I'll never understand the appeal of this purification thing.
Same specially when the "purified" abyssal is kinda different to the shipgirl, or the fact that it sort of tries to justify everything you're doing to them despite how much you hear them suffer.
It's the movie logic: sunk Shipgirls become Abyssals, sunk Abyssals become shipgirls.
I get the concept and its inspiration, what I mean is that I can't find it appealing nor do I feel any better with the "you're actually saving them" stuff.
lrdftm said:
Same specially when the "purified" abyssal is kinda different to the shipgirl, or the fact that it sort of tries to justify everything you're doing to them despite how much you hear them suffer.
Yeah, as someone who likes some of the abyssal girls as much as the shipgirl it feels a bit like a middle finger that they make them suffer way more than the shipgirls and everything's supposed to be 100% okay because purification, and in some cases everything I liked about the abyssal disappears in the process.
I get the concept and its inspiration, what I mean is that I can't find it appealing nor do I feel any better with the "you're actually saving them" stuff.
From a practical POV, it gives players a moral high ground and avoids most criticizes that abyssals represent allies and that this game has subtle political agenda in it (especially when this game was first out, right wing in Japan were rising). Obviously, starting with introduction of Iowa and some abyssal forms of shipgirl, this theory was tossed out of window
Sadly that's how war works, it doesn't matter the fiction. Right at this moment there are governments "purifying" their country from Muslim (and some Mexican) ones... and killing a hundred others while they're at it. It's the tool used to justify a relative combating overseas and propaganda used on both sides.
It's not like this game is a serious and realistic portrayal of war to begin with. You have a lot of cute schoolgirls in cute dresses with personalities that are very different to the ones of people who've been dealing with warfare on a daily basis and the way the game portrays the daily life in their base is more akin in tone to a cute and lighthearted SoL too so that point doesn't make much sense for this franchise, even the sprites of the shipgirls when they're damaged looks more like fan service in most cases. A story in which enemies are only defeated and not killed or purified would still feel in place with the overall tone of the game.
The problem at least for me with the purification is that you're basically erasing the abyssal from existence which is almost the same as killing them since the shipgirls you receive after her defeat can be pretty different to the abyssal and even when they're similar like with Destroyer Hime and Harusame both have a different charmpoint so I don't feel like she was saved, only replaced after being "erased" and that I should be completely fine with doing the same to every single one of them even when they lack a shipgirl equivalent like Airfield Hime or Hoppou and other installation-type bosses.
From a practical POV, it gives players a moral high ground and avoids most criticizes that abyssals represent allies and that this game has subtle political agenda in it (especially when this game was first out, right wing in Japan were rising). Obviously, starting with introduction of Iowa and some abyssal forms of shipgirl, this theory was tossed out of window
To be fair a war plot in which you're on the absolute right side and the enemy needs to be converted into one of your kind could also be seen by some people in a wrong way.
The problem at least for me with the purification is that you're basically erasing the abyssal from existence which is almost the same as killing them since the shipgirls you receive after her defeat can be pretty different to the abyssal and even when they're similar like with Destroyer Hime and Harusame both have a different charmpoint so I don't feel like she was saved, only replaced after being "erased" and that I should be completely fine with doing the same to every single one of them even when they lack a shipgirl equivalent like Airfield Hime or Hoppou and other installation-type bosses.
I think the true problem is developers didn't expect cardboard cutout targets to acquire personality and being likeable by the doujin fanbase. Then they had not other choice but to follow the trend and here we are now. It started with Wo class and after that there is not turning back.
I think the true problem is developers didn't expect car dboard cutout targets to acquire personality and being likeable by the doujin fanbase. Then they had not other choice but to follow the trend and here we are now. It started with Wo class and after that there is not turning back.
There's also official art in which they look really cute, we almost never see them doing horrible things but mostly implications that they're evil, their lines also make them sound more like emotionally distressed and unstable girls in some cases instead of evil monsters, their designs have a lot of personality despite having almost no lines of dialogue and are quite good-looking even overshadowing some of the shipgirls IMO, and then you have that this game is a "gotta catch em all" with cute girls so the people who gained interest in the game due to the abyssals will feel excluded or disappointed. I think it would be pretty easy to see for a developer that the abyssals were also going to earn a lot of followers but sadly seeing abyssals portrayed as more than just monsters is the exception and not the norm. Sometimes I still think about how much I want Wo to join my fleet and it always feels like a let-down.
To be fair a war plot in which you're on the absolute right side and the enemy needs to be converted into one of your kind could also be seen by some people in a wrong way.
Hasn't basically every nation in history portrayed every war they ever fought as them being the side on the absolute right, fighting on some casus belli that is some variation of either "spread civilization to the barbarians", "defend against unjustified aggression", "reclaim what is rightfully theirs", or "defeat an implacable foe of pure evil"?
There's also official art in which they look really cute, we almost never see them doing horrible things but mostly implications that they're evil, their lines also make them sound more like emotionally distressed and unstable girls in some cases instead of evil monsters, their designs have a lot of personality despite having almost no lines of dialogue and are quite good-looking even overshadowing some of the shipgirls IMO, and then you have that this game is a "gotta catch em all" with cute girls so the people who gained interest in the game due to the abyssals will feel excluded or disappointed. I think it would be pretty easy to see for a developer that the abyssals were also going to earn a lot of followers but sadly seeing abyssals portrayed as more than just monsters is the exception and not the norm. Sometimes I still think about how much I want Wo to join my fleet and it always feels like a let-down.
So what you're saying is that you'd only believe the Abyssals are evil if the company that's trying hard to make a sanitized version of war actually showed the Abyssals eating random innocent civilians ON SCREEN? (And that killing shipgirls doesn't count because we're convinced THOSE cute girls are evil and now deserve to die since you seem to think the other girls are cuter.)
The "emotionally distressed" part is what you're "purifying" in the "purification" option. The alternative you're inadvertently arguing for would just be demanding that they are more overtly evil and need to be destroyed absolutely.
Hasn't basically every nation in history portrayed every war they ever fought as them being the side on the absolute right, fighting on some casus belli that is some variation of either "spread civilization to the barbarians", "defend against unjustified aggression", "reclaim what is rightfully theirs", or "defeat an implacable foe of pure evil"?
Yeah, and that group mentality isn't very liked nowadays by a lot of people which was my point.
So what you're saying is that you'd only believe the Abyssals are evil if the company that's trying hard to make a sanitized version of war actually showed the Abyssals eating random innocent civilians ON SCREEN? (And that killing shipgirls doesn't count because we're convinced THOSE cute girls are evil and now deserve to die since you seem to think the other girls are cuter.)
Well to begin with, you usually give a solid reason on why you should feel ok with being against the enemy when creating a story, specially when your side is portrayed as being full of happy girls who live pretty comfortable lives when they aren't fighting and the portrayal of the enemy is way more bleak and hopeless with very few if none of your enemies showing any sign that they love destruction or hurting innocent people. I don't need to see them devouring civilians or anything gory, just seeing them enjoying the violence they create or anything along those lines could work or knowing their motivations and goals. I would be totally ok if the conflict was portrayed as lighthearted for both sides, something more along the line to last summer event but those are the exception.
The "emotionally distressed" part is what you're "purifying" in the "purification" option. The alternative you're inadvertently arguing for would just be demanding that they are more overtly evil and need to be destroyed absolutely.
Look at Anchorage Water Oni for example and how her lines sound more akin to a depressed or even suicidal person instead of something that feels truly evil or Hoppou and Wanko who just want you to go away, then you also have girls like CV water oni or Ritou who just sound like they're ready to fight you without sounding malicious. I really have a hard time not feeling sorry for them when I attack them and I can see why other people would also feel similarly towards the abyssals. So far I've seen very few abyssals who actually feel kinda evil and now you have a girl holding her injured twin sister in her arms which implies they can care for other people too making it harder for me not to feel sorry for them even if I'm "saving" them.
