kiralon wrote:I don't think Rurga would let a book with a story like that in it be a lie
Why not? Where is she restricted from propogating lies? Gods can be hypocrites.
42dragon wrote:was just trying to point out that the literal human deffinition of the alignment may not apply exactly the same way to other beings.
Not sure what you mean be literal human definition.. do you mean how Kevin defined alignments? If so, that is exactly how they apply to gods too.
The question is how the words apply though. What is "death" to a god may be something more extreme than what "death" is to an atheist mortal.
42dragon wrote:Rurga is the God of War and Honor (Truth). Truth is the aspect that is held above all others to this being, at least to the level of an insanity/obsession probably well beyond that. Due to this being's twisted views of extreme truthfullness, couldn't her husband have been considered armed with lies?
No, there is no indication of Rurga having an insanity or her viewing lies as weapons. If lies are dangerous, it is to others, not her, since she can detect them. I could see her worrying about her husband lying to others, but her husband lying to her would not be a threat to her.
42dragon wrote:I am not saying what she did was good or honorable in any way from a human point of view. But a point of view from her god like aspect of truth, this could be considered the most just and honorable thing to do.
There's no distinction between 'good to humans' and 'good to gods'. Alignments work the same way for mortals and gods in Palladium. All we can quabble over is how individuals interpret concepts discussed in them.
42dragon wrote:A god and aspect of Truth cannot be assosiacted with a liar, that could be considered corrupting of the aspect. We attempt to destroy tumors that are corrupting our bodies (even if we introduced them into our bodies, say smoking which is pleasurable to some). This aspect destroyed a man that could have been corrupting/damaging to the aspect like a tumor.
None of this allows a Principled to harm an unarmed innocent. Rurga is bound by her alignment like anyone else.
kiralon wrote:That is a very good point, but she went about fixing the problem in an evil way. After this none of the Palladins I play will worship her because of her over reaction, she could have sent him away and called of the wedding, but decided to slay another righteous person.
Do you mean get a divorce? The one killed in the story was a husband, not a fiance.
Anyway, that shows a serious lack of faith in such a Paladin. If they believe Rurga will provide them an afterlife, then why does it matter if you suffer a bodily death by her hand?
kiralon wrote:If any of my players did that as a principled Palladin at the end of it they would be neither, and If a priest of a good god did that that would lose their powers. Just because a God did it doesn't make it a good act
The question isn't so much 'is it a good act' so much as 'is it an act good people cannot do'.
Good people can do all sorts of non-good neutral things, like eating cheese or learning morse code. The question is if something violates the restrictions.
There are lots of explanations that work within the rules like...
1) the story is made-up, nothing like that happened, Rurga thinks it's funny to scare us so lets it slide
2) the story is true but Rurga got mind-controlled
3) the story is true, but Rurga doesn't think she really killed her husband by cutting his head in half, since she resurrected him afterward
4) the story is true, but Rurga was Aberrent at the time (or dropped to it) and only (re?)gained Principled alignment after years of feeling bad about the act, yet refuses to hide the story out of shame, feeling it would be immoral to cover up the brutality she regrets
Probably some others too.
Prysus wrote:Let's also look at what her power to "Automatically Detect a Lie." A lie by the way implies intentional untruth with intent to deceive, though maybe Palladium used it wrong? Final lines says: "she will always be able to tell when someone is telling something they know to be untrue."
So if he thought it was true, she wouldn't have detected it.
Ah, but did she have this deific power at the time? We don't know that. Assuming the story's true at all, it may have happened prior to her developing the ability.
We also don't know if the ability was working (Aco interference theory). We assume Aco hears warning-bells about lies, but what if she detects lies by their absence of jubilatory bells of truth?
Prysus wrote:He was actually trying to deceive her (though I'm guessing with the purest of intentions). Her actions deviated from the previous times (when she simply put stuff away). Instead she drew her weapon and asked agian. He again lied. She raises it above her head (and the sword screams to indicate prepation of killing) and she asks for the truth. He continues to try and deceive her (because if he wasn't trying she wouldn't have detected it).
Assuming she had the ability, assuming it still worked, there's nothing about the ability preventing her from being misled by false positives.
For example: if Panath knew how her truth-sense tingled when she heard a lie, and found a way to duplicate that sensation in her head every time her husband said those works, he could have misled her into thinking the husband was lying.
But hey, even if the husband wasn't lying... we're still talking about Principled wives being able to murder husbands without dropping alignment if they say "no those pants don't make you look fat". This isn't a comfortable place to define 'innocence' at.
Prysus wrote:So her husband put her into a "no-win" situation, and she made the choice she felt best (a warrior of truth favoring killing and upholding truth ... this should surprise no one).
