Mehrunes

If you think it was ethical or moral or whatever for the Soviet Union to respond to Ukrainian nationalist movements by starving millions of innocent people then I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

Africans used to be viewed as tools with a measure of intelligence. For that matter Ukrainians were nothing more than tools to Stalin. Millions of Ukrainians died of starvation as Stalin took their agricultural output to feed his own people. Anyone who resisted was deported to Siberia, but who cares about malfunctioning organic machines who rejected the supremacy of Stalin's superior, moral (in his eyes) regime?

You need to replay Geneforge 1. Nobody needed to tell the serviles on Sucia to want freedom. They were abandoned by the Shapers and so they learned to survive and create their own society. They're intelligent and self aware and, ethically, they have an inherent rights to continued survival and self-determination.

The opening post said "To clarify, this may not necessarily be a faction you agree with, or one that is ethical in and of itself. Rather, this is the faction that you choose to help when you're trying to be a good guy." That's consistent with the definition of the philosophy of ethics. The good guy never practices slavery. And the leaders of the rebellion are no more murderous and vengeful than the Shapers who would eradicate them without a thought even if they were seeking peace, simply because they could potentially threaten them and possess knowledge that the Shapers desire only for themselves. The Shapers offer no quarter to most of the rebels. By their morals all creations are their possessions, even intelligent ones and they are justified in committing any atrocity to retain control of their power. Even many Shapers question their morals because they realize they are ethically bankrupt.

Taygen is easily the least ethical with his concentration camps and final solution. Then we have Rawal who appears to be willing to do anything to aquire power. The Shapers, represented by Alwan are probably the next most unethical with their continuing desire to create and enslave intelligent creatures. The most ethical would have to be Astoria and the Trakovites since they're not only willing to allow intelligent creations freedom and autonomy, but they don't seem like they would stop short of unleashing something that would cause as much devastation as the Unbound. They're more than willing to cause destruction and chaos, but not enough to risk destroying all life on the continent. Ghaldring is somewhere in between. He's obviously willing to go to extreme lengths to overthrow the Shapers, but then again he's also fighting for the survival of his race. Whereas Astoria and Litalia chose this fight he was forced into it by Shaper decree.

Quote: Originally written by Delicious Vlish: Rots are practically useless for a Loyalist. I mean that in a very broad general sense. I mean, they are just not all that great. Many of your endgame enemies are rots, or other strong creations which tend to resist the rots' attacks... ..Battle creations have their issues, but they are not useless. Battle creations on torment are not about damage. They are your mobile armor division, a distraction, they are there to run interference, plug up a bottle neck to keep nasties on the other side away from your fragile artillery units, They are there to absorb damage, take blows, and occasionally tag an enemy to keep hostility and agression focused on the front lines where it belongs instead of your rear ranks where it doesn't... These two points are in contradiction with each other. If Battle Creations are best used to absorb damage than Rots are actually the best Battle Creation for Loyalists for the very reason that you face so many Rots in the endgame. If enemy Rots are extremely resistant to your Rot's damage, than your Rots are just resistant to enemy Rot's damage. That's been my experience, at least.