systems, they may be held by other people/beings. It would be wrong of us to just take them.

Why would we argue for the Solar System but not the Megaverse?
Americans have claim to America.
Humans have claim to Earth.
Lifeforms within the Megaverse have claim to the Megaverse.
If the Americans have the right to claim the Earth because they are Human, wouldn't the next logical step be to claim their right to the Megaverse because they are also Lifeforms within the Megaverse?

The Mechanoids are the exact same way - they don't slaughter life out of boredom, they are methodical. They do it because: "The tormented aliens seek to stop their anguish and pain by destroying all humanoid life - the ultimate evil." (Mechanoids 31).

Well the Mechanoids do, do it because they're evil. That's how they roll. They're not defending their own planet from which they naturally evolved from invading aliens that snuck in when a natural disaster happened. They're actively going out and killing everything they can, for their own selfish evil sake.

No but that is exactly how they begun. They exterminated the evil forces of their own world but it wasn't enough, there were still plenty of evil forces out there in the Megaverse that needed exterminating and so they did.
You will absolutely disagree with this but I consider it a certainty that is the same route the CS would take if given the opportunity.
They don't have the means and probably never will but they wish they could.
They didn't invadew Tolkeen to teach them a lesson, they didn't do it to push them off their land, they did it because they wanted to kill every last man, woman and child. As the book says, it was a "War of Genocide". that means no survivors, no prisoners.
This is entirely my opinion but such a decision can only be made with the most extreme hate dominating one's mind.
At what point do you expect such hate to subside? After winning a battle? After winning a war?
I don't think that level of hate can ever subside.

That is the exact motivation of the CS. They seek to stop their own suffering by destroying all non-human and all magic-using life, which they consider the ultimate evil.

Ehhh.. Again. I don't think the CS kill just to kill, like the Mechinoids do. the CS kill to protect their children and try and make OUR PLANET safe for OUR PEOPLE. Are they misguided? OFTEN. ___________VERY OFTEN_______________ In their fear have they painted all aliens and supernaturals with the same brush? YES. Is thhis wrong? YES!! VERY WRONG!!!

They DO kill just to kill.
If it was about protection, it would not be about genocide, it would be about neutralizing the threat. You don't have to wipe out a race of people to neutralize a threat but that is the only avenue the CS could see because they want to kill, not to neutralize.

But if you take a moment and look at what happened to them, it's "understandable" as to how they got that mindset. The world was ripped apart and demons annd aliens came flying out of nowhere to attack and kill and eat humanity for 200+ Years. You can't blame them for being scared of it. It's the old once bitten twice shy thing. After 200 years of dark ages where every manner of monster, demon, supernatural meanace that has come forth from the rifts has killed, slaughtered, raped, enslaved, eaten, ect people you know... you get pretty fed up with it and don't really want to extend an olive branch to the next alien whatever it is that comes sloughing into your human settlements.

Really think about that for a while. World wide ultra mega super natural disaster. Billions of humans dead in the first days. Earth quakes, volcanos, tidal waves, dimensional shifting, the works. BILLIONS dead.. then.. suddenly there's a flash and then. RAR!!!! Monsters you've never even dreamed of are just swarming out killing and slaughtering the few survivors that are left..

And they kill and kill and kill and kill and kill for two hundred years. Your generation, your kids, your great grand kids. Their kids.. Their grand kids... For 100s of years, monsters from gods know where, slaughter the remainder of humanity. And for over 200 years there's little you can do about it. Finally mankind starts to crawl out of the ashes and regain power and it takes ANOTHER 100 years. The great great grandchildren if not the great great great grandchildren of those that were around in 1Pa are the ones alive now. After 200+ years of dark ages with every sort of magical, supernatural, alien, what-tha-frak killing and attacking humanity.... are you really going to pause and offer them the chance to eat some more humans? After 300 years of living in fear of these things, and having most of humanity killed and eaten or enslaved or whatever, for generations and generations and generations..... OUt of NOWHERE.. .again all the rifts and god knows what that poured out of them didn't happen with a build up. It was 100% out of the blue. A multidimensional invasion during the largest natural disaster earth has ever faced, and it went on for 100s of years.

Do you BLAME humanity for not figuring out 'good' alien invaders from the ones that have been preying on them for 3 centuries? After 300 years of fear and just trying to survive against the often mega damage or supernatural things that can literally rip your head off your body with no effort, or punch a whole through your body as easily as you punch through paper... do you blame humanity for not stopping to cross reference just which kinda inter-dimensional freak they've seen and are reacting to?

Now... sitting back reading the book. It's easy to go "The CS goes too far" (( they do.)) "They shouldn't fear all the DBees" (( they shouldn't)) "The CS should give some of them a chance" (( They should))

But looking at the above... generation after generation after generation, your people have been prey, struggling just to exist on their own planet as they're hunted and destroyed by inhuman invaders from other dimensions.... do you BLAME them for their (( Very justified)) Fear?

You are right. It is perfectly understandable that they would be driven to such insanity under such extreme circumstances.
That doesn't make it right.
The real tragedy of the story is they have become the monsters that they wish to exterminate.
The thing is, they should be able to identify which are the 'good' aliens and which aren't. The 'good' ones are typically the ones that don't attack people on a whim. The problem is, the CS starts so many confrontations that even the most peaceful DBees know that they will have to defend themselves or flee if they see a Deadboy. The CS can't identify the peaceful DBees because as a warmongering nation, they have made an enemy of everyone.

Akashic suggested eventually when things were safe there would be some kind of rebellion and after overthrowing the regime, peach would return. that is exactly what happened with the Mechanoids, except the rebellion failed and the regime continues.
The Mechanoids are the future of the CS. Nothing will change if they aren't stopped.

See... I don't think so. 2 reasons stand out strongly to me.

1) The US was expansionist... right up till we were not. We're by FAR the strongest country on the planet. No country can stand against us. I know it might not be PC to sayy so but it's true. We can take out any other one country on earth with out much hassle. We have that ability.. but we haven't been expansionist in decades. We grew... till we hit a limit then we stopped. Our population has tripled since then but still we're not invading and CLAIMING other countries and moving in. The CS is based off the US. They will, in time get to that point too.

The CS isn't based off the US, it is based off Nazi Germany. they are very different things.
The US was expansionist - they expanded because they wanted land, not because they wanted to kill.
Their expansion ended when they didn't need any more land, or there was no more land to take, the CS will end when there is nothing left to kill.

2) The CS is --already-- changing. Karl's son is a vector of change. He's not as far to the edge as his father is. And he's SMART... and he's LIKED.... and he's NEXT IN LINE. He's already accepting of magic. Once Karl is dead... his son will take over. He'll need some time to build a stable power base.. but then here come the changes. Bradford will be taken out and shot.. and..... after his power base is stable and strong. he's going to phase out some of the 'Evil" Leaders in the CS military... once they're gone, he's that much stronger... then here comes the re-introduction of Magic to the CS. Not "ALL MAGICS" but. "OUR MAGICS"

It'll (( likely)) be presented as "Turning our enemies powers back on them. Though ENDLESS Study of our dreaded enemies abilityes we've learned how to CONTROL it.. and we will start to intigrate it into our military to help defend against it" type deal. Very regulated. Very "MILITARY ONLY" (( at least to start)) and the Vanguard.. who have been keeping the faith all these years.. come back heroes.

That's step one..... once you get your populace used to and accepting magic to defend you.... You start bending a bit more. You find a race of near humans.... show that they're nnot evil... that they can live with and be allies of humanity. If you're smart youhelp them start a small kingdom (( even secretly fund it)) Show mutual defense. Let the population 'get to know them' and slowly accept them. "Seperate but equal" to start. (( I know what it was for us. Don't kill me. I'm talking about a fictional univverse stepping away from their human surpremists viewpoints. it's not going to happen overnight. Baby steps)) Build on that... in a few decades we're suddenly a human society that has limited magic use and a few Dbee allies...... then.. just keep going with intigration.

That is possible. It would have to happen sooner rather than later though - there is only so much abuse that can be issued before even the cowards of Lazlo decide enough is enough.
Once the CS pushes the rest of America into war, it would be very difficult for anyone within the CS to get the people to accept anything beyond what they have already been indoctrinated with.

150 years ago, if you told people in the US that one day the black's would be free and the MOST POWERFUL MAN ON PLANET EARTH would be the black president of the USA.... they'd laugh. White people would laugh and black people would laugh. They'd think you were an idiot. Hell it might even get you killed. Just for saying that. They would tell you they KNOW that'd NEVER happen. That they KNOW you're wrong...

This is true but I don't think it is applicable. Black people weren't killed on sight, they were slaves - their future existence was never in jeopardy.
Black people were able to become respected citizens because they were alive to earn that right, a bunch of extinct DBees won't ever become respected citizens because they are extinct...

EDIT: As to the Genocide thing...... I don't think many people really concider it Genocide when they're fighting armies of LITERAL Demonic monsters from nether realms invading and eating humans. You throw it around like a buzzword, but.... this isn't even figerative... they really ____ARE____ Diabolical demons from some version of hell invading our plane of existance and trying to whipe out a human nation. So... you can scream "Genocide" for the impact it has... but..... come on.

The CS didn't invade a nation of Demonic Monsters, they invaded a nation of DBees and magic users - their intent was to wipe out intelligent, peaceful life, not to destroy a bunch of demons.

And yet, when they invaded, armies of Demonic Monsters is what they found. It's not even a chicken or egg thing.

I've pointed out -repeatedly- that OFTEN, the CS' fear of Dbees and magic and the supernatural are UNFOUNDED. If not TOTALLY UNFOUNDED.

In this case.. their OFTEN unfounded fears, were 100% on the mark.

You are right it isn't a chicken or egg thing...
The chicken or egg debate exists because one cannot have existed without the other, this is most certainly not the case with respect to the CS war.
The demons weren't summoned until after the CS initiated the conflict, there was a definite chain of events, a definite line of cause and effect.

If some kid gets stung because he thought it was a good idea to hit a bee's nest a few times with a stick, I'm not going to blame the Bees for using their stingers - it is the most powerful defense they have and they have a right to live.