Yeah, and that group mentality isn't very liked nowadays by a lot of people which was my point.
Horseshit. There isn't a nation or culture in the world that doesn't try to say their way of doing whatever they do isn't the best way of doing that thing. People just get angry when other groups say their shit is better than your shit.
lrdftm said:
Well to begin with, you usually give a solid reason on why you should feel ok with being against the enemy when creating a story, specially when your side is portrayed as being full of happy girls who live pretty comfortable lives when they aren't fighting and the portrayal of the enemy is way more bleak and hopeless with very few if none of your enemies showing any sign that they love destruction or hurting innocent people. I don't need to see them devouring civilians or anything gory, just seeing them enjoying the violence they create or anything along those lines could work or knowing their motivations and goals. I would be totally ok if the conflict was portrayed as lighthearted for both sides, something more along the line to last summer event but those are the exception.
Look at Anchorage Water Oni for example and how her lines sound more akin to a depressed or even suicidal person instead of something that feels truly evil or Hoppou and Wanko who just want you to go away, then you also have girls like CV water oni or Ritou who just sound like they're ready to fight you without sounding malicious. I really have a hard time not feeling sorry for them when I attack them and I can see why other people would also feel similarly towards the abyssals. So far I've seen very few abyssals who actually feel kinda evil and now you have a girl holding her injured twin sister in her arms which implies they can care for other people too making it harder for me not to feel sorry for them even if I'm "saving" them.
They did create that story; you're just deliberately ignoring it.
The story is that the abyssals are vengeful ghosts who suffer endless torment because of the legacy of World War 2 until the player comes along and purifies their regrets so they can finally be at peace.
You're ignoring the fact that most of the abyssals do nothing but scream about how they want to "sink" (kill) everyone they meet, chant Madness Mantras, or keep talking about how painful existing is, simply because you only want to focus on a few (usually seasonal) side promotional arts things that aren't really meant to be taken seriously as canon. (Frankly, not much is meant to be taken seriously as canon, anyway, other than that these girls are representatives of ships, and stop thinking too hard about the metaphysics of that. DMM, as people have mentioned many times before, did not think very long and hard about their world-building, and are now stuck with a mish-mash of ideas they have to paper over to keep from falling apart.)
And again, what is the alternative? This is a World War 2 game, the bloodiest war in human history, where events are explicitly based upon actual battles of the war. Either they can talk about the actual context of the war where you can choose to play either the side that is putting POWs through Bataan Death Marches, and the other is rounding up people by race and throwing them into internment camps or firebombing millions of civilians to death... or they can make a fairy tail version of the war where violence can magically solve all your problems and make everyone live happily ever after.
The problem you're claiming is that things are TOO happy, and suddenly, you need to see blood and gore if you're going to believe they're actually bad guys, or else you'll side with whichever group has the cutest girl? That blatantly defeats the point of the whole "bloodless war" motif they're going for. If you spend any time thinking about it, you KNOW you'd hate it if you ever got what you were asking for, at that. A playable abyssal side would be like playing as "the Terrorists" in a modern shooter game, where any plot they were given would be to rip body parts off of shipgirls and stick new parasitic metal parts on until they go insane and start killing everything in sight. I mean, it's not like this character isn't explicitly meant to be the "evil" versions of I-13 and I-14, which you get to keep safe and sound and as happy as they can get in your base afterwards. You think the mournful/hateful/screaming in agony, chained-up, parasite-out-of-their-stomach versions of shipgirls are supposed to be the happy, cheerful version?
They are not going to give you a happy abyssal side, and what little scraps of happy abyssals exist now because they figure people don't ask too many questions. If there are tons of people saying that the villains aren't evil enough, and start questioning the shipgirls too much, then the response will just be, "OK, let's make the abyssals even more evil and suffer more until they stop asking questions."
Horseshit. There isn't a nation or culture in the world that doesn't try to say their way of doing whatever they do isn't the best way of doing that thing. People just get angry when other groups say their shit is better than your shit.
Not really, look at USA during Vietnam for example. The amount of people who were against their military involvement and the backlash after the war was massive. Some governments might like the idea of portraying their nation as the side who's always fighting for justice/liberty/whatever and making previous military conflicts look way more black and white that what they actually were but a lot of people are aware or research about the economical and political background that led to war instead of believing their side were the good guys. You have people who now think about war as something in which the people in power will tell any story including lies to their soldiers in order to have them agree on going to war and die for causes they don't truly understand and have usually way more to do with economical needs or power struggles among the people in power instead of a common enemy or threat for their entire faction which couldn't be more different to a white and black conflict.
Horseshit. There isn't a nation or culture in the world that doesn't try to say their way of doing whatever they do isn't the best way of doing that thing. People just get angry when other groups say their shit is better than your shit.
If you're talking about something more trivial like sports or food I might agree, not with warfare though since there's plenty of people against the military activities of their own country both form the past and present.
They did create that story; you're just deliberately ignoring it.
The story is that the abyssals are vengeful ghosts who suffer endless torment because of the legacy of World War 2 until the player comes along and purifies their regrets so they can finally be at peace.
And is it wrong to feel sorry(my entire point) for someone tied to that cruel fate with no chance of saving them without sinking and making them suffer even more first?
You're ignoring the fact that most of the abyssals do nothing but scream about how they want to "sink" (kill) everyone they meet, chant Madness Mantras, or keep talking about how painful existing is, simply because you only want to focus on a few (usually seasonal) side promotional arts things that aren't really meant to be taken seriously as canon. (Frankly, not much is meant to be taken seriously as canon, anyway, other than that these girls are representatives of ships, and stop thinking too hard about the metaphysics of that. DMM, as people have mentioned many times before, did not think very long and hard about their world-building, and are now stuck with a mish-mash of ideas they have to paper over to keep from falling apart.)
I'm not ignoring it, I did mention their mental instability before, someone who's being cursed to inherit nothing but grudges and hates her own existence doesn't sound like someone truly evil to me but someone with a horrible fate who I would prefer to give some emotional and mental help instead of putting a bullet to her brain.
And again, what is the alternative? This is a World War 2 game, the bloodiest war in human history, where events are explicitly based upon actual battles of the war. Either they can talk about the actual context of the war where you can choose to play either the side that is putting POWs through Bataan Death Marches, and the other is rounding up people by race and throwing them into internment camps or firebombing millions of civilians to death... or they can make a fairy tail version of the war where violence can magically solve all your problems and make everyone live happily ever after.
A game based on WW2 in which you have a happy harem of cute girls who live mostly happy and fun lives, have lighthearted personalities, fight using cute chibi magical people and as long as they don't sink they'll only be shown in a sexy/comical pose when they receive serious damage. But I guess it's totally impossible to give a less miserable existence to the abyssals because reasons.
The problem you're claiming is that things are TOO happy, and suddenly, you need to see blood and gore if you're going to believe they're actually bad guys, or else you'll side with whichever group has the cutest girl? That blatantly defeats the point of the whole "bloodless war" motif they're going for. If you spend any time thinking about it, you KNOW you'd hate it if you ever got what you were asking for, at that. A playable abyssal side would be like playing as "the Terrorists" in a modern shooter game, where any plot they were given would be to rip body parts off of shipgirls and stick new parasitic metal parts on until they go insane and start killing everything in sight. I mean, it's not like this character isn't explicitly meant to be the "evil" versions of I-13 and I-14, which you get to keep safe and sound and as happy as they can get in your base afterwards. You think the mournful/hateful/screaming in agony, chained-up, parasite-out-of-their-stomach versions of shipgirls are supposed to be the happy, cheerful version?
Never said I wanted to see more gore, I don't think you need gore and blood to convince me of how despicable a villain is. Things are too happy for one side and utterly bleak for the other, I don't see why it would be weird for some people to feel more sorry for the side who had the crueler fate and when the difference in tone is so wide specially if this is supposed to be a bloodless war. Also playable abyssals sound cool as long as they don't go full exaggerated doujin with it, but recruitable abyssals sounds better to me since I prefer redemption and helping a grudgeful person control her rage, this sounds specially better to me than sinking and making the "evil" version suffer only to receive a human counterpart that might not resemble her other self that much or lack part of what got my attention in the first place.
