Morality and Outposts

[danolt]

Of all the interesting and thought provoking posts on the outpost attack thread, the introduction of morality was perhaps the most intriguing. It got me thinking... What are the conditions under which an outpost can be attacked, morally?

I'll get to my answer in a bit. First, I need to make it clear that I support Riveit. Riveit is AA's "Secretary of State" because he is conscientious, honest, thorough, and diplomatic. He is interested in the overall welfare of all Homins and sees the best in everyone. I trust him implicitly. To even suggest he is capable of maliciousness only gives insight into the speaker.

The self serving rhetoric fueled with dishonor, lies and indignation surpassed him. He was bamboozled by self interested political hacks who invest their time attacking the decisions of others and/or those who were protecting their self interest with groundless words. He will come back with a bit more experience and insight. If you are for the Kami, pray that he does. If there is to be a successor, they will not be so tolerant.

Now, back to the question; Morality and Outposts. Under what moral authority should an outpost be attacked?

First, it must establish whether an outpost can ever be attacked. Do those who logged on first have a moral entitlement for perpetuity? Will it always be amoral to attack any outpost? It is fairly safe to say that "log on first" does not give one the absolute moral high ground. If there is NOT a moral absolute using the "log on first" criteria then it is possible for any outpost to be attacked and the attacker to have the moral right to do so. Yes, it can be okay to attack any outpost.

Now, things get a bit more complex. What criteria should be applied to establish moral authority in Atys. I suppose we could hold a beauty pageant and declare the biggest boob the dispenser of honor and morality. She could then preach about honorable behavior. Another option is what I call the "u" method. Whoever uses the word "u' the most would become our embodiment of enlightenment. These are intriguing ideas but surely there are better criteria. (Riv would never say anything like that, see, we need you)

God. Country. Guild. Everything can fit under these three categories; alliance under guild, race under country etc…

God: Jena vs Ma Duk is simple enough. The chosen disciples (NPC's) of the factions will attack on sight those who have declared for the other. There is no moral middle ground. The gods are both for it.

Those who have chosen to not dedicate to a higher power do add a bit of ambiguity. I am going to pass on that rather large can of worms since in this latest case both guilds were aligned.

Country: This can be a bit more complex. All the regional governments have given allegiance to a faction. However, it is quite possible to support the overall good of a race and not be completely aligned with the government. I am going to skip all the dialogue that would bring me to the final question of: is any race/country/religion combination inherently more moral then another? Answer = No.

Guild: As I have thought on this more, this is really just another subset of country. The same dynamics apply to this field as they do for country. It is just more personal.

So perhaps the professor can explain why attacking a Kami held outpost in Aedan Aqueous that was obtained by right of "log on" is amoral. Perhaps you could explain it to the Karavan guards outside the city gates that will gun down Tryker Kami supporters's on sight. U might want to brief the governor of Fairhaven as well.

All Tryker/Karavan guilds have the moral authority and blessings of both their God and their Country to attack any Kami outpost in Aedan Aqueous. It may be immoral not to.

Pero

[lathan]

My personal comment on morality was mainly based on two points.

Firstly, AA is a signatory to the HOPE charter, and as such has a moral obligation to behave as set down in that charter, while they are still a representative of the alliance. An attack such as was planned could not be perpetrated by a guild following this charter, and so to go through with it would be, imo, a failure to fulfill a moral obligation to some of the other members of HOPE.

Secondly there was a hypocrisy running throughout the original post that I found hard to ignore. Riveit stated his demand that the guild currrently occupying the outpost share their xp crystals that they were mining, and any mats which they got as well with the whole of Tryker. Then he stated that if they were to take over the outpost, they would share these things only with VVV who would back them in the attack, as sharing them with everyone would be a logistical nightmare. If they weren't prepared to overcome that problem, why should they expect BoH to?

I think in general one of the things that got a lot of people upset was the tone of the original post which made it sound like AA believed that everyone should help them remove BoH from this outpost because they were behaving selfishly with it. I don't believe it was Riveit's intention to come off sounding the way that he did, I think it was just a mis-judged piece of RP that had some OOC connotations people didn't like.