Right, but if the bees suddenly waved their wings and giant demons came out, and raped your kid for days and days and days till they raped him to death, laughing the entire time.. then cut him up and had him for lunch.. before catching you and raping you to death and eating you.. annd everyone in your neighboorhood.. and your town... while laughing... and if the bees even tried to stop them.. killed and ate them too.....

You'd re-evaulate that 'powerful deffense in right to live" wouldn't you?

That's what Tolkeen did.

I'm certainly not going to suggest exterminating every bee on the planet.
I like honey.

Yeah but if the above happened... You might change your mind. Right?

No I would not change my mind.
I would simply choose not to hit Bees nests with sticks so both lifeforms could coexist in peace.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Actually .. if were to get technical PJ .. the planet is not human's .. it is in fact the Flaura an Fauna's planet .. and yes there are those types of beings in Rifts north america dbee's book.

So does that mean its all good if they went on the warpath an started kicking humans off of their planet an their continents ?

No humans do in fact not predate flaura an fauna . So .. by your logic that means yep its ok for them to kick out the invaders right ?

Humans are the INTELLIGENT life that evolved on Earth, there Lenwen. Quit trying to argue just to argue. It's not cute.

only your allowed to on these boards ?

LMAO !!

Yes. And thank you for implying I'm cute.

[Lenwen]

There -is- some hand waving for both sides. (( War starts with Tolkeen suddenly and unexplained, having a magical thing that can suck up tack nuke attack.

I'd like to take this time to address this very passage some one else wrote earlier in the thread. And was in fact not hand waviumed .. as shown by this very Canon sourced refrence..

The Coalition knew Tolkeen was fomidable and had been preparing for war for years.

This passage clearly show's there was no hand wavium on the side of the Tolkeen defender's .. They after all had been preparing for war with the coalition as it clearly indicates .. for YEARS ..

There is still however .. major hand wavium going on for the Coalition ..

[Lenwen]

That last point is very debatable. The CS isn't all about genocide - their secondary objective is the oppression of their own people. They purposefully keep their people stupid to ensure that last statement is incorrect.
The only time that is likely to change is when they are sure the threat is eliminated. For the threat to be eliminated, either the magic energies of Earth have to dissipate or they have successfully caused the extinction of all non-CS lifeforms

They are more apt to change for the worse .. as it is written thier military leader's are leaning that way as it stands right now after the war .. (and durring it as well)

[Pepsi Jedi]

Please note.. it need not be this way. If the invaders simply left, that's a perfectly ok result as well. No need to kill everything.

That isn't canon.
The Coalition Wars weren't based on conquest or liberation, the books stated several times that it was a "war of Genocide" (Coalition Wars 1, page 7).
Moving from your fortifications isn't a means of survival, it is a means of weakening your defense. If Tolkeen decided to pack up and leave, it would have just made the CS's job easier.

It's a figure of speech and flowery description. When Tolkeen lost and the survivors fled, most were allowed to do so. (( helps that the JLA got in the way of some of them)) Thousands of them have even transversed CS territory to end up in Lazlo. They wern't chased down every last man woman and child. Just the ones that didn't flee.

Aren't they citizens of their Megaverse? Wouldn't the next logical step be to kill everything they need to to keep it that way?

This is where it differs. We don't have claim to the entire megaverse. We have a claim to OUR PLANET. When/if the timeline advances that far, we have claim to our planet, and many would argue our solar system as we were the intelligent beings that evolved here. But as soon as you start looking at other systems, they may be held by other people/beings. It would be wrong of us to just take them.

Why would we argue for the Solar System but not the Megaverse?

Because we are the only intelligent life to have evolved in the Sol system. We're by far not the only intelligent life to have evolved in the megaverse. We have squatter rights to THIS system.

Americans have claim to America.
Humans have claim to Earth.
Lifeforms within the Megaverse have claim to the Megaverse.

Other life forms claim THEIR systems. Where they evolved or migrated to.

This one (planet) is ours. . Claiming the planet of someone else would be as bad as they claiming earth.

If the Americans have the right to claim the Earth because they are Human, wouldn't the next logical step be to claim their right to the Megaverse because they are also Lifeforms within the Megaverse?

Ahhh but it's not just the Americans that have thhe right to claim earth, but any and all humans have the right to claim earth. We just happen to be talking about the CS in this thread.

The Mechanoids are the exact same way - they don't slaughter life out of boredom, they are methodical. They do it because: "The tormented aliens seek to stop their anguish and pain by destroying all humanoid life - the ultimate evil." (Mechanoids 31).

Well the Mechanoids do, do it because they're evil. That's how they roll. They're not defending their own planet from which they naturally evolved from invading aliens that snuck in when a natural disaster happened. They're actively going out and killing everything they can, for their own selfish evil sake.

No but that is exactly how they begun. They exterminated the evil forces of their own world but it wasn't enough, there were still plenty of evil forces out there in the Megaverse that needed exterminating and so they did.

We know that? Where's that stated? (( not being argumentative. I'm not an expert on the Mechinoids, if it says they started out as heros defending their planet from evil and now eat the faces of everything they come into contact with, I'd like to read about that transition))

You will absolutely disagree with this but I consider it a certainty that is the same route the CS would take if given the opportunity.

Naa we humans are cooler than that. lol

They don't have the means and probably never will but they wish they could.

Naa sounds like too much work. There's already intergalactic organizations of humans and they're not like that.

They didn't invadew Tolkeen to teach them a lesson, they didn't do it to push them off their land, they did it because they wanted to kill every last man, woman and child.

Not true. Tolkeen was a threat. They invaded to do away with the threat. When the threat was over, they let the remains run away. It wasn't about killing them all. It was about protecting humanity. Tolkeen was just too close to the CS. In the end, after the horrors of the Sorcerers revenge, many troops tried to kill that which was in their sites, but that wasn't the 'Purpose' of the war. You're back to waving that evil nazi flag around again.

As the book says, it was a "War of Genocide". that means no survivors, no prisoners.
This is entirely my opinion but such a decision can only be made with the most extreme hate dominating one's mind.
At what point do you expect such hate to subside? After winning a battle? After winning a war?
I don't think that level of hate can ever subside.

Reread what I wrote about the 300 years of being on the menu of alien invaders and the dozens of generations that lived in fear of these invaders on our own planet. Might help you get your mind around the fear that motivated the war.

The "hate" Came after Tolkeen teamed up with demons and pulled the Sorcerer's revenge

That is the exact motivation of the CS. They seek to stop their own suffering by destroying all non-human and all magic-using life, which they consider the ultimate evil.

Ehhh.. Again. I don't think the CS kill just to kill, like the Mechinoids do. the CS kill to protect their children and try and make OUR PLANET safe for OUR PEOPLE. Are they misguided? OFTEN. ___________VERY OFTEN_______________ In their fear have they painted all aliens and supernaturals with the same brush? YES. Is thhis wrong? YES!! VERY WRONG!!!

They DO kill just to kill.

No they don't. The CS aren't psychotic. Not as an army or as a nation. You're misrepresenting them. Killing was never the POINT. It was the tool.

If it was about protection, it would not be about genocide, it would be about neutralizing the threat. You don't have to wipe out a race of people to neutralize a threat but that is the only avenue the CS could see because they want to kill, not to neutralize.

And again you're taking flowery flavor text as reasoning. READ the tolkeen books. It was never about KILL KILL KILL MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA SLAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

It was about the fear of the magical/supernatural/alien threat in their back yard. One that didn't bugger off when told to and threatened. Eventually if neither side gave any ground they were destined to battle.

Tolkeen were just idiots and picked a fight they couldn't win. (( Doesn't mean many of the CS' tactics and efforts weren't horrific too. They were.))

But if you take a moment and look at what happened to them, it's "understandable" as to how they got that mindset. The world was ripped apart and demons annd aliens came flying out of nowhere to attack and kill and eat humanity for 200+ Years. You can't blame them for being scared of it. It's the old once bitten twice shy thing. After 200 years of dark ages where every manner of monster, demon, supernatural meanace that has come forth from the rifts has killed, slaughtered, raped, enslaved, eaten, ect people you know... you get pretty fed up with it and don't really want to extend an olive branch to the next alien whatever it is that comes sloughing into your human settlements.

Really think about that for a while. World wide ultra mega super natural disaster. Billions of humans dead in the first days. Earth quakes, volcanos, tidal waves, dimensional shifting, the works. BILLIONS dead.. then.. suddenly there's a flash and then. RAR!!!! Monsters you've never even dreamed of are just swarming out killing and slaughtering the few survivors that are left..

And they kill and kill and kill and kill and kill for two hundred years. Your generation, your kids, your great grand kids. Their kids.. Their grand kids... For 100s of years, monsters from gods know where, slaughter the remainder of humanity. And for over 200 years there's little you can do about it. Finally mankind starts to crawl out of the ashes and regain power and it takes ANOTHER 100 years. The great great grandchildren if not the great great great grandchildren of those that were around in 1Pa are the ones alive now. After 200+ years of dark ages with every sort of magical, supernatural, alien, what-tha-frak killing and attacking humanity.... are you really going to pause and offer them the chance to eat some more humans? After 300 years of living in fear of these things, and having most of humanity killed and eaten or enslaved or whatever, for generations and generations and generations..... OUt of NOWHERE.. .again all the rifts and god knows what that poured out of them didn't happen with a build up. It was 100% out of the blue. A multidimensional invasion during the largest natural disaster earth has ever faced, and it went on for 100s of years.

Do you BLAME humanity for not figuring out 'good' alien invaders from the ones that have been preying on them for 3 centuries? After 300 years of fear and just trying to survive against the often mega damage or supernatural things that can literally rip your head off your body with no effort, or punch a whole through your body as easily as you punch through paper... do you blame humanity for not stopping to cross reference just which kinda inter-dimensional freak they've seen and are reacting to?

Now... sitting back reading the book. It's easy to go "The CS goes too far" (( they do.)) "They shouldn't fear all the DBees" (( they shouldn't)) "The CS should give some of them a chance" (( They should))

But looking at the above... generation after generation after generation, your people have been prey, struggling just to exist on their own planet as they're hunted and destroyed by inhuman invaders from other dimensions.... do you BLAME them for their (( Very justified)) Fear?