They are not going to give you a happy abyssal side, and what little scraps of happy abyssals exist now because they figure people don't ask too many questions. If there are tons of people saying that the villains aren't evil enough, and start questioning the shipgirls too much, then the response will just be, "OK, let's make the abyssals even more evil and suffer more until they stop asking questions."
Sadly I think the developers are just going to ignore the part of the fanbase that likes the abyssals and want to save them without destroying them or having them turn into shipgirls.
Sadly I think the developers are just going to ignore the part of the fanbase that likes the abyssals and want to save them without destroying them or having them turn into shipgirls.
Point: Engine limitations.
It'd be nice, but then it'll royally screw the game mechanics and make the coders weep blood trying to balance all of these different codes to make the front end look not shitty.
I think it's pretty obvious that some fans don't like that there's no way to truly save the abyssals since the only way turns them into someone similar yet different at the same time so it leaves a bad "close yet so far" taste on their mouth. Even if the personalities of the abyssals are more basic than the shipgirls' I can't help but to sometimes like the abyssal self a bit more.
I think in a perfect world, the player would also save and take the abyssal to HQ in where she would slowly leave grudges behind and develop a more sane and stable personality with time, that would be cute to see.
You know someone can be sympathetic and still be bad. Even if the Abyss show some emotion and might be pitiable to an extent if they're going around attacking and presumably killing anyone that happens across them, which by all indications they are, they're still monsters. They're hardly the first villain to gain a fanbase, but that doesn't really entail that the writers are under any obligation to cater to that niche. Particularly since sudden ass pull redemption or being allowed to basically evade consequence for past horrific actions tend to be a good way to infuriate an audience.
I've always had a very Utilitarianist point of view about ethics though, and sometimes just killing something is overall the best solution to a problem. Some of the Abyssals might indeed be pitiable even bordering on sympathetic in a handful of cases, but they're still by all indications inherently violent and beyond any form of help that wouldn't essentially be death anyway. I certainly wouldn't advocate torture or cruelty against them or the like, but it's not like they can be allowed to continue to exist violently attacking anyone that happens across them. They're basically like a large predatory animal that's started eating people, it's aggressive and predatory by it's nature, not by choice so ethically it can't really be held accountable for it's actions, and perhaps it's reason for starting these actions are understandable and sympathetic; it's injured, or starving, etc but at the same time it can't be allowed to continue them either and because it's predatory nature is a wired instinct that cannot be reasoned away the options for dealing with the issue basically amount to "destroy it".
It's unfortunate it has to be destroyed, but at the same time it's not like you can just let it go around eating people out of some absurdly misguided since of sympathy or pity. Perhaps it is unfortunate the Abyssals must be killed, but they can't be allowed to simply roam the seas killing anyone they come across either.
I think people find that way too dark when compared to the overall feel of the game so not everyone like it since it starts feeling more like putting girls with severe traumas who never choose to be reincarnations of the grudges of dead sailors out of their misery instead of a heroic war. Personally, I would be ok with this kind of enemy force in a more serious franchise but it's a bit hard not to feel a bit wrong when almost everything else in the game is set on a completely different vibe.
I think people find that way too dark when compared to the overall feel of the game so not everyone like it since it starts feeling more like putting girls with severe traumas who never choose to be reincarnations of the grudges of dead sailors out of their misery instead of a heroic war. Personally, I would be ok with this kind of enemy force in a more serious franchise but it's a bit hard not to feel a bit wrong when almost everything else in the game is set on a completely different vibe.
Pretty much looking at the different vibes and tones gave me schizophrenia maybe
I think people find that way too dark when compared to the overall feel of the game so not everyone like it since it starts feeling more like putting girls with severe traumas who never choose to be reincarnations of the grudges of dead sailors out of their misery instead of a heroic war. Personally, I would be ok with this kind of enemy force in a more serious franchise but it's a bit hard not to feel a bit wrong when almost everything else in the game is set on a completely different vibe.
To me this is merely a case of people just being forced to think a bit IMO.If you apply even a midcoum of deeper thought to the ship girls themselves they start to look very dark as well.
Their are really two options for how the ship girls come about: They were normal woman somehow modified or they're entirely new constructs. You can have variations of the specifics on those themes, but those are the basic options and both have some seriously uncomfortable ethical questions. If the former you've basically got a super soldier program where you are massively altering peoples bodies and by all indications their minds to some extent with new memories that are not their own. If the later you're basically breeding purpose built soldiers to fight and die for you, these girls could be born, trained, and dead within months in some cases having never known any life beyond their purpose as a weapon. That's pretty fucking dark.
Allot of the ships are child-like jokes about them being 80 aside it's pretty clear that any actual mental evaluation of a number of destroyers would class them as mentally equivalent to middle school children. They're sent to the front to kill and possibly die anyway. If you chose the 'host body' option this could become outright sadistic, that would imply you were taking and modifying actual regular young children for your super solider program. A slightly better option B is they start as adult volunteers but are mentally and physically stunted by the 'construction' process into the body and mind of a child. Though this would likely then imply that almost every ship girl is psychically altered to a major degree and possibly has her personalty almost completely rearranged. Congratulations either way you are now basically a supervillian.
What happens when they sink? The anime seems to imply they're just dead and can't be replaced if that's the case you'd have only a comparative handful of ships, so few that you simply could not afford to have say Yamato decide she was a conscientious objector. They'd be drafted and compelled to fight. Combine that with a setting where they're basically born as adults in a new body and this starts to look really bad, like slavery bad.
If you have a setting that allows duplicates congrats now you have many of the above issues AND the problems of cooping with being just one of a pile of interchangeable, identical looking weapons. But good news since you're no longer unique you're not nearly as valuable so those in charge are much more likely to risk you in combat and have much less reason to give you special treatment in general! Still, at least a universe like this might have enough ship girls that it can afford to allow them some to retire or decline service so there is that.
And I'm not even getting into the other ways you could come up with some really dark interpretations of various things without much effort scraping, modernization, how and to what degree ship memories are experienced, how they'd likely all be wounded on a fairly regular basis and can clearly feel pain, etc There is some really dark KC fanon out their and it's honestly just as plausible as most of the SoL stuff, maybe more so in some cases. All it takes is a few seconds of consideration IMO to see that when you really pause to think about it, some of this stuff is almost inescapably messy and fucked up.
TheMadsAdmiral said:
More like "Welcome to Hell Admiral Walker."
"Do you feel like a hero yet?"
As and aside this crap always makes me roll my eyes. That entire sequence everyone always memes about was IMO a classic case of "but thought MUST be a moron for the game to progress!". It basically forced you to do something stupid giving you no choice in the matter in order to progress and then tried to make you feel bad about it after railroading you. Sorry that's not how it works, for this to work you need to give the player a CHOICE. Just splashing what amounts to "PRESS X TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES" on the screen and then going "YOU MONSTER! LOOK WHAT WE TOLD YOU TO DO!" five minute later is not the same thing.
The intent was solid, games are unique in that they can give the player agency in events, and if the situation is well crafted the fact that THEY choose something can make whatever message was to be conveyed more powerful then simply watching in unfold in say a move would. This is something only games can really do, but it's not easy. If you simply railroad the player into the option you want the agency is gone, it's not different then watching a moive, you merely need to press certain buttons to advance the scene. There needs to be a real choice for this to work, but since most players aren't manics or stupid that choice has to seem to make sense to them. Either you need to craft a situation in which even something extreme seems reasonable only to bring in factors that might make you question it later, or one where something that seems reasonable turns out not to be.
This shit isn't easy or in many cases perhaps possible at all, and in my view that scene in Spec Ops fails miserably in the attempt. If you want to see what some properly constructed conundrums where all the answers kind of suck actually looks like go play the Witcher 3 IMO.
laisy said:
How can you be on the right, when you are on the left? Sorry, can't help it.
