Light side points for helping soldiers desert...I mean really?

[tkioz]

A lot of the moral choices ring a strange bell with me.

 

But that's the nature of morality, it differs between people. What some view as a moral action, others view as immoral.

 

Sure there is some common ground between people, but there will always be some difference.

 

Part of the problem with SWTOR is the Light/Dark scale, which rightly or wrongly people read as Good/Evil, without taking into a account some of the choices are wrong and less wrong.

 

For example, early on Ord Mantle you are given a choice between returning medical supplies to save dying troopers or giving them to dying refugees. Personally I give them back to the Soldiers, why? Because whatever why I lean, someone is going to die, and by giving them to the soldiers I mitigate the suffering. Sure healing a kid might make me feel better, but in the long term it's a bad choice, because no the garrison is under-strength, and at greater risk of falling and those refugees now have less protectors.

 

But giving to the refugees is light, and soldiers is dark.

 

It's not a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of "well hell, which is slightly less sucky" but like a lot of choices that will differ between people.

 

That is the problem with morality systems in games, and not just Bioware ones, they are mostly black and white, good or bad, when in real life morality is shades of grey influenced by many factors.

 

Though on the quest that the OP referenced my trooper ripped right into the deserters, bloody scum, leaving their mates to fight along without them... that is an evil act. Soldiers don't fight for a cause, they fight for the guy standing next to them, it's human nature, and throwing it away because your tired of fighting? So what, you bloody girl, you think the guy your leaving to die because there aren't enough guns to hold back the horde of monsters isn't tired and doesn't want to go home? Stand fast and hold your ground, and you might both make it home, run and you'll likely both die.

 

That's how it worked in history, most military casualties are the result of order breaking down (routes/etc). Standing your ground is your best chance to survive.

[Explosive_Lasers]

On Hutta you have an option of giving a starving family some fuel cells so they can sell them on the black market and buy food. Or let them starve.

 

Supporting the black market so a family can eat is dark side.

Letting them starve is light side.

 

They really needed a grey side option in the game. Just balancing light and dark is illogical.

 

Giving the thieves the fuel cells leads to the execution of a man's entire family.

 

That choice IS Dark.

[Andryah]

I'm referring to the Republic quest on Taris "AWOL"

 

If you send them back you get darkside points...if you help them go AWOL you get lightside points.

 

As someone who was in the military, I find that line of reasoning offensive for lack of a better term. The reason the were deserting...life is hard and they were afraid to die.

 

 

I'm wondering if a devs politics wandered into TOR.

 

 

/rant

 

Your military training and conditioning has impressed upon you the focial point for your rant. It's necessary in a military context so that troops can be sacrificed for a larger picture (regardless if said picture is right or wrong morally), pretty much as pawns.

 

The canon of Jedi training IS NOT THE SAME. And nothing in the Jedi code follows a model of making people pawns, soldiers, or others. You cannot make it the same, you can only be offended by it. But by being offended, you have accumulated dark side points within you (metaphorically) by allowing emotions to drive your feelings into a rant, simply because of your military training.

 

In the particular story line quest you are ranting about, helping the troops go AWOL is a light side decision in SW canon for Jedi. You don't have to agree with it, AND you get to choose which answer is acceptable to you as part of your story quest. Military training often drives soldiers to do things that are in fact by any reasonble standard of morals DARK.

Edited February 19, 2012 by Andryah

[tkioz]

The one I remember being odd was on Coruscant, where you have to intercept a letter or report for someone from 'The True Republic', as the council member is working with the Empire. When you do this quest you get caught and have to make the decision of taking the letter regardless or putting your hands up and allowing the letter to continue on its path.

 

The thing is, allowing the letter to continue is a light side option. Huh? So it's light side to allow the politicians to deal with the Empire and possibly bring about the downfall of Coruscant, but dark side if I intercept that letter and bring to light their evil dealings?

 

That one confused me so much I don't even do the quest anymore.

 

That one actually makes sense to me, he wasn't doing secret deals with the Empire, he was building a political union to change the government, something he was allowed to do, something defenders of the republic give their lives to allow. Sure we might not like what he is doing and will argue against it... but it's his right to do that...

 

Of course I still took the papers and handed them over, because screw politicians and their backroom deals, let the people decide, everything out in the open, even if it means I do a little evil

 

In the words of Ben Mofo-ing Sisko

 

So... I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all... I think I can live with it.