You are right. It is perfectly understandable that they would be driven to such insanity under such extreme circumstances.
That doesn't make it right.

And here we're in agreement... I think I might need to make it blink or glow or twirll or something. I've said over and over again, that both sides had faults in the war. Both sides had horrors done by them and done too them. I've said over and over again that the CS were often way wrong about their perceptions of DBees and magic.

In ___THIS CASE___ Though, they ended up being right. 1) Tolkeen was a city state that endorced magic and dimensional beings of great power. 2) They teamed up with demonic armies to try and wipe out humanity. 3) They were a threat (( as evidenced by 1 and 2)) So the CS took out that threat to it's own people.

The real tragedy of the story is they have become the monsters that they wish to exterminate.

On both sides. It's a very large part of the story, that's often overlooked. It's driven home by the flavor text of the CS troop sending letters home to his wife. If you read nothing else of the books and go through and read those flavor texts in order from him... it's -------------------very----------------------- clear.

Especially read the part where he and his unit vaporize a CS war criminal and free a camp of POW's.

The thing is, they should be able to identify which are the 'good' aliens and which aren't.

After dozens of generations of being preyed upon by them, I don't think it's uncommon that they don't risk it. It's all well and good to say they should, looking down from above, sitting in our nice heated homes playing on our computers where the biggest thing we have to worry about is eating too much and dieing of being fatties... Try living in the wilds for a few centries with aliens of every stripe and demons coming to eat your face for dozens of generations.. then see if you're so open minded. lol

The 'good' ones are typically the ones that don't attack people on a whim.

Humans don't even fit into that catagory. By that definition humans are evil. Humans often attack people on a whim. You... .do live on earth... right? lol

The problem is, the CS starts so many confrontations that even the most peaceful DBees know that they will have to defend themselves or flee if they see a Deadboy. The CS can't identify the peaceful DBees because as a warmongering nation, they have made an enemy of everyone.

Ehhh half right.. They're fearful after three centuries of fighting all manner of demons and fraked-up-ness from the rifts, and lump all the alien invaders together under the "Alien invader" Category and due to that fear, don't take time to get to know um. They're CLEARLY not human and ARE alien invaders so....

Now.. sitting above, we know not all DBees are evil folks.. but it's easy.. when a 9 foot lizard man isn't kicking in your door, or throwing your car.

Akashic suggested eventually when things were safe there would be some kind of rebellion and after overthrowing the regime, peach would return. that is exactly what happened with the Mechanoids, except the rebellion failed and the regime continues.
The Mechanoids are the future of the CS. Nothing will change if they aren't stopped.

See... I don't think so. 2 reasons stand out strongly to me.

1) The US was expansionist... right up till we were not. We're by FAR the strongest country on the planet. No country can stand against us. I know it might not be PC to sayy so but it's true. We can take out any other one country on earth with out much hassle. We have that ability.. but we haven't been expansionist in decades. We grew... till we hit a limit then we stopped. Our population has tripled since then but still we're not invading and CLAIMING other countries and moving in. The CS is based off the US. They will, in time get to that point too.

The CS isn't based off the US, it is based off Nazi Germany. they are very different things.

They are the descendants of the US. And seriously. Stop with the Nazi thing. It offends some people.

The US was expansionist - they expanded because they wanted land, not because they wanted to kill.

The CS aren't a nation of psychotic raving murderers. They aren't expanding "Because they want to kill!" Either. They're expanding because they want Earth for the Earthlings and they are growing in people and need more land. Their motivation isn't slaughter. It never has been. To say that is a clear misrepresentation.

Their expansion ended when they didn't need any more land, or there was no more land to take, the CS will end when there is nothing left to kill.

So.... you think that the CS is literally just a nation of millions and millions of blood thirsty psychotic murders who's only motivation is... the destruction of all life and murder of anything they can catch?

Really? Millions and millions of humans that only want to kill everything?

2) The CS is --already-- changing. Karl's son is a vector of change. He's not as far to the edge as his father is. And he's SMART... and he's LIKED.... and he's NEXT IN LINE. He's already accepting of magic. Once Karl is dead... his son will take over. He'll need some time to build a stable power base.. but then here come the changes. Bradford will be taken out and shot.. and..... after his power base is stable and strong. he's going to phase out some of the 'Evil" Leaders in the CS military... once they're gone, he's that much stronger... then here comes the re-introduction of Magic to the CS. Not "ALL MAGICS" but. "OUR MAGICS"

It'll (( likely)) be presented as "Turning our enemies powers back on them. Though ENDLESS Study of our dreaded enemies abilityes we've learned how to CONTROL it.. and we will start to intigrate it into our military to help defend against it" type deal. Very regulated. Very "MILITARY ONLY" (( at least to start)) and the Vanguard.. who have been keeping the faith all these years.. come back heroes.

That's step one..... once you get your populace used to and accepting magic to defend you.... You start bending a bit more. You find a race of near humans.... show that they're nnot evil... that they can live with and be allies of humanity. If you're smart youhelp them start a small kingdom (( even secretly fund it)) Show mutual defense. Let the population 'get to know them' and slowly accept them. "Seperate but equal" to start. (( I know what it was for us. Don't kill me. I'm talking about a fictional univverse stepping away from their human surpremists viewpoints. it's not going to happen overnight. Baby steps)) Build on that... in a few decades we're suddenly a human society that has limited magic use and a few Dbee allies...... then.. just keep going with intigration.

That is possible. It would have to happen sooner rather than later though - there is only so much abuse that can be issued before even the cowards of Lazlo decide enough is enough.

Well note, just because they don't like to fight or want to fight, doesn't mean you're afraid to fight. Lazlo is all about living peacefully. They're not stupidly going to PICK a fight with the CS (( especially as they're out numbered 1000s to 1))

Once the CS pushes the rest of America into war, it would be very difficult for anyone within the CS to get the people to accept anything beyond what they have already been indoctrinated with.

So..... how do you explain Modern Germany?

150 years ago, if you told people in the US that one day the black's would be free and the MOST POWERFUL MAN ON PLANET EARTH would be the black president of the USA.... they'd laugh. White people would laugh and black people would laugh. They'd think you were an idiot. Hell it might even get you killed. Just for saying that. They would tell you they KNOW that'd NEVER happen. That they KNOW you're wrong...

This is true but I don't think it is applicable.

Then you're trying pretty hard for it not to be.

Black people weren't killed on sight, they were slaves - their future existence was never in jeopardy.

They weren't considered people. They were property. They were kidnapped from their homes and sold into forceful slavery. If they didn't do what they were told or dared to raise a hand. They were killed....

Black people were able to become respected citizens because they were alive to earn that right, a bunch of extinct DBees won't ever become respected citizens because they are extinct...

And it would take decades if not 100s of years to just reclaim the US. Much less the world. The debees aren't in threat of becoming extinct. And as pointed out, the seeds of change are already there, with Karl's son.

The CS isn't irredeemable. They've just got a long way to go.

EDIT: As to the Genocide thing...... I don't think many people really concider it Genocide when they're fighting armies of LITERAL Demonic monsters from nether realms invading and eating humans. You throw it around like a buzzword, but.... this isn't even figerative... they really ____ARE____ Diabolical demons from some version of hell invading our plane of existance and trying to whipe out a human nation. So... you can scream "Genocide" for the impact it has... but..... come on.

The CS didn't invade a nation of Demonic Monsters, they invaded a nation of DBees and magic users - their intent was to wipe out intelligent, peaceful life, not to destroy a bunch of demons.

And yet, when they invaded, armies of Demonic Monsters is what they found. It's not even a chicken or egg thing.

I've pointed out -repeatedly- that OFTEN, the CS' fear of Dbees and magic and the supernatural are UNFOUNDED. If not TOTALLY UNFOUNDED.

In this case.. their OFTEN unfounded fears, were 100% on the mark.

You are right it isn't a chicken or egg thing...
The chicken or egg debate exists because one cannot have existed without the other, this is most certainly not the case with respect to the CS war

Um.. the chicken and egg thing is the ol "Which came first"....

The demons weren't summoned until after the CS initiated the conflict, there was a definite chain of events, a definite line of cause and effect.

The planning and ground work were already in effect before hand. They wern't UNLEASHED untill after the CS came over the hill. Tolkeen didn't start the war and then just out of the blue fall ass backwards into a huge army of demons out of nowhere willing to jump into the war and do their bidding. It was planned.

If some kid gets stung because he thought it was a good idea to hit a bee's nest a few times with a stick, I'm not going to blame the Bees for using their stingers - it is the most powerful defense they have and they have a right to live.

Right, but if the bees suddenly waved their wings and giant demons came out, and raped your kid for days and days and days till they raped him to death, laughing the entire time.. then cut him up and had him for lunch.. before catching you and raping you to death and eating you.. annd everyone in your neighboorhood.. and your town... while laughing... and if the bees even tried to stop them.. killed and ate them too.....

You'd re-evaulate that 'powerful deffense in right to live" wouldn't you?

That's what Tolkeen did.

I'm certainly not going to suggest exterminating every bee on the planet.
I like honey.

Yeah but if the above happened... You might change your mind. Right?

No I would not change my mind.

If they raped your kid to death and ate him, and everyone else in your town... (( and you)) you'd still be all "Oh it was my kids fault, not the bees or their allies, I'd like to try and live in peace with them.

*Cough* We have words for that down south.. They start with "B" and "S".

I would simply choose not to hit Bees nests with sticks so both lifeforms could coexist in peace.

[/quote]

[Lenwen]

If they raped your kid to death and ate him, and everyone else in your town... (( and you)) you'd still be all "Oh it was my kids fault, not the bees or their allies, I'd like to try and live in peace with them.

Can you cite a source that show's Tolkeen forces .. raping entire Coalition towns .. and attacking Coalition citizens enmass as per your above implication ?

[Giant2005]

Please note.. it need not be this way. If the invaders simply left, that's a perfectly ok result as well. No need to kill everything.