Let's just say that the justification of being "right" depends on perspective.
Only if you insist on being a pedantic contrarian. I dare you to find me someone that doesn't fall into that category that will seriously argue the war against Nazi Germany was not right. Just because SOME wars aren't fought for good reasons doesn't mean NONE of them are.
Only if you insist on being a pedantic contrarian. I dare you to find me someone that doesn't fall into that category that will seriously argue the war against Nazi Germany was not right. Just because SOME wars aren't fought for good reasons doesn't mean NONE of them are.
What is right or wrong does depend on perspective as laisy said. History is told by the winners after all.
From a purely natural perspective, exterminating minorities IS a valid survival strategy as you are eliminating competition for resources. It works pretty much the same with rape, which IS a valid reproductive strategy in a purely natural perspective and isn't uncommon in animals. For them, it's right. For the others, maybe not so much.
To me this is merely a case of people just being forced to think a bit IMO.If you apply even a midcoum of deeper thought to the ship girls themselves they start to look very dark as well.
[...]
To answer the first bullet point, I haven't seen anything clear, but it seems likely that the KanColle Fantasy Comicalize series, which has them as regular girls that happen to be possessed by magic spirits that let them wear equipment externally ("Saint Seiya" gets mentioned a lot, here...) seems closest to what they're doing with the "super soldier" program theory. This manages to let them stay non-invasive with it (or at least, without anything painful in the case of having a ship-ghost inside you). Comicalize also has the death -> abyssalization, abyssal death -> rehumanification thing going on.
The other option, which is more common among the more gameplay walkthrough (that is, skews towards gameplay mechanics) holds shipgirls as somewhat closer to the fairies or even robots, where they are constructed with humanoid expressions, but not whole humanity... and as for the "they might die knowing nothing but war" part, then the "they just turn into abyssals and turn back again when you blast their abyssal form" part can actually deal with that fairly well.
To go onto the second bullet point, "they're basically robots" solves any problem about their bodies being "young" inasmuch as it's humane to build sentient, feeling AIs that are built for war at all. So far as "they're schoolgirls possessed by a ship's spirit and memories" goes, well, it's not like Gundam and Evangelion haven't done worse... Still, they tend to make a point of it being voluntary, at the very least, but it seems that ship spirit wants to fight, and that just raises questions of how much free will from those girls, themselves is being subverted by the ship spirit. (Although, since there is no deliberate mechanism by which the Navy is actually doing this - the spirits just seem to do it all by themselves, that means they can conveniently reap the benefits without any of the responsibility.)
Onto the third bullet point, the notion of "they are born wanting to fight" is, again, a (somewhat too) convenient way of dealing with this. Either they're manufactured war machines that fight because that's the only thing they know how to do, or they are compelled by their memories to fight... at least for the most part, excepting Inazuma... well, what she SAYS, anyway... The admiralty can basically say it's an all-volunteer force and tell them they don't have to stay and fight if they don't have to, but the spirits compel them to do so on their own.
As for the fourth, in that case, it can be seen as something more like "qualifications" for the spirit of the ship. As in, there's one, say, Inazuma ship spirit, but it could reside in any of hundreds of different potential candidates, possibly being free to enter and leave at will to find the best host for a given time. (This would also help with the "their age is based upon ship size" thing - they may be restricted to a general age range, and have to leave a host when they get too old/large for their class. Hypothetically, this could lead to Kiyoshimo's host actually growing up to be a host for Musashi later on...) Granted, this opens up some new questions with the "abyssalization" and "purification" process, since it's possible just the spirit is purified, while the abyssalized host might have been too chopped to giblets during 'abyssalization' to turn back into a human and require a "fresh" host. In any case, just having a potential replacement doesn't mean that a highly compatible host isn't valuable. Just take Evangelion, and the classroom of kids who have some degree of compatibility as an example, where the difference between compatibility from one to the next is clearly large enough to make a significant difference in combat power.
As for "getting injured all the time and feeling pain," Comicalize also goes out of its way to make that lighter and softer by saying that the "magic cloth" of their shipgirl outfits magically take all the damage (and also cause clothing damage) so that the girls are unscathed.
Ultimately, it's such a Rorschach, though, that it's exactly as dark as people want it to be. "A destroyer's destiny" is deliberately quite dark, while "Comicalize" is basically a magic girl show that has some pseudo-death in it, but also has Inazuma come out as one of the strongest destroyers because she learns a very special lesson about believing in herself and The Power of Friendship.
Again, I'd look at this CG, and just say that I-14 is remembering the loss of I-13 now, but if you finish off I-14 and put her back in human form, she gets to be back with her sister in a happier form. Yeah, there's some screaming in the meantime, but if you've ever had to take a kid to get their immunizations, or just plain take a splinter out or remove a bandaid, sometimes just holding them down and getting it over with no matter their protestations will make them much happier in the long run.
TK3997 said:
As and aside this crap always makes me roll my eyes. That entire sequence everyone always memes about was IMO a classic case of "but thought MUST be a moron for the game to progress!". It basically forced you to do something stupid giving you no choice in the matter in order to progress and then tried to make you feel bad about it after railroading you. Sorry that's not how it works, for this to work you need to give the player a CHOICE. Just splashing what amounts to "PRESS X TO COMMIT WAR CRIMES" on the screen and then going "YOU MONSTER! LOOK WHAT WE TOLD YOU TO DO!" five minute later is not the same thing.
The intent was solid, games are unique in that they can give the player agency in events, and if the situation is well crafted the fact that THEY choose something can make whatever message was to be conveyed more powerful then simply watching in unfold in say a move would. This is something only games can really do, but it's not easy. If you simply railroad the player into the option you want the agency is gone, it's not different then watching a moive, you merely need to press certain buttons to advance the scene. There needs to be a real choice for this to work, but since most players aren't manics or stupid that choice has to seem to make sense to them. Either you need to craft a situation in which even something extreme seems reasonable only to bring in factors that might make you question it later, or one where something that seems reasonable turns out not to be.
OK, this is getting even more off-topic, and it's likely to be long, so...
Show
While on one level, yes, getting mad at the game is kind of the point, one a couple of other, probably more important levels, you're really missing the message, here, if that's all you get mad at. The purpose of that piece is to both highlight the distinction between yourself as a player and the character you play, but also to make you ask why you have this super-realistic world, but no means of interacting with it in any way other than moving to objective markers and murdering the inhabitants of this world. Walker could have been a hero if he had some means of actually solving the problems he faced. But the problem he faced was a lack of water, and the only tools at his disposal was explosives and guns for blowing up water trucks and killing the people trying to drive them. The point of the story is that he was doomed by the way he chose to approach it, just as the game is trying to say that there just isn't any way to make running around killing everything that moves into being a "real hero", while dismissing all the people who actually do help in warfare.
SpecOps: The Line, much more critically, isn't so much blaming you, as a player, for something you did in-game that you had no choice in as much as it's blaming the genre of first-person shooters for not giving you that choice to start with. However, that's still a little too simple...
To go back a step, I think the name is the best place to start; SpecOps: The Line isn't about some big line in the actual action, and it's not explicitly pointed out what "The Line" is. "The Line" in this context exists as a divider. You'd think right off the bat that it would be about "crossing the line", as in between what's good and what's bad, or heroism and villainy, and there is that in the game, but it actually applies to something more basic. The whole point in SpecOps: The Line is that there are whole lists of opposites and things that are meant to be clearly demarcated that stop being clearly separate. That is, this isn't so much about "crossing the line" as it is about "blurring the line". This happens most flagrantly with the line between delusion and reality for Walker being flagrantly blurred when he starts shooting at phantoms or otherwise being incapable of separating what he actually sees and what is just in his head. It also happens with the game, itself, when more and more overtly "Gamey" elements appear in your interface, like health bars for enemies that start all looking the same - that's there to show The Blurring of The Line between realism and games.