 

Sometimes doing what you know is wrong is the right thing to do.

[cylria]

 

If you send them back you get darkside points...if you help them go AWOL you get lightside points.

 

/rant

 

Oh just so we're clear, you get darkside points just for SUGGESTING that they go back. There is no threats of turning them in, or the use of force, just asking them to do their duty is somehow wrong.

 

I hate the way BW did lightside/darkside points in this game.

[lexiekaboom]

Show me where it says the light is good and the dark is evil?

 

Read the code of the sith and the code of the jedi. There is no "good" or "evil" in either of them

 

The best light / dark side choices in the game or morally neutral, as they should be. For example early in the Jedi story you are asked to investigate two Jedi who may have a relationship and discover they are truly in love. You can turn them in (a cruel, hurtful choice) for lightside points or hide them (a compassionate, understanding choice) for darkside points.

 

In your example, helping the solders defect serves the key principals of the Jedi (to serve others and never rule over them) as well as following the code, as it promotes peace and serenity. On the other hand, encouraging (or forcing them) to fight shows strength, power, and courage (a strong emotion) and is clearly aligned with the darkside.

 

Jedi are not US marines with lightsabres. They are pretend people in a pretend world with VERY questionable ethics by any reasonable standard. The light side of the force is also pretty crazy. It’s perfectly ok for Jedi to board a ship to kill the crap out of Reven, and to murder hundreds of his minions while getting to him, but as soon as his ship starts to blow up THEY MUST SAVE HIM even if it puts the whole galaxy at risk.

 

So yeah, don’t expect it to make any sense by YOUR morality.

[lexiekaboom]

However the military is an institution under the government, which is in my case a democracy, and therefore they must serve the ideals of the state before their own, and thuse it falls to every soldier to defend(not necessarily agre with) the right I question authority, and (at least In my country, Denmark) a soldier must also be ready to question a given order if it is a violation of the values that they must defend( be it the Geneva convention or the right to freedom of speech)

 

Not so much. In face one of my favourite direct quoits of a Jedi is "we serve peace, not democracy"

 

This is why they don't join the fight against the mandalorians even when the republic does.

 

Which is why we have Reven

 

Which is why we have KOTOR

 

Which is why we have TOR

[mockowftw]

Jedi aren't military. They don't see things the way a soldier would.

I believe jedi were generals,well knights anyway,athe role the consular plays....well thats a different story.

[Gorzh]

Gotta agree, some of the choises just makes no sense, and would love if they took a second look at them and made some changes.

 

Perhaps a good time as they are making the "neutral" alignment a viable choise?

[Varangian]

This thread is messed up.

 

This is not how people are supposed to converse in forums.

[shinyelf]

This thread is messed up.

 

This is not how people are supposed to converse in forums.

 

Too rational?

[RowanThursday]

Well... actually my smuggler did have a couple of significant personal to her character reasons for making the decision she did, so I'm glad you asked me that

 

She's a Balmorran. When she was two years old, a ship she was on was attacked by a group of slavers, under Sith command (looking for force-sensitives, though she didn't realise it at the time). Her father was murdered in front of her, and her (pregnant) mother dragged away along with a large number of the rest of the passengers.

 

When the War broke out, she, fairly young, very inexperienced, and with way too much swagger, joined the Republic army... shortly before the sacking of Coruscant (she wasn't even out of basic training at the time). Then Balmorra was 'left to the wolves' as a consequence of the treaty. She was never going to be a terribly *good* soldier- she takes (as I take) the view that if someone gives you an order that you think is flat stupid, you *tell* them it's flat stupid, amongst other things, but after that, she very much went 'off the rails'. It ended, in her words with:

 

"I think they call it a 'dishonourable discharge'... which sounds kinda' like something you'd need a medpack for... anyways, reckoning it up, we had three counts of insubordination... one count of kickin' a superior officer in the justicars, a couple of counts of brawling an' goin' awol... then five counts of using long words at the court martial that the officers didn't seem to understand, and then usin' one real short word that they definitely did understand."

 

So... she has a distinct feeling, reinforced by her experiences on Ord Mantell and Coruscant, that the chances are, military official decisions have probably been made by idiots... predisposing her to not put much to any faith in them. When confronted with a group of people who didn't *want* to be fighting that war any longer, who were tired and battered and had been, in her view, thrown into a massively bigger mess than they had been led to expect... she really didn't see why they should be expected to stay and stew in it, especially when they probably couldn't *do* any more anyway, for the sake of a 'greater good' which might well not materialise, just as it didn't on Balmorra, and certainly wouldn't be any the less likely to materialise for their efforts.