That isn't canon.
The Coalition Wars weren't based on conquest or liberation, the books stated several times that it was a "war of Genocide" (Coalition Wars 1, page 7).
Moving from your fortifications isn't a means of survival, it is a means of weakening your defense. If Tolkeen decided to pack up and leave, it would have just made the CS's job easier.

It's a figure of speech and flowery description. When Tolkeen lost and the survivors fled, most were allowed to do so. (( helps that the JLA got in the way of some of them)) Thousands of them have even transversed CS territory to end up in Lazlo. They wern't chased down every last man woman and child. Just the ones that didn't flee.

Genocide isn't a figure of speech, it is a very defined word with absolute connotations. The author used that word because it is exactly the intention.
The survivors didn't escape because the author didn't understand the definition of the word, the survivors are still alive because the CS simply isn't done yet.

The Mechanoids are the exact same way - they don't slaughter life out of boredom, they are methodical. They do it because: "The tormented aliens seek to stop their anguish and pain by destroying all humanoid life - the ultimate evil." (Mechanoids 31).

Well the Mechanoids do, do it because they're evil. That's how they roll. They're not defending their own planet from which they naturally evolved from invading aliens that snuck in when a natural disaster happened. They're actively going out and killing everything they can, for their own selfish evil sake.

No but that is exactly how they begun. They exterminated the evil forces of their own world but it wasn't enough, there were still plenty of evil forces out there in the Megaverse that needed exterminating and so they did.

We know that? Where's that stated? (( not being argumentative. I'm not an expert on the Mechinoids, if it says they started out as heros defending their planet from evil and now eat the faces of everything they come into contact with, I'd like to read about that transition))

They weren't exactly heroes. They were peaceful Cyborgs who were killed en masse by their creators because the creators started getting a little paranoid.
The Mechanoids retaliated by changing their design to something they thought their creators would accept better. Their creators didn't appreciate the sentiment and continued to kill them. Eventually, the Mechanoids had had enough and retaliated, wiping them out. They then decided that all lifeforms were as evil as their former masters and opted to cleanse the entire Megaverse of that "evil".
Can't you see the similarities between that and the CS?
After being harassed and murdered for 300 years by DBees and magic users, they have declared everything in their likeness "evil" and in need of cleansing, regardless of guilt.

As the book says, it was a "War of Genocide". that means no survivors, no prisoners.
This is entirely my opinion but such a decision can only be made with the most extreme hate dominating one's mind.
At what point do you expect such hate to subside? After winning a battle? After winning a war?
I don't think that level of hate can ever subside.

Reread what I wrote about the 300 years of being on the menu of alien invaders and the dozens of generations that lived in fear of these invaders on our own planet. Might help you get your mind around the fear that motivated the war.

The "hate" Came after Tolkeen teamed up with demons and pulled the Sorcerer's revenge

I understand the fear, just not the hate.
The choice of genocide, inspired by hate, came before the Sorcerer's revenge and before the war begun.
No, the hate was spawned after 300 years of atrocities like you described, not anything Tolkeen did specifically.

But if you take a moment and look at what happened to them, it's "understandable" as to how they got that mindset. The world was ripped apart and demons annd aliens came flying out of nowhere to attack and kill and eat humanity for 200+ Years. You can't blame them for being scared of it. It's the old once bitten twice shy thing. After 200 years of dark ages where every manner of monster, demon, supernatural meanace that has come forth from the rifts has killed, slaughtered, raped, enslaved, eaten, ect people you know... you get pretty fed up with it and don't really want to extend an olive branch to the next alien whatever it is that comes sloughing into your human settlements.

Really think about that for a while. World wide ultra mega super natural disaster. Billions of humans dead in the first days. Earth quakes, volcanos, tidal waves, dimensional shifting, the works. BILLIONS dead.. then.. suddenly there's a flash and then. RAR!!!! Monsters you've never even dreamed of are just swarming out killing and slaughtering the few survivors that are left..

And they kill and kill and kill and kill and kill for two hundred years. Your generation, your kids, your great grand kids. Their kids.. Their grand kids... For 100s of years, monsters from gods know where, slaughter the remainder of humanity. And for over 200 years there's little you can do about it. Finally mankind starts to crawl out of the ashes and regain power and it takes ANOTHER 100 years. The great great grandchildren if not the great great great grandchildren of those that were around in 1Pa are the ones alive now. After 200+ years of dark ages with every sort of magical, supernatural, alien, what-tha-frak killing and attacking humanity.... are you really going to pause and offer them the chance to eat some more humans? After 300 years of living in fear of these things, and having most of humanity killed and eaten or enslaved or whatever, for generations and generations and generations..... OUt of NOWHERE.. .again all the rifts and god knows what that poured out of them didn't happen with a build up. It was 100% out of the blue. A multidimensional invasion during the largest natural disaster earth has ever faced, and it went on for 100s of years.

Do you BLAME humanity for not figuring out 'good' alien invaders from the ones that have been preying on them for 3 centuries? After 300 years of fear and just trying to survive against the often mega damage or supernatural things that can literally rip your head off your body with no effort, or punch a whole through your body as easily as you punch through paper... do you blame humanity for not stopping to cross reference just which kinda inter-dimensional freak they've seen and are reacting to?

Now... sitting back reading the book. It's easy to go "The CS goes too far" (( they do.)) "They shouldn't fear all the DBees" (( they shouldn't)) "The CS should give some of them a chance" (( They should))

But looking at the above... generation after generation after generation, your people have been prey, struggling just to exist on their own planet as they're hunted and destroyed by inhuman invaders from other dimensions.... do you BLAME them for their (( Very justified)) Fear?

You are right. It is perfectly understandable that they would be driven to such insanity under such extreme circumstances.
That doesn't make it right.

And here we're in agreement... I think I might need to make it blink or glow or twirll or something. I've said over and over again, that both sides had faults in the war. Both sides had horrors done by them and done too them. I've said over and over again that the CS were often way wrong about their perceptions of DBees and magic.

In ___THIS CASE___ Though, they ended up being right. 1) Tolkeen was a city state that endorced magic and dimensional beings of great power. 2) They teamed up with demonic armies to try and wipe out humanity. 3) They were a threat (( as evidenced by 1 and 2)) So the CS took out that threat to it's own people.

I can understand everything but that last paragraph.
I just can't understand how anyone can think that attacking someone because of a perceived situation, then forcing them into that situation against their will confirms that the initial attack was just.
That is like me seeing a gun holstered safely at your hip, getting scared and punching you in the face repeatedly while saying "I don't like guns, I won't take the risk of being shot with it so I'm going to punch you in the face until you are dead, or until you shoot me with it". The part that doesn't make sense to me is what comes after: somehow convincing myself that I was right in attacking you because the attack proved that you would shoot me with the gun if the alternative was death.
I just can't accept that argument - if someone is forced to fire their weapon upon threat of death, they are not the ones responsible for the bullet.

The CS aren't a nation of psychotic raving murderers. They aren't expanding "Because they want to kill!" Either. They're expanding because they want Earth for the Earthlings and they are growing in people and need more land. Their motivation isn't slaughter. It never has been. To say that is a clear misrepresentation.

The books tell us otherwise.
I may be throwing around the term "genocide" like candy but that is because that is the term the book uses.
They might want more land, I don't know if the book says anything on that matter but the book clearly states that the certainly want "genocide".
At the very least, the book states that at least part of their motivation is slaughter.

Their expansion ended when they didn't need any more land, or there was no more land to take, the CS will end when there is nothing left to kill.

So.... you think that the CS is literally just a nation of millions and millions of blood thirsty psychotic murders who's only motivation is... the destruction of all life and murder of anything they can catch?

Really? Millions and millions of humans that only want to kill everything?

No.
I think that the CS is a nation of mindless sheep that are controlled by a select few who want to kill everything.
Until those sheep are ready to rebel against those select few, they should be responsible for their own actions.

Once the CS pushes the rest of America into war, it would be very difficult for anyone within the CS to get the people to accept anything beyond what they have already been indoctrinated with.

So..... how do you explain Modern Germany?

Germany lost their war.
If the CS lost against Tolkeen, it is very possible that the citizens of CS could come to the same realization.
If Germany had won, I am certain the world wouldn't be as it is now - most of all Germany.

The demons weren't summoned until after the CS initiated the conflict, there was a definite chain of events, a definite line of cause and effect.

The planning and ground work were already in effect before hand. They wern't UNLEASHED untill after the CS came over the hill. Tolkeen didn't start the war and then just out of the blue fall ass backwards into a huge army of demons out of nowhere willing to jump into the war and do their bidding. It was planned.

I'm going to have to ask for a source for that one...
You make it seem like Tolkeen initiated the war and I'm pretty sure they didn't - they reacted, not planned.

[Armorlord]

I think that the CS is a nation of mindless sheep that are controlled by a select few who want to kill everything.
Until those sheep are ready to rebel against those select few, they should be responsible for their own actions.

The demons weren't summoned until after the CS initiated the conflict, there was a definite chain of events, a definite line of cause and effect.

The planning and ground work were already in effect before hand. They wern't UNLEASHED untill after the CS came over the hill. Tolkeen didn't start the war and then just out of the blue fall ass backwards into a huge army of demons out of nowhere willing to jump into the war and do their bidding. It was planned.

I'm going to have to ask for a source for that one...
You make it seem like Tolkeen initiated the war and I'm pretty sure they didn't - they reacted, not planned.

While I think Giant is viewing Coalition a bit more harshly than is objectively true, I am beginning to think Pepsi is getting entirely too deep into the CS mindset. Even I'm beginning to have a hard time telling him espousing the Coalition viewpoint apart from his own views.
Come back up for air Jedi, you've been down too deep in the midnight sea!

Continuing on, while I'm certain the CS believes the demons were always waiting in the wings, they actually discovered those ones with their teams of dimensional treasure hunters trying to locate anything that could help them once the war started to go against them.

[Pepsi Jedi]

If they raped your kid to death and ate him, and everyone else in your town... (( and you)) you'd still be all "Oh it was my kids fault, not the bees or their allies, I'd like to try and live in peace with them.

Can you cite a source that show's Tolkeen forces .. raping entire Coalition towns .. and attacking Coalition citizens enmass as per your above implication ?

It was a hypothetical example.

