The Invincibility of the CS?

[Nightmask]

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

If the CS represents humanity then I am ashamed to be considered human.

A request for clarification: Would you rather humanity be represented by the people who knowingly allied with demons en route to getting rolled by the Coalition?

There were no good actors in the CS - Tolkeen war. Did the CS invade? Yes. Did Tolkeen become the monster that the Propaganda machine of Prosek regime made them out to be? Yes, unless allying with demons no longer makes you a monster, in which case Hey Cthulhu, 'sup?

Well that's false. Tolkeen didn't ally with demons until the CS attacked them and had slaughtered many of its citizens. It was a war for survival and considering the evil of the CS and they had millions of demons (in the form of skelebots) serving them they made the only choice that they could find to survive. You can't really fault them for doing what they could to survive, and they certainly weren't shown murdering CS citizens in retaliation they were targeting the soldiers.

[dreicunan]

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

If the CS represents humanity then I am ashamed to be considered human.

A request for clarification: Would you rather humanity be represented by the people who knowingly allied with demons en route to getting rolled by the Coalition?

There were no good actors in the CS - Tolkeen war. Did the CS invade? Yes. Did Tolkeen become the monster that the Propaganda machine of Prosek regime made them out to be? Yes, unless allying with demons no longer makes you a monster, in which case Hey Cthulhu, 'sup?

Well that's false. Tolkeen didn't ally with demons until the CS attacked them and had slaughtered many of its citizens. It was a war for survival and considering the evil of the CS and they had millions of demons (in the form of skelebots) serving them they made the only choice that they could find to survive. You can't really fault them for doing what they could to survive, and they certainly weren't shown murdering CS citizens in retaliation they were targeting the soldiers.

And the state of Chi-town that turned into the CS didn't go total anti-magic until after the original federation of magic attacked them. Also, skelebots are not demons.

If the Tolkeen leadership were actually good, they'd have warned the CS about the federation of magic plot against the Prosek family, or at least have warned them after the fact that Lady Prosek was still alive, because Creed knew. The Orb of Solomon section in Siege book 1 makes it clear that if CREED is given the Orb he will realize that he has BETRAYED THE TRUST of good people and citizens who have flocked to Tolkeen's defense. Tolkeen wasn't in the right either; they were both in the wrong.

[Nightmask]

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

If the CS represents humanity then I am ashamed to be considered human.

A request for clarification: Would you rather humanity be represented by the people who knowingly allied with demons en route to getting rolled by the Coalition?

There were no good actors in the CS - Tolkeen war. Did the CS invade? Yes. Did Tolkeen become the monster that the Propaganda machine of Prosek regime made them out to be? Yes, unless allying with demons no longer makes you a monster, in which case Hey Cthulhu, 'sup?

Well that's false. Tolkeen didn't ally with demons until the CS attacked them and had slaughtered many of its citizens. It was a war for survival and considering the evil of the CS and they had millions of demons (in the form of skelebots) serving them they made the only choice that they could find to survive. You can't really fault them for doing what they could to survive, and they certainly weren't shown murdering CS citizens in retaliation they were targeting the soldiers.

And the state of Chi-town that turned into the CS didn't go total anti-magic until after the original federation of magic attacked them. Also, skelebots are not demons.

The actions of the original Federation of Magic have no bearing on things, their actions do not even remotely justify the CS attacking another sovereign nation with the goal of genocide and theft of everything that they owned. The only difference between a skelebot and a demon is that with the demon you have the chance of talking it out of killing you. The skelebot meanwhile will coldly, dispassionately, murder everyone that they're directed against without even a shred of mercy or hesitation. So yes the CS had an army of demons that it unleashed on helpless civilians with 'murder them all' instructions, eventually causing Tolkeen to get some demons of its own to fight back against them.

If the Tolkeen leadership were actually good, they'd have warned the CS about the federation of magic plot against the Prosek family, or at least have warned them after the fact that Lady Prosek was still alive, because Creed knew. The Orb of Solomon section in Siege book 1 makes it clear that if CREED is given the Orb he will realize that he has BETRAYED THE TRUST of good people and citizens who have flocked to Tolkeen's defense. Tolkeen wasn't in the right either; they were both in the wrong.

Oh please don't even try that 'if they were actually good', they were good that doesn't mean that they have to warn an enemy about a possible attack (if they even knew). The CS wouldn't have trusted them, would have spun it that they were actually part of the plan and the contacting them was part of some kind of distraction, and kept on its merry way of evil. Tolkeen was TOTALLY in the right to defend itself against murderous aggressors, while it should have evacuated sooner which was a mistake on its part it was the victim, if a victim tries to gouge the eyes out of his attacker or unman him he's completely entitled to do so. Getting caught up in fighting back until you lose sight of things happens, it doesn't make you wrong it just makes you human (or a normal sentient being as the case may be).

[Eagle]

Oh please don't even try that 'if they were actually good', they were good that doesn't mean that they have to warn an enemy about a possible attack (if they even knew). The CS wouldn't have trusted them, would have spun it that they were actually part of the plan and the contacting them was part of some kind of distraction, and kept on its merry way of evil. Tolkeen was TOTALLY in the right to defend itself against murderous aggressors, while it should have evacuated sooner which was a mistake on its part it was the victim, if a victim tries to gouge the eyes out of his attacker or unman him he's completely entitled to do so. Getting caught up in fighting back until you lose sight of things happens, it doesn't make you wrong it just makes you human (or a normal sentient being as the case may be).

The CS was blindly aggressive, and Tolkeen was stupid.

The Coalition was this big angry guy, and Tolkeen was this little nerdy guy. And somebody says to him "hey, I think Mongo over there wants to kick your ass. For some reason he doesn't like you." And the nerdy guy is like "yeah, I'd like to see him try! He's ugly and his momma dresses him funny." And then they go and tell Mongo, and here he comes. First thing the nerdy guy does is kick Mongo right in the nards. Mongo falls down, and the nerd goes and high-fives all his nerdy buddies. They're laughing about how dumb Mongo looks, and how funny that was when he fell over. Meanwhile Mongo gets up, and now he's mad. And then Mongo walks right up behind them with his giant mutant fists...

Anyway, it doesn't end well for the nerdy guy. And you can be like "well, Mongo shouldn't have come after him in the first place." And maybe you're right. Nerdy guy was still stupid for not handling it in some other way. Tolkeen was never going to win the war. Anybody could see that. They should have pulled some Dweomer "hidden city" kind of shenanigans. Instead they decided to pull out all the stops and invite in every kind of evil wizard they could find. Necromancers, shifters, all kinds of stuff. It didn't have to be a war of total annihilation until they went scorched earth. It's never good for the losers when things degenerate to a total war. The very first page (actually page 7, but the first non-table of contents page) of the Tolkeen War series says that the leadership of both sides are driven by stubborn pride, and they are more alike than they are different. That all Tolkeen had to do to avoid this war was relocate, but they let their desire for revenge draw them into a war they knew they couldn't win. Instead, they prepped for a massive war, allying with demons and monsters from the very beginning.

[eliakon]

There were decades to flee Tolkeen after they made the mistake of confronting CS forces and blockading them from Minnesota. It's hard to keep that under wraps. People who stuck around people who dared to attack the CS have allied themselves with an enemy of humanity.

If the CS represents humanity then I am ashamed to be considered human.

A request for clarification: Would you rather humanity be represented by the people who knowingly allied with demons en route to getting rolled by the Coalition?

There were no good actors in the CS - Tolkeen war. Did the CS invade? Yes. Did Tolkeen become the monster that the Propaganda machine of Prosek regime made them out to be? Yes, unless allying with demons no longer makes you a monster, in which case Hey Cthulhu, 'sup?

Well that's false. Tolkeen didn't ally with demons until the CS attacked them and had slaughtered many of its citizens. It was a war for survival and considering the evil of the CS and they had millions of demons (in the form of skelebots) serving them they made the only choice that they could find to survive. You can't really fault them for doing what they could to survive, and they certainly weren't shown murdering CS citizens in retaliation they were targeting the soldiers.

And the state of Chi-town that turned into the CS didn't go total anti-magic until after the original federation of magic attacked them. Also, skelebots are not demons.

If the Tolkeen leadership were actually good, they'd have warned the CS about the federation of magic plot against the Prosek family, or at least have warned them after the fact that Lady Prosek was still alive, because Creed knew. The Orb of Solomon section in Siege book 1 makes it clear that if CREED is given the Orb he will realize that he has BETRAYED THE TRUST of good people and citizens who have flocked to Tolkeen's defense. Tolkeen wasn't in the right either; they were both in the wrong.

Good is not Lawful Stupid
Being "Good" does not mean you have to go commit suicide because your foe might consider fighting back to be unfair
Being "good" does not mean you have a duty to go protect evil doers, from reaping the consequences of their evil, from another evil doer and the expense of the innocent
Being "good" does not mean you have to do crazy stupid stuff because 'good'

Nor does it mean that you have to be omniscient.
Just because your good doesn't mean you have to know every secret plot that every evil doer is doing, and then need to tell someone.

So what does this mean?
HOW was Tolkeen supposed to know that Lady Prosek was kidnapped? I suppose they had a copy of the book to read?
HOW was Tolkeen supposed to know that there was a plot against the Prosek Family? Again what form of precog does 'being good' give them?
Not to mention the fact that the LAST time Tolkeen tried to tell the CS anything the CS murdered their Ambassador.
So other than making up an imaginary, and impossible, standard to "prove" that Tolkeen is not actually "good"...
...which instead all it does is show that Tolkeen was guilty of being neither omniscient nor dumb
What does your statement prove?

YES, by the END of the War King Creed had betrayed the people.
That was at the END of the war. Not the beginning.
In the beginning though Tolkeen was still the innocent victims being attacked by their homicidal neighbors and being told that defending their citizens in their own territory is wrong and that they should just "take it" because the neighbor is just 'misunderstood' and that if Tolkeen will just let them murder enough of their people and take enough land that it will be okay.
That's some seriously twisted logic there
Its like telling a battered family that if the mom had just not overcooked the peas that their husband wouldn't have had to beat the wife and daughter and that since he beat them up he was all keyed up and so he needed to rape them a few times to calm down. Totally their fault.

[dreicunan]

@Nightmask and Eliakon: Page 104 of Sedition makes it clear that Creed knew of the plot to assassinate the family, and page 105 makes it clear that he knew that Lady Prosek survived the attack and sat on the knowledge; the "how" they knew is through their agents. Sitting on the knowledge that someone's wife and child are going to be targeted for assassination is not what a "good" person in the Palladium megaverse would do, because principled characters always help others and scrupulous always try to help others and neither alignment will harm an innocent. There is plenty to be said about if letting someone come to harm through your inaction is the same as harming them, but I'd think that everyone could agree that deciding to see how the Coalition reacts to the attack (a reason for the decision clearly stated on page 104) as a case study is not a good action!