No he didn't, that's some solid victim-blaming. Rurga was under no obligation to kill liars. If one opts to violate alignment for honor, that's great, enjoy being Aberrent, but it doesn't allow for it.
Prysus wrote:If making a decision one way changes her alignment and O.C.C., making a decision the other way (and breaking different alignment and code restrictions) would have the same result. That means the moment her husband lied to her, her alignment dropped and her O.C.C. changed.
How exactly would being lied to and not killing the liar make your alignment drop?
Prysus wrote:Our main contention doesn't seem to be if a Principled (or Palladin) can execute a person if warranted (the first part of your post I quoted suggests this to me, but I could be wrong), it's a matter if lying warrants execution. As an individual, I would normally say no. However, I do believe alignments cover far more than just my personal opinion on the world.
You're right, it's all how we define 'innocent'. But if our definition of innocent is 'has never told a white lie', I'm not sure how many innocents would exist in the Palladium world, or if anyone capable of language would be off-limits for the Principled to murder.
Prysus wrote:Let's look at this a different way. Is life or honor more important?
To someone of Principled alignment, life, since they have restrictions against killing.
Prysus wrote:From the way this thread is going, people seem to be putting a much higher emphasis on life. I can understand that. However, let's consider something else: Seppuku, ritual suicide of samurai. They'd sacrifice their life for the sake of honor. Then there's the kaishakunin (his second), who'd behead the samurai after seppuku. All of this favoring honor over life. Are you saying all samurai are evil? Let's use your alignment system.
Those examples don't work here. Both are consensual. Rurga's husband did not give his consent to be killed. He didn't ask for his head to be chopped like a seppuku guy does to his second. Entirely different.
Prysus wrote:that leaves anarchist, aberrant and diabolical. Of course, Palladium doesn't agree with that (as can be seen in Ninjas & Superspies as well as Rifts Japan).
Interesting, I will have to look into where these discuss Seppuku and principled alignments and get back about it.
Prysus wrote:it's far too simplistic and doesn't take things like personality or individualism into account
They generally are not. The only weight individuality and personality have is if they matter in determining innocence. If innocence is subjective then it's effectively meaningless. Yet that's all we really have to go with since Palladium hasn't objectively defined innocence in the Megaverse AFAIK.
Prysus wrote:I, on the other hand, figured that vows such as "until death do we part" signifies only one way out (one must be dead).
Making vows until death does not justify a principled person killing an innocent as a means to acquire divorce. The only issue here is whether or not the husband is subjectively innocent.
Prysus wrote:Rurga is not listed as a Palladin of Rurga (that would be odd!)
Not that odd... Aco's a priestess of light. I'm not sure to whom... perhaps her hubby? Makes me wonder... if you can channel Deific powers through worshippers, can Juggernaut lend his respawn power to any follower, including Aco?
Prysus wrote:If lying is against the law of the land (we don't know that it was, though if this took place in Rurga's realm, and we don't know that it did, then I personally find it probable that it would), then I wouldn't call a liar innocent. They are indeed guilty of a crime.
The problem with judging innocence or morality by LAW though, is that law can be anything. Is it justice to condemn people for a law you make yourself?
For example, if Rurga conquers and rules over a land, and declares it against the law to trip, would she remain Principled as she cleaves in half all the people who stumble and fall in her land? After all, clumsiness is against the law, so they are not innocent.
Prysus wrote:Also a lot of the situation will bring up the topic of honor, and whether or not honor is more important than life. I think that's debatable, but debatable enough I'm not going to condemn someone who picks one over the other.
The issue isn't whether or not we condemn Rurga, it's whether or not she killed an innocent or attacked an unarmed foe, essentially.
Prysus wrote:it even stands to reason her husband may have been a warrior and wore a weapon himself. He may have even been part of her army (which she had not yet disbanded), meaning he probably was armed. However, I will say that depending on the situation (if he was at peace and felt safe), it's equally likely he did NOT have a weapon.
Heck, even if he had one, someone could have a sweet 3d6 claymore and still be effectively 'unarmed' next to a being of her power. His sword would be less of a threat to her than a simple punch would be to a normal human who the honor code's written for.
Prysus wrote:#3 is not the end all be all of Principled alignment. It's important, but so is #1.
Yes, but #1's necessity would mean that Principleds would choose their promises carefully and avoid making ones that would commit them to break alignment. Rurga would not have made a promise to kill liars if killing liars meant potentially killing innocents.
Prysus wrote:Except her power only activates when it's intentional deceit. So if he didn't know, she wouldn't know.
To be clear though: we don't know if her power actually activated, we merely assume it did.
Prysus wrote:The fact she knew he was lying implies he was aware of the truth. Telling him the answer cheapens the point of asking.
