Can good Drengin make slave pits?

Maybe they'd just use evil slaves?

Why, you are writing as if the laboring races were more than sub-Drengin! Now I love my staff, it would make me literally, physically ill if I were to discover I was eating from one. (I'd probabaly have roast chef at the next barbecue.) But if they weren't slaves, what role in a sane and ethical universe would they have? Merely meat animals? That's disgusting; no civilized Drengin has had an attitude like that in 5 centuries!

It appears that both of you missed my point.



Wouldn't good be against slavery in general? Wouldn't good Drengin civilization stop using slave pits? And if they did, would they get something else to replace them with, or would they be gimping themselves?



Maybe thats what a civilization of good Drengin might think.

What point? That slavery is inherently bad...to a Drengin?...for whom it has been an ingrained norm underpinning their cultural infrastructure for over 100,000 years?

I feel certain that there would be Drengin county extension service reps who would teach 'Good' slave-husbandry techniques and attitudes, and decry against 'Evil' treatment of loyal and valuable slave-stock. But I don't think it would enter the head of the most ethical, reformed, clean-living, (dare-I-say)...vegetarian...Drengin that there was anything inerently 'Evil' about slavery. No more than we think there is anything 'Evil' about keeping horses.

drrider

I could be wrong but I thought that...



...might mean that Xeno Ethics would not be in the Drengin research tree.

Of course their isn't anything evil about it! We have to keep them because left to their own devices, they would only hurt themselves. They are not adapted to the world as it is today, so we tend to them, and in exchange we do not ask much, really. Only what they are suited to do, and beside if you watch them closely, or know them, you can see that they are much happier this way.
Of course now, if our ancestors hadn't tamed them, it might have gone some other way, but today it's our responsibility to keep them that way. We even improve their species by interbreeding them for the most desirable qualities.
Of course, some people among us do eat slaves, even in our enlighten days, the height of civilisation. But we kill them quickly and without pain. We only torture them to teach them for their own good, but that because it’s the only way they can learn something.
Slavery is indeed a very good thing

Good societies use slavery as well- it's called prison labor.

(Trying not to start a flame war here)

Actually we call our slaves Livestock.

Wait a sec, Slavery isnt inharently Evil. its the way people would treat them and other societies that would lable them as evil.
I dont understand why people seem to have a Lable for Good and Evil the way they do. In general, a good person will help out and sacrifice for greater good or to help, also telling the truth, being genuin and contributing. an evil person would backstab, betray, lie, cheat, steal to gain power or get what they want.

So a good society who uses slaves (prisoners, captives whatever) would treat them well and make sure they were still treated humainly. Where as an Evil society would endulge in torture, malnurishing and mistreatment for enjoyment ect.

The Drengin if turned good, would still use there historicly proper and lawful tactics, just clean them up a bit. such as treating others with respect, taking prisoners, being honest, getting food to starving people ect.

Now if say a good race turns evil they would still use the same tech, except now they use it to cause suffering pain and personal gain.

So, evil people look after only themselves. good people help others. Make sense?

Believe it or not Prison Labor is the equivalent of Serfdom since they make 70 cents an hour. It's the people who only get caught with a roach they turn into slaves at qoute on qoute "Trustee camps".

The way they make it sound, though, you get a diplomacy hit for being good and having slave pits. I wonder if Dregin will experience this as well?

did the americans in the south during the slavery days ever think that owning slaves were evil? Most were deeply christians btw. I don't think they ran around eating babies. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and so did George Washington. Would you consider them evil or good? Hitler never owned a slave. Was he a good person then?

The point is, sometimes, the line between good and evil is a blur when it comes to culture.

I recommend taking away the label for good/neutral/evil for the game. If you ask any Nazi who the good guys are, they would say themselves and the evil guys would be the americans. It really is all about what side your on.

Good and evil is a man made concept and doesn't really have any meaning. What is good to one may be evil to another. It is totally realative.

Good and Evil is more or less a religious fabrication to point out your enemies. Remember that Christian (similar to others) teaches that Evil wizards and witches are inherently evil.

D&D 3.5 put Good and Evil into a different perspective. rather then labeling something evil because its not the same belief system as you are, it looks at good and evil as more of a greedy and not so greedy system. ie, a chaotic good person would bend or not adhere to the law in order to help or save someone. a lawful evil person would follow set laws to the letter (or cleverly and indirectly use it), to the point they use them against people for there own personal gain. even if that involves people suffering or losing out. Make sense?

I apologies before hand for the grammar:

I would say that to have slave pits when you have chosen the good alignment is hypocritical.

First of, let's look at what the game say is good an evil. After you have played the game a few times it gives you a pretty thorough explanation of what it (the game) means by good and evil. Namely the moral choices that pop up now and then. Not only is the, IMO, overlaying theme that the good choices are what humans would call "good". They actually have a few about slaves. I do not remember the wording exactly but the picture is of a farm (IIRC) and you get the evil options of "slaves, can't have enough of them"
and get a production bonus. Whereas the good option is to not have any slaves and you get no production bonus.

So saying that the meaning of the word good is different depending on the perspective is a bit redundant since the game gives you a clear definition of what it means about good and evil. And it is in the game that you choose which alignment you should take, you don't call up Lord Kona and ask if he could change the meaning of the word so that you can get the Mind Control center and Neutral Learning Centers at the same time (but it would be sweet ).

I would however like to argue for the point that what we see as good and evil can be universal.