[Sureshot]

Quite possible. But then the path that is endorced leads to destruction. I guess it would depend on when the evac plan was proposed. before or after the upswing of evil in power in tolkeen.

If you went this way you could likely get people like Erin Tarn and Plato to also speak out for the non viloent option of evacuation and relocation vs the war with the CS and the taming up with the demonic armies.

But it's possible it might not work. And if not... they die, like they did in canon. But it IS an option that was open to them. just one that (( Due to writing, and the direction of the series )) Wasn't chosen.

The thing is the way the Tolkeen leadership were portrayed in the series they were supremely arrogant to a very stupid degree imo. Welcoming someone like Free Quebec with open arms into the fold and not expect them to stab you in the back. Really. I mean REALLY. Tolkine leadership as presented in SOT were spoiling for a fight. On a certain level justifibly so. How many times can you run away from the bully before you get angry and give him a swift hard kick to the happy sacks. If they were written more as victims or at the very least intelligent rational thinking beings and less as mustache twirling megolomanics "were #1 " fanatics I could see them listening to your plan. As it stands they will listen then beat you up within a inch of your life then if they don't kill you toss you into the nearest open Rift. It's a good plan not one that would be implement let alone acknowledged by the canon Tolkeen powers that be.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Please note.. it need not be this way. If the invaders simply left, that's a perfectly ok result as well. No need to kill everything.

That isn't canon.
The Coalition Wars weren't based on conquest or liberation, the books stated several times that it was a "war of Genocide" (Coalition Wars 1, page 7).
Moving from your fortifications isn't a means of survival, it is a means of weakening your defense. If Tolkeen decided to pack up and leave, it would have just made the CS's job easier.

It's a figure of speech and flowery description. When Tolkeen lost and the survivors fled, most were allowed to do so. (( helps that the JLA got in the way of some of them)) Thousands of them have even transversed CS territory to end up in Lazlo. They wern't chased down every last man woman and child. Just the ones that didn't flee.

Genocide isn't a figure of speech, it is a very defined word with absolute connotations.

No it's your new trigger word that you're waving around instead of proving your point. "NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI GENOCIDE GENOCIDE GENOCIDE!!!" They didn't do it. When the tolkeenites started to run, they ran just fine. One group were almost hunted down but the JLA got in the way. Thousands and thousands of them got away and even got all the way across CS teritory to Lazlo.

The author used that word because it is exactly the intention.
The survivors didn't escape because the author didn't understand the definition of the word, the survivors are still alive because the CS simply isn't done yet.

Says you. When we get canon sources of the CS finishing in Tolkeen then heading out to hunt down the survivors you'll be right. Right now they're mopping up in Tolkeen and those that ran, got away.

The Mechanoids are the exact same way - they don't slaughter life out of boredom, they are methodical. They do it because: "The tormented aliens seek to stop their anguish and pain by destroying all humanoid life - the ultimate evil." (Mechanoids 31).

Well the Mechanoids do, do it because they're evil. That's how they roll. They're not defending their own planet from which they naturally evolved from invading aliens that snuck in when a natural disaster happened. They're actively going out and killing everything they can, for their own selfish evil sake.

No but that is exactly how they begun. They exterminated the evil forces of their own world but it wasn't enough, there were still plenty of evil forces out there in the Megaverse that needed exterminating and so they did.

We know that? Where's that stated? (( not being argumentative. I'm not an expert on the Mechinoids, if it says they started out as heros defending their planet from evil and now eat the faces of everything they come into contact with, I'd like to read about that transition))

They weren't exactly heroes. They were peaceful Cyborgs who were killed en masse by their creators because the creators started getting a little paranoid.
The Mechanoids retaliated by changing their design to something they thought their creators would accept better. Their creators didn't appreciate the sentiment and continued to kill them. Eventually, the Mechanoids had had enough and retaliated, wiping them out. They then decided that all lifeforms were as evil as their former masters and opted to cleanse the entire Megaverse of that "evil".
Can't you see the similarities between that and the CS?

Not the way you're putting it no. Humanity wasn't created by the dimensional invaders. They weren't our leaders. We didn't rise up and kill them then go on to wipe out countless races of others. The situation isn't the same at all.

Again, where did you get the stuff as to their origins? I'd like to read it myself

After being harassed and murdered for 300 years by DBees and magic users, they have declared everything in their likeness "evil" and in need of cleansing, regardless of guilt.

As the book says, it was a "War of Genocide". that means no survivors, no prisoners.
This is entirely my opinion but such a decision can only be made with the most extreme hate dominating one's mind.
At what point do you expect such hate to subside? After winning a battle? After winning a war?
I don't think that level of hate can ever subside.

Reread what I wrote about the 300 years of being on the menu of alien invaders and the dozens of generations that lived in fear of these invaders on our own planet. Might help you get your mind around the fear that motivated the war.

The "hate" Came after Tolkeen teamed up with demons and pulled the Sorcerer's revenge

I understand the fear, just not the hate.

Really? Dozens of generations of being hunted by inhuman monsters and your entire world blown up and reshaped and earth's civilisation destroied and you can't understand hate?

What's it take? Seriously, what's it take to get you starting to hate if that's not enough? (Hypothetically))

The choice of genocide, inspired by hate, came before the Sorcerer's revenge and before the war begun.

The war to protect humanity came before.

No, the hate was spawned after 300 years of atrocities like you described, not anything Tolkeen did specifically.

But if you take a moment and look at what happened to them, it's "understandable" as to how they got that mindset. The world was ripped apart and demons annd aliens came flying out of nowhere to attack and kill and eat humanity for 200+ Years. You can't blame them for being scared of it. It's the old once bitten twice shy thing. After 200 years of dark ages where every manner of monster, demon, supernatural meanace that has come forth from the rifts has killed, slaughtered, raped, enslaved, eaten, ect people you know... you get pretty fed up with it and don't really want to extend an olive branch to the next alien whatever it is that comes sloughing into your human settlements.

Really think about that for a while. World wide ultra mega super natural disaster. Billions of humans dead in the first days. Earth quakes, volcanos, tidal waves, dimensional shifting, the works. BILLIONS dead.. then.. suddenly there's a flash and then. RAR!!!! Monsters you've never even dreamed of are just swarming out killing and slaughtering the few survivors that are left..

And they kill and kill and kill and kill and kill for two hundred years. Your generation, your kids, your great grand kids. Their kids.. Their grand kids... For 100s of years, monsters from gods know where, slaughter the remainder of humanity. And for over 200 years there's little you can do about it. Finally mankind starts to crawl out of the ashes and regain power and it takes ANOTHER 100 years. The great great grandchildren if not the great great great grandchildren of those that were around in 1Pa are the ones alive now. After 200+ years of dark ages with every sort of magical, supernatural, alien, what-tha-frak killing and attacking humanity.... are you really going to pause and offer them the chance to eat some more humans? After 300 years of living in fear of these things, and having most of humanity killed and eaten or enslaved or whatever, for generations and generations and generations..... OUt of NOWHERE.. .again all the rifts and god knows what that poured out of them didn't happen with a build up. It was 100% out of the blue. A multidimensional invasion during the largest natural disaster earth has ever faced, and it went on for 100s of years.

Do you BLAME humanity for not figuring out 'good' alien invaders from the ones that have been preying on them for 3 centuries? After 300 years of fear and just trying to survive against the often mega damage or supernatural things that can literally rip your head off your body with no effort, or punch a whole through your body as easily as you punch through paper... do you blame humanity for not stopping to cross reference just which kinda inter-dimensional freak they've seen and are reacting to?

Now... sitting back reading the book. It's easy to go "The CS goes too far" (( they do.)) "They shouldn't fear all the DBees" (( they shouldn't)) "The CS should give some of them a chance" (( They should))

But looking at the above... generation after generation after generation, your people have been prey, struggling just to exist on their own planet as they're hunted and destroyed by inhuman invaders from other dimensions.... do you BLAME them for their (( Very justified)) Fear?

You are right. It is perfectly understandable that they would be driven to such insanity under such extreme circumstances.
That doesn't make it right.

And here we're in agreement... I think I might need to make it blink or glow or twirll or something. I've said over and over again, that both sides had faults in the war. Both sides had horrors done by them and done too them. I've said over and over again that the CS were often way wrong about their perceptions of DBees and magic.

In ___THIS CASE___ Though, they ended up being right. 1) Tolkeen was a city state that endorced magic and dimensional beings of great power. 2) They teamed up with demonic armies to try and wipe out humanity. 3) They were a threat (( as evidenced by 1 and 2)) So the CS took out that threat to it's own people.

I can understand everything but that last paragraph.
I just can't understand how anyone can think that attacking someone because of a perceived situation, then forcing them into that situation against their will confirms that the initial attack was just.

Because that's not what happened. 1) Tolkeen was close to the cs. 2) They were based on magic and the supernatural. Had many dbees and supernatural beings including cities of dragons under their banner. This made them a threat to humanity (As the CS see it) and 3) They had been, as pointed out in another post above, been militerizing for YEARS on their end of it.

There was no "preceived situation" there was the ---exact situation---. Nor did anyone "Force them against their will to team up with demons. As pointed out above they had choices. One being simply leaving. Some one then went "ok smart guy, how?" and I pointed out how. Teaming up with armies of Demons was not something forced. it was something the --- evil commanders and generals---- of tolkeen chose to do.

That is like me seeing a gun holstered safely at your hip, getting scared and punching you in the face repeatedly while saying "I don't like guns, I won't take the risk of being shot with it so I'm going to punch you in the face until you are dead, or until you shoot me with it".

1) Does the gun shoot by itself and kill people?
2) Does the gun shoot ME if I tell it to stop?
3) Did you warn me years in advance if you see me with the gun at my hip you'd attack me?
4) Had I, or my people tormented your family back 10 or 15 generations while invading your homeland?

Oh.. not the same at all.... .right.

The part that doesn't make sense to me is what comes after: somehow convincing myself that I was right in attacking you because the attack proved that you would shoot me with the gun if the alternative was death.