[marct]

Noin thinks it was well said by Pero.

Everyone, including Noin, should take things less personal, and just participate and enjoy.

As a side note, is there a morally fair time to declare your attack? Answer: No. The defenders get to schedule a time that is at their convenience, so the attacks should too.


Noin.

[aylwyne]

I really don't like the idea of outposts in general and never have. I don't like content that's directly focused on and encourages fighting amongst ourselves.

However, the fact of the matter is, that's what outposts are meant to be. They're specifically designed to be fought over and to give the victor something special that others don't have.

I don't think people have to have some special reason to attack an outpost other than, "I want to participate in the new game features too." If they do come up with an RP reason, fine but I don't feel that's a requirement. Simply wanting to have a chance at owning an outpost is the only motivation needed.

I feel like those who are saying that it's wrong to attack their outpost and that they should be able to hold it in peace are a little selfish to the rest of the community.

[lathan]

I didn't say it was a wrong thing to attack the outpost. If you ignore the issue of HOPE (which is a big one to me, but not everyone will have any interest there), then had they just declared that they were going to attack the outpost and followed it with a post on the ryzom forums saying "Anyone who wants to come help us out we are attacking outpost X at XX :X X, please bring food and drink. Entertainment provided" then it probably would have been fine. But to try and make it out to be something other than it was (an attempt to secure themselves an outpost) was wrong imo. Especially if they were going to vilify BoH for doing the same thing with the outpost as they were planning to do with it anyway, had they secured it.

[kgrieve]

The Outposts may have been designed to be fought over, but they have brought in a political element that is intriguing too.

I can see a political element Pero's Thread that, although I may or may not agree, at least brings more interest to the game.

Can Nevrax please retain or expand on the political elements too. The alliances, trade agreements and bribes are all game elements too.

[akm72]

...Do those who logged on first have a moral entitlement for perpetuity? Will it always be amoral to attack any outpost? It is fairly safe to say that "log on first" does not give one the absolute moral high ground....

You dismiss the "log on first" criteria too quickly - "first come first serve" is a perfectly moral way of distributing the limited number of outposts between the guilds, even though it makes life tough for those in different time zones. No prior meeting took place to parcel out the OPs between the Tryker Guilds, so no higher moral basis exists for ownership.

The only grounds you have for seeking to deprive BoH of their property is religion. As Trykers voted to tolerate a Kami temple on their land, I think tolerating a Kami/Tryker Outposts is well within acceptable limits.

Of course if it later becomes a base for military operations against the Tryker state, or against Karavan/Tryker guilds, you will have a case for trying to capture it. But at this time, no possibility exists of it being used in that way.

[footkips]

Any 250 level outpost is a valuable resource to the occupying guild of players and thereby the faction they support. Whirling Stronghold provides large quantities of high level cristals that can be used by kami soldiers to more rapidly increase their power and readiness for upcoming faction warfare.

It is the Tryker nations right to welcome karavan/kami aligned outposts on their lands, but others might disagree with their choices. As Matis Karavan; it is my wish that Tryker OP's are owned by karavan-aligned guilds to maintain a minimum balance of resource distribution.

If a Karavan guild occupied an OP in the Burning Desert or the Witherings, I would expect a swift and strong kami challenge.

Don't be too surprised that any kami-aligned OP's in Tryker are challenged. The Karavan want and need the lakelands and hopefully will find a way to restore balance.

Keetch

[petej]

Its no suprise that a Tryker/Karavan Guild should challenge for control only that a member of the HOPE Alliance would , read their charter here:-

http://www.ballisticmystix.com/posts/list/124.page

[sekh135]

Its no suprise that a Tryker/Karavan Guild should challenge for control only that a member of the HOPE Alliance would , read their charter here:-

http://www.ballisticmystix.com/posts/list/124.page

Thank goodness, someone finally understands the point.