SpecOps: The Line tells three main layers of stories, talking about each of them, but at the same time, asking you, as a player, to be able to maintain The Line between them, lest they get blurred. The criticism the game has is that people don't maintain The Line, that people don't think critically enough about the distinctions between these different stories.
The First Layer is the base-level, literal story about Walker and his team. When someone says to Walker, the literal character in this story, that he had a choice, then yes, Walker DID have a hypothetical choice that he didn't take. Walker, the character in a narrative, is not constrained by the game limitations within his own world. Walker isn't forced by checkpoints or impassible knee-high walls. Walker absolutely could have chosen to simply turn around and walk back out as were his express orders at the outset that he chose to ignore, and saying "but then it wouldn't be a good game" is no excuse inside the narrative of the world, itself, because, once again, that's Blurring The Line between the narrative as a work of fiction that works inside its own continuity, and itself as a game first and foremost.
After all, the developers of the game chose to make it a "realistic war shooter". They could have chosen to make a goofy Quake Arena-style shooter where the over-the-top blood and guts have no meaning, but that isn't what they chose because - and this is the important part - players made those sorts of games popular, so this was the type of game corporate headquarters and shareholders wanted. The point of the game is to parody and deconstruct these unrealistic aspects of "realistic" games, but it does so in a bloody and straight-faced way, taking seriously all the things people just take as an acceptable break from reality, while other people think all parodies or deconstructions must be "funny" to count.
To apply this to the rest of gaming, the point is about The Line between this fantasy of games and reality. The game is literally blaming Walker for his decisions, but not you, the player. In the in-game narrative, the game is calling Walker a terrible person, but in the loading screen text, the only text that is directly addressed to you, directly, as a player, it assures you that "you're still a good person". Its purpose is to force the distinction between your character and yourself as a player. After all, if you're controlling Batman running people over in the Batmobile in Arkam Knight, being a crazed lunatic killer but still somehow being the hero for it, you don't have any trouble telling the difference between your objective-hunting playstyle or doing things just to see if you can get away with it in a game, and the actual narrative of the game that declares you a hero no matter how violently you've played. You don't question the line between all your lollygagging about in Skyrim and actually saving the world from dragon attacks because the game is meant to go at your pace, no matter what the narrative says about time being of the essence. SpecOps: The Line just makes this distinction uncomfortable so that you question it more seriously.
This, in turn, conflicts with The Second Layer of SpecOps: The Line's (meta-)narrative, which is that of you, as the player. When the game blames Walker for his choices, then when "your character" says that he "didn't have a choice", then he's right - you really didn't have a choice... other than not playing the game at all. Which the game contends, is the real choice. In fact, it's the most important choice to the people that made the game, and that's what it's trying to highlight. SpecOps was a mediocre tactical shooter franchise that was bought out and farmed to a different company by a corporation that didn't get hands-on with development because it looked at market data, and decided that Call of Duty was The Hot Thing, and wanted to make a Me Too! game to cash in on being a copycat. When the company looked at what was asked of them, and what their budget was, they realized the only way to make a game that would have any real impact was to make something that subverted and deconstructed the genre. (The fact that SpecOps has multiplayer at all is testament to this - the company that made the game refused to make a multiplayer deathmatch mode because it flew directly in the face of the point the game was making, but corporate just took the game away and gave it to another company to slap on a deathmatch multiplayer mode, anyway, because hey, that's what Call of Duty does, right?!)
When you complain that you "don't have a choice", that you have no means of interacting with the world but moving around or killing things, then the game is saying, "Yes, that actually WAS your (collective game-buying public) choice. The sort of game where you do nothing but kill everything IS what you have chosen to buy again and again and again until it is the only thing that publishers are willing to fund." You had a choice of thousands of games you can play, but you chose to play the "gritty realistic war shooter", whether sight-unseen just because you like "gritty realistic war shooters" or because you heard the criticism, and wanted to actually see what all the talk was about.
And this notion of having a choice you don't normally think you have because you are thinking within the constraints of the game's narrative is actually reinforced with the game's mechanics. The game's mechanics have forced linear progression even when it doesn't make sense. (such as when you go through a subway, only to open up to open air where you see you're in a blasted skyscraper, having to zipline back underground again, only to go through another subway only to find THAT subway leads to another skyscraper where you have to zipline down yet further...) This is due most directly to budgetary and linear narrative concerns, but also to stand in contrast to the choices you DO have. It wants you to question WHY you have to march down a straight line to someone else's story, and only pick from among the choices someone else gives you. For example, in the scene where the crowd is advancing, you can shoot at the crowd, which the game wants to make seem is your only choice... but you can fire up in the air to disperse the crowd, so it really wasn't your only choice, just the only choice that the narrative led you to believe you had. The game also makes fun of binary choices in games, by giving you a "choice" between shooting one of two thieves, but then also giving you the hidden choices of shooting at the snipers or just walking on by without choosing... and then sneaking in the fact that your choice really didn't matter at all, because the consequence would always be the same. (Gee, just like a certain complaint about multiple-choice questions in other games, isn't it?) In The Stanley Parable, there's likewise the "real person" ending you get from unhooking the phone that involves a "public service announcement" type movie about choices, asking people how many "choices" they make in a day. It's a deconstruction of the notion that "choices" in games only count when they are in binary good-or-evil, linearly-scripted events, but apparently we have no choices over all the OTHER actions we take in a game? If the only time you had a choice was during that "shoot one of the thieves" section that makes no difference, then why is it you get mad that the game makes you take responsibility (I.E. "blames you"), for a bad outcome in the game, but you never seem to complain when the game is making you take responsibility (I.E. "praises you") for how you saved the day? If one is invalid, doesn't that necessitate the other is invalid? The game is mocking the notion of the power fantasy.
And this is where it really wants to cut deep, because it's saying there's an even more important line between fantasy and reality that gets blurred, here. Full Spectrum Warrior was a game released by the U.S. Army around this time for the explicit purpose of being a recruiting tool. Call of Duty at this time was releasing Modern Warfare games that basically praised the methods of warfare practiced by the likes of Donald Rumsfeld to the point of actually using quotes from him in the loading screens to "set the tone" of the game. Modern Warfare is a game where terrorism can only be stopped "by fighting them over there so we don't get nuked over here." SpecOps: The Line wants to cut into this narrative that somehow going to strange new places and killing everyone who lives there is automatically equated to heroism so long as you're a square-jawed white American male while you do it, because it believes there's an even more important Blurring of The Line between Fantasy and Reality taking place, here.
This, then, brings us into the Third Layer of SpecOps: The Line's narrative. (Or in this case, the meta-meta-narrative.) Much has been made of the allusions to Apocalypse Now!/Heart of Darkness, but while there is a Colonel Kurtz/Konrad, "Walker" isn't a character in either of those stories. So where did they come up with the name for Walker? Well, what's the "W" stand for in George "W." Bush? In the lead-up to the Iraq War, as well as when dealing with issues like torture, the major proponents of the war and torture kept relying upon fictional media to explain what they were doing in reality. They explicitly called back to the TV show 24, and its "ticking time bombs" to explain how torture worked in fiction while completely ignoring all evidence in reality. SpecOps: The Line is laying blame for that both on media for being careless about its glorification of a "tough guy" macho persona that solves all their problems through violence, but also the audience for not being more critical of this sort of thing to the point where it can be used as propaganda against them. It's making the claim that people are treating a real-life war where people are actually losing their lives because they only understand war through the medium of video games, and blood and death there has no permanent consequence. Keep in mind, nobody was complaining that the "villains" you were shooting the whole time in SpecOps: The Line were your fellow American soldiers. It's basically saying, "You don't care WHO you're killing, you just want someone to tell you you're a hero for doing it!"
