Alignment in 5E still causes arguments

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:07 am

Zerg are not a true hivemind. The cerebrates are sapient individuals, but the broods themselves are basically just swarms of remote-controlled space tigers. The Overmind keeps everyone in line through some combination of psychic fuckery and good ol' threats of violence. The same is true under Kerrigan and her broodmothers.

The zerg are less a hive and more a small club of Shadowrun riggers whose army of drones happens to be made of meat.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 5:35 pm

sarcasmoverdose wrote:
Occluded Sun wrote:And a delightfully refreshing kind of Evil, too.
The Borg aren't evil, they're amoral. Big difference.

True. And rather amusingly, TNG never made a case for why it wouldn't be better if the Borg won and converted everyone else. There was just an implicit 'free will is better because free will' tautology. Every other scenario was simply 'they do things we don't like, so we must kill them.'

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 5:49 pm

I'm not sure I agree.

First off, there's the initial premise 'I don't want to be a Borg'. The Borg response is, 'you won't care once it is done to you'. In any case, the Borg are doing something unpleasant to you, and that's reason enough to object to the process, if not the end result.

Further, the TNG universe posits that human kind is on a path to ascension towards pure energy beings or some other type of enlightenment. Being 'Borg' would prevent that type of evolution. I'm pretty sure that's why Q introduced them to the Borg in the first place... To make them aware of the impending threat.

Finally, the Borg advance by assimilating other cultures. Once they have assimilated everything, do they advance? It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that when they assimilate a species they learn their research processes and could therefore emulate them, but they're never shown doing that... If they cannot advance indefinitely, and we consider advancement to be a good thing, the Borg dominion would ultimately be bad.

In essence, though, I think that the primary reason they offer is, indeed, 'it's good to be free'. Since everyone in Star Trek represents humans and society, the Borg represent the dilemna of whether people should serve institutions, or whether institutions should serve people. The Borg don't have human emotions... The Star Trek universe posits that making people happy is a cosmic good. Since the Borg cannot be happy (they don't have those types of emotions) then letting them dominate the universe means a net reduction in happy thoughts.

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 6:17 pm

What the fuck's "amoral" supposed to mean, anyway?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 6:26 pm

zugschef wrote:What the fuck's "amoral" supposed to mean, anyway?

Google wrote:a·mor·al
āˈmôrəl/
adjective
adjective: amoral

lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.
"an amoral attitude to sex"
synonyms: unprincipled, without standards, without morals, without scruples, unscrupulous, Machiavellian, unethical More

Dictionary.com wrote: amoral
[ey-mawr-uhl, a-mawr-, ey-mor-, a-mor-]
adjective
1.
not involving questions of right or wrong; without moral quality; neither moral nor immoral.
2.
having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong: a completely amoral person.
Origin:
1880–85; a-6 + moral

Related forms
amoralism, noun
amorality [ey-muh-ral-i-tee, am-uh-] , noun
amorally, adverb

Synonyms
See immoral.

merriam-webster wrote:amor·al
adjective \(ˌ)ā-ˈmȯr-əl, (ˌ)a-, -ˈmär-\

: having or showing no concern about whether behavior is morally right or wrong
Full Definition of AMORAL
1
a : being neither moral nor immoral; specifically : lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply <science as such is completely amoral — W. S. Thompson>
b : lacking moral sensibility <infants are amoral>
2
: being outside or beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals <amoral customs>

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:16 pm

Can you be amoral when you care for your species' survival?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:35 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:I'm not sure I agree.

First off, there's the initial premise 'I don't want to be a Borg'. The Borg response is, 'you won't care once it is done to you'. In any case, the Borg are doing something unpleasant to you, and that's reason enough to object to the process, if not the end result.

Hence the 'they do things we don't like'

Further, the TNG universe posits that human kind is on a path to ascension towards pure energy beings or some other type of enlightenment. Being 'Borg' would prevent that type of evolution. I'm pretty sure that's why Q introduced them to the Borg in the first place... To make them aware of the impending threat.

Unwarranted assumptions. Nothing suggests they can't, and most of the treatment of energy beings or other 'enlightened' species is that they are gigantic assholes, and useless.

Finally, the Borg advance by assimilating other cultures. Once they have assimilated everything, do they advance? It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that when they assimilate a species they learn their research processes and could therefore emulate them, but they're never shown doing that... If they cannot advance indefinitely, and we consider advancement to be a good thing, the Borg dominion would ultimately be bad.

Well, since the Borg are shown doing research and their own things (the alternate dimension research where they found Species 8675309 or whatever), they clearly do research. And... you've just introduced another tautology.

