SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread I

[KlavoHunter]

Well, if Bluewolf wants his nation to look anything like the way he originally intended, he'd better post on the Wiki plenty of fluff about his nation, or else we might get it all very very wrong, since we just have a name to go off of.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Great also, that you decided to side with a race that razed most of one of my planets and killed billions in the process.

If you mean "accepted a number of refugees who fled from certain Annihilation at the hands of a genocidal force which gave up the Nobler aspects of their species in favour of vindictiveness, spite, cruelty and bloodlust" then yes.

Zor

Do I need to also add that the Tau planned to replicate what would have happened if they had won in the Dawn of War I game expansion ? Like you know, forced sterilization of the human populace?

[Dave]

Great also, that you decided to side with a race that razed most of one of my planets and killed billions in the process.

If you mean "accepted a number of refugees who fled from certain Annihilation at the hands of a genocidal force which gave up the Nobler aspects of their species in favour of vindictiveness, spite, cruelty and bloodlust" then yes.

Zor

Do I need to also add that the Tau planned to replicate what would have happened if they had won in the Dawn of War I game expansion ? Like you know, forced sterilization of the human populace?

It's one thing to defend yourself and retake your land from a nation for whom the phrase "Manifest Destiny" went to their head. You might even have a case to counter attack and take them down a notch. But to unleash biological warfare on them, raze and/or glass any world held by the enemy, and explicitly and continuously pursue a xenocidal war of extermination against them, is just taking it to a whole new (and unjustifiable) level.

[RogueIce]

Well, you could have two cultures with such utter hatred (and intense policing of the border) that there is no trade.

A step down from that, and you have only illegal trade. Factions among the elite may tacitly encourage the trade, or not, but it's the equivalent of the drug trade in the US: there is real law enforcement opposing you if you try to participate in the trade, and they really are serious about putting you away if they catch you.

Then, a step down from that is unofficial trade that's ubiquitous enough that it is tacitly accepted- customs enforcement is lax enough to allow "illegal" shipments to flow across the border regularly.

I'd say it's reasonable to interpret "black market" as either of those.

True. I suppose we could look at is as "Official Government Position" though. In that case, your first two scenarios can lend themselves to No Trade; even if the government prohibits official trade and makes active efforts to curb it, smugglers and the like will almost certainly get through.

Your third scenario then lends itself to the Black Market tab: while for political and/or diplomatic purposes you may officially ban trade with another power, on a practical level you pretty much ignore it and may in fact do active, under-the-table bargains. Or something.

Of course it's all kinda broad and these are just generalities. I suppose you can include in your own Wiki pages a "Trade Relations" heading, where you give a bit more detail to the general colored blocks of the chart, as I've seen people doing with Foreign Relations already.

Essentially, an excuse to further pimp use of the Wiki.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

It's one thing to defend yourself and retake your land from a nation for whom the phrase "Manifest Destiny" went to their head. You might even have a case to counter attack and take them down a notch. But to unleash biological warfare on them, raze and/or glass any world held by the enemy, and explicitly and continuously pursue a xenocidal war of extermination against them, is just taking it to a whole new (and unjustifiable) level.

Some 50 billion Humans resided in the Antioch Sector. Over 2/3 died in the fighting and billions of causalties. The remainder slated for sterilization. Go figure.

The Imperium's strength was sapped, and drained by the conflict in the Antioch sector, and the Tau knew it, hence the demand for absolute surrender. It needed time and breathing room. The recourse then was a bioweapon that would buy the Imperium time to reorganize, and retaliate.

No one in their right mind would simply let the Tau get off lightly for a war they started, and pursued and then decided annihilate the subjugated just because they were 'recalcitrant'. By then, it was clear to everyone including the Tau that only the victor would be left standing, and the defeated annihilated.

[Dave]

Some 50 billion Humans resided in the Antioch Sector. Over 2/3 died in the fighting and billions of causalties. The remainder slated for sterilization. Go figure.

The Imperium's strength was sapped, and drained by the conflict in the Antioch sector, and the Tau knew it, hence the demand for absolute surrender. It needed time and breathing room. The recourse then was a bioweapon that would buy the Imperium time to reorganize, and retaliate.

Alright, you've argued this. But:

No one in their right mind would simply let the Tau get off lightly for a war they started, and pursued and then decided annihilate the subjugated just because they were 'recalcitrant'. By then, it was clear to every one including the Tau that only the victor would be left standing, and the defeated annihilated.

