I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but all Forge grown servitor creatures are basically long dead disembodied spirits who want a vacation from the Green Dream or the Dreaming. They explicitly agree to serving us before being reborn, including obeying our laws and advancing our interests. In return, they get to experience life once more, along with the understanding that they can eventually retire from our service if they wish to go out and live in the new world they've helped us create. The arrangement is in no way related to slavery.
For this arrangement, alignment largely doesn't matter. The only nod to Alignment-based discrimination I'll make when it comes to Forge servitors is that I'm unwilling to grow Chaotic Evil beings. The very few of those we have in our service have taken special attention, and were themselves special cases, which aren't worth the hassle of managing in greater numbers. Chaotic Evil beings are also more likely than any others to disregard our laws or outright betray us, regardless of previously made agreements.
See, now this? This would have made a reasonable argument that I could understand—though I will reference my previous post on the slavery bit, where I explain how the tone and specific terms used triggered that reaction in my mind—because I was not, in fact, aware that was how it works. If we are merely making contracts with pre-existing beings, and not creating new ones wholesale, then my previous allowance stands on vassalizing beings regardless of alignment as they exist, rather than creating them.
1. You are claiming that you do not argue that Good would be superior, then turn around and begin arguing that it would be. Don't. Just don't.
This is a pure misattribution as I clearly specified only Good Dragons, not Good as a whole, and even then stated it was a personal preference and not ideological superiority.
2. I have an opinion on this topic, namely that I don't want to meddle with somethings alignment on purpose in any direction. I don't have to engage with this topic on your terms. I can engage it from any angle I want and mine is "don't fleshforge slave races". Their alignment will come out as it will and that's that.
Here, at least, I can admit is fair enough, as I was laboring under the misunderstanding that we would be creating the dragons entirely from scratch and would have to, regardless of preference, assign some alignment unless we wished to leave them entirely without personality. Perhaps if I had been corrected sooner this entire conversation would have turned out differently.
3. I was trying to warn you that you are trying to have an argument that many here don't want to have and which has been more then caustic in the past. If you want to keep doing this, be my guest, but don't try to present yourself as the victim of something when you are very much the instigator.
Really? You really want to pull that?
Hmm... question, would it be possible, since this is admittedly the most likely path, to make them different alignments as well as whatever upgrades we decide to stick on them? Like, would it keep them from being True Whites if we made them lawful neutral, or even lawful good? Is it even relevant to their nature as Chromatic dragons? Because while we can deal with more chaotic evil dragons running around, that would make things more difficult.
Alignment is irrelevant. I was talking about Whites being morons.
Oh I know you meant that, I just wasn't sure, since I remember the Alignments being more than just a fancy note on personality. Honestly, we probably do want them to be good though, since having smart dragons with even a hint of backstabbing tendencies would be bad. Also, again, just to fuck with Tiamat.
You can have smart neutral or even evil dragons and have them not be backstabbing, "good" isn't a requirement for that. All it takes is self-interest and knowing that cooperating as a vassal of the Imperium is a hell of a lot more profitable than tossing their comparatively small weight around. Along with making examples of whatever few decide to go down the route of ill-thought short-term gain.
Sure, but ruling through fear and pragmatism, while effective, aren't really the best way to go about things, especially not when you can—and probably have to—decide their general temperament from birth. It would be much easier and simpler to make the sort of creature who would want to help out and better the Imperium because it's actually good, than because it happens to be the most profitable option.
That's a mindset we've been actively moving away from for more than a year now. Alignment is not how we want to be prioritizing these things. It took us forever to get rid of adhering to that stupid system.
*Facepalm* Look, I'm not... prioritizing it, or whatever, just saying that if we have a choice about nice dragons, meh dragons, or asshole dragons, we might as well take the first option. Sure, if it took some special research or actual effort I'd agree that it's not really important, but if all it takes is writing one word instead of another on whatever upgraded stat block we create, I don't see a reason not to. Unless you want to have to put effort into framing things just right for baby dragons to actually be interested in serving us?
I'm saying it doesn't matter what their alignment is, and the dragons being made good isn't some magic key to them cooperating. Good or evil, it won't be hard to convince a dragon we literally created to work for us, nor will it be hard to convince their offspring, etc. They're dragons, they'll take a good employment offer from a much stronger dragon and start raking in that cash.
A better route is making them more social than most dragons and more amenable to a high amount of interaction and cooperation with mortals rather than recluses by nature.
Okay, clearly we're not communicating properly. You're right, alignment isn't all essential, and we could theoretically convince any new Whites to serve us regardless. My point is that however true that might be, they will have an alignment, just as a result of being thinking creatures. Whoever ends up doing the Forge-magic or whatever to create them will still have to program their personalities, however indifferent we might be, especially if they'll be mucking about with the intellect. And since something will need to go in that alignment slot, I suggest Good, plain and simple. The specifics of how that works will, of course, be more complicated, as with any intelligent being, let alone race, but in the meantime it's a good base to start off with, and one we would need anyways. Social and cooperative natures would be a more in-depth progression, and while I do approve, that's beside the point I was trying to make.
I know what you're saying, I just disagree with it. I don't think we need to stick with good at all to the level you're suggesting. It's not necessary for a forge creature's cooperation and fealty, and it's not necessary for them to follow our laws. We can have neutral or downright evil vassals and have them fit perfectly fine in the Imperium. They don't need to go around altruistically helping random people, they just need to fall in line.
...okay then. Now we do have some problems. One, you do realize how dictatorial and nearly slave-mastering you sound right now, right? Because that's right on the edge of that, and given Viserys's hatred of slavery, I feel the need to point it out.
Two, you disagree with the fact that a living thinking being has to have some base alignment, no matter what it is? Really? Or just that we should completely avoid the concept of Good altogether and stick completely with Evil and Neutral creations, in which case do you have a particular reason for favoring those alignments over Good beyond a dislike for "altruistically helping random people"? Which, I feel I should point out, is not only not necessary for Good people and a gross over-exaggeration, but also something that Viserys does on a semi-regular basis himself at times despite being neutral.
So, either your entire argument about alignment not mattering falls apart, or you admit that you aren't interested either way and let the people who do care—however little it may be—have fun deciding when we get around to doing it. You can't have it both ways.
Here's the conversation as it happened, right up until you stepped in. I ask a simple question, get told it's irrelevant and they were talking about something else. I wasn't, so I say that and then explain the purpose behind my question. I get a response, and respond back, and am then told, out of the blue, that my entire mindset is wrong and following it is stupid. Of course, I'm not exactly happy with that, but I try to stay polite and explain my reasoning.
After that things start to devolve and people get testy on both sides, but where I at least try to compromise, admit a point as far as I believed possible in my admittedly mistaken understanding of things, and then progress at least a little down another subject—the specific nature and traits of these dragons—by approving of the suggested possibility, I get more antagonism and