In essence, though, I think that the primary reason they offer is, indeed, 'it's good to be free'. Since everyone in Star Trek represents humans and society, the Borg represent the dilemna of whether people should serve institutions, or whether institutions should serve people. The Borg don't have human emotions... The Star Trek universe posits that making people happy is a cosmic good. Since the Borg cannot be happy (they don't have those types of emotions) then letting them dominate the universe means a net reduction in happy thoughts.

The problem with this is they never demonstrate that it actually is good to be free, particularly with the nigh-annual corrupt Starfleet officer episodes. Its just an assumption that they never justify, but simply assume that the audience will swallow as an inherent truth that can never be questioned, because the corrupt admirals always fail, the Cardissan Authority collapses and so on.

The one of the best moments in DS9, on the other hand, involves Garrack and Quark carping about the Federation and root beer, and coming to the conclusion that the Federation is in fact worse than the Borg, because they'll assimilate you all the same and make you like it.

@zugschef.... uh, yeah. Quite easily, in fact. Survival itself isn't a moral question. What you're willing to do to survive, on the other hand... if the answer is 'anything is acceptable' amoral is probably in play. (Not agonizing over it, or sniveling about it, but just shrugging, eating the injured and moving on as if it doesn't matter). Obviously if there are things you won't do in order to survive, you aren't amoral.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:31 pm

Voss wrote:Well, since the Borg are shown doing research and their own things (the alternate dimension research where they found Species 8675309 or whatever), they clearly do research. And... you've just introduced another tautology.

I wasn't going to bring up Voyager because Voyager badly contradicts a lot of what was fairly consistent about Star Trek throughout TNG and DS9 as well as a lot of things that TOS never happened to contradict itself on, and also it kind of sucked, you would be well justified in declaring it non-canon because of that. But since you brought up Species 8472: The episode where they discover Species 8472 is also the episode where they explicitly come out and say that the Borg assimilate but the Federation investigates, that the Borg can't fight Species 8472 because they've never encountered a species capable of fighting them, and 8472 itself is resistant to their assimilation. But the Federation is still capable of research, so they're able to develop an entirely new nanoweapon of some kind (I forget the details).

infected slut princess · Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:53 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:
No seriously, I'm actually a LaVeyan* Satanist

lol!!

sarcasmoverdose · Post by **sarcasmoverdose** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:28 am

deaddmwalking wrote: In essence, though, I think that the primary reason they offer is, indeed, 'it's good to be free'. Since everyone in Star Trek represents humans and society, the Borg represent the dilemna of whether people should serve institutions, or whether institutions should serve people. The Borg don't have human emotions... The Star Trek universe posits that making people happy is a cosmic good. Since the Borg cannot be happy (they don't have those types of emotions) then letting them dominate the universe means a net reduction in happy thoughts.

This all makes them antagonists, not evil. Since they have no care for "right" and "wrong", it makes them amoral- like cthulhu, zombies, and rabid animals.

Cyberzombie · Post by **Cyberzombie** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:56 am

sarcasmoverdose wrote: The Borg aren't evil, they're amoral. Big difference.

They're evil. If you're sentient and selfishly trample over everyone's freedom and lives in your path, you're evil (at least in D&D terms).

Not caring about good/evil doesn't make you amoral, that just makes you evil. You're only amoral if you lack higher brain functioning to comprehend what morals are. The Borg know what morality is, they just don't care. That's evil as far as D&D is concerned.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:57 am

Chamomile wrote:
Voss wrote:Well, since the Borg are shown doing research and their own things (the alternate dimension research where they found Species 8675309 or whatever), they clearly do research. And... you've just introduced another tautology.
I wasn't going to bring up Voyager because Voyager badly contradicts a lot of what was fairly consistent about Star Trek throughout TNG and DS9 as well as a lot of things that TOS never happened to contradict itself on, and also it kind of sucked, you would be well justified in declaring it non-canon because of that. But since you brought up Species 8472: The episode where they discover Species 8472 is also the episode where they explicitly come out and say that the Borg assimilate but the Federation investigates, that the Borg can't fight Species 8472 because they've never encountered a species capable of fighting them, and 8472 itself is resistant to their assimilation. But the Federation is still capable of research, so they're able to develop an entirely new nanoweapon of some kind (I forget the details).

Hmm. That is a point, which muddies the issue somewhat, since it seems incoherent to be researching other dimensions and all the bizarre adaptions the Borg actually do on the fly without any sort of creativity (which seems to be the crux of the issue).