@Nightmask: The reason that the Federation of Magic attack on chi-town matters is the bloody campaign that followed. If Tolkeen allying with Demons is OK because they were attacked first, then Joseph Prosek I slaughtering anyone they found in the Magic Zone was OK because they were attacked first. Of course, I would say that just because you were attacked first doesn't mean you get a free pass on morality. Both the Coalition and Tolkeen did evil in the course of the war.

@Eliakon: Orb of Solomon blurb about Creed ia from Sedition as well (p. 133). I misremembered the word "betrayed," it actually says that he will realize that it was WRONG and CRUEL of him to have manipulated people to take a stand against the Coalition. You may disagree, but that is Game Master information, so that means that it is Palladium canon that Creed was wrong for leading Tolkeen to take a stand against the Coalition.

Which could be seen as plot armor, I suppose.

[eliakon]

@Nightmask and Eliakon: Page 104 of Sedition makes it clear that Creed knew of the plot to assassinate the family, and page 105 makes it clear that he knew that Lady Prosek survived the attack and sat on the knowledge; the "how" they knew is through their agents. Sitting on the knowledge that someone's wife and child are going to be targeted for assassination is not what a "good" person in the Palladium megaverse would do, because principled characters always help others and scrupulous always try to help others and neither alignment will harm an innocent. There is plenty to be said about if letting someone come to harm through your inaction is the same as harming them, but I'd think that everyone could agree that deciding to see how the Coalition reacts to the attack (a reason for the decision clearly stated on page 104) as a case study is not a good action!

This is a case study in strawman
By this logic there can be no good alignment.
Ever
Because anyone that does not do 100% the most optimal good for the most people (As defined by everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME) is not good.
Since this is impossible you have just defined "good" away.

And since knowing how the CS would respond to the attack would require, again, omnicence...
I am going to say that faulting them for not acting on information they did not have is pretty much a false narrative.

Oh, and I would also like to point out.
King Creed is not Tolkeen unless Emperor Prosek is the CS.

@Nightmask: The reason that the Federation of Magic attack on chi-town matters is the bloody campaign that followed. If Tolkeen allying with Demons is OK because they were attacked first, then Joseph Prosek I slaughtering anyone they found in the Magic Zone was OK because they were attacked first. Of course, I would say that just because you were attacked first doesn't mean you get a free pass on morality. Both the Coalition and Tolkeen did evil in the course of the war.

Your logic here is faulty
The Bloody Campaign was taking one attack, by one group and using it as justification for exterminating anyone that was in anyway similar.
As I pointed out. This would be like claiming that 9-11 was sufficient justification for executing anyone that was of Middle Eastern decent, or a Muslim.
AND then claiming that if they tried to fight back, that it was their fault.

@Eliakon: Orb of Solomon blurb about Creed ia from Sedition as well (p. 133). I misremembered the word "betrayed," it actually says that he will realize that it was WRONG and CRUEL of him to have manipulated people to take a stand against the Coalition. You may disagree, but that is Game Master information, so that means that it is Palladium canon that Creed was wrong for leading Tolkeen to take a stand against the Coalition.

Misquoting and cherrypicking do not prove anything.
I read the entire quote and I am quite familiar with what it actually says.
Misrepresenting it to change that is not a valid argument though, sorry.

[Killer Cyborg]

By this logic there can be no good alignment.
Ever
Because anyone that does not do 100% the most optimal good for the most people (As defined by everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME) is not good.
Since this is impossible you have just defined "good" away.

At least insofar as mortal beings are concerned, I concur.

King Creed is not Tolkeen unless Emperor Prosek is the CS.

Agreed.
People need to stop saying "the CS" when they just mean the leadership, and they need to do the same thing with Tolkeen.
The average citizens are simply caught up in the wake of leaders' drama, not responsible for it.

[eliakon]

By this logic there can be no good alignment.
Ever
Because anyone that does not do 100% the most optimal good for the most people (As defined by everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME) is not good.
Since this is impossible you have just defined "good" away.

At least insofar as mortal beings are concerned, I concur.

The books though don't agree with you
The books make it clear that there IS 'good' in the game, and that it is possible to behave in a good manner
This demonstrates that anyone making an impossible standard that requires that we throw out the book...
...is wrong.

King Creed is not Tolkeen unless Emperor Prosek is the CS.

Agreed.
People need to stop saying "the CS" when they just mean the leadership, and they need to do the same thing with Tolkeen.
The average citizens are simply caught up in the wake of leaders' drama, not responsible for it.

Odd how though its fine for that term to be used for anyone ELSE
Its just not "Fair" if the CS is held to that standard
But for some reason Tolkeen can be.
And "the Federation of Magic"
Even "mages" and "magic" can be
But noooo, can't judge "the CS"

Its hypocritical to state that ONLY people in the CS should be judged individually.
Everyone else can be judged collectively.
But the CS gets to be a special Mary Sue and gets to ignore moral responsibility because... its the CS.

I find this to be the greatest form of Plot Armor in the forums.

[HWalsh]

By this logic there can be no good alignment.
Ever
Because anyone that does not do 100% the most optimal good for the most people (As defined by everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME) is not good.
Since this is impossible you have just defined "good" away.

At least insofar as mortal beings are concerned, I concur.

King Creed is not Tolkeen unless Emperor Prosek is the CS.

Agreed.
People need to stop saying "the CS" when they just mean the leadership, and they need to do the same thing with Tolkeen.
The average citizens are simply caught up in the wake of leaders' drama, not responsible for it.

I disagree...

If you are living in a society where the leadership is evil. Where the leadership has been evil for a long amount of time and there has been no significant opposition to this leadership from the citizenry for some time. Then the citizenry is complicit in the behavior of that leadership. They are endorsing that leadership and the actions of that leadership.

Much like some offer the fact that the people of Tolkeen could have fled... The people of the CS could leave the CS if they don't want to be evil. If you stay in the CS... You are just as much responsible for the evil the CS does as if you have done it yourself. You could leave. You aren't part of the solution to the evil of the CS and, by your presence, you are actively helping them. Thus YOU are also evil.

There are no good people in the CS.

[Nightmask]

Oh please don't even try that 'if they were actually good', they were good that doesn't mean that they have to warn an enemy about a possible attack (if they even knew). The CS wouldn't have trusted them, would have spun it that they were actually part of the plan and the contacting them was part of some kind of distraction, and kept on its merry way of evil. Tolkeen was TOTALLY in the right to defend itself against murderous aggressors, while it should have evacuated sooner which was a mistake on its part it was the victim, if a victim tries to gouge the eyes out of his attacker or unman him he's completely entitled to do so. Getting caught up in fighting back until you lose sight of things happens, it doesn't make you wrong it just makes you human (or a normal sentient being as the case may be).

The CS was blindly aggressive, and Tolkeen was stupid.

The Coalition was this big angry guy, and Tolkeen was this little nerdy guy. And somebody says to him "hey, I think Mongo over there wants to kick your ass. For some reason he doesn't like you." And the nerdy guy is like "yeah, I'd like to see him try! He's ugly and his momma dresses him funny." And then they go and tell Mongo, and here he comes. First thing the nerdy guy does is kick Mongo right in the nards. Mongo falls down, and the nerd goes and high-fives all his nerdy buddies. They're laughing about how dumb Mongo looks, and how funny that was when he fell over. Meanwhile Mongo gets up, and now he's mad. And then Mongo walks right up behind them with his giant mutant fists...

Anyway, it doesn't end well for the nerdy guy. And you can be like "well, Mongo shouldn't have come after him in the first place." And maybe you're right. Nerdy guy was still stupid for not handling it in some other way. Tolkeen was never going to win the war. Anybody could see that. They should have pulled some Dweomer "hidden city" kind of shenanigans. Instead they decided to pull out all the stops and invite in every kind of evil wizard they could find. Necromancers, shifters, all kinds of stuff. It didn't have to be a war of total annihilation until they went scorched earth. It's never good for the losers when things degenerate to a total war. The very first page (actually page 7, but the first non-table of contents page) of the Tolkeen War series says that the leadership of both sides are driven by stubborn pride, and they are more alike than they are different. That all Tolkeen had to do to avoid this war was relocate, but they let their desire for revenge draw them into a war they knew they couldn't win. Instead, they prepped for a massive war, allying with demons and monsters from the very beginning.

That analogy is false. Really, REALLY false. Tolkeen was a peaceful, non-threatening nation and the CS is a highly aggressive, hate-filled, murderous nation that believes only it has a right to exist and all that disagree with it has the right to die. Tolkeen was not stupid for defending what belonged to it in particular its citizens and you repeat that 'all that had to do was move' nonsense so many that make excuses for the CS make. All these people should somehow move, in the hundreds of thousands, something that would require taking someone else's land to make it happen. Because they should just let Evil rob them of everything that they've built because the CS should be treated as being inherently in the right because reasons, very very VERY flimsy and inherently false reasons.

[Killer Cyborg]

By this logic there can be no good alignment.
Ever
Because anyone that does not do 100% the most optimal good for the most people (As defined by everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME) is not good.
Since this is impossible you have just defined "good" away.

At least insofar as mortal beings are concerned, I concur.

King Creed is not Tolkeen unless Emperor Prosek is the CS.

Agreed.
People need to stop saying "the CS" when they just mean the leadership, and they need to do the same thing with Tolkeen.
The average citizens are simply caught up in the wake of leaders' drama, not responsible for it.

I disagree...

If you are living in a society where the leadership is evil. Where the leadership has been evil for a long amount of time and there has been no significant opposition to this leadership from the citizenry for some time. Then the citizenry is complicit in the behavior of that leadership. They are endorsing that leadership and the actions of that leadership.

Much like some offer the fact that the people of Tolkeen could have fled... The people of the CS could leave the CS if they don't want to be evil. If you stay in the CS... You are just as much responsible for the evil the CS does as if you have done it yourself. You could leave. You aren't part of the solution to the evil of the CS and, by your presence, you are actively helping them. Thus YOU are also evil.

There are no good people in the CS.

a) What nation is NOT, by that standard?
b) RUE 230
Not all Coalition soldiers are evil, corrupt, or murderous fiends.
Many are misguided patriots who believe the CS propaganda and see D-Bees and aliens as otherworldly invaders bent on conquering the Earth for themselves. For them, it's a simple matter of kill or be killed. Fight or lose everything they hold dear.
This isn't evil, it's self-preservation and heroic.

To go into an uncertain world filled with magic and truly evil and malevolent monsters to fight for what you hold dear is courageous and commendable.

Even the zealots who don't ask questions who don't ask questions see D-Bees and all proclaimed enemies of the States as monsters to be destroyed, and follow their orders to the letter, are not necessarily evil.

This contradiction has confused and frustrated some gamers, who prefer a clear line between good and evil.
I'm frequently asked, "So is the Coalition good or evil?" and I get a frown or head-scratching when I say, "Yes."