Sure I believe that most countries that has prisons make the most prisoners work in some fashion. However if the society is good there would be no where near the amont of prisoners as there would be a non-prison workforce. Without profiling, and the focus on rehabilitating rather then punish there would be fewer and shorter prison terms.

To take a real world example. According to http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/world-prison-population-list-2005.pdf USA has the highest incarceration rate, 714 persons out of every 100,000. Even though that is our worlds highest it equals to a very small workforce. So I believe that a "slave-prisoner" economy would not be very effective. I also believe that a prison work force doesn't have the same work moral, creativity or efficiency then a content "normal" worker. Sure if you punish them severely enough they would probably not drag their feet, but then we would be back into evil territory.



A bit OT but Hitler enslaved millions of people in camps and made them work to death. And even if he hadn't endorsed it there are more benchmarks then slavery for evilness



An interesting point! However we have had it similar on earth. Slavery has been a round for many thousand years. And even though slavery has been a part of one of the bigger religions, Christianity, for thousand of years (for example Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT) now many (a majority?) of humans believe that slavery is wrong. We even had our own versions the Drengin arenas where gladiators fought to death to the amusement of others. And even then we still believe that slavery is bad now.

But how can I argue that good and evil can be universal?

Because of empathy, or more specifically mirror neurons. Basically they are neurons that are active both when you do something and when you see someone else is doing something. Have a read at http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran/ramachandran_p1.html it's very interesting. The wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron is perhaps easier to read, but then remember to be skeptical! Anyhow, since they activate when other beings do things they give us the ability to learn from things other people do. And this is a very powerful tool for learning complex things. For example after I read Purges "Detailed Suicidal AAR for DA" (a very good read https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=350&aid=163571 ) I was able to go from Painful to win a Masochistic in the TA beta.

How does this correlate to empathy being universal? Well first of most of the bigger animals on earth have mirror neurons so this is in no means just a human thing. They make monkeys able to learn to use tools by watching each other. And they also make us squirm when we see something really horrible being done to someone else. For example seeing someone beeing stabbed makes the mirror neurons fire, mirroring the behavior/sensation of the stabbed person. And what I believe IMHO to be universal about this is that mirror neurons are crucial to make a species learn complex things.

So my definition of good would then be a very classic sentiment: Do to others what you want them to do unto you.

And evil would be the opposite: You get more stuff being a greedy bastard and don't caring how your actions hurt others.

Hence no good slave pitts.

I dont think that a good civ getting slave pits will have any minuses for them, like the diplomacy hit that Naota Reign mentioned. But we know that the slave pits will have a minus to influence, so THAT will be the factor that a player must weigh in deciding to convert the slave pits.

Keep in mind too, that the Drengin arn't the only evil race in this game. But i agree that even if they chose the good route, they would still use them. It really has not been all that long since we used slave labor and those people didnt consider themselves evil.

Now would good drengin use pain amplifiers???

that's why you don't call it 'slavery.' those planetary improvements all get a new sign on the front door that reads "social debt repayment center."

The ethical system in GC is an abstraction that does not chime with reality but is a necessary simplification. Everyone always thinks of themselves as Good, and their enemies as Evil. Iran thinks the US is Evil and vice versa. Criminals think the police are evil and vice versa. But you could hardly have an ethics screen that listed good, good and good. Yet given the way the game works you could not have it any other way.


Furthermore context is key in all historical analysis.
Hitler often gets mentioned on these boards as an example of pure evil. Yet if you compare his actions to those of absolute rulers of past centuries or millennia he's virtually saintly. Read the Old testament for real genocidal madness. Yet all considered themselves 'Good'

The Roman empire was built, like most successful empires of the day, on slave labour. Yet as far as they were concerned they were the good guys, the slaves were not really a point of consideration, but at least they were rescued from barbarity, a fate worse then slavery. Would a 'Good' Roman empire suddenly ban slavery? certainly not. But many emperors progressively introduced laws that improved there conditions, each one no doubt satisfied that there actions demonstrated quite clearly they were 'Good'

Agreed, especially about the part where Ethics is just a simplification for the sake of the game. Lets not start yet another dicussion on how the game is unrealistic.

I can't see having not only a unique tree for each civ, but 3; one for each alignment. And if you make enough decision to change the way your race is leaning, even before Xeno ethics, then your treee might change and the effects of all (or some) of your improvements too. This discussion about ethics and improvements can make the game too complocated. To make it "realistic" would be to make it funnerless.

This is really just about the human player anyway, the AI (as far as i know) will always be the alignment it was designed to be. Does the AI ever get those moral questions? Or at least the pluses and minuses from the decisions.

Look at it this way, the Drengin Empire in Gal Civ 2 will ALWAYS start out as evil, regardless of if you want to play a good Drengin Empire or not.

So if you want to go good maybe you have to trade for factory technology to swap for your slave pits many races will have normal factories so trading for it would not be a huge problem, yes it would put you at a disadvantage but then the Drengin Empire has been using slavlings for god knows how long, it wouldn’t be easy to stop using them, its changing their whole ideology and culture.

Of course you could always make a custom race of Drengin that broke away in which case you'd start off neutal anyway... im not sure how the custom races are handleing what technology they use though...

The part of the brain that controls pain is also the pleasure area( at in animals on earth). So I d say yes cause they prolly just change the effect to an pleasurable one.

Yea but then someone will have to paint new signs for all the doors to them.. lol