Again, did you give me years to leave? No? Hurm.... did you warn me years in advance? no... Ok..... So again. Different situation. You're putting up hypotheticals that don't fit. They sound good when you type them but they're not describing the situation at hand. You're ignoring alot of things to get to the solution you want.

I just can't accept that argument - if someone is forced to fire their weapon upon threat of death, they are not the ones responsible for the bullet.

If you could have run away years previous.... it makes alot less sense.

The CS aren't a nation of psychotic raving murderers. They aren't expanding "Because they want to kill!" Either. They're expanding because they want Earth for the Earthlings and they are growing in people and need more land. Their motivation isn't slaughter. It never has been. To say that is a clear misrepresentation.

The books tell us otherwise.

No they don't. Read the books. It doesn't say 'They were all rabid to go murder and bathe in the blood of their foes. It clearly states why the CS went to war.

(( Accidently deleted a sentence here, where Giant mentioned throwing around the word Genocide like candy and am not starting this reply over to recapture it)

But no. You're now throwing around Genocide like you did Nazi. It's an emotional word that drowns out the words and paragraphs around it. That's why you're throwing it out like you are. the books clearly state, with some effort and detail why the CS went to war with Tolkeen. It wasn't just for the love of battle. It NEVER was for a love of battle.

It was because tolkeen was too close, too alien, too different, too much -Exactly- what the CS feared, and instead of leaving when they had the chance (( and even other magic societys told them to do)) they instead built up military forces and welcomed the war. At a point in the war, did it become scorched earth policy? Yes it did. But that's explained too. After the Sorcerer's revenge and the fact that... that cute littel 7 year old girl with the big eyes.. might very well be an ancient horned dragon able to pick up and rip apart a tank. That teen in the teeshirt? Might be a layline walker that could throw a fireball and take out a guy in MD armor. Ect ect ect. That's explained in the book too.

And again, because it seemd to get missed each time.. I'm not saying in any way that the CS did NOT commit horrors in the war. They did.

They might want more land, I don't know if the book says anything on that matter but the book clearly states that the certainly want "genocide".
At the very least, the book states that at least part of their motivation is slaughter.

Go re-read them. Mindless slaughter was no in the list of 'Reasoning'. After the Sorcerers revenge it probably gets thrown out alot. But then.... *Shrugs* That big gorilla in the room you keep purposefully ignoring. "Willfully siding with -armies- of inhuman demons and then empowering them even more to wipe the CS off tthe face of the earth"

What's the proper PC response for that?

Their expansion ended when they didn't need any more land, or there was no more land to take, the CS will end when there is nothing left to kill.

So.... you think that the CS is literally just a nation of millions and millions of blood thirsty psychotic murders who's only motivation is... the destruction of all life and murder of anything they can catch?

Really? Millions and millions of humans that only want to kill everything?

No.
I think that the CS is a nation of mindless sheep that are controlled by a select few who want to kill everything.

You're pretty harsh on the people. Do you hold that for the people of Free Quebec and the NGR too? They're the same way.

Until those sheep are ready to rebel against those select few, they should be responsible for their own actions

They are. They're pretty happy about their actions. As a nation they just took out a huge threat to humanity. A city state that held inhuman monsters and teamed up with armys of demons. They see themselves as heroes.

Once the CS pushes the rest of America into war, it would be very difficult for anyone within the CS to get the people to accept anything beyond what they have already been indoctrinated with.

So..... how do you explain Modern Germany?

Germany lost their war.
If the CS lost against Tolkeen, it is very possible that the citizens of CS could come to the same realization.
If Germany had won, I am certain the world wouldn't be as it is now - most of all Germany.

So to quote your above statement you see the Germans as a nation of mindless sheep that were controlled by a select few, and if they'd won, they'd still be that? You sort of dodged around it but that's what you're saying... right?

The demons weren't summoned until after the CS initiated the conflict, there was a definite chain of events, a definite line of cause and effect.

The planning and ground work were already in effect before hand. They wern't UNLEASHED untill after the CS came over the hill. Tolkeen didn't start the war and then just out of the blue fall ass backwards into a huge army of demons out of nowhere willing to jump into the war and do their bidding. It was planned.

I'm going to have to ask for a source for that one...
You make it seem like Tolkeen initiated the war and I'm pretty sure they didn't - they reacted, not planned.

The source was given above, in that Tokeen had geared up to the war for years before the CS ever came for them. They weren't just having a nice normal Tuesday and suddenly have all those standing armies and mercs and iron golems and dragons and demon defenders out of nowhere.

Lenwen actually cited it.

Siege on tolkeen two, pg 7 "The Coalition knew Tolkeen was formidable and had been preparing for war for years."

(( PLEASE NOTE, I'VE NOT CHECKED THE SOURCE. I'M TAKING IT AS A TRUTH, BASED ON LENWEN CITING IT. My books are across the room and it was alot easier to find it a few posts above. if it's wrong... I've just pointed out someone elses research))

[Pepsi Jedi]

I think that the CS is a nation of mindless sheep that are controlled by a select few who want to kill everything.
Until those sheep are ready to rebel against those select few, they should be responsible for their own actions.

The demons weren't summoned until after the CS initiated the conflict, there was a definite chain of events, a definite line of cause and effect.

The planning and ground work were already in effect before hand. They wern't UNLEASHED untill after the CS came over the hill. Tolkeen didn't start the war and then just out of the blue fall ass backwards into a huge army of demons out of nowhere willing to jump into the war and do their bidding. It was planned.

I'm going to have to ask for a source for that one...
You make it seem like Tolkeen initiated the war and I'm pretty sure they didn't - they reacted, not planned.

While I think Giant is viewing Coalition a bit more harshly than is objectively true, I am beginning to think Pepsi is getting entirely too deep into the CS mindset. Even I'm beginning to have a hard time telling him espousing the Coalition viewpoint apart from his own views.
Come back up for air Jedi, you've been down too deep in the midnight sea!

Continuing on, while I'm certain the CS believes the demons were always waiting in the wings, they actually discovered those ones with their teams of dimensional treasure hunters trying to locate anything that could help them once the war started to go against them.

I'm not though. lol I keep on and keep on and keep on pointing out I do _____NOT_____ thing the CS innocent. and I keep on and keep on and keep on pointing out that OFTEN the Cs is wrong in their fears, and OFTEN their reactions are way way wrong, and OFTEN they are doing bad bad things.

I'm not saying they're "Good guys" because I'm sitting back, behind my computer and looking down like a god.

I'm just pointing out that in ______THEIR OWN MINDSETS_____ they're heroes, and the thought process behind it. the CS don't see themselves as evil. They see themselves as heroes standing up against inhuman and demonic invaders on THEIR PLANET.

I'm not fooled. I've pointed out half a dozen times that the CS conducted horrors in the war.

I'm just also pointing out that Tolkeen was -exactly- what the CS feared they were.

[Pepsi Jedi]

PJ, I actually did like your run away solution. However, I see few problems with it. One is convincing the dragons to leave their home, from what I understand, dragons are very territorial and not in the habit of moving when they don't want too.

NORMALLY.. you're correct. But in this case, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1) With the powers of hind sight, we can see that THESE dragons.... not so much. They didn't fight to the end.. when the chips were down, THESE dragons.. just left. lol. that's been pointed out before (( and I even agreed that it's weird)) the dragons we have in question, were totally above it and just.. left vs fighting and dieing in defence of territory. (( I even offered forth that maybe they just looked at it objectfully and knew they couldn't win, so they refused to die)) But yeah... these dragons will just up and leave. how do we know? because that's exactly what they did when the threat became real. lol

and

2) Dragons are also thinking beings. If they're 'good guys' and not evil dragons.. then if the entire city was going to relocate.. they'd offer their aid. Like Plato did when all the refugees came into Lazlo (( and is causing signifigant problems for Lazlo. Population pressure and huuuge crime jump)). So while they might not have 'wanted' to leave their city, if all the rest of the people needed them, and assuming they're not evil, they'd help. If nothing else, if the rest of the city state was relocating, that'd leave the dragons there alone with out all those other forces to fight the CS. The dragons would be even more toast if they staid while everyone else left.

Secondly, I just can't see the CS not attacking the envoys. It would be a very tempting target and they would be very venerable to a carpet bomb strikes.

A few things on that. With my above "Get the frak out of dodge" option... Tolkeen doesn't pull out all at once. They still have strong defenders at Tolkeen till all the civilian populace is gone. So for the cs to Attack the envoys, they'd have to get around or over tolkeen and past it and further west to do. Tolkeen would engage the airforces trying to do this. Air elementals, dragons, countless other fliers, anti aircraft guns. ect.

If the CS got through that "Rear guard" and past the city state itself.. the envoys themselves are guarded. I pointed out that merc companies could be hired for this, as well as the dragons (( Most of which if not all cann fly)) and the mages in that group itself. They can be both offensive and defensive. Invisibility spells, ect as well as the attack spells.

It could happen, but, if your foe is running away and you haven't even mobilized enough to declare war.. it's hard to hop over occupied territory and get to them as they get further away. And you have to ask your self.. Why? if your enemy is routed and retreating the field of battle and it costs you nothing to let them go, as you're getting what you want, why engage?

Still, hypothetically, when the CS expands and DOES show up on their door step demanding they move again(bigger, meaner, and more powerful than they were before), what should they do? Do they run again? Is it finally time to fight? At what point do you finally say enough is enough?

Always in motion is the future. Difficult to see, it is. Again, we've seen the seeds of change are planted in the CS. It could start in a few years. As soon as Karl dies and his son ascends. The son is already open to magic. How much change will/can that change in the society.

By the time the CS expands that far.. they may be very very very different. They may not.. but you have years to live in peace and prepair better for it if you go.. than if you just yoke up and call in the demons today and try and fight.

I still say the war with tolkeen was 100% BS, way too many factors were RIGGED in the CS favor,

And again. I agree there was hand waving for the CS. but I also point out there was just as much ffor Tolkeen. It wasn't JUST CS hand waving. The war had it on both sides.
And again I'll offer forth the POSSIBILITY... that these books are written to entertain.. and that the war bounced back and forth the way it did.. to insure book sales. they put in for 6 books... and if the war was over in the first 5 minutes. (( CS nuke strike)) then... Palladium wouldbe out of money. So it was purposefully bounced back and forth by the WRITERS.