And the rest of the criticisms against "Walker" are honestly being leveled against "W", as well. SpecOps: The Line says Walker could have been a hero, but only if he'd thought to bring anything other than a gun. Because the problems facing Walker were many, but very, very few of them could have genuinely been solved with force and violence, alone. The game is leveling a criticism that there was a choice, he didn't have to go in. That even if he did go in, he didn't have to bring nothing but weapons and try to solve all his problems by just shooting them. He still could have been a hero if he'd just thought to bring along water, or try to take a step back to analyze things a little longer, or spent more time focusing on keeping the civilians safe and secure through means other than just trying to find some "bad guys" and shooting them.
And the symbolism here couldn't be clearer, "Walker" is chasing after a war hero father figure (who even has photos up on the wall that clearly recall Desert Storm/Shield) to become a hero, himself, but failing miserably because he couldn't manage to prevent The Blurring of The Line Between Fantasy and Reality. He confused "heroism" with just "killing the bad guys", and failed to realize that killing people isn't heroic, the act of saving people is heroic, but that isn't the part with the shooty bang-bang, it's the part with the less glamorous jobs of repairing infrastructure when the shooty bang-bang is over. And because of that, he fell through the blurring line between Fantasy and Reality, Heroism and Villainy. As Walker tries to shift blame for how everything is spiraling out of control by saying he "didn't have a choice", The Line blurs further and further, making him less capable in the next decision to make a real determination of what is real and what is fantasy, causing him to make worse and worse decisions as he goes on. The constant, even impossible, downward slope that the character traverses is this sinking "Walker" made into a quagmire... just like the Vietnam alluded to in Apocalypse Now!...
Oh, and there's plenty of YouTube videos covering the game, as it's great fodder for critics to use when talking about what's wrong with other games. Errant Signal and Extra Credits did my favorite analysis.
Tk3997 said:
Only if you insist on being a pedantic contrarian. I dare you to find me someone that doesn't fall into that category that will seriously argue the war against Nazi Germany was not right. Just because SOME wars aren't fought for good reasons doesn't mean NONE of them are.
I'll bet Nazis didn't particularly like how people fought back against them. For that matter, American Neo Nazis will tell you that America fought on the wrong side of that war.
The argument there was one of "justification" to an individual. That isn't the same as denying such a thing as an absolute morality.
EDIT: And TK3997 was downvoted too for the "sin" of trying to address the topic seriously. I do hate how comments threads turn into Reddit where people just downvote "the other side" whenever someone tries to have a serious discussion against people just shouting slogans.
What is right or wrong does depend on perspective as laisy said. History is told by the winners after all.
From a purely natural perspective, exterminating minorities IS a valid survival strategy as you are eliminating competition for resources. It works pretty much the same with rape, which IS a valid reproductive strategy in a purely natural perspective and isn't uncommon in animals. For them, it's right. For the others, maybe not so much.
Except that only works in a world where humans are mindless ants that only think and believe whatever the all-powerful ruler thinks and believes.
There is no such thing as a "purely natural perspective". Predators don't go around killing off males so the strongest surviving male can form an uber-harem. Herbivores don't form herds for the sake of hunting down and eliminating other competing herbivores herds.
Except that only works in a world where humans are mindless ants that only think and believe whatever the all-powerful ruler thinks and believes.
We can only afford to consider the moral aspects of an action because we live in a world with relatively abundant resources compared to the old times where most of your time was spent looking for food instead. If your resources are limited, you either kill whatever is close to you, or you are the one killed instead.
MMaestro said:
There is no such thing as a "purely natural perspective". Predators don't go around killing off males so the strongest surviving male can form an uber-harem.
You need to consider that it's more energy efficient to sufficiently beat the hell out of your direct competitor for a female than spending worthless energy chasing and trying to kill it for good. Just because there are other males around does not mean that they will all, at the same time, be competing for your particular female. Nature is all about energy conservation.
MMaestro said:
Herbivores don't form herds for the sake of hunting down and eliminating other competing herbivores herds.
You are absolutely right. They form herds because it increases their chances of survival. If those animals are not genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors, they will not do it.
Darkagma said: We can only afford to consider the moral aspects of an action because we live in a world with relatively abundant resources compared to the old times where most of your time was spent looking for food instead. If your resources are limited, you either kill whatever is close to you, or you are the one killed instead.
And yet history has shown that to be the near exact opposite. When resources are limited, people/countries are less inclined to fight BECAUSE they have limited resources to fight with.
And if you want to talk about microscale, by that logic; murder rates would skyrocket among the poor and homeless if food shelters were to become underfunded/undersupplied/closed. Killing the homeless bum next to you so there's more food in the food shelter for yourself is not the first alternative to starvation.
Darkagma said: You need to consider that it's more energy efficient to sufficiently beat the hell out of your direct competitor for a female than spending worthless energy chasing and trying to kill it for good. Just because there are other males around does not mean that they will all, at the same time, be competing for your particular female. Nature is all about energy conservation.
Except thats not a, in your words, "valid survival strategy". Leaving a direct competitor alive DECREASES your chances of survival. Not only does it pose a threat to your personal safety, it also means you're not, again in your words, "eliminating competition for resources".
Darkagma said: You are absolutely right. They form herds because it increases their chances of survival. If those animals are not genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors, they will not do it.
Except that completely invalidates your, "purely natural perspective". Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources". Theres only so much trees to graze on. Why not snap the legs of a couple other herbivores and have that tree all for yourself?
In all your excepts so far, I believe you are assuming that every single living being goes into a mindless killing spree. I think you are generalizing that every single living being has only that specific survival strategy. Please, correct me if I am wrong.
MMaestro said:
And yet history has shown that to be the near exact opposite. When resources are limited, people/countries are less inclined to fight BECAUSE they have limited resources to fight with.
These are only some of the human stuff. I assume you recognize that it happens with animals just fine ("rats cannibalism" is a good search term).
MMaestro said:
And if you want to talk about microscale, by that logic; murder rates would skyrocket among the poor and homeless if food shelters were to become underfunded/undersupplied/closed. Killing the homeless bum next to you so there's more food in the food shelter for yourself is not the first alternative to starvation.
Can it be the second, third, or maybe the fourth alternative? I assume we are talking about limited resources here.
MMaestro said:
Except thats not a, in your words, "valid survival strategy". Leaving a direct competitor alive DECREASES your chances of survival. Not only does it pose a threat to your personal safety, it also means you're not, again in your words, "eliminating competition for resources".
This one needs to be split into logical statements. Assuming that whatever goes after the first sentence is the proof for your first sentence, that would be (-> means "implies"):
A) Leaving a direct competitor alive (A1) -> DECREASES your chances of survival (A2) B) Leaving a direct competitor alive (A1) -> Not only does it pose a threat to your personal safety (B1) C) Leaving a direct competitor alive (A1) -> it also means you're not [...] "eliminating competition for resources". (C1)
Hence, D) Leaving a direct competitor (A1) -> not a [...] "valid survival strategy" (D1)
Simplifying your proof, C can be ignored because you are stating the obvious: if you are not eliminating the competition, you are not eliminating the competition.
That leaves us with:
A) A1 -> A2 B) A1 -> B1 hence, D) A1 -> D1
Said proof is equivalent to:
mammals (A1) -> are vertebrate (A2) mammals (A1) -> are endothermic (B1) hence, mammals (A1) -> are birds (D1)
If you can agree that "mammals are birds", I can agree with you that "leaving a direct competitor -> is not a valid survival strategy".
I will not go into detail of the fact that you are not addressing the potential higher payoff of leaving your foe live compared to chasing it to the ends of the earth.
MMaestro said:
Except that completely invalidates your, "purely natural perspective". Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources". Theres only so much trees to graze on. Why not snap the legs of a couple other herbivores and have that tree all for yourself?
I believe you are claiming that it "completely invalidates" my "purely natural perspective" because:
Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources"
So if I say:
Being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly corroborates "eliminating competition for resources"
I "completely invalidate" your argument as well by removing one word and replacing another. We are both stating opposite sides of the same coin (truth). Perhaps this is a matter of perspective.