[Nightmask]

@Nightmask and Eliakon: Page 104 of Sedition makes it clear that Creed knew of the plot to assassinate the family, and page 105 makes it clear that he knew that Lady Prosek survived the attack and sat on the knowledge; the "how" they knew is through their agents. Sitting on the knowledge that someone's wife and child are going to be targeted for assassination is not what a "good" person in the Palladium megaverse would do, because principled characters always help others and scrupulous always try to help others and neither alignment will harm an innocent. There is plenty to be said about if letting someone come to harm through your inaction is the same as harming them, but I'd think that everyone could agree that deciding to see how the Coalition reacts to the attack (a reason for the decision clearly stated on page 104) as a case study is not a good action!

@Nightmask: The reason that the Federation of Magic attack on chi-town matters is the bloody campaign that followed. If Tolkeen allying with Demons is OK because they were attacked first, then Joseph Prosek I slaughtering anyone they found in the Magic Zone was OK because they were attacked first. Of course, I would say that just because you were attacked first doesn't mean you get a free pass on morality. Both the Coalition and Tolkeen did evil in the course of the war.

@Eliakon: Orb of Solomon blurb about Creed ia from Sedition as well (p. 133). I misremembered the word "betrayed," it actually says that he will realize that it was WRONG and CRUEL of him to have manipulated people to take a stand against the Coalition. You may disagree, but that is Game Master information, so that means that it is Palladium canon that Creed was wrong for leading Tolkeen to take a stand against the Coalition.

Which could be seen as plot armor, I suppose.

No, we don't agree. A good person, due to circumstances, will sit something out if it's clear or they have reason to believe acting will be of no benefit. Good people aren't mindlessly required to stupidly get themselves killed because 'well if you're good you HAVE to do these extremely stupid things that won't help anyone anyway, even though it'll mean you're dead and all the good people depending on you to be alive to save them will end up dead because you threw your life away'.

No, Tolkeen choosing to enlist the help of demons to protect their people from an evil empire murdering it's people is acceptable because they're acting to defend their people against a mass-murdering evil empire, Prosek going around slaughtering people over a single isolated attack is not acceptable that's an act of random murder (the very fact you use 'slaughtering' just shows you concede it's not, one doesn't use that word for justified acts one uses it to emphasize the depravity involved in the killings and how immoral they are).

No the books never say that Creed was wrong in opposing the CS, wrong for not cutting his losses and evacuating people when it became clear that the CS had impossible levels of resources is where he was said to be wrong. The books however DO say that without a doubt the CS is an evil empire, its leadership inspired by the worst of evil in history, that it's goal is the genocide of all that is not approved of by the CS and it has murdered countless numbers of people since it made that decision, with the largest act of genocidal mass murder being its war against the peaceful, non-aggressive, non-threatening Tolkeen. It is false to ever claim that the CS was justified in attacking Tolkeen in any fashion, it is false to claim that Tolkeen should have just moved therefor it was their fault the CS murdered so many of its citizens, the truth is that Tolkeen was totally in the right to defend itself when attacked and its citizens slaughtered by the hate-filled evil troops of the CS.

[Axelmania]

We should recognize that Chi-Town showed incredible restraint by leaving Tolkeen out of the Bloody Campaign. They on some level gave them a chance at peace despite being a former FoM member perhaps because in some level Joseph Prosek the First may have found out that they left and did not hold them accountable for the actions of their former allies.

Admittedly: Tolkeen fighting their former allies would have been a step better to earning that trust.

Tolkeen was a peaceful, non-threatening nation and the CS is a highly aggressive, hate-filled, murderous nation that believes only it has a right to exist and all that disagree with it has the right to die.

Tolkeen wasn't peaceful. It was confrontational and impeded a mourning nation from seeking justice for its murdered Chairman. It lays claim to an entire state while only occupying a small corner if it and ignores dissenting towns who want to join the CS. It refused to cooperate and allow CS access to its wilderness to battle the Xiticix.

Nations do not believe things. But if they did: do you think it desires death for the NGR for disagreeing about literacy? Death for Freed Quebec for disagreeing about Dog Boys? Death for Cordoba for disagreeing about dwarves?

There isn't evidence for any of that. The CS is tolerant of its allies.

Tolkeen was not stupid for defending what belonged to it in particular its citizens and you repeat that 'all that had to do was move' nonsense so many that make excuses for the CS make. All these people should somehow move, in the hundreds of thousands, something that would require taking someone else's land to make it happen. Because they should just let Evil rob them of everything that they've built because the CS should be treated as being inherently in the right because reasons, very very VERY flimsy and inherently false reasons.

The CS populace or army is not mostly evil so please quit with that. It also wouldn't require taking someone else's land because there is lots of uninhabited wilderness to go around.

The CS is a stronger proponent for human interest and safety than Tolkeen is. That makes them in the right.

There are no flimsy reasons here. Tolkeen had no valid claim over Minnesota. If they had kept to the portion (twin cities) they had actually settled there wouldn't be an issue.

They got I to this because they just couldn't share the ridiculously large area they laid claim to yet refused to police.

Imagine if Lazio claimed to own all of Ontario and not just Toronto. This is what Tolkeen was doing.

[HWalsh]

They got I to this because they just couldn't share the ridiculously large area they laid claim to yet refused to police.

Then, with this logic, it would be acceptable for the Cyber-Knights to amass their army and attack Chi-Town to kill Emperor Prosek and Joseph Prosek. Both Emperor Prosek and Joseph Prosek are evil and are dangerous threats to humanity. The CS refuses to police them and remove them from power. Thus it is completely morally right for the Cyber-Knights to kill Emperor Prosek, if need be going through CS defenses to do so, because the CS is laying claim to them and not policing them.

[Axelmania]

They are policed though. They can't just go out and start eating babies in the middle of the street if they wanted to. Unlike the monsters roaming Minnesota.

Karl and son are tolerated because they make humanity safer. They have made the continent safer.

[dreicunan]

@Nightmask and Eliakon: Page 104 of Sedition makes it clear that Creed knew of the plot to assassinate the family, and page 105 makes it clear that he knew that Lady Prosek survived the attack and sat on the knowledge; the "how" they knew is through their agents. Sitting on the knowledge that someone's wife and child are going to be targeted for assassination is not what a "good" person in the Palladium megaverse would do, because principled characters always help others and scrupulous always try to help others and neither alignment will harm an innocent. There is plenty to be said about if letting someone come to harm through your inaction is the same as harming them, but I'd think that everyone could agree that deciding to see how the Coalition reacts to the attack (a reason for the decision clearly stated on page 104) as a case study is not a good action!

This is a case study in strawman
By this logic there can be no good alignment.
Ever
Because anyone that does not do 100% the most optimal good for the most people (As defined by everyone ALL AT THE SAME TIME) is not good.
Since this is impossible you have just defined "good" away.

And since knowing how the CS would respond to the attack would require, again, omnicence...
I am going to say that faulting them for not acting on information they did not have is pretty much a false narrative.

Oh, and I would also like to point out.
King Creed is not Tolkeen unless Emperor Prosek is the CS.

@Nightmask: The reason that the Federation of Magic attack on chi-town matters is the bloody campaign that followed. If Tolkeen allying with Demons is OK because they were attacked first, then Joseph Prosek I slaughtering anyone they found in the Magic Zone was OK because they were attacked first. Of course, I would say that just because you were attacked first doesn't mean you get a free pass on morality. Both the Coalition and Tolkeen did evil in the course of the war.

Your logic here is faulty
The Bloody Campaign was taking one attack, by one group and using it as justification for exterminating anyone that was in anyway similar.
As I pointed out. This would be like claiming that 9-11 was sufficient justification for executing anyone that was of Middle Eastern decent, or a Muslim.
AND then claiming that if they tried to fight back, that it was their fault.

@Eliakon: Orb of Solomon blurb about Creed ia from Sedition as well (p. 133). I misremembered the word "betrayed," it actually says that he will realize that it was WRONG and CRUEL of him to have manipulated people to take a stand against the Coalition. You may disagree, but that is Game Master information, so that means that it is Palladium canon that Creed was wrong for leading Tolkeen to take a stand against the Coalition.

Misquoting and cherrypicking do not prove anything.
I read the entire quote and I am quite familiar with what it actually says.
Misrepresenting it to change that is not a valid argument though, sorry.

Creed had the information about the assassination attempt on the Prosek family with time to have the agents do something. He chose to sit on it. Go read page 104 if you doubt me. Also, you are looking in the wrong spot to complain about requiring omniscience. "Knowing how the coalition would respond" was not required to intervene on behalf of Jason and Joana Prosek. Creed chose to not intervene in part in order to see what they would do.

You clearly don't know what "strawman" means as a logical fallacy, as I've set none up. I made reference to how Palladium has defined the alignments. If you don't like the implications of that (I'm not a huge fan of Palladium's alignment system myself), take it up with KS.

I also haven't misquoted anything from page 133, as I didn't quote it. I'll do so now. "For one, he will realize he was wrong and cruel for having manipulated the people who trusted him the most - the citizens of Tolkeen and the warriors and heroes who joined their cause in the name of justice and freedom - to take a stand against the Coalition army." If you feel that anything that I stated is somehow misrepresenting that text, or that some other part of the text contradicts it, please state what it is.

[dreicunan]

Oh please don't even try that 'if they were actually good', they were good that doesn't mean that they have to warn an enemy about a possible attack (if they even knew). The CS wouldn't have trusted them, would have spun it that they were actually part of the plan and the contacting them was part of some kind of distraction, and kept on its merry way of evil. Tolkeen was TOTALLY in the right to defend itself against murderous aggressors, while it should have evacuated sooner which was a mistake on its part it was the victim, if a victim tries to gouge the eyes out of his attacker or unman him he's completely entitled to do so. Getting caught up in fighting back until you lose sight of things happens, it doesn't make you wrong it just makes you human (or a normal sentient being as the case may be).

The CS was blindly aggressive, and Tolkeen was stupid.

The Coalition was this big angry guy, and Tolkeen was this little nerdy guy. And somebody says to him "hey, I think Mongo over there wants to kick your ass. For some reason he doesn't like you." And the nerdy guy is like "yeah, I'd like to see him try! He's ugly and his momma dresses him funny." And then they go and tell Mongo, and here he comes. First thing the nerdy guy does is kick Mongo right in the nards. Mongo falls down, and the nerd goes and high-fives all his nerdy buddies. They're laughing about how dumb Mongo looks, and how funny that was when he fell over. Meanwhile Mongo gets up, and now he's mad. And then Mongo walks right up behind them with his giant mutant fists...

Anyway, it doesn't end well for the nerdy guy. And you can be like "well, Mongo shouldn't have come after him in the first place." And maybe you're right. Nerdy guy was still stupid for not handling it in some other way. Tolkeen was never going to win the war. Anybody could see that. They should have pulled some Dweomer "hidden city" kind of shenanigans. Instead they decided to pull out all the stops and invite in every kind of evil wizard they could find. Necromancers, shifters, all kinds of stuff. It didn't have to be a war of total annihilation until they went scorched earth. It's never good for the losers when things degenerate to a total war. The very first page (actually page 7, but the first non-table of contents page) of the Tolkeen War series says that the leadership of both sides are driven by stubborn pride, and they are more alike than they are different. That all Tolkeen had to do to avoid this war was relocate, but they let their desire for revenge draw them into a war they knew they couldn't win. Instead, they prepped for a massive war, allying with demons and monsters from the very beginning.