It does explain a goodly amount of what many people see as sillyness. (( and is out side the CS or Tolkeen. That's a purposeful business move by the company))

which is one of the problems I have with the rifts books. I have seen it time and time again where the CS has slaughtered/killed D-bees(tolkeen), attacked power blocks like Naruni Enterprises, earned the hatred of the federation of magic, etc. Yet, NOTHING-EVER-HAPPENS-TOO-THEM.

Well the Fed of Magic attacked the fledgling CS and caused alot of problems back when that went down. The CS were the defenders in that war wern't they? They just rallyed and took the fight back to the fed.

And Naruni are far from innocent. you're talking about war mongers that will sell to both sides and impound PLANETS to pay bills...

Again the CS aren't innocent but when they're fighting evils it's a gray area.

There is some major hand waving going to justify why chi town isn't a smoldering crater. For example, naruni enterprises was planning a retaliation for the CS attacking their rifts branch, but they were TOLD by the other power blocks to not retaliate because it would destabilize the power structure or some stupid reason like that.

That's part of the "BIG SUPER INTER DIMENSIONAL POWERS RULE" that was laid on rifts earth. It's what keeps Atlantis forces and the Splooge from just taking over the planet (( which it's said he could do)) because things bigger than even him and his bajillions of troops enforces that rule.

I would like to see a book where the CS gets seriously hurt, not just some symbolic gesture where they fight someone and lose some men, but in the end they were just cannon fodder.

*hands you Sorcerers Revenge* Here you go. They got hosed. Ended up fleeing in panic and had their butts kicked up around their shoulders. Lost thousands of men and millions in equipment. Were hunted, tortured, eaten, the works.

But something where they permanently lose something that no amount of propaganda can fix. Like losing the military complex where the dog boys are created.

Hey! I love Lone Star!! What'd the Dogboys ever do to you!? lol

Or one of the city states gets destroyed. Something BIG! I have no faith the minion war will change anything, the status quo will stay. I would love to see the federation of magic and other CS enemies DO something besides sit on their thumbs.

Check Aftermath for hints of that. The Minion war will likely 'Further strain" The CS's military forces, if not really knock them down a notch.

And.. if you look in Aftermath... the CS think the Fed is a non issue right now.. they don't know that the Federation are finally grouping up under stable leadership and making plans. Aftermath says straight up the CS don't see it coming.


Now.. if the Minion war further weakens the CS forces right after the battle with Tolkeen..... and the Federation was to come out of nowhere and attack then.... what would happen?

I think we're getting set up to see.

The sad thing is.. with Palladium putting out 4 to 5 books a year, if that... and only one or two of them rifts..... and with the other books we KNOW are in line before that would happen.... just the ones that are waiting editing now... you're looking at 3 years before those could even start to land. heck it'll be end of summer or fall before we get the last minion war book. then we've got Northern Gun 1 and 2..... another 6 to 12 months there..... and Antartica... another 3 or 4 on top of that.. If Kevin DOES take it that way, and put the CS under Siege itself.. it'll be a bit down the road.

Now, back to tolkeen. Besides, running away, what else could Tolkien have done differently than use demons? Their allies turned their backs on them(which makes no sense, They have no problem fighting overwhelming odds in africa, but fighting nazi like human supremacists that is committing genocide is crossing the line! thanks rigged cs luck machine!),

It makes sense when you realize that Lazlo and New lazlo are not aggressive city states. They're the "Magic hippies" in all of it, and tolkeen COULD have run. Lazlo and others TOLD them to. They thought Tolkeen was insane not to... and tolkeen basicly said "Help us kill the humans or FOAD"

Gotta remember tolkeen was gearing up for this war for years. They'd turned evil and prideful and were lost in it. It's sort of like a raging drunk. You can't help them till they want your help. If they want you to give them yet another beer and you refuse, you're the bad guy now too.

That's covered in Erin tarns stuff isn't it? how she was pretty much thrown out when Lazlo wouldn't team up with Tolkeen once they SAW tolkeen had lost their marbles and were off to the darkside at a sprint?

the enemies are practically literally at the gates, friends and families in neighboring towns are getting tortured and slaughtered by the CS. They were desperate, what else could they have done? Please give me something besides just saying don't use demons.

Negotiated? Unlikely but it's an option.

Retreat.

Fight with out using demons. If you honestly believe in the cause and the honor and the rightness of your side, there's nothing shameful in fighting and dieing.

You do not HAVE to embrace evil to win. Sometimes not winning is better than winning via evil (( most times in the stories I read. Embracing armys of demons to win your fight never works out for thhe people that do it. Never. ))

Seek out new allies? The Baronies? The kingdoms in the sky? Other dimensions? Tolkeen had shifters and dimensional travel. Hell they could have hired on mercs from Phase world. ect.

The good guys don't always win. And bad guys often do. There's nothing saying Tolkeen could not have left. Or could not have done things differently. And.. if you want to remain good guys and retain that higher ground.. you can't become more evil than the evil you say you're defending against.

Sometimes the hero dies keeping his convictions. It happens.

And often.. if the hero stands against a force too big for him.. he dies.

Tolkeen did, but they degraded itself before it did. Horribly, and in doing so, lost any nobility it might have had.

[Vrykolas2k]

If they raped your kid to death and ate him, and everyone else in your town... (( and you)) you'd still be all "Oh it was my kids fault, not the bees or their allies, I'd like to try and live in peace with them.

Can you cite a source that show's Tolkeen forces .. raping entire Coalition towns .. and attacking Coalition citizens enmass as per your above implication ?

It was a hypothetical example.

It is, however, what the CS did...

[Armorlord]

I'm not though. lol I keep on and keep on and keep on pointing out I do _____NOT_____ think the CS innocent. and I keep on and keep on and keep on pointing out that OFTEN the CS is wrong in their fears, and OFTEN their reactions are way way wrong, and OFTEN they are doing bad bad things.

Well I know that, but I think some people were getting the wrong idea. Sometimes you have to remind them that you are talking about the Coalition viewpoint and not your own. Go back and forth enough and it gets harder to remember that, or harder to notice if they are someone just entering the conversation.

1) With the powers of hind sight, we can see that THESE dragons.... not so much. They didn't fight to the end.. when the chips were down, THESE dragons.. just left. lol. that's been pointed out before (( and I even agreed that it's weird)) the dragons we have in question, were totally above it and just.. left vs fighting and dieing in defence of territory. (( I even offered forth that maybe they just looked at it objectfully and knew they couldn't win, so they refused to die)) But yeah... these dragons will just up and leave. how do we know? because that's exactly what they did when the threat became real. lol

My pet theory on that is always going to be blaming Troud (#99 on RGMG pg 331). That it coincided with the disruption of magic in the area seems most telling, since dragons would not normally have grouped together like that in the first place. I think the key figures of that city had suffered from Troud's so-called civilizing influence, and that when the chips were down and the magic was disrupted, the bulk of the dragons there just realized they didn't really care that much about the place.
The few you hear about that did particularly care about Tolkeen War seem to feel deeply about Tolkeen itself, rather than any care for the City of Dragons. Those are the few dragons you hear of the stuck around or tried to fight or feel anger at the other dragons, and often these were dragons that were actively involved in the war, that were often times independent of the City of Dragons adventuring with non-dragon companions.

[Akashic Soldier]

I have read all these posts but I couldn't be asked doing the quote thing as I am on an iphone and its a pain in the ass.

I'll say this again and I REALLY hope someone can hear what I am saying and think about it instead of trying to find what is wrong with the sentence structure or metaphors.

The CS are a group of humans fighting for their world. Launching an intergal--you know there's not even a point me typing that.

Pepsi is right. It sucks but from a human point of view of someone in the setting the actions of the Coalition States make sense. Yes they are bullies driven by fear but this is a natural human response. Len and Giant I get what youre trying to say but you're coming at it from the wrong place. You're not looking at the human factors, you're both removed from the situation and saying "this is how it should be" or "why didn't it happen like this?"

The fact is that it didnt, the events as they transpired made sense. If it a film people could follow it, it would make sense, and it would be that simple.

I'm not even going to try to point out all my points anymore because I kind of think this is more about picking a side and rooting for your team than it is considering all the facts of the situation. When you pick and choose the facts you distort the truth. That in and of itself should kind of be an indication of human nature and the tensions at play here. If you can get so worked up trying to vilify the CS and justify Tolkeen (when at least the CS supporters are saying "both sides were wrong") then that something you should really stop and think about. Reach the letters to the wife and ask yourself... have you ever seen a Stormtrooper write home to his family? The CS aren't SUPPOSED to be faceless evil monsters, they're people and as such they're frustratingly grey and not prone to march to their deaths without what they feel is a good and justified reason!

Present them in your game however you like, let them twirl their mustaches and shoot every man woman and D-Bee child without a second thought if thats what you think is fun.

BUT in the setting as it is presented in R:UE and in the books I have read the CS are not JUST soulless killing machines. They have committed horrific acts but if a CS Soldier finds herself standing over a weeping D-Bee child in a town that she's been ordered to exterminate... she can still walk away. She can't bring back his parents but she can hide him or walk away. They're still PEOPLE. The whole problem here is that you guys have these idealistic notions of war and believe that you can eliminate a threat without purging it completely. That is not tactically sound. Especially when the enemy does not cooperate. That's why after they kicked their asses they let them run away. They could've made a couple of hand signals and "release the hounds" on the survivors as they fled, but they didn't.

The whole situation sucks but both sides were bad guys but please at least take a moment to stop (everyone) and just TRY to understand where the other guys are coming from. I feel like both Giant and Lan are arguing and trying to look at the situation through a tunnel so that their ethics are not challenged and their world views (of the setting) are not shaken. Perhaps they do not want the complication of thinking "Maybe we shouldn't just open fire on any CS Soldier the GM puts in their game and that is their right BUT the antagonistic nature of their claims are creating conflict here and not representative of the organization as it appears in the cannon.