We don't know Rurga KNEW he was lying. All the story conveys is that story-Rurga THOUGHT he was lying.
Prysus wrote:The Cyber-Knight is stealing in the first place (not good).
No he isn't. He is simply saying "I would like to steal". The farmer is merely assuming he wishes to act upon that desire.
Prysus wrote:Is lying against the law of the land?
This Cyber-Knight considers himself the one who determines the laws, just as Rurga determines the laws of the lands she claims as her own.
Prysus wrote:What aspect is counter-balancing the killing? Right now there's none.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you mean what propels it: the knight will first say offscreen to his horse "I will kill this farmer if he dares lie about his apple numbers." Therefore he would simply be keeping his word to his horse.
Prysus wrote:Your example is of a bandit, claiming to be a Cyber-Knight. All you've presented is a character stealing, and killing.
Nope, I was careful in the wording. No banditry occurred. The Cyber-Knight merely expressed a desire to steal. Admitted a desire to commit a crime is not the same as committing one. Although some take the expression of that desire as a threat, and may hide their assets through deception when confronted with it.
Prysus wrote:The farmer didn't agree to said conditions, so it's not some type of deal or contract, it's just the Bandit-Knight trying to bully others.
A person must agree to obey laws for a Principled person to punish them for breaking them?
So if a man invaded Rurga's land and started butchering her soldiers, he would be innocent, since he never broke his word to obey her laws against killing, right?
Prysus wrote:there's lots of room to create additional scenarios where the situation is more acceptable (such as no one in the land can lie, physically incapable of doing so, but there's a demon running around, so if someone lies to you it must be the demon ... ergo the farmer must be the demon in disguise since a real farmer couldn't lie).
This assumes that demons can't be innocent, that being a demon inherently makes it okay for good people to kill you simply for your race.
Prysus wrote:We actually don't know if Rurga kills everyone who lies to her. We know she killed one person for it, and the full details aren't given.
The general impression we get is that the lying is the reason she killed though, that lying is all the guilt you need. If Rurga can impose that morality on a place by fiat, then anyone can.
Prysus wrote:Why kill her husband then? Vows such as "until death do we part" (you can't banish and never see him agian if you're vowing you'll be together until the day that you die) and/or if he vowed something such as "I swear I will never lie to you until the day that I die" (if he ever does lie to her then it must be the day that he dies, per his vow).
Swearing you won't lie until you die doesn't justify killing a guy for lying, that's more just trying to prove him right or make a truth out of his lie.
Vows or no vows are irrelevant to the situation. If you swore you won't lie and then you lie, it just makes you a double-liar. The question still remains if lying alone is enough reason to de-innocent someone to death.
Prysus wrote:So your stance at this point is that Rurga is just a compulsive liar
No, not compulsive, I think she puts thought into it and does so selectively.
Prysus wrote:and her deceit goes so far she's even influenced the Palladium Staff to continue that lie (extending beyond the Ta'Palladia quote). An interesting take. Not one I agree with, but you are welcome to it.
Oh? Where in her section does it say she won't lie?
p107 mentions she's a 'stickler for the truth' and p108 says 'those around her are expected to speak without any trace of falsehood'. Her motto is "none can lie to ME and live".
Clearly this is just getting pissy about people lying to her, and doesn't prevent her from lying to others if she wishes it. She considers most of the gods in her pantheon liars, yet doesn't kill them. It's a leap to assume 'stickler for truth' means that she herself won't do it. It's all about wanting the truth from others. "as you can see" refers to the story, which is about someone lying to her. Nowhere is she mentioned as punishing herself for lying, or being unable to do it.
Prysus wrote:So he thinks he doesn't love his unborn child
Possibly, you can be out of touch with your feelings, or they can be very mixed up. I know I personally would be telling myself I felt nothing even if I did. Philosophy vs instinct.
Prysus wrote:has been married to a woman for three years (probably known her longer) and knows nothing about her?
I didn't say 'knows nothing'. Just that he doesn't know everything, and would be aware of his ignorance. You can know someone pretty well and still be scared of what they might do if they get emotional.
Prysus wrote:At this point I'm not blaming Rurga for killing him, that sounds more like natural selection at work.
Again, not about if we like what she did, but if what she did falls under Principled or not.
It can... but for it to do so, Principled is completely subjective and super-flexible and it makes goodness morally meaningless in Palladium. Goodness becomes a state of mind rather than a state of behaviour. How one views justice would dictate whether one falls into a realm of using certain tactics.
Basically... one guy could kill someone they thought was innocent, and be diabolic, and another guy could kill someone they thought was guilty, and be principled. Yet the diabolic person could be more logically grounded, and be correctly judging someone as innocent (by our standards) and the principled person could be incorrectly (by our standards) judging someone as guilty by twisted ones.