That is actually a great analogy, and I think it explains the vitriol that so many have regarding the CS Tolkeen conflict and the CS winning. Kevin Siembieda told a story in which the jock won. Goliath defeated David. The Yankees won. The New England Patriots cheated their way to another Super Bowl victory. That is not normally the story that people want to hear. Especially not when Kevin S has come out and said that Tolkeen's leadership was ultimately just as bad as the CS leadership (hence the references to victim blaming).

[Axelmania]

The CS having greater numbers doesn't make it the jock or Goliqth. Individually the CS grunts and dog boys are probably weaker than the dragons and demons and wizards they fight.

They succeeded against a greater power using teamwork and the numbers game.

We see this all the time in heroic fiction. Recent films it happened in Xmen Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, and Dawn of Justice. Haven't seen Age of Ultron yet but I expect that was similar.

Pretty much every boss fight I have done in Final Fantasy is 4-5 guys who I could never win with alone managing to scrape together a victory against one higher powered foe.

Thats why it didn't bother me. The idea that humans could beat an adult dragon is epic in scope and doesn't seem at all like bullying to me. It is a boss fight and is lauded when heroes do it.

How a vampire intelligence or ine the 4 Horsemen or Nxla or LotD would be confronted. Are we expecting heroes to use lesser numbers to win? Maybe if you are a god or something but your average character will need allies and overwhelming numbers.

That doesn't make you a jock or an angry mob.

[Shark_Force]

the references to victim blaming come from the idiotic statement that tolkeen should have just left and it's their own fault for not leaving that they got killed

which is like saying that if a criminal with a gun decides to rob your house, you should just abandon your house and let the criminal steal whatever he wants, otherwise you're to blame for anything the criminal does.

and no, it isn't like the nerd antagonizing the jock. it's like the jock threatening repeatedly, to the nerd's face, that he is going to beat the nerd so badly that every bone in the nerd's body will be broken, steal the nerd's accumulated life knowledge, and sell it to a corporation that the nerd hates. and making those threats for 20 years. while regularly working out, learning boxing, wrestling, and three different martial arts, flaunting brand new iron knuckles in the nerd's face and telling the nerd that they're going to be used on him. and every time the nerd tries to de-escalate or ask anyone for help, the jock just punches the nerd in the face once and everyone else tells the nerd to just run away and give up everything the nerd has ever worked for.

and frankly, tolkeen was never going to win a conventional war, that much is true. which is why they used assymetrical war (which they eventually lost, because they fought it badly... in fact, they really should have lost a lot earlier, because they key element of protecting their base of operations was very poorly done). but it really wasn't impossible for tolkeen to win that war. not by conventional means (in fact, the sorcerer's revenge seems pretty silly... why would they launch a major frontal assault against a vastly superior force when the last thing tolkeen could afford was heavy losses?), but simply by making the war so unpleasant that the CS didn't want to pursue it any more, in much the same way that the US won the revolutionary war, or how the south came close to winning the civil war when lincoln almost didn't get re-elected.

[HWalsh]

the references to victim blaming come from the idiotic statement that tolkeen should have just left and it's their own fault for not leaving that they got killed

which is like saying that if a criminal with a gun decides to rob your house, you should just abandon your house and let the criminal steal whatever he wants, otherwise you're to blame for anything the criminal does.

and no, it isn't like the nerd antagonizing the jock. it's like the jock threatening repeatedly, to the nerd's face, that he is going to beat the nerd so badly that every bone in the nerd's body will be broken, steal the nerd's accumulated life knowledge, and sell it to a corporation that the nerd hates. and making those threats for 20 years. while regularly working out, learning boxing, wrestling, and three different martial arts, flaunting brand new iron knuckles in the nerd's face and telling the nerd that they're going to be used on him. and every time the nerd tries to de-escalate or ask anyone for help, the jock just punches the nerd in the face once and everyone else tells the nerd to just run away and give up everything the nerd has ever worked for.

and frankly, tolkeen was never going to win a conventional war, that much is true. which is why they used assymetrical war (which they eventually lost, because they fought it badly... in fact, they really should have lost a lot earlier, because they key element of protecting their base of operations was very poorly done). but it really wasn't impossible for tolkeen to win that war. not by conventional means (in fact, the sorcerer's revenge seems pretty silly... why would they launch a major frontal assault against a vastly superior force when the last thing tolkeen could afford was heavy losses?), but simply by making the war so unpleasant that the CS didn't want to pursue it any more, in much the same way that the US won the revolutionary war, or how the south came close to winning the civil war when lincoln almost didn't get re-elected.

Yeah, your analogy is much closer to the truth.

I like Kevin S. though that was the one plot line where he dropped the ball. Tolkeen should have somehow won in the end, and the CS should have had to retreat, tail between their legs and suddenly fearful that they are not the masters of the continent. They can still be a boogeyman without being able to roflstomp everyone else into the ground.

I could come up with at least 50 different ways Tolkeen could have won that, while plot devicey, would have made perfect sense. Especially since they were fighting on a freaking ley line. Heck a massive shift that shunts the CS army... All of the several million that attacked Tolkeen... To various corners of the Earth. 1 million end up in Egypt. 1 million end up in the NGR. 1 million end up in Japan. 1 million end up in China. 1 million end up in various places in North America.

They lose. They eventually rebuild their forces... But they should have lost...

I will never believe otherwise.

[Killer Cyborg]

I could come up with at least 50 different ways Tolkeen could have won that, while plot devicey, would have made perfect sense. Especially since they were fighting on a freaking ley line. Heck a massive shift that shunts the CS army... All of the several million that attacked Tolkeen... To various corners of the Earth. 1 million end up in Egypt. 1 million end up in the NGR. 1 million end up in Japan. 1 million end up in China. 1 million end up in various places in North America.

They lose. They eventually rebuild their forces... But they should have lost...

I will never believe otherwise.

The CS "should" have lost because you can come up with non-canon plot devices that could have saved Tolkeen?


To me, that's kind of like saying that Alderaan should have blown up the Death Star.

[HWalsh]

I could come up with at least 50 different ways Tolkeen could have won that, while plot devicey, would have made perfect sense. Especially since they were fighting on a freaking ley line. Heck a massive shift that shunts the CS army... All of the several million that attacked Tolkeen... To various corners of the Earth. 1 million end up in Egypt. 1 million end up in the NGR. 1 million end up in Japan. 1 million end up in China. 1 million end up in various places in North America.

They lose. They eventually rebuild their forces... But they should have lost...

I will never believe otherwise.

The CS "should" have lost because you can come up with non-canon plot devices that could have saved Tolkeen?


To me, that's kind of like saying that Alderaan should have blown up the Death Star.

First of all... The book contained a non-canon plot device as it was, it was non-canon until they wrote it anyway, that helped the CS. Namely going through the hivelands unscathed.

Second of all... The reason the CS should have lost is due to the beast that is narrative storytelling. So the CS is this invincible super power that nobody can stop. They attack Tolkeen unprovoked as the aggressor. The CS wins.

That is the story that the SoT series told. That is a terrible narrative tale. It has no twist. At the start we know the CS is going to win. The CS is never in any real danger of losing. The CS wins. It is like if Rocky (the first one) was the tale of Apollo Creed, world champion, who challenges the Italian Stallion, the underdog, and... And... Beats the ever loving tar out of him and knocks him out int he first round...

Is that how it went? No. Rocky trains, Rocky works hard, and though Rocky doesn't win, Rocky goes the distance and is still standing at the end.

Was Star Wars the story of the Empire, as massive well... Empire... Showing up at Alderaan and blowing up the weak Rebel Alliance that was there? No it was about the underdog exploiting a weakness in the enemy's plan and overcoming it.

We see something like the Death Star and are supposed to think, "Oh man! How are they going to beat something like that?" Then we see them triumph. In SoT we saw this massive CS force and went, "Oh man! How are they going to beat something like that?" The answer was, "LOL they totally don't! They lose and they lose bad! Dude at the end of it the CS isn't even scratched! Yo, check it out, in the next book? Dude! Their army is TWICE AS BIG as it was before!"

Tolkeen had all the proper things needed to defeat the CS.

1. They had magic, which can do things that are unpredictable.
2. They had a magic device that was giving them completely accurate information about the CS's plans!
3. They had magical defenses that nobody knew were even possible that stopped the CS's primary battle strategy.
4. They had nearly limitless resources as the fights took place on Ley Lines and near a Ley Line Nexus.
5. They had literally years to prepare for the CS with 100% accurate information on their enemy, information that the CS did not have to counter.

A narrative story should have a flow. The evil empire attacks the peaceful magical city. The magical city uses intelligence, planning, and creativity to overcome the brute force of the CS. The scrappy underdogs manage to win the day through luck, guile, and perseverance. Good conquers evil.

Yet, no. The CS wins.

It actually has soured me on the entire metaplot since then. I buy Rifts books and feel like I am torturing myself because of how slow it advances and how the CS just keeps getting stronger and stronger and stronger. If I want to see evil fascists constantly defeat good rebels then all I need to do is look at the real world.

[dreicunan]

the references to victim blaming come from the idiotic statement that tolkeen should have just left and it's their own fault for not leaving that they got killed

which is like saying that if a criminal with a gun decides to rob your house, you should just abandon your house and let the criminal steal whatever he wants, otherwise you're to blame for anything the criminal does.

and no, it isn't like the nerd antagonizing the jock. it's like the jock threatening repeatedly, to the nerd's face, that he is going to beat the nerd so badly that every bone in the nerd's body will be broken, steal the nerd's accumulated life knowledge, and sell it to a corporation that the nerd hates. and making those threats for 20 years. while regularly working out, learning boxing, wrestling, and three different martial arts, flaunting brand new iron knuckles in the nerd's face and telling the nerd that they're going to be used on him. and every time the nerd tries to de-escalate or ask anyone for help, the jock just punches the nerd in the face once and everyone else tells the nerd to just run away and give up everything the nerd has ever worked for.

and frankly, tolkeen was never going to win a conventional war, that much is true. which is why they used assymetrical war (which they eventually lost, because they fought it badly... in fact, they really should have lost a lot earlier, because they key element of protecting their base of operations was very poorly done). but it really wasn't impossible for tolkeen to win that war. not by conventional means (in fact, the sorcerer's revenge seems pretty silly... why would they launch a major frontal assault against a vastly superior force when the last thing tolkeen could afford was heavy losses?), but simply by making the war so unpleasant that the CS didn't want to pursue it any more, in much the same way that the US won the revolutionary war, or how the south came close to winning the civil war when lincoln almost didn't get re-elected.

Yeah, your analogy is much closer to the truth.

I like Kevin S. though that was the one plot line where he dropped the ball. Tolkeen should have somehow won in the end, and the CS should have had to retreat, tail between their legs and suddenly fearful that they are not the masters of the continent. They can still be a boogeyman without being able to roflstomp everyone else into the ground.