In all your excepts so far, I believe you are assuming that every single living being goes into a mindless killing spree. I think you are generalizing that every single living being has only that specific survival strategy. Please, correct me if I am wrong.
You are wrong. You were the one who generalized that every single living being has only that specific survival strategy.
Darkagma said: We can only afford to consider the moral aspects of an action because we live in a world with relatively abundant resources compared to the old times where most of your time was spent looking for food instead. If your resources are limited, you either kill whatever is close to you, or you are the one killed instead.
Resources are always limited because we don't live in a hypothetical world where resources are infinite. Therefore, according to you, all living beings should be inclined to kill each other for resources.
These are only some of the human stuff. I assume you recognize that it happens with animals just fine ("rats cannibalism" is a good search term).
The USA oil embargo followed several years of formal complaints, the implementation of trade restrictions and termination of trade treaties with Japan. The oil embargo was nothing more than the straw that broke the camel's back.
The Cod War and Lobster War were diplomatic disputes that were resolved (mostly) peacefully. I'm not sure why you're citing these cases.
I'm not sure why you're citing a case where thousands of people were imprisoned on a deserted island and left to die.
Darkagma said: Can it be the second, third, or maybe the fourth alternative? I assume we are talking about limited resources here.
Sure, if you're God and can magically recreate the exact scenario with the exact same actors under the exact same conditions so we can repeat the experiment multiple times to find said second, third and fourth alternatives.
Darkagma said: This one needs to be split into logical statements.
Congratulations. You solved a formula by constructing a straw man.
Darkagma said: I "completely invalidate" your argument as well by removing one word and replacing another. We are both stating opposite sides of the same coin (truth). Perhaps this is a matter of perspective.
That was never my argument. It was yours.
Darkagma said: We can only afford to consider the moral aspects of an action because we live in a world with relatively abundant resources compared to the old times where most of your time was spent looking for food instead. If your resources are limited, you either kill whatever is close to you, or you are the one killed instead.
Again, resources are always limited because we don't live in a hypothetical world where resources are infinite. Therefore, according to you, all living beings should be inclined to kill each other for resources, regardless of genetics.
You are wrong. You were the one who generalized that every single living being has only that specific survival strategy.
Resources are always limited because we don't live in a hypothetical world where resources are infinite. Therefore, according to you, all living beings should be inclined to kill each other for resources.
Again, resources are always limited because we don't live in a hypothetical world where resources are infinite. Therefore, according to you, all living beings should be inclined to kill each other for resources, regardless of genetics.
I have marked the points where I think you are generalizing things. If I ever asserted that "every single being", please point me to where I said so.
The USA oil embargo followed several years of formal complaints, the implementation of trade restrictions and termination of trade treaties with Japan. The oil embargo was nothing more than the straw that broke the camel's back.
The Cod War and Lobster War were diplomatic disputes that were resolved (mostly) peacefully. I'm not sure why you're citing these cases.
I'm not sure why you're citing a case where thousands of people were imprisoned on a deserted island and left to die.
The primary causes for all of these is that resources are limited, hence, people will compete for them. If words don't solve it, they will move to actions.
Sure, if you're God and can magically recreate the exact scenario with the exact same actors under the exact same conditions so we can repeat the experiment multiple times to find said second, third and fourth alternatives.
Assume that looking for food in the garbage, eat a stray dog and eating sawdust are not available options. I would like you to try to address my argument in a serious way.
Congratulations. You solved a formula by constructing a straw man.
I am explaining how your proof is faulty (more precisely, incomplete), not your argument. If you have any problems with it, you can help me build proper logic.
Darkagma said: I have marked the points where I think you are generalizing things. If I ever asserted that "every single being", please point me to where I said so.
I'm not going to make a giant post filled with your own quotes.
Darkagma said: The primary causes for all of these is that resources are limited, hence, people will compete for them. If words don't solve it, they will move to actions.
The USA oil embargo on Imperial Japan and the Cannibalism in Siberia had nothing to do with limited resources.
The Cod Wars and Lobster War had less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics. Overfishing was never a concern.
Did you even read your own links?
Darkagma said: Assume that looking for food in the garbage, eat a stray dog and eating sawdust are not available options. I would like you to try to address my argument in a serious way.
Ok.
2. Drink rain water. 3. Eat grass. 4. Eat bugs.
Darkagma said: I am explaining how your proof is faulty (more precisely, incomplete), not your argument. If you have any problems with it, you can help me build proper logic.
Your proof isn't faulty. It just has nothing to do with what we're discussing.
Darkagma said: Pretty sure I didn't say it myself.
You are the very first person here to mention the word 'resources'.
EDIT: And TK3997 was downvoted too for the "sin" of trying to address the topic seriously. I do hate how comments threads turn into Reddit where people just downvote "the other side" whenever someone tries to have a serious discussion against people just shouting slogans.
He also got downvoted for suggesting that Abyssals go around eating civilians. Something that was outright stated to be done by them in one KC light novel series. I myself have too much frustration and anger from past events to even feel sympathy for the Abyssals (*cough*AA-Hime*cough*Lycoris-hime*cough*Wo-KaiFest*cough*)
He also got downvoted for suggesting that Abyssals go around eating civilians. Something that was outright stated to be done by them in one KC light novel series. I myself have too much frustration and anger from past events to even feel sympathy for the Abyssals (*cough*AA-Hime*cough*Lycoris-hime*cough*Wo-KaiFest*cough*)
I skipped "a bit" of the walls of texts but the continuity and explanations of said LN is pretty different to the game's (I'm pretty sure this is the one people were discussing) and if I remember correctly said LNs only mentioned the monstrous looking abyssals devouring people, not the human ones which are the ones people feel sympathy for.
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In other LN it's also stated that abyssals were created by humans to end war among them and focus on a common thread or something like that, and I can already imagine why people would feel sympathy for a sentient being who was created with that purpose.
But then again I can't really understand hating a character or losing sympathy for it because of the challenge it can present to the player specially in a game that relies this much on dice rolls, I think my hate would go directed to the game first or maybe the designer if it's too BS, so maybe our brains just operate in different channels.
I'm not going to make a giant post filled with your own quotes.
Perhaps because I've never said it?
The USA oil embargo on Imperial Japan and the Cannibalism in Siberia had nothing to do with limited resources.
Since you are repeating that, explain to me how it has nothing to do with limited resources. Would they even have to do that if they had all the resources they wanted?
The Cod Wars and Lobster War had less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics. Overfishing was never a concern.
They still have to compete for the same fishing areas. If it has "less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics", then: 1) explain to me why it has less to do with limited resources than economics. 2) assuming 1 is correct, it means it still has something to do with limited resources, even if at a lesser degree. 3) "Overfishing was never a concern." is a red herring as you are using something that was not mentioned before as an argument to justify dismissing both links as irrelevant.
Did you even read your own links?
Yes, I read the links myself. Thank you for your concern.
Ok.
2. Drink rain water. 3. Eat grass. 4. Eat bugs.
If you keep listing those, I believe you will eventually reach mutual starvation or cannibalism sooner or later. To prevent you from having to list all possible alternatives, I'll just ask you "would cannibalism ever be listed in your alternatives?". It's a yes or no question.
Your proof isn't faulty. It just has nothing to do with what we're discussing.
So you agree that mammals are birds? I've only reached that conclusion because I've used the same structure of your proof. If you really agree with that, I can agree with your proof even though both are incomplete. That would also end this pointless debate. Even if I tried to use a straw man fallacy, it wouldn't make sense if the proof which it is trying to refute is incomplete.
You are the very first person here to mention the word 'resources'.
Even if I did, I am pretty sure I didn't said that "Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources"" myself. You can also tell me how being "the very first person here to mention the word 'resources'" makes me the one who said "Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources"".
I skipped "a bit" of the walls of texts but the continuity and explanations of said LN is pretty different to the game's (I'm pretty sure this is the one people were discussing) and if I remember correctly said LNs only mentioned the monstrous looking abyssals devouring people, not the human ones which are the ones people feel sympathy for.