But I can't really see star trek as all that consistent. Technological ability (and scope) depends entirely on whether it is being sacrificed for story reasons, and klingons, time travel bullshit, mind control parasites and all sorts of fuckery routinely twist the setting around itself. But I'm particularly uncomfortable with calling something non-canon just because it was shitty. Its still part of the setting/universe.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:04 am

Cyberzombie wrote:
sarcasmoverdose wrote: The Borg aren't evil, they're amoral. Big difference.
They're evil. If you're sentient and selfishly trample over everyone's freedom and lives in your path, you're evil (at least in D&D terms).

Unless you're doing it because a big glowing guy in a white hat tells you to, then you're lawful good.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:28 am

I'm like the only person in the universe who liked Voyager.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:58 am

RelentlessImp wrote:I'm like the only person in the universe who liked Voyager.

Yes. That probably doesn't make you a bad person. Probably.

sarcasmoverdose · Post by **sarcasmoverdose** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:16 am

Cyberzombie wrote: They're evil. If you're sentient and selfishly trample over everyone's freedom and lives in your path, you're evil (at least in D&D terms).

You're defining evil as "controlling and warlike", something which celestials in DND are.

Cyberzombie wrote: Not caring about good/evil doesn't make you amoral, that just makes you evil.

How so?

Cyberzombie wrote: You're only amoral if you lack higher brain functioning to comprehend what morals are. The Borg know what morality is, they just don't care. That's evil as far as D&D is concerned.

They don't accept human morality, plain and simple. In DND, solars are LG, Rilmani are N, and Demons are CE- and none of them care about human morality.

RelentlessImp wrote:I'm like the only person in the universe who liked Voyager.

It was the second best star trek after ST: Enterprise.

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:21 am

RelentlessImp wrote:I'm like the only person in the universe who liked Voyager.

I gave it a fair chance. And then, salamanders.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:21 am

sarcasmoverdose wrote: It was the second best star trek after ST: Enterprise.

GUYS I FOUND SATAN

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:26 am

RelentlessImp wrote:I'm like the only person in the universe who liked Voyager.

I (generally) like it better than TNG, but only because episodic junk* with no overarching plot makes my teeth ache. And a good 50% of TNG episodes explicitly feel like I'm being preached** at, (often with a moral that is 'cleverly' disguised as an anvil), which causes a visceral, instinctive dislike.

That said, even though DS9 is my absolute favorite ST series, there are still episodes that I won't ever watch again, because they're absolutely horrible.

** as an aside, Lawful Good is the most awful alignment ever. And TNG often reminds me of it, with a very strong tendency to inflict 'Our Moral Compass' on people.

*though the horrible salamander episode is a perfect case in point. Assuming there was a reason to do that at all kidnapping the captain to mutate and breed her and start a brand new species*** should have had... ramifications. Or consequences. Or something.

***even if it will likely inbreed itself out of existence in short order, assuming it is stable at all.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:28 am

RelentlessImp wrote:
sarcasmoverdose wrote: It was the second best star trek after ST: Enterprise.
GUYS I FOUND SATAN

Son, even I thought that show sucked.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:36 am

Voyager wasn't as bad as most people say it is. Neither was Enterprise. I mean, they had some really awful episodes, but so did all the series.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:40 am

Three things were good for Voyager; Robert Picardo, Seven-of-Nine and that long-term permanent holodeck town. Getting to watch some really decent, not-entirely-hamfisted (though let's be honest, they had no concept of subtlety most of the time) character development over those three continual arcs made Voyager worth its runtime.

...DS9 didn't hold a candle to B5 though. (They were both God-tier shows, though.)

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:56 am

Chamomile wrote:Voyager wasn't as bad as most people say it is. Neither was Enterprise. I mean, they had some really awful episodes, but so did all the series.

Ok, in the first episode it is revealed that Star Fleet has never heard of alarm clocks.

In the second episode they decided to clean up the weak signal from the beyond the event horizon of a black hole (yes, a signal from pas the event horizon) by shielding the antenna. I've never found that wrapping my TV antenna in aluminum foil improves the reception, how about you?

I have no idea what happened in any subsequent episodes.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:41 am

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:
RelentlessImp wrote:I'm like the only person in the universe who liked Voyager.
I gave it a fair chance. And then, salamanders.

So you are saying that it broke your... threshold.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:30 am

You can totally shield antenna. Planet-finding scopes block the light of a star to find dull planets around them. Sun-watching scopes shield out the sunlight to see it's corona. IR scopes block the heat of the sun from interfering with their observations. Anything in a particle stream needs shielded from impacts. Ideally you can focus on a tiny point and only let in the wavelengths you're interested in from that one source, everything else is shielded out in some way or another.

Still stupid, but not for that reason.