I could come up with at least 50 different ways Tolkeen could have won that, while plot devicey, would have made perfect sense. Especially since they were fighting on a freaking ley line. Heck a massive shift that shunts the CS army... All of the several million that attacked Tolkeen... To various corners of the Earth. 1 million end up in Egypt. 1 million end up in the NGR. 1 million end up in Japan. 1 million end up in China. 1 million end up in various places in North America.

They lose. They eventually rebuild their forces... But they should have lost...

I will never believe otherwise.

The "nerd" in this case was being equally belligerent and building up for a fight for nearly 20 years as well. Kevin S made sure of that; we can think that it is dumb, but Kevin S even addresses the whole "defend your home" issue on page 7 of sedition. Basically, Kevin S doesn't say that the victim is to blame for the actions of the aggressor, just for the victim's own actions. He references geography as the real villain. So, word of god in the Palladium universe is that Tolkeen should have moved, because Kevin S gets to decide how things work in his megaverse.

@HWalsh: Exactly, Kevin S told a story in which the putative "good guy" was not really the good guy, and he lost. However, your narrow definition of how a narrative story should work doesn't mean that Kevin S doesn't get to tell the story that he wants to tell. Not all narratives have to follow that model ("Back to the Future" breaks a ton of rules about what "should" work, yet it is a great movie). There can't be a resolution like you wanted because the scrappy magical kingdom wasn't the good guy either, per Kevin S.

[Freemage]

The key problem for a lot of folks with SoT, I think, is that it pretty much establishes Rifts Earth as a place where there are NO 'good guys' to work for, then says, "Go be heroes. You won't change anything for the better, your actions won't matter to anyone in the long run, and in the end, the day will not even go to the lesser evil. Have fun!"

In many ways, this is the problem I have with metaplot-heavy games in general; if the next sequence of books requires some particular status quo, then the PCs will NOT be allowed to break the status quo, come hell or high water. Sadly, back in 1990, when most of Rifts Earth was just a gleam in KS' eye, the notion of a metaplot-based game still seemed shiny and new--the original Dragonlance novel/module pairing for D&D came out in 1984, TORG came out in 1990, and Vampire: the Masquerade came out in 1991.

And ultimately, all of these suffer from the same problem--the players cannot be allowed to affect anything on the larger scale, because if they are, the GM cannot continue using new supplements as they come out. One of the few things that White Wolf got right with nWoD, for instance, was the decision to fix the setting at a specific time, and tie all new products at that moment, with the players being the ones who advance the plot and bring change into the setting. Dragonlance broke from the metaplot-based adventures after the earliest 'play the novels' mods proved unpopular, even as the setting was desired. TORG eventually just ended (though it's always on the verge of a comeback, and is supposed to be debuting this Convention season; I'm really hoping that they'll ditch the notion that you're supposed to advance the Possibility Wars according to the metaplot's version of events).

Only Rifts is still up and running, contiguous, from those heady early days; and thus, it's the primary victim of the metaplot syndrome.

In particular, SoT emphasizes this lack of agency in the whole discussion of the Key of Solomon. "Oh, hey, here's a set-up for a series of adventures that could prevent all the carnage, by using the Key and the Orb on EITHER of the leaders of the two nations. Under no circumstances should this actually be allowed to come to pass."

Sure, a GM can choose to violate metaplot if they wish; they can give the chance to the PCs to pull off something the books forbid. But a butterfly effect kicks in from that point on, and books become less and less relevant as time progresses, because the world no longer looks the way it needs to in order for the books to make sense. It's a fundamental flaw--there was no particular resolution that could have been 'better handled', because there'd always be some group out there that looks and goes, "But why didn't X do Y, instead?"

[boring7]

Which could be seen as plot armor, I suppose.

Plot armor and part of a larger retcon.

Tolkeen had been too good. So they (especially particular leaders in Tolkeen) were made dumber and more evil expressly to lower the Moral Event Horizon so the Coalition wouldn't seem so evil as they mercilessly slaughtered innocents. They had been good people, and so various efforts were made to make Tolkeen more wicked and dark and bad with rather dubious success. Heck, here in this thread the two biggest "crimes" of King Creed are thinking he could win a war against an undeniably monstrous enemy and not helping the CS against the FoM. In both cases the "moral" choice was either muddy (helping CS vs. FoM) or "moral but doomed to fail" (standing up to the CS). Not a particularly damning set of decisions to most of us.

An interesting example (at least to me) of this morality-meandering would be demons. There are sections of the fiction (the daemonix especially) where it is implied that morality is gray. Even literal demons from a prison-hell dimension can be "housebroken" if you can show them a better way...a world without caste systems and brutality and torture-as-entertainment. For the first time ever someone had been nice to them and given them a choice and they felt that strange alien emotion that might be called "love" and they were thinking new thoughts and feeling new feels. Soon enough, however, it was back to "morality is black and white, demons are inherently evil, no exceptions." It's hard to shake the impression that it was a case of "we can't have Tolkeen appearing too sympathetic after Coalition Overkill, better deep-six the 'good demons' subplot."

You can even make a story out of the daemonix, where a few new ideas about kindness and cooperation can't undo millennia of abuse, at least not quickly. But to do that you have to commit, at some point, to whether or not an alignment system and "objective morality" exist. Palladium did not do that, though, the alignment system is still in place and the Coalition grunts are still committing actions that RUE defines as, "only evil people do this."

[Shark_Force]

The "nerd" in this case was being equally belligerent and building up for a fight for nearly 20 years as well. Kevin S made sure of that; we can think that it is dumb, but Kevin S even addresses the whole "defend your home" issue on page 7 of sedition. Basically, Kevin S doesn't say that the victim is to blame for the actions of the aggressor, just for the victim's own actions. He references geography as the real villain. So, word of god in the Palladium universe is that Tolkeen should have moved, because Kevin S gets to decide how things work in his megaverse.

@HWalsh: Exactly, Kevin S told a story in which the putative "good guy" was not really the good guy, and he lost. However, your narrow definition of how a narrative story should work doesn't mean that Kevin S doesn't get to tell the story that he wants to tell. Not all narratives have to follow that model ("Back to the Future" breaks a ton of rules about what "should" work, yet it is a great movie). There can't be a resolution like you wanted because the scrappy magical kingdom wasn't the good guy either, per Kevin S.

there's a fairly significant difference between "building up for a fight to protect your home while also trying to prevent the fight from ever happening and not starting the fight so that you have the advantage of surprise and being able to pick a moment of relative strength for yourself" and "building up for a fight that you are threatening to bring to someone else, so that you can take their stuff and kill everyone there, then starting that fight the moment you're ready".

tolkeen pretty clearly didn't want the fight, but were ready to fight if it became necessary to protect themselves. the CS wanted the fight from the very beginning and refused to even consider any options other than starting that fight once they were ready.

tolkeen allying themselves with demons while assuming that the demons weren't going to be demon-like was pretty stupid though. i mean, it was an act of desperation and all, but still, monumentally stupid (at least, if we presume that they actually did stuff that was worse than what it sounded like... the whole description of what the daemonix did that was so awful really didn't sound much worse than what anyone else on either side was doing in the war as i recall, but i'm just kinda presuming kevin didn't really want graphic descriptions of torture and such in the books, and so he just kinda hinted at the fact that the daemonix were doing particularly awful things and left it at that).

[Freemage]

BTW, earlier in the thread, I was asked for book-and-page references for the notion that the CS had a formal policy of genocide. I direct the curious to page 13 of Coalition Overkill (one of the books I see rarely get referenced in these discussions--Sedition and Final Siege get all the glory):

From the horrifying perspective of the average CS soldier assigned to the Tolkeen front, the "eradication" (i.e. slaughter and mass murder) of every last D-Bee, monster and weaver of magic has become a crusade. Each man, woman or child they kill makes the world a safer place for humans. It removes one more potential enemy of humankind. Most see with renewed clarity that the Coalition States is truly the last bastion of humankind in North America, and the soldiers who fight on her behalf, heroes.
Their opponents? A disease — no, a plague. A plague that needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth. The fact that this "plague" happens to be sentient beings is said only to make the war all the more tragic. However, that last sentiment is part of the "official" position to justify CS aggression and soften the Coalition's open campaign of genocide. Most Coalition soldiers could care less about the fact that the "pestilence" they fight is actually "people." They show no mercy, they kill without hesitation or guilt, because they really see the enemy as a vile disease that needs to be exterminated.

So there you have it in black-and-white--the High Command absolutely DOES seek to commit genocide against any non-humans on Earth, and they have propagandized their soldiers into going along with it (interestingly, CO also makes it clear that in many ways, High Command's own mistakes made this process easier--their early battle plan against Tolkeen was grotesquely overconfident, and as such, caused the army to suffer massive casualties and horrors on the battlefield that might've been avoided by a more cautious approach, with a more careful build-up of supply lines and the like. Tossing the green troops, inadequately supported and inappropriately trained, into a battle against a completely unpredictable enemy, practically guaranteed a massive slaughter of their own men--which in turn fueled the desire of those troops to achieve revenge, at any cost.

Edit to add another quote, from page 14:

At the Tolkeen front, nothing short of complete genocide is acceptable to the invading Coalition Army. This has led to extreme overkill, where CS troops fight like men possessed, towns and cities are turned into rubble, farms torched and the enemy slaughtered — even when they try to surrender or flee. Retreating enemy forces are hunted and put down like mad dogs. Worse, there is no distinction made between warrior and innocent, all nonhumans and practitioners of magic are gunned down, including women and children. Few prisoners are taken unless they are needed for interrogation, extortion, a trap, or other sinister purpose. However torture is frowned upon. Not for any humanitarian reason, but because it keeps a deadly and potentially dangerous individual alive longer than necessary.

Folks who want to deny the genocidal aspect are basically ignoring the entire book.

Edit again: And More, page 15:

Not all Coalition soldiers are combat-numbed zombies or mad dog-killers bent on genocide. Some (at least 25-30%) will show mercy and compassion to the enemy whenever it is reasonable, and they think they can get away with it. This may be something as little as giving a D-Bee prisoner (or sorcerer) a blanket, cup of water, food or medical treatment, to showing a captive some measure of respect and/or kindness, refraining from torture and even letting obviously innocent people go (particularly women and children). Such kindness is often done in secret, when the majority who have (at least temporarily) lost their humanity are not looking.

So 70-75% of the army IS bent on genocide and annihilation. Same page goes on to state that those 'good guy' CS troops can face anything from official reprimands and unofficial beatings all the way up to state-sanctioned execution after a trial (or summary execution in the field, possibly with the option of doing it themselves if they want their 'crime' [letting an innocent D-bee child or other non-combatant escape] to be covered up).