You're still talking about glassing non-military targets. You're slaughtering civilians. You killed everyone. You couldn't hit just the military targets? You couldn't hold back from their homeworld? You couldn't hit major industry and watch their economy (and ecology) implode, then demand surrender?

[Steve]

I think his point was that he didn't have the strength to attack them in such a directed fashion; he could only lob the bioplague bombs indiscriminately and let the epidemic tie up their resources.

[Dave]

I think his point was that he didn't have the strength to attack them in such a directed fashion; he could only lop the bioplague bombs indiscriminately and let the epidemic tie up their resources.

And I accepted that (reluctantly). He gave his reasoning, and I can see how a civilization in their position would resort to desparate measures like that.

My beef now is that he followed it up with a scorched-and-salted earth war of extermination. No punches pulled, no mercy for civilians, no targeted strikes. It's, what, the 29th century when this war occurs? They have smart bombs, they have dial-a-yield nukes, they can drop rocks from orbit; they must be able to at least try to avoid civilian casualties. But no, we have to invade and basically shoot everyone we see, then glass what's left. That looks to me like an obvious case of xenocide, and I can't see how it couldn't be avoided.

Look at the Dilgrud. While not the best case scenario, is not their situation (1) similar (2) possible and (3) preferable to the slaughter of the Tau?

And my nation will back up my OOC rhetoric, though perhaps in more polite language and only if it is brought up.

[Steve]

My beef now is that he followed it up with a scorched-and-salted earth war of extermination. No punches pulled, no mercy for civilians, no targeted strikes. It's, what, the 29th century when this war occurs? They have smart bombs, they have dial-a-yield nukes, they can drop rocks from orbit; they must be able to at least try to avoid civilian casualties. But no, we have to invade and basically shoot everyone we see, then glass what's left. That looks to me like an obvious case of xenocide, and I can't see how it couldn't be avoided.

It probably could've been, but both races/sides were committed to exterminating each other unfortunately. It was a war to the knife and it ended up being one.

Look at the Dilgrud. While not the best case scenario, is not their situation (1) similar (2) possible and (3) preferable to the slaughter of the Tau?

Bleh, wrote one huge ass answer to this that was unnecessary, so here's a summation:

The answer to all three is a qualified yes, though only qualified as there are distinctions, including the fact that New Anglia is willing to pay the price, in treasure and even in the lives of its armed services personnel, to administrate the Dilgrud from afar instead of simply washing their hands with them (as numerous other states might have done) and letting any number of other races destroy them (and there are other minor races in the region who would gladly seed every Dilgrud-inhabited world with Strontium-90 warheads). Also because the Dilgrud didn't quite push New Anglia to such an extent that it tossed aside its values to pursue a war of annihilation without any recourse to mercy, as eventually happened.

It is entirely possible that the Dilgrud would have been utterly exterminated, however; only the death of their Emperor in the Third War, who was quite willing to see his race die rather than be conquered, and his replacement by an elderly claimant who decided to surrender as there was "no honor in extinction" saved the Dilgrud race from utter extinction; as it was their 3013 population of 44 billion was only 20 million by the end of the war in 3016, mostly due to their scorched earth campaigns and their willingness to see most of their people starve to death or otherwise die from lack of support in the effort to extract the max number of casualties against the Anglian conquerers.

As a final note, the Dilgrud aren't exactly like the Tau either. They held no pretensions to a "greater good", only a very base and crude concept of Might Makes Right and wanting to be the one in power, not the one in subjection. The very concept of surrendering oneself is disliked; to do so to aliens was so unacceptable that the Emperor who signed the treaty that ended the First Dilgrud War was assassinated shortly thereafter for daring to give concessions; the second war's ending was able to be enforced because of the utter loss of the Dilgrud fleet at Maktur and because the Emperor was already dying due to the plague released by the Tau exiles as his forces slaughtered them (as scapegoats for defeat and to appease the Imperium, which was threatening to join the war to get at the Tau).

At the same time, their approach to power relations when it came to aliens was also crudely simple: Surrender or Die. And once surrendered, maintain your surrender, for the slightest resistance is seen as ceasing it and thus warrants immediate death. That attitude contributed to the sheer, horrible level of slaughter they managed in their occupied territories, and also naturally lent itself to a remorseless war of annihilation against New Anglia that included directed attacks on civilian populations with WMDs. Hence why 33 billion non-Dilgrud died by the end of the First War compared to only 800 million Dilgrud, almost all military dead (though that includes "support" persons).

And my nation will back up my OOC rhetoric, though perhaps in more polite language and only if it is brought up.