That came from the Cranes novel where Zuikaku is shown a video of Abyssal destroyers attacking a convoy and eating the unlucky fellows that landed in the water.
The LNs, or at least the Cranes novel or Kagerou Setting Sail, didn't talk about the humanoids eating people but KSS did mention about one eating ship wreckage to recover from her injuries.
That said, both novels do touch on to varying extents the consequences of the Abyssals' control over the sea. Areas that depend on ship routes for their goods and resources, like Japan, have to ration themselves, and places overrun by the Abyssals generally are not expected to have survivors after an extended period of occupation.
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In other LN it's also stated that abyssals were created by humans to end war among them and focus on a common thread or something like that, and I can already imagine why people would feel sympathy for a sentient being who was created with that purpose.
Which LN is this? Just curious because I'm quite sure the two series that I own, Kakuyoku no Kizuna (aka Cranes novel) and Kagerou, Setting Sail! don't say anything like this.
But then again I can't really understand hating a character or losing sympathy for it because of the challenge it can present to the player specially in a game that relies this much on dice rolls, I think my hate would go directed to the game first or maybe the designer if it's too BS, so maybe our brains just operate in different channels.
You have a point about hating the game over the characters, but it's hard not to feel frustrated about this ONE! DAMN! BITCH! that consistently refuses to die (and let us clear the map) and keeps shooting our girls into the red (imho even more rage-inducing if this happens in a pre-boss node since you'll be denied the chance to even try your luck at the boss).
Darkagma said: Perhaps because I've never said it?
You tell me. They're your words.
Darkagma said: Since you are repeating that, explain to me how it has nothing to do with limited resources. Would they even have to do that if they had all the resources they wanted?
No. I'm not going to explain how humanity would act differently if it had access to infinite resources.
Darkagma said: They still have to compete for the same fishing areas. If it has "less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics", then:
No. At this point you've just admitted you didn't read your own links. Overfishing was never a consideration in these cases. You're just throwing meaningless information around.
Darkagma said: If you keep listing those, I believe you will eventually reach mutual starvation or cannibalism sooner or later. To prevent you from having to list all possible alternatives, I'll just ask you "would cannibalism ever be listed in your alternatives?". It's a yes or no question.
No. You just changed the question. This no longer has anything to do with resources.
Darkagma said: So you agree that mammals are birds? I've only reached that conclusion because I've used the same structure of your proof. If you really agree with that, I can agree with your proof even though both are incomplete. That would also end this pointless debate. Even if I tried to use a straw man fallacy, it wouldn't make sense if the proof which it is trying to refute is incomplete.
I never said anything about your conclusion, nor did I say anything about anything being incomplete. You're using a straw man to defend your straw man.
Darkagma said: Even if I did, I am pretty sure I didn't said that "Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources"" myself. You can also tell me how being "the very first person here to mention the word 'resources'" makes me the one who said "Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources"".
Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on you. You are the person responsible to raise the proof that I was the one who said that. Otherwise, you are unjustly accusing me of saying something I didn't.
No. I'm not going to explain how humanity would act differently if it had access to infinite resources.
We can both agree that they wouldn't need to compete if resources were sufficiently plentiful though, right?
Also, I was referring to those two cases specifically, not the whole humanity, if that saves you some trouble.
No. At this point you've just admitted you didn't read your own links.
That is a very strong claim. Unless you have been monitoring my activities for the last week 24/7, including my eyeball movements, you have no way to prove that. As said before, the burden of proof will be on you and, as far as I know, this does not contribute to anything other than being an argumentum ad hominem by attacking anything else other than my argument or proof.
Overfishing was never a consideration in these cases. You're just throwing meaningless information around.
You are absolutely right, as I said in 3). Overfishing was never a concern. I believe you still haven't addressed how "The Cod Wars and Lobster War had less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics." because the argument requires "had less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics" to be true premise. This begs a question
As you are the one who have advanced that argument, I assume you have a valid proof to back it. If you don't, I guess we can dismiss this "subtopic" as irrelevant since the validity of your argument will be undecidable.
No. You just changed the question. This no longer has anything to do with resources.
I just want to know if you would ever mention cannibalism when resources are sufficiently limited in the bum house scenario. It's a set theory thing.
If we follow my question "would cannibalism ever be listed in your alternatives?", the answers are yes or no. - In case you say yes, cannibalism belongs to the set of all your enumerated alternatives. This "subtopic" would be over because we have reached an agreement. - In case you answered no, the list of exhaustively enumerated alternatives would be everything you said, minus cannibalism. Which is equivalent to having me asking you to list all possible alternatives interactively.
That's why I asked. I just want to save time for both of us. They have equivalent outcomes.
Whether you will answer yes or no is, of course, your choice. You can also refuse to answer the question entirely, which will halt our dialectical discussion, with the truth about this "subtopic" unresolved.
If you choose no, I can continue my reasoning there.
I never said anything about your conclusion, nor did I say anything about anything being incomplete. You're using a straw man to defend your straw man.
As I said before, "Even if I tried to use a straw man fallacy, it wouldn't make sense if the proof which it is trying to refute is incomplete.". I am not saying you are wrong, I am just saying that your proof seems incomplete. The proof in question is:
MMAestro said:
Except thats not a, in your words, "valid survival strategy". Leaving a direct competitor alive DECREASES your chances of survival. Not only does it pose a threat to your personal safety, it also means you're not, again in your words, "eliminating competition for resources".
Since you are consistently calling my argument against your proof incompleteness a straw man, I'll deal directly with it. We'll need to agree on a common ground first:
Leaving a direct competitor alive DECREASES your chances of survival.
When you said that, you mean: 1) "(for every single being) leaving a direct competitor alive DECREASES your chances of survival". This uses the universal quantifier Or 2) "(some beings) leaving a direct competitor alive DECREASES your chances of survival". This uses the existential quantifier
Additionally, referring to the sentence:
thats not a, in your words, "valid survival strategy"
Do you mean (hence,) "leaving a direct competitor alive" (is) "not a [...] "valid survival strategy"" or something else?
I already explained that.
Good. Then it shouldn't take much effort to just quote the place where you prove that being "the very first person here to mention the word 'resources'" makes me the one who said "Not being genetically wired to eliminate direct competitors directly contradicts "eliminating competition for resources"".
Darkagma said: Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on you. You are the person responsible to raise the proof that I was the one who said that. Otherwise, you are unjustly accusing me of saying something I didn't.
I don't need to prove anything because your words (unless you edited or deleted them) are right there. I'm not making a post full of your quotes.
Darkagma said: We can both agree that they wouldn't need to compete if resources were sufficiently plentiful though, right?
Also, I was referring to those two cases specifically, not the whole humanity, if that saves you some trouble.
No. Humans have been known to compete for pride. An infinite resource.
And the Cannibalism in Siberia had nothing to do with limited resources.
Darkagma said: That is a very strong claim. Unless you have been monitoring my activities for the last week 24/7, including my eyeball movements, you have no way to prove that. As said before, the burden of proof will be on you and, as far as I know, this does not contribute to anything other than being an argumentum ad hominem by attacking anything else other than my argument or proof.
You are absolutely right, as I said in 3). Overfishing was never a concern. I believe you still haven't addressed how "The Cod Wars and Lobster War had less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics." because the argument requires "had less to do with limited resources and more to do with economics" to be true premise. This begs a question
As you are the one who have advanced that argument, I assume you have a valid proof to back it. If you don't, I guess we can dismiss this "subtopic" as irrelevant since the validity of your argument will be undecidable.
The economic conclusion of the Cod Wars and Lobster War is irrelevant because the links explains it. The resource conclusion of the Cod Wars and Lobster War is irrelevant because cod and lobster stocks were not measured at the time.
You didn't read your own links.
Darkagma said: I just want to know
No. You just changed the question. Again.
Darkagma said: As I said before,
At this point, you're obviously not reading my replies. I never said anything about any proof being incomplete. I've said this three times.