[SycophantNagaraja]

Freemage: you know how you have one of those gut feelings where you can see the direction and know the answer but something always conspires against you trying to get it specifically? Especially in movies and in print? You just did that for me just now with your most recent post "Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 1:07 pm"

I don't own all the books but I do have a sizeable collection of them. And based on everything I've read (sans the complete SoT series to which I only have Aftermath) I have always felt that the CS was genocidal (and basically Rifts version of Nazis) and your fact checking confirmed that for me so thank you very much

Anyone who has watched Man in the High Castle can see just what 'basically good in an evil system' looks like. Lots of buy in 'for the greater good' when they don't really get the chance to see what that greater good ends up causing.

I know this debate is going to keep raging on but I just wanted to thank you for those references. We don't have this problem in any of my games but should I wind up with new players or running an open game some place (like a con) I'll have info handy!

[dreicunan]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

[Nightmask]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

Well that's false, the CS is clearly listed as being genocidal against all those target groups without any kind of 'but only the D-bees and mages of Tolkeen' qualifier. Just because you don't kill someone today that's part of the target group doesn't mean that *poof* you're not genocidal, you just decided for whatever reason to not kill them today and do it later. The Nazis kept some Jews and other undesirables alive to work as slave labor for them, or because they just couldn't spare the resources to kill them at the time. They were still committing genocide in spite of having not yet killed them all. You're completely ignoring the fact that the metaplot is quite clear that the CS's policy of genocide is against all non-humans and mages, they've been killing small communities and lone d-bees and mages for decades, long before Tolkeen because again it's written in the books that they're out to exterminate all non-humans and mages. Occasionally leaving some alive isn't evidence or proof that they aren't genocidal, it's just proof that they decided they had something better to do than kill them right then.

[Shark_Force]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

uh-huh. because nothing about phrases like "combat-numbed zombies" or "mad dog killers" would suggest that they are in any way likely to carry this attitude towards other d-bees, mages, psychics, etc. nope.

you are technically correct that they aren't interested in exterminating all non-humans, because they're fine with only enslaving dog boys (unless they reject their masters and seek freedom, in which case the CS kills them), and for that matter they probably have no real objection to all kinds of regular animals.

as to the 'burbs, well, they may not be actively pursuing a policy of eradicating every d-bee in the 'burbs right now... but it isn't exactly like they're not planning on killing them at some point. for example, with the megaverse in flames events, it is my understanding that there are now roving bands of people killing all of the d-bees in the 'burbs, and you can bet the CS isn't raising a finger to stop it. why would they? they want those people dead. they just had other priorities first.

[Eagle]

The "nerd" in this case was being equally belligerent and building up for a fight for nearly 20 years as well. Kevin S made sure of that; we can think that it is dumb, but Kevin S even addresses the whole "defend your home" issue on page 7 of sedition. Basically, Kevin S doesn't say that the victim is to blame for the actions of the aggressor, just for the victim's own actions. He references geography as the real villain. So, word of god in the Palladium universe is that Tolkeen should have moved, because Kevin S gets to decide how things work in his megaverse.

@HWalsh: Exactly, Kevin S told a story in which the putative "good guy" was not really the good guy, and he lost. However, your narrow definition of how a narrative story should work doesn't mean that Kevin S doesn't get to tell the story that he wants to tell. Not all narratives have to follow that model ("Back to the Future" breaks a ton of rules about what "should" work, yet it is a great movie). There can't be a resolution like you wanted because the scrappy magical kingdom wasn't the good guy either, per Kevin S.

there's a fairly significant difference between "building up for a fight to protect your home while also trying to prevent the fight from ever happening and not starting the fight so that you have the advantage of surprise and being able to pick a moment of relative strength for yourself" and "building up for a fight that you are threatening to bring to someone else, so that you can take their stuff and kill everyone there, then starting that fight the moment you're ready".

tolkeen pretty clearly didn't want the fight, but were ready to fight if it became necessary to protect themselves. the CS wanted the fight from the very beginning and refused to even consider any options other than starting that fight once they were ready.

tolkeen allying themselves with demons while assuming that the demons weren't going to be demon-like was pretty stupid though. i mean, it was an act of desperation and all, but still, monumentally stupid (at least, if we presume that they actually did stuff that was worse than what it sounded like... the whole description of what the daemonix did that was so awful really didn't sound much worse than what anyone else on either side was doing in the war as i recall, but i'm just kinda presuming kevin didn't really want graphic descriptions of torture and such in the books, and so he just kinda hinted at the fact that the daemonix were doing particularly awful things and left it at that).

There was a case in my city maybe 7 or 8 years ago, that was all over the local news for a while that bears a bit of resemblance to this situation. This guy ran a business that was constantly being robbed. He was in a high crime area, with a lot of minorities. He was sick of being robbed. So he makes a bunch of statements to people about "the next (racial slur) who comes in here waving a gun, I'm gonna kill him". And a few months later, it happens. Some teenagers came in to rob the place. Guy draws his gun and shoots, grazing one of the teens and knocking him unconscious. Then the storekeeper pulls his best Punisher impression, gets a fresh gun, walks over and empties it into the unconscious 16 year old. They charged the guy with murder, and he's now in prison.

Tolkeen is in a vaguely similar situation. You have a sympathetic victim who knows they're about to be assaulted by a powerful aggressor. Standing and fighting for their homeland is (one could argue) a noble endeavor. And to a point, you're on their side. And then they cross that threshold and you see that they're no better than the people they're fighting against. Yes, you have a right to defend your home against invaders. But putting on a Leatherface mask and eating the guys who are trying to rob you? Maybe that's going a bit too far...


As I read the books, King Creed basically knew that Tolkeen didn't have a chance to win (pg 7 of the first book says Tolkeen's leaders "created false hopes, manipulated the truth, and placed their desire for revenge above the welfare of their people"). He just hated that the only real choice available was to leave. So he instead decided he'd rather make deals with demons and watch the world burn. If he goes into the war knowing that it will likely cost most of his people their lives, and knowing he has another option, then he's not a good guy.

There was a bit of a retcon here. To an extent, this had to happen because previous to this series, Tolkeen hadn't really been fleshed out that much (I still can't find population figures for them). We don't know a whole lot about them until the war, except that they're a hippy free-love magic community close to CS borders, and the CS doesn't like that. After the retcon, we find out that Tolkeen and the CS have been gearing up for war in parallel with one another. In fact, Sedition mentions (page 104) that as of 101 PA, Tolkeen wasn't that high on the CS' agenda. It's only once the CS found out that Tolkeen was stockpiling magic weapons and equipment to get ready for war that the CS made them the #1 target. The retcon provides more justification for the CS than it had in the RMB (which first mentioned the coming war). Now you've got a military buildup in a hostile neighboring kingdom. Before you ever fired a shot, these guys were beating the war drums as well.

This is different than it was portrayed in the RMB, and in CWC. But the "new" version is still like 17 years old at this point. I think both sides can safely fit into "bad guy" territory.

[Freemage]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

There's a difference between, "Don't necessarily want to kill all D-Bees on Earth," and, "Don't have the time/resources to kill every D-Bee simultaneously and are prioritizing their targets."

Tolkeen, the FoM, the Vampire Kingdoms and Lazlo (among others) pose political, ideological and/or existential threats to the CS. The ghettoized D-Bees of the 'Burbs do not. They can be killed with impunity, at the time of the CS leadership's choosing, so there's no rush. However, if every magic-friendly or d-bee populated nation/kingdom/fiefdom in North America were to be subjugated, I can guarantee you that the 'cleansing' of the Burbs would be the next step of the operation.

(Side-note: I'm no Tolkeen apologist. I agree with those who say they crossed the Moral Event Horizon by summoning demons (and not even in a manner that controlled them, meaning that the demons were--and continue to be--free to run amok doing exactly what you would expect demons to do). If the CS had burned, and Tolkeen stood triumphant, I'd be happy to level my critiques at them. And if the war had ground down to a stalemate where a lot of lives were lost, the borders shifted around a bit, and nothing was resolved, I'd be calling a pox on both their houses. But Tolkeen has paid for their folly and their leaders' wickedness; the CS has not.)

[Eagle]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

uh-huh. because nothing about phrases like "combat-numbed zombies" or "mad dog killers" would suggest that they are in any way likely to carry this attitude towards other d-bees, mages, psychics, etc. nope.

you are technically correct that they aren't interested in exterminating all non-humans, because they're fine with only enslaving dog boys (unless they reject their masters and seek freedom, in which case the CS kills them), and for that matter they probably have no real objection to all kinds of regular animals.

as to the 'burbs, well, they may not be actively pursuing a policy of eradicating every d-bee in the 'burbs right now... but it isn't exactly like they're not planning on killing them at some point. for example, with the megaverse in flames events, it is my understanding that there are now roving bands of people killing all of the d-bees in the 'burbs, and you can bet the CS isn't raising a finger to stop it. why would they? they want those people dead. they just had other priorities first.

The CS' attitude towards D-Bees in the Burbs is a lot more like the racist southern sheriff than that of the Nazis. Some big fat guy in a white suit, with a cowboy hat, saying "I don't want no trouble outta yer kind in this here town, you unnerstand me boy?" He's not gonna investigate the Klan meetings, or the lynchings, or anything like that. Bunch of white guys beat up a black guy, he comes along and arrests the black guy. That's basically how the CS treats D-Bees.

Tolerant? Nice? Hell no. But they also aren't going door to door, rounding them up and putting them all on the train. You can find different meanings of genocide, some more permissive than others. But in modern society, the word really invokes images of the Holocaust. That's the modern connotation of the word. The CS isn't doing that, even though Prosek may think about it and smile. They're villainous enough without that.

[Killer Cyborg]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

There's a difference between, "Don't necessarily want to kill all D-Bees on Earth," and, "Don't have the time/resources to kill every D-Bee simultaneously and are prioritizing their targets."

Tolkeen, the FoM, the Vampire Kingdoms and Lazlo (among others) pose political, ideological and/or existential threats to the CS. The ghettoized D-Bees of the 'Burbs do not. They can be killed with impunity, at the time of the CS leadership's choosing, so there's no rush. However, if every magic-friendly or d-bee populated nation/kingdom/fiefdom in North America were to be subjugated, I can guarantee you that the 'cleansing' of the Burbs would be the next step of the operation.

Right.
I'd say that the CS currently isn't being actively genocidal (though I'm a book or three behind current events), but they were actively genocidal with Tolkeen, and they will most likely be actively genocidal against the next magic place that they invade/attack.

[Killer Cyborg]

First of all... The book contained a non-canon plot device as it was, it was non-canon until they wrote it anyway, that helped the CS. Namely going through the hivelands unscathed.

Well, they were hardly unscathed.
But there were multiple instances of that sort of unprecedented event, yes.
It's generally a means to an end, not a reason to an end, hence my question.
But your next part answers my question quite well.

Second of all... The reason the CS should have lost is due to the beast that is narrative storytelling. So the CS is this invincible super power that nobody can stop. They attack Tolkeen unprovoked as the aggressor. The CS wins.

That is the story that the SoT series told. That is a terrible narrative tale. It has no twist. At the start we know the CS is going to win. The CS is never in any real danger of losing. The CS wins. It is like if Rocky (the first one) was the tale of Apollo Creed, world champion, who challenges the Italian Stallion, the underdog, and... And... Beats the ever loving tar out of him and knocks him out int he first round...