I'm sorry guys... after reading what you've said (and I really, REALLY want to read more on the Mechanoids so please let me know where to look) I am not convinced the CS are inhuman irredeemable monsters. If you're trying to help me get to a point where my characters won't second guess pulling the trigger on someone in game then you've failed. Even in games like Dark's I am going to give everyone a fair go and a chance to prove my preconceptions wrong. Maybe its a little naive and idealist... but sometimes understanding your enemy is the only real way to defeat them.

[Nightmask]

Can you cite a source that show's Tolkeen forces .. raping entire Coalition towns .. and attacking Coalition citizens enmass as per your above implication ?

It was a hypothetical example.

It is, however, what the CS did...

You'll never get anywhere trying to point out the obvious evil of the CS and its actions when someone's stubbornly determined to defend the indefensible. The CS's behavior is no more capable of being spinned as justifiable than the attack on the Twin Towers because 'well you evil Americans are trying to destroy us' when the average American just doesn't care what's going on in the rest of the world and is fine with it burning as long as the US is left alone. The average Tolkeenite really didn't care what the CS was doing to its own people and others as long as they were left alone. But like anyone who isn't a fanatical pacifist when attacked by a ruthless and implacable murderous foe fought back and when the fight dragged on and seeing the evils their enemy engaged in chose to fight fire with fire and demons with demons.

The average member of the CS is indoctrinated to being effectively evil, they grow up with no idea or concepts of anything being worthy of existence but the members of the CS and that it's okay to kill other sentient beings for no other reason than their education or their ancestors having not been native to the planet before being rifted against their wills to Earth. They may treat each other okay enough but they're like that mix of alien survivors of that destroyed spacecraft in Heroes Unlimited, seeing everything but humans as worthy of living and so hate-filled as to engage in genocidal acts against all humans for the actions of a few.

So no, the CS is not a group of decent people being portrayed badly by 'CS haters', they're educated to a man to fear and hate anything not approved by their government and their dictator. Some may manage to escape that if exposed to different views long enough to see through the lies they're taught, but most get through their entire lives easily dismissing any evidence to the contrary as just part of some trick to fake them out.

[Giant2005]

I have read all these posts but I couldn't be asked doing the quote thing as I am on an iphone and its a pain in the ass.

I'll say this again and I REALLY hope someone can hear what I am saying and think about it instead of trying to find what is wrong with the sentence structure or metaphors.

The CS are a group of humans fighting for their world. Launching an intergal--you know there's not even a point me typing that.

Pepsi is right. It sucks but from a human point of view of someone in the setting the actions of the Coalition States make sense. Yes they are bullies driven by fear but this is a natural human response. Len and Giant I get what youre trying to say but you're coming at it from the wrong place. You're not looking at the human factors, you're both removed from the situation and saying "this is how it should be" or "why didn't it happen like this?"

The fact is that it didnt, the events as they transpired made sense. If it a film people could follow it, it would make sense, and it would be that simple.

I'm not even going to try to point out all my points anymore because I kind of think this is more about picking a side and rooting for your team than it is considering all the facts of the situation. When you pick and choose the facts you distort the truth. That in and of itself should kind of be an indication of human nature and the tensions at play here. If you can get so worked up trying to vilify the CS and justify Tolkeen (when at least the CS supporters are saying "both sides were wrong") then that something you should really stop and think about. Reach the letters to the wife and ask yourself... have you ever seen a Stormtrooper write home to his family? The CS aren't SUPPOSED to be faceless evil monsters, they're people and as such they're frustratingly grey and not prone to march to their deaths without what they feel is a good and justified reason!

Present them in your game however you like, let them twirl their mustaches and shoot every man woman and D-Bee child without a second thought if thats what you think is fun.

BUT in the setting as it is presented in R:UE and in the books I have read the CS are not JUST soulless killing machines. They have committed horrific acts but if a CS Soldier finds herself standing over a weeping D-Bee child in a town that she's been ordered to exterminate... she can still walk away. She can't bring back his parents but she can hide him or walk away. They're still PEOPLE. The whole problem here is that you guys have these idealistic notions of war and believe that you can eliminate a threat without purging it completely. That is not tactically sound. Especially when the enemy does not cooperate. That's why after they kicked their asses they let them run away. They could've made a couple of hand signals and "release the hounds" on the survivors as they fled, but they didn't.

The whole situation sucks but both sides were bad guys but please at least take a moment to stop (everyone) and just TRY to understand where the other guys are coming from. I feel like both Giant and Lan are arguing and trying to look at the situation through a tunnel so that their ethics are not challenged and their world views (of the setting) are not shaken. Perhaps they do not want the complication of thinking "Maybe we shouldn't just open fire on any CS Soldier the GM puts in their game and that is their right BUT the antagonistic nature of their claims are creating conflict here and not representative of the organization as it appears in the cannon.

I'm sorry guys... after reading what you've said (and I really, REALLY want to read more on the Mechanoids so please let me know where to look) I am not convinced the CS are inhuman irredeemable monsters. If you're trying to help me get to a point where my characters won't second guess pulling the trigger on someone in game then you've failed. Even in games like Dark's I am going to give everyone a fair go and a chance to prove my preconceptions wrong. Maybe its a little naive and idealist... but sometimes understanding your enemy is the only real way to defeat them.

To clarify, I am not roleplaying on these boards.
I fully understand why the CS did what they did and I can fully understand what Tolkeen did but sitting here with my out of character perspective, I know quite well that regardless of how understandable it is, the CS were in the wrong.
What I contest is other people being out of character and arguing that point, even villifying Tolkeen in the process - that is the problem. Morality extends well beyond the game system.
In life, if someone is kicking in my door, armed to the teeth screaming about how they are going to kill me and my family, I am not only legally able to defend myself in any way possible but it is the right thing to do. It doesn't matter if I stab them, shoot them in the head or summon a demon to do the job for me, I am both morally and legally right in doing so. Protecting my family is not just my right but my duty, if demons are the most powerful weapon I have to that end, using anything else would be wrong.
As a 21st century human being, I can understand why the CS have turned evil but I cannot understand how 21st century human beings can endorse that.


About the Mechanoids, they have their own book (Sourcebook 2) but their history which I find to be the interesting part can be found under the heading "A history of destruction" on page 29.

[Lenwen]

I have read all these posts but I couldn't be asked doing the quote thing as I am on an iphone and its a pain in the ass.

I work 7 days on shift work .. an at times post from my cell phone too .. yet several people after I told them I was at work posting from my cell were attempting to imply that I would not post my cited sources from the books .. even after I straight up told them where I was .. they could not care less only sept to attempt to make themselves look better ..

Just a heads up ..

[Lenwen]

Please note.. it need not be this way. If the invaders simply left, that's a perfectly ok result as well. No need to kill everything.

That isn't canon.
The Coalition Wars weren't based on conquest or liberation, the books stated several times that it was a "war of Genocide" (Coalition Wars 1, page 7).
Moving from your fortifications isn't a means of survival, it is a means of weakening your defense. If Tolkeen decided to pack up and leave, it would have just made the CS's job easier.

It's a figure of speech and flowery description. When Tolkeen lost and the survivors fled, most were allowed to do so. (( helps that the JLA got in the way of some of them)) Thousands of them have even transversed CS territory to end up in Lazlo. They wern't chased down every last man woman and child. Just the ones that didn't flee.

Genocide isn't a figure of speech, it is a very defined word with absolute connotations.

No it's your new trigger word that you're waving around instead of proving your point. "NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI GENOCIDE GENOCIDE GENOCIDE!!!" They didn't do it. When the tolkeenites started to run, they ran just fine. One group were almost hunted down but the JLA got in the way. Thousands and thousands of them got away and even got all the way across CS teritory to Lazlo.

Genocide is exactly what the second wave was after .. Tolkeen had prision camps made of SDC structures .. so when the Coalition came to break out their pow's they had to be careful where they would shoot due to them killing their own pow's .. The Coalition had death camps ..

Second wave (notice this is prior to the summoning of demons on the part of Tolkeen) came in with full knowldge from Emp Prosak.

Second wave is the term used by the coalition's military for the second wave of invasion that the Coalition sent into the tolkeen theater, lead by General Drogue.

If needed I can provide canon sourced citations an details of the genocidal aspects the second wave under Drogue went into for you.

[Lenwen]

No it's your new trigger word that you're waving around instead of proving your point. "NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI GENOCIDE GENOCIDE GENOCIDE!!!" They didn't do it.

These new comers, known collectively as the Second wave have very clear ideas for how the war in tolkeen can be salvaged. Nearly all of them entail mass murderm destroying entire innocent populations, establishing what amount to concentration camps and perhaps even launching a D-Bee holocaust.

Overation Hardball : which plans to decimate Tolkeen's civilian populace. and Operation Spoilsport a campaign to insert hundreds of Special Forces teams spies saboteurs and assassins behind enemy lines. Together these plans shall advance General Drogue's and the like minded Second waver's sick vision of genocide against Tolkeen.

The first and foremost step in destroying Tolkeen according to General Drogue, is the elimination of Tolkeen's civilian populace.

Phase one is a scorched earth campaign to destroy every town village farm and honestead

Phase two involves the reintroduction of that pre-Rifts insturment of genocide, the concentration camp

This is all before Tolkeen's summoning of Demons an Devils .. to supplement its armies .. which clearly show's that the Coalition in fact was going the genocidal rout . and here is another quote that I will prove that even the emp knew all about this too ..

Emporer Prosek is willing to give the second wave its chance, and see what a genocidal approach can do.

There is ZERO doubt that the coalition used Genocidal warfar and even the highest ups in its entire military knew it was doing so ..

EDIT : Also again this is PRIOR .. to Tolkeen summoning Demons to supplement it militaries ..

[Killer Cyborg]

Good post, Lenwen.

[Lenwen]

Good post, Lenwen.

Thank you KC.

When I am at home .. and posting on the laptop .. rather then at work on my cell .. my debates go much much smoother ..

[Lenwen]

Seriously, good post Lenwen.

PN (sorry, having trouble with getting quotes to work with the wall of text), tolkeen DID try to negotiate with the CS by sending them diplomat. The CS returned him(her?) in a bodybag.

Thanks Bad Mojo.

Which book is it that tolkeen sent the emmisary to them in ?