Obviously. For what it's worth, New Anglia is fairly uncomfortable with the Imperium and especially their rancorous specieism, but they're someone we have to interact with frequently anyway, due to proximity and the fact that our active trade links to the Solarians go through Imperium territory due to the nature of the Shoal sectors.

[Zor]

Great also, that you decided to side with a race that razed most of one of my planets and killed billions in the process.

If you mean "accepted a number of refugees who fled from certain Annihilation at the hands of a genocidal force which gave up the Nobler aspects of their species in favour of vindictiveness, spite, cruelty and bloodlust" then yes.

Zor

Do I need to also add that the Tau planned to replicate what would have happened if they had won in the Dawn of War I game expansion ? Like you know, forced sterilization of the human populace?

So, that does not mean you HAD to respond with genocide of your own when other means of threat neutralization were viable once the upper hand was acheived.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Speaking for Umeria:

We don't like the Imperium genocide of the Tau, but it was in the fairly remote past, and was the culmination of one of the most brutal wars that ever occured. As such, we're not going to remain permanently sour on them over intergenerational time scales, though we're certainly not unusually fond of them. Nor, in all probability, are they unusually fond of us, since the Technarchs are fairly xeno-tolerant. One can make a case for xenophilia; there is one alien species in the Technocracy that is actually over-represented at high levels, though that's largely because it's such a tiny minority of the population.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So, that does not mean you HAD to respond with genocide of your own when other means of threat neutralization were viable once the upper hand was acheived.

Zor

You know Zor, I don't give a shit about your attention whoring. Go whore to someone else.

And note, there will be no Nova Atlantean embassy. Your people are persona no grata.

And yes. An eye for an eye. It's not as if the Tau planned to even surrender, proud stuck ups as they are, like yourself.

[KlavoHunter]

It seems to be quite established fact in this universe that alien races that don't know when to give up trying to kill Humans often end up extinct - just look at what Lonestar did to the Amplitur, and nobody's arguing about that.

If some people want to host Tau refugees, it is entirely their prerogative, just so long as they understand that the Imperium will not like them for it, and may even do something violent about it.

[Siege]

I was about to mention that it's curious how many cases of "humanity encounters alien species, war is beginning, after bloody fighting humanity drives alien species to (brink of) extinction" we have right now -- the Tau, the Dilgrud, the Amplitur... Humanity has become quite the destroyer of worlds, it appears.

[Lonestar]

I was about to mention that it's curious how many cases of "humanity encounters alien species, war is beginning, after bloody fighting humanity drives alien species to (brink of) extinction" we have right now -- the Tau, the Dilgrud, the Amplitur... Humanity has become quite the destroyer of worlds, it appears.

Yeah the Amplitur predicted that that would be the case, which is why they rolled the dice against the Grand Dominion and Shepistan. Whoops!

[Steve]

I was about to mention that it's curious how many cases of "humanity encounters alien species, war is beginning, after bloody fighting humanity drives alien species to (brink of) extinction" we have right now -- the Tau, the Dilgrud, the Amplitur... Humanity has become quite the destroyer of worlds, it appears.

Bah, I was like second on that list and fairly different from Fin here.

I think the issue we have in some cases is not everyone has shown cases with aliens getting along better with Humans, or being hostile without it going into war of annihilation. For instance, up until the Dilgrud Wars that pretty much sums up New Anglia's relations with all three of the alien races it now has as subjects. Multiple wars with Thanagar, several with various Dorei nations (and one with most of them as a whole I figure), and the Trill, as Lord Tevala remarked, had often backed Thanagar against New Anglia to try and hold back the inexorable advance of the Anglians.

This Thursday or Friday I may color in a few more sectors to show those with "minor races" that have retained political independence for one reason or another. To go along with other NPCs to fill in the less-populated areas (though I was considering leaving the northwest section a bit open, to reflect that it was mostly uninhabited anyway when Coyote's nation showed up. I'm tempted to say the Expanse used to cover the entire region and was the largest known shoal area, but when Q transferred in the Central Alliance he altered the area to vastly reduce the Expanse).

[K. A. Pital]

Xenociders can't expect friendly relations in a thousand years from now. What they can expect, however, is that a coalition of the willing will form - perhaps made of non-human races - which shall contain the xenociders in their corner of the Galaxy. Rest assured we'll give weapons to the 'foul xenos'.

[Siege]

Providing cheap weapons to the teeming masses in the best communist tradition .