Is that how it went? No. Rocky trains, Rocky works hard, and though Rocky doesn't win, Rocky goes the distance and is still standing at the end.

Was Star Wars the story of the Empire, as massive well... Empire... Showing up at Alderaan and blowing up the weak Rebel Alliance that was there? No it was about the underdog exploiting a weakness in the enemy's plan and overcoming it.

We see something like the Death Star and are supposed to think, "Oh man! How are they going to beat something like that?" Then we see them triumph. In SoT we saw this massive CS force and went, "Oh man! How are they going to beat something like that?" The answer was, "LOL they totally don't! They lose and they lose bad! Dude at the end of it the CS isn't even scratched! Yo, check it out, in the next book? Dude! Their army is TWICE AS BIG as it was before!"

Tolkeen had all the proper things needed to defeat the CS.

1. They had magic, which can do things that are unpredictable.
2. They had a magic device that was giving them completely accurate information about the CS's plans!
3. They had magical defenses that nobody knew were even possible that stopped the CS's primary battle strategy.
4. They had nearly limitless resources as the fights took place on Ley Lines and near a Ley Line Nexus.
5. They had literally years to prepare for the CS with 100% accurate information on their enemy, information that the CS did not have to counter.

A narrative story should have a flow. The evil empire attacks the peaceful magical city. The magical city uses intelligence, planning, and creativity to overcome the brute force of the CS. The scrappy underdogs manage to win the day through luck, guile, and perseverance. Good conquers evil.

Yet, no. The CS wins.

It actually has soured me on the entire metaplot since then. I buy Rifts books and feel like I am torturing myself because of how slow it advances and how the CS just keeps getting stronger and stronger and stronger. If I want to see evil fascists constantly defeat good rebels then all I need to do is look at the real world.

First of all, good post!
You explain your position well, and I have a much better idea where you're coming from now.
Thank you.

Now I'll explain why I think you're wrong.


(please read and consider the entire post before responding!)

The story that the SoT series told exists within a greater context, the story of Rifts Earth.
In the story of Rifts Earth, Tolkeen is not, was not, and has never been a main character.
The Coalition IS a main character in that context. It has been since day one, and it will be for the foreseeable future, because they're one of the main bad-guys of the setting.
The SoT series is just a chapter in the story of Rifts overall, and it's an early chapter at that.

In the story of Rifts, we're told from the outset that Tolkeen doesn't have a chance.
We're told (RMB 139) that Tolkeen is the Coalition's immediate opposition, because Tolkeen is just going to be the first fight of a series.
We're told by Erin Tarn, one of Rifts' main characters, "I fear that tolkeen has no hope for survival against an all-out siege by the CS."
We're told that "the real opposition that awaits the Coalition is the alien insect race known as the Xiticix."
This is the story of Rifts: Tolkeen is a minor character, a warm-up fight for the CS before they face real opposition.
We were told this since day 1 of Rifts.
That's the context in which SoT takes place.

Within the SoT series itself, you make a comparison to Rocky. You say that Tolkeen losing is like Rocky getting KOed in the first round.
But Rocky lost his fight to Apollo Creed. If you're looking for a Rocky-esque story, then you're looking for a story where the underdog loses, but makes his point by going the full 15 rounds.
Tolkeen accomplished that.
They took on one of the deadliest powers on the continent, an army that has roughly 3x more cannon fodder than Tolkeen has in its entire population, including civilians, volunteer defenders pulled in from other places, and so forth. (IIRC Tolkeen had a bit over a million all told. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
Tolkeen should have been a speedbump, but instead they were a wall that took the CS an incredible amount of time to break through.
They went all 15 rounds, just like Rocky. That's your underdog story within the SoT series: Like Rocky, like The Alamo, like 300, like many other stories, the underdog loses... but they don't go down without a fight, and that is the story.

And that story is within the greater context of Rifts, where (like Star Wars), the story is NOT about the evil empire attempting to smash its first target. It's about the heroes that eventually stop the evil empire, down the road.
Long after Alderaan/Tolkeen has been destroyed, a plot device to show how evil and how powerful the evil empire actually is.
Not a main character, but rather a means to give the real main characters a motivation to battle the evil empire.

If George Lucas thought he could have made a buck by writing a 6-book series about Alderaan getting blown up, he would have.
But it would have been an aside to the main overall (and epic) plot of the series.
It wouldn't have turned Alderaan into the real opposition of the empire, just like the SoT series didn't turn Tolkeen into the CS' real opposition.

Even in the context of the SoT series, look at things analytically.
Book 1 of the series is titled Coalition Wars: Siege on Tolkeen Chapter 1: Sedition.
Looking at the Palladium online store, it's just: Coalition Wars 1: Sedition.
It is not Tolkeen Wars 1: Under Siege, presumably because the series deals with the secession of Quebec as well as the siege on Tolkeen. It's a series not just about the CS's battle with one city-state, but with two different wars at once.
Or, for short, it's a series about the Coalition's Wars.

On page 7 of this book, Kevin explains that he's been planning the series for a long time, and what he wants to do with the books, how the series is going to go.
Taken at face value, the Kingdom of Tolkeen is painted in a sympathetic light. They weren't looking for trouble and they are the ones being invaded by a ruthless foe. Only things are not so black and white. As our story progresses, the leaders of Tolkeen and the Coalition States will be shown to be more alike than different. Both are so blinded by hate and a lust for revenge that they are willing to sacrifice their own people to win at "all costs." Tolkeen's leaders betray the trust of their people by creating false hopes, manipulating the truth, and placing their own goals for revenge before the welfare of their people.

Here is perhaps the single most important part of this section:
by creating false hopes.

We're told on p. 7 of the first book in the series, in the forward, the very first actual text of the book, that Tolkeen's hopes are false.

On p. 8, Erin Tarn (who IS a main character in the overall story of Rifts) has written a lengthy warning to Tolkeen.
Her first line is "Hundreds of thousands of people are about to die, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."
Her final line is "And I pray for the multitudes who will soon perish."
In the middle, there's a lot of Erin Tarn saying things like "I blame the destruction to come on the leaders of Tolkeen, Beings who are showing themselves to be every bit as self-serving and ruthless as the Coalition States."
And "I beg of you, people of Tolkeen, do not get caught in the melee."
And "One day it dawned on me; the powers at Tolkeen are nothing more than the other edge of the same blade that is Emperor Prosek and the Coalition States."

Read that letter from Tarn, her warning.
She makes it clear that a) She (again, a main character in the story of Rifts overall) and Lazlo (another main character in the story of Rifts) have separated themselves from Tolkeen, b) She (and Lazlo) think that Tolkeen's entering into the war is folly, and c) Tolkeen is just as bad as the Coalition.

If Tolkeen is a plucky underdog, it's made clear in the first pages of Coalition Wars Book 1 that the underdog is just as rabid as the overdog.

After Tarn's letter of warning, the next section starts with a Coalition battle report.
Then there's a video-letter from a CS corporal.
Tolkeen itself isn't shown yet, which is a bit odd if they're supposed to be the main character.
Overall, the book seems to spend as much time on the CS as on Tolkeen.
It discusses the fringes of Tolkeen, the land where battles are going to take place, but Tolkeen itself isn't described (IIRC, not until the final book, when it is also destroyed).

I've never really considered before if there was a "main character" in the Coalition Wars series, but if there is, I'm not sure that it's Tolkeen. It might well be the Coalition.
Don't think that I'm saying that the Coalition isn't the Bad Guy; bad guys can be main characters.
And even if Tolkeen is the main character in this series about the Coalition fighting two different wars, one of which is with Tolkeen, that doesn't make them a good guy.

You say that a narrative story should have a flow, and I agree.
But the Coalition Wars series, as a story individually, even without regard to its role in the greater story of Rifts Earth, is not a story of Good versus Evil.
It's a story about the corrupt fighting the corrupt, and we're told that repeatedly and overwhelmingly in the first pages of Coalition Wars 1.

When the Coalition is taken down, it probably will be by a scrappy underdog (or a band of underdogs), but from a storytelling narrative perspective, how is it a really good story to have the Evil Empire defeated by a plucky Evil City-State?
Is that really more satisfying than having the Evil City-State go down fighting, arguably both misguided and heroically, to serve as a warning to the truly Good characters about both the dangers of the Coalition and the perils of becoming the kind of monster that you seek to destroy?
In order for the destruction of the Deathstar to be impressive, the Deathstar had to be impressive.
And it wouldn't have been all that impressive if Alderaan wasn't destroyed.

[HWalsh]

RE: Genocide - It is also directly stated that the Coalition has made clear in word and deed that it will be a war of genocide on page 7 of Sedition (KS's intro to the book).

However, it is important to note that all of these statements about a war and a campaign of genocide in relation to Tolkeen. The CS clearly does not have a policy of genocide against any non-humans on earth, because they have a ton of Dog Boys in their forces. They also still have a whole bunch of dbees living in the Burbs post-Tolkeen that aren't being slaughtered by CS forces. I'm not saying that the leadership may not head that way, but as of right now in the metaplot the CS is not pursuing a policy of genocide against all non-humans.

There's a difference between, "Don't necessarily want to kill all D-Bees on Earth," and, "Don't have the time/resources to kill every D-Bee simultaneously and are prioritizing their targets."

Tolkeen, the FoM, the Vampire Kingdoms and Lazlo (among others) pose political, ideological and/or existential threats to the CS. The ghettoized D-Bees of the 'Burbs do not. They can be killed with impunity, at the time of the CS leadership's choosing, so there's no rush. However, if every magic-friendly or d-bee populated nation/kingdom/fiefdom in North America were to be subjugated, I can guarantee you that the 'cleansing' of the Burbs would be the next step of the operation.

Right.
I'd say that the CS currently isn't being actively genocidal (though I'm a book or three behind current events), but they were actively genocidal with Tolkeen, and they will most likely be actively genocidal against the next magic place that they invade/attack.

In HOH it says that they still totally intend on genocide.

The way I see the CS combatants is this:

As SoT said - 30% were good at the time SoT started. Those good ones didn't survive. They changed, were executed, or were thrown in prison.

Now 5% are good, 30% are selfish, 65% are evil.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'd say that the CS currently isn't being actively genocidal (though I'm a book or three behind current events), but they were actively genocidal with Tolkeen, and they will most likely be actively genocidal against the next magic place that they invade/attack.

In HOH it says that they still totally intend on genocide.

I still totally intend on being a millionaire... but I'm not actively doing it at the moment.


Do you have a direct HOH quote?

[dreicunan]

@HWalsh: Just to confirm, the alignment breakdown is just your view, not one given in HoH?

@Killer Cyborg: Excellent points in that post. Personally, I've always figured that if Kevin S ever gets around to it Proseks will end up being taken down by Karl's bastard sibling whom Joseph I fathered with a sorceress during the bloody campaign, because Chekhov's gun (given the speed at which Kevin S follows through on obscure set-ups, probably in about another ten years).