 

She took the view that... well, that it was as much her right as their commanding officer's to say "these men have given enough", and to follow the course that would produce the least individual suffering- letting them get away, to let them escape, and telling their unit that they were dead, rather than that they'd deserted, in order to prevent the psychological pain of feeling betrayed there. If she felt any guilt over the ethical abstract of 'it's not fair for them to go, when their colleagues have to stay', which is the only angle she *would* feel guilty on, then she salved it with putting extra effort in herself- but *outside* the chain of command.

 

Viewpoints differ.

What I meant by saying that she valued the individual case-by-case issue over the 'moral abstract' is that, to her "These men are hurting" matters more than "If our forces haemorrage troops like this, then we'll lose, and the ones left behind who don't desert will suffer more"... but then, she also locked heads with the Balmorran planetary quest commander on *every single* 'military priorities/prudence vs. kindness' issue there.

 

As I said, I admit I'm biased. I have deep rooted objections to many of the 'military virtues'... I'm certainly not asking you to agree with me there, the world calls for a broad spectrum of personality types. However... Light Side and Dark Side don't automatically equate to 'right and wrong', any more than they equate to 'Jedi and Sith'.

 

The Jedi may be the champions of law and order, and they may aspire to Light Side values... but many times, law and order and the Light Side, i.e. actions to minimise suffering, don't coincide.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Trineda
removed quote

[Rouge]

Too rational?

 

RL politics. They are, officially, a topic that mods don't or shouldn't allow according to the forum rule book.

[Excise]

There's a lot of cases like this, such as the infamous Stolen Medical Supplies mission on Ord Mantell.

 

Ultimately, Light Side != Good Side. Light Side is compassion, forgiveness, and Selflessness, but it also includes naivety. Dark Side is cruelty, selfishness, and pragmatism.

 

Letting the soldiers go AWOL winds up being a choice between compassion vs pragmatism.

[Trineda]

Greetings folks!

 

Several posts have been moderated in this thread. Comments that are political, religious, sexual, or racial in nature are considered inappropriate for the forums.

As a gentle reminder to everyone, please remember the following:

 

• Insults - Please do not resort to or use them in any way in your posts. Posts should be productive, not destructive.
  
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• Ignoring - If you feel you simply cannot get along with another community member, please place them on your ignore list.
  

 

Thank you!

Edited February 24, 2012 by Trineda

[Koronii]

Show me where it says the light is good and the dark is evil?

 

Read the code of the sith and the code of the jedi. There is no "good" or "evil" in either of them

 

The best light / dark side choices in the game or morally neutral, as they should be. For example early in the Jedi story you are asked to investigate two Jedi who may have a relationship and discover they are truly in love. You can turn them in (a cruel, hurtful choice) for lightside points or hide them (a compassionate, understanding choice) for darkside points.

 

In your example, helping the solders defect serves the key principals of the Jedi (to serve others and never rule over them) as well as following the code, as it promotes peace and serenity. On the other hand, encouraging (or forcing them) to fight shows strength, power, and courage (a strong emotion) and is clearly aligned with the darkside.

 

Jedi are not US marines with lightsabres. They are pretend people in a pretend world with VERY questionable ethics by any reasonable standard. The light side of the force is also pretty crazy. It’s perfectly ok for Jedi to board a ship to kill the crap out of Reven, and to murder hundreds of his minions while getting to him, but as soon as his ship starts to blow up THEY MUST SAVE HIM even if it puts the whole galaxy at risk.

 

So yeah, don’t expect it to make any sense by YOUR morality.

 

They didn't save Revan for the sake of morality, they just wanted his secrets so that they could get rid of the rest of the Sith. They were either lying when they talked about how they did this out of mercy, or they had been lied to.

[Callmeswarly]

The other thing to remember is that these aren't soldiers fighting in some great war, they are soldiers who have been stationed on a back water planet filled with blood thirsty zombies who can literally kill them by inflicting a single scratch. Beyond that they've been kept for years beyond what they were supposed to, are surrounded by corruption, and have no foreseeable end in site. All this and for what? So Governor Saresh can build up her political image and eventually become Supreme Chancellor?