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They were the best of people, they were the worst of people...[G5]


MrRoivas

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The point I and others have made isn't that the Synthesis Mind is evil. I'm not crazy about the suffering it put the other three servant minds through, but one could reasonably cite self-defense on its behalf. The point is that allowing its continued existence was a glaring violation of Shaper law, and thus Alwan isn't as true to his ideals as he'd have you believe. My opinion is that this is a problem with Shaper law, not the Synthesis Mind, but Alwan clearly doesn't agree.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One can't help but agree that making creations that can shape is rightfully considered a horrible idea: the Drakons are proof of that.

 

As an aside, I wonder if the Shaping Mind would have done the same thing? ReShape itself over and over until it attains a better shape a la the Drakons? It might be an interesting story...

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I'm not so convinced. Why should a sentient creation shaping be worse than a human shaping? The drakons are certainly nasty, but no more so than human canister addicts. The problem is that there are no restrictions on creations reshaping themselves, and that's primarily because the Shaper government that enforces such laws also enforces laws that would kill any such creation on sight (or subject them to torture/vivisection). In fact, those laws exacerbated the problem, since drakons had to make themselves stronger in order to survive.

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Plus, drakons are just heavily reShaped drayks, so they had a huge bias towards self-Shaping (whether instinctive or culturally) all along. Geneforge doesn't really have any examples of what intelligent, independent creations given the ability to shape would do. Spawners are too dumb and servant minds depend too much on their creators for basic needs.

 

Dikiyoba.

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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Plus, drakons are just heavily reShaped drayks, so they had a huge bias towards self-Shaping (whether instinctive or culturally) all along. Geneforge doesn't really have any examples of what intelligent, independent creations given the ability to shape would do. Spawners are too dumb and servant minds depend too much on their creators for basic needs.

Dikiyoba.


That is an excellent point. None of the Shaping creations were truly intelligent and independent. Drakons can be discounted because the Self-Shaping drove them nuts and they are no longer intelligent.
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Originally Posted By: Sage of Numenor
Drakons can be discounted because the Self-Shaping drove them nuts and they are no longer intelligent.

Hardly. The Unbound may be dumb, but all the other drakons are still intelligent. They should be discounted because they are descendents of the Barzite philosophy. The drakons didn't think up self-Shaping by themselves; they got the idea directly from self-Shaping humans.

Dikiyoba.
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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Geneforge doesn't really have any examples of what intelligent, independent creations given the ability to shape would do.


Yes it does. They engineer and perpetuate a repressive society centered around themselves and their sect and hoard all power for themselves while crushing all dissent.

These creations are called "humans".
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Geneforge doesn't really have any examples of what intelligent, independent creations given the ability to shape would do.


Yes it does. They engineer and perpetuate a repressive society centered around themselves and their sect and hoard all power for themselves while crushing all dissent.

These creations are called "humans".


Oh, I thought you were talking about the Drakons.
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Geneforge doesn't really have any examples of what intelligent, independent creations given the ability to shape would do.


Yes it does. They engineer and perpetuate a repressive society centered around themselves and their sect and hoard all power for themselves while crushing all dissent.

These creations are called "humans".


So wait ... you're a Trakovite?
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It's fairly objective that the shapers do, in fact, do those things. The moral dilemma, like most (if not all) real life dilemmas, stems from the following views:

 

I. I value a well-ordered and stable society, so it is acceptable for the ruling power to stem individual liberty and freedoms to ensure social order (Shapers)

 

vs.

 

II. I value individual free action and self-determinism, and am willing to accept the consequences of a more chaotic and less efficient society if I receive these things (Rebels)

 

See also: Every major political, social, and religious issue that has ever arisen over the past millenia.

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Which makes the Trakovites an interesting case. For the most part, they're even more libertarian than the rebels (they kind of have to be, since even the rebels will kill or imprison them just for speaking their views), except on the topic of shaping, on which they're more authoritarian than the Shapers.

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As did the Shapers, for that matter. I can't think of a single major Shaper character in G5 who actually kept to all their laws. Alwan came very close, but even he tacitly supported the creation of the Synthesis Mind. Taygen's 'great work' was about as illegal as something can be; Rawal had a geneforge and control tools, and orders the PC to retrieve a book on canister creation from Alwan; Astoria was actively working toward peace with the rebels; Makar may have enjoyed ranting about restoring Shaper honor, but in order to do so he used a highly illegal golem that had previously caused the condemnation of an entire facility. We don't get as much information about the western councilors, but at the least we know that they're willing to sell out Shaper ideals to Astoria or Litalia in order to reach a peace settlement.

 

So, yeah, between the dictatorial drakons and the desperate Shaper council, both sides are pretty hypocritical.

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Had they learned from this, and said "our laws are untenable in this situation, maybe we should seriously consider some reforms," I'd be willing to let them go with that excuse. Some Shapers, like Khyryk and Astoria, do go this route, but the loyalist Shapers regard them as dirty traitors. The fact that people like Taygen, Makar and Koerner (and to a lesser extent Alwan) are violating Shaper law precisely in order to reinstate it unchanged, makes them at least as hypocritical as the Shaper 2.0 drakons.

 

Also, what Dikiyoba said.

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