[Killer Cyborg]

@Killer Cyborg: Excellent points in that post. Personally, I've always figured that if Kevin S ever gets around to it Proseks will end up being taken down by Karl's bastard sibling whom Joseph I fathered with a sorceress during the bloody campaign, because Chekhov's gun (given the speed at which Kevin S follows through on obscure set-ups, probably in about another ten years).

Hm. Good thought!
The thing about Rifts, though, is that there's SO much info, that it's hard to tell if a gun is going to be used, or just part of the background.

[HWalsh]

@HWalsh: Just to confirm, the alignment breakdown is just your view, not one given in HoH?

@Killer Cyborg: Excellent points in that post. Personally, I've always figured that if Kevin S ever gets around to it Proseks will end up being taken down by Karl's bastard sibling whom Joseph I fathered with a sorceress during the bloody campaign, because Chekhov's gun (given the speed at which Kevin S follows through on obscure set-ups, probably in about another ten years).

No that is not an official breakdown. It is simply the logical one. Palladium has continued the official line that there are still a highly significant number of good soldiers in the CS despite the events of SoT which should have dramatically reduced their numbers.

HoH did confirm that they still want to genocide all dbees and magic users.

That means, for those defending the CS and pointing to the dbees in the burbs? No. They must all be killed. In fact most of them are killed in HoH by angry mobs, the CS watches impassively with approval.

[HWalsh]

Page 10 of HoH has the following "rules" for being a member of the CS:

1. No non-human can be trusted.
2. No Magic practitioner can be trusted.
3. Magic is evil, dangerous, and uncontrollable.
4. Magic attracts and creates monsters. Never accept it.
5. All non-humans, alien technology, practitioners of Magic, and Magic items are a threat to humanity. Do not be fooled. They must be rejected and destroyed. Purged from (what the CS calls) the domain of man.

The "Night of Forgiveness" purged the mages and dbees from the Chi-Town 'Burbs as well. There are no longer dbees in the burbs.

[Shark_Force]

all this "tolkeen never had a chance" is nonsense. they never had a chance in a conventional war. fighting a conventional war on any level was stupid. deciding to switch to a scenario where they suffer equal losses to the CS at any point was plain suicidal.

but that doesn't mean they couldn't have won. it just means that they couldn't fight a conventional war and win, or at least, not realistically.

the part where they decided to get into the kind of fight where the person with the most stuff wins? they were never going to win that. but constant ambushes, constantly picking off vulnerable squads here and there, using magic to give them fights where they have an overwhelming advantage and ideally where they lose nothing, and doing that constantly? eventually, prosek is going to want to do something useful with those millions of soldiers and their equipment. even if he doesn't really care about their lives, he has to consider what else he could do. he spent 4 years conquering a nearly-useless bit of land (which still isn't really useful because the genocide wasn't complete and there are still revenge squads). keep that up long enough, and eventually it comes time to pretend like you won and go do something more profitable.

[Killer Cyborg]

all this "tolkeen never had a chance" is nonsense. they never had a chance in a conventional war. fighting a conventional war on any level was stupid. deciding to switch to a scenario where they suffer equal losses to the CS at any point was plain suicidal.

You know, instead of once again pointing out the math and arguing about that stuff, I'll focus on the important part:
Kevin tells us that Tolkeen doesn't have a chance.
He did it in the RMB, and he did it in CW1, and I'm pretty sure he did it somewhere in-between those points.
When the writer of a story is telling you that one side doesn't have a chance, consistently, and that one side has no other purpose in the plot other than to get killed by the villain, believe the writer.

[Killer Cyborg]

Page 10 of HoH has the following "rules" for being a member of the CS:

1. No non-human can be trusted.
2. No Magic practitioner can be trusted.
3. Magic is evil, dangerous, and uncontrollable.
4. Magic attracts and creates monsters. Never accept it.
5. All non-humans, alien technology, practitioners of Magic, and Magic items are a threat to humanity. Do not be fooled. They must be rejected and destroyed. Purged from (what the CS calls) the domain of man.

The "Night of Forgiveness" purged the mages and dbees from the Chi-Town 'Burbs as well. There are no longer dbees in the burbs.

Whew!!
I need to get this book!

[HWalsh]

Page 10 of HoH has the following "rules" for being a member of the CS:

1. No non-human can be trusted.
2. No Magic practitioner can be trusted.
3. Magic is evil, dangerous, and uncontrollable.
4. Magic attracts and creates monsters. Never accept it.
5. All non-humans, alien technology, practitioners of Magic, and Magic items are a threat to humanity. Do not be fooled. They must be rejected and destroyed. Purged from (what the CS calls) the domain of man.

The "Night of Forgiveness" purged the mages and dbees from the Chi-Town 'Burbs as well. There are no longer dbees in the burbs.

Whew!!
I need to get this book!

And yes, rules 1-5 that I posted? I wrote that verbatim, including the emphasis.

The Night of Forgiveness - Basically Prosek gave this big speech about how all mages, dbees, and demons needed to be destroyed. He made an overture that anyone who had betrayed humanity could earn forgiveness by turning in their non-human allies and friends. What happened was a massive purge in the 'Burbs that the CS made no attempt to stop as people murdered dbees and mages left and right. The CS itself only stepped in if the fires got out of control or there was potential to damage the walled city.

[SereneTsunami]

all this "tolkeen never had a chance" is nonsense. they never had a chance in a conventional war. fighting a conventional war on any level was stupid. deciding to switch to a scenario where they suffer equal losses to the CS at any point was plain suicidal.

You know, instead of once again pointing out the math and arguing about that stuff, I'll focus on the important part:
Kevin tells us that Tolkeen doesn't have a chance.
He did it in the RMB, and he did it in CW1, and I'm pretty sure he did it somewhere in-between those points.
When the writer of a story is telling you that one side doesn't have a chance, consistently, and that one side has no other purpose in the plot other than to get killed by the villain, believe the writer.

I have to agree with Killer Cyborg. Shark Force and Hwalsh keep saying that Tolkeen had the resources and capabilities to defeat the CS. Even if those were facts( they are not supported by the SoT) they do not mean that Tolkeen was guaranteed to survive. Tolkeen was never and could never be a threat to Chi-Town, let alone the Coalition. The Proseks need to manufacture threats to generate the fear that allows them to remain in power. Tolkeen was a convienant target for the agression that the Proseks needed to justify their repression of their own people. Hwalsh's argument also relies on the idea that the Coalition would eventually give up if Tolkeen followed his "perfect defense" scenario. I contend that it would be impossible for The Emperor to admit defeat in Tolkeen for any reason. A defeat would pop the baloon of safety that the Proseks rely on. The Proseks would have to continue the war for as long as it takes or endanger their hold over the citizens of Chi-Town.

[Freemage]

all this "tolkeen never had a chance" is nonsense. they never had a chance in a conventional war. fighting a conventional war on any level was stupid. deciding to switch to a scenario where they suffer equal losses to the CS at any point was plain suicidal.

but that doesn't mean they couldn't have won. it just means that they couldn't fight a conventional war and win, or at least, not realistically.

the part where they decided to get into the kind of fight where the person with the most stuff wins? they were never going to win that. but constant ambushes, constantly picking off vulnerable squads here and there, using magic to give them fights where they have an overwhelming advantage and ideally where they lose nothing, and doing that constantly? eventually, prosek is going to want to do something useful with those millions of soldiers and their equipment. even if he doesn't really care about their lives, he has to consider what else he could do. he spent 4 years conquering a nearly-useless bit of land (which still isn't really useful because the genocide wasn't complete and there are still revenge squads). keep that up long enough, and eventually it comes time to pretend like you won and go do something more profitable.

There's an issue with this analysis, though. I'm assuming you're drawing for comparison upon, say, North Vietnam vs. the U.S., or India vs. Britain, or Afghanistan vs. Russia, or Afghanistan vs. the U.S., etc--asymmetric warfare conducted with the intent of driving out an invader. This CAN work, but it requires a few things--and the first of these is the desire on the part of the invaders to not be genocidal [censored]s.

Vietnam and the various Afghan campaigns were wars of conquest--a desire to subjugate the local population into following your orders. This can be defeated by guerilla tactics (aka freedom fighters, aka terrorists), precisely because the whole point of the invasion is to keep the majority of the population alive and productive for the benefit of the conquering power. However, if your desire is not a subject peoples, but a conquered land, cleared of the current inhabitants? Yeah, asymmetric won't work for crap, because they literally don't care about whether or not the potentially productive occupants die in the crossfire--if anything, that just saves the trouble of rounding them up and marching them to the ovens later on.

This is further made easy by the fact that Target 1 of the genocidal campaign are visibly identifiable as targets--ie, D-bees who are visibly non-human. Target 2 (mages and psychics) can get sniffed out by Dog-Boys and Psi-Stalkers. At that point, your options for resistance fighters are human-seeming D-Bees with no significant innate supernatural powers. And many of these will just say, "Who, us? Nah, we're real humans, honest," and just collaborate with the invaders to protect themselves--possibly even losing track of their actual origin over a generation or two (ie, if you don't tell your kids that their grandparents came in through a Rift, they may never know).

Sure, you can have resistance fighters/terrorists who continue to evade patrols and such, but they will have no home to be fighting for--they'll be driven solely by the desire for vengeance, and that mission will ultimately die with them.

Right.
I'd say that the CS currently isn't being actively genocidal (though I'm a book or three behind current events), but they were actively genocidal with Tolkeen, and they will most likely be actively genocidal against the next magic place that they invade/attack.

This is splitting hairs, at best. Hitler was a genocidal little $#!^ when he was sitting in a jail cell penning Mein Kampf; he was just an impotent genocidal little $#!^. During periods when the CS isn't actively executing D-Bees and mages, they're making plans and building resources for the purposes of executing D-bees and mages.

[SycophantNagaraja]

Killer Cyborg: I actually agree with most of your Postzilla comment before (not going to quote it and make this post doubly huge). I think that while KS may have wanted Tolkeen to be a minor player but by dropping them into a 7 part series (1-6 War books and Aftermath) he went from what should have been, in my opinion, the low key N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God and instead made it G1-3 Against the Giants only to chase the rabbit to the D1-4 Descent series. I just don't think you can call something "minor" when it gets this kind of attention.

But just because they happened to be neighbors who didn't want to move doesn't mean they were villainous or corrupt. They took a stand for their home. Even if they were evil at the top like the CS that still makes them the victim. But like someone pointed out using the kid robbing a store, they lost their victim status and potential sympathy when they went overboard.

I guess my only issue with the outcome is similar to what others have pointed out: The CS, despite the valiant stand Tolkeen put up, was written like they were given god mode from a video game. Which unfortunately affects everything going forward until it's written differently.

The overall story is still decent and sets up some good potential RP situations as people flee west and south west.

I do want to point out one thing though I think you didn't expand on that was probably the most detrimental to the war efforts of Tolkeen

Here is perhaps the single most important part of this section:
by creating false homes.

If the CS had kept this up their predatory lending practices could have won the war without a single shot being fired