The Sovereignty isn't big on xenocide, but because of our own situation with respect to the Bragulans* we'll give the Imperium a pass because it was (A) a long time ago and (B) a total war for survival against a genocidal enemy. The same is probably true for the wars against the Dilgrud and Amplitur.

* Although the Bragulan War has long since stopped being a total war affair and degenerated into an endless series of dickeries. Almost like the Korean DMZ, I guess you could say .

I like the idea of a bunch of minor alien NPCs out in the boonies by the way, it gives us that many more elements to play with. If you could add a faction of nomadic Apexai to the galactic south-east that would make me (and Shroom, I bet) really happy.

[PeZook]

Yes! We need NPCs in Wild Space to dick around in and have our Flash Stalins and Jack Turdners and Toms Dangerzones and Legions and Inquisitor whatevers operate in and screw over and kidnap to do unspeakable experiments on!

And ancient alien artifact sites to explore and fight over! Crashed ships transmitting STAY AWAY!!!

Yes...we should totally horribly mangle all popular sci-fi in a series of silly stories!

P.S.
Also, Fin, it's hard to argue with Zor's point that the Imperium is kind of...spiteful

[Steve]

The issue with the Dilgrud, really, was such a deeply-ingrained cultural belief in racial superiority and disgust toward the very idea of "surrender" to aliens that they brought themselves to the brink of extinction in the Third War. New Anglia's goal was to eliminate the Dilgrud Empire as an entity and to make sure the Dilgrud could never again pull the rebuilding job they had done in the First Interbellum Period (2964-2993, the time period between the First and Second Wars).

[DarthShady]

Yes...we should totally horribly mangle all popular sci-fi in a series of silly stories!

Indeed. This will be great fun.

Also, Fin, it's hard to argue with Zor's point that the Imperium is kind of...spiteful

Spiteful doesn't even begin to describe them. I mean come on, you infest one little princess and they declare a centuries long crusade against you.

Speaking of which, I really need to put up some info on the wiki about the Apects.

[PeZook]

Spiteful doesn't even begin to describe them. I mean come on, you infest one little princess and they declare a centuries long crusade against you.

Totally, man. It's not like you killed her or anything! She's alive, kicking, full of state secrets and actively advacing the Karlack cause...oh, wait

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Spiteful doesn't even begin to describe them. I mean come on, you infest one little princess and they declare a centuries long crusade against you.

Speaking of which, I really need to put up some info on the wiki about the Apects.

Well hey. You defiled her soul! Making a mockery of all things human.

And not to mention, we haven't had a glorious war for a while :p. Time for another?

[PeZook]

Well hey. You defiled her soul! Making a mockery of all things human.

[Legion]You can make the sleazy, stinking, wet, slippery, delicate, irrational humans even more of a mockery? That's a new one...[/Legion]

[Simon_Jester]

Well hey. You defiled her soul! Making a mockery of all things human.

[Legion]You can make the sleazy, stinking, wet, slippery, delicate, irrational humans even more of a mockery? That's a new one...[/Legion]

What can I say? The swarm is... talented.

I think what's going on here is that as the (mostly human) expansion goes on, it's encountering an enormous range of non-human species. Some are pretty well adjusted; the weaker well-adjusted ones wind up incorporated into xenophilic human states, while the stronger well-adjusted ones wind up running their own significant powers. The well-adjusted powers may fight wars with humans, but these wars are limited, because the powers in question are capable of peaceful coexistence. Even if it's ugly coexistence (like that many nations have with the orks in their region of space), it's still coexistence.

But we're also running into a minority of species that have little or no concept of getting along nicely with the neighbors. They may be quite civilized among themselves, but if they can't live and let live they're going to wind up picking a lot of fights they can't win and getting wiped out. I submit that many of these species would have been just as big a problem for any intelligent race that came along- if the Tau had conquered the galaxy except for the Dilgrud, the Dilgrud would be fighting them, not humans. Because what we're dealing with here isn't any unique human evil, I think; it's just that the humans are in a position to win wars against alien species that just cannot tolerate the idea of not-them existing and having power. So far, anyway.

There aren't a lot of analogies to this in Earth history; the closest ones I can think of come from the Second World War, where nation-states adopted policies that were so aggressive, imperialistic, and domineering that pretty much the entire civilized world ganged up on them and battered them to within an inch of their lives.

It would be interesting to look through the list of non-human species and figure out which ones (including minor ones assimilated into human powers) are capable of playing nicely with members of other species and which ones aren't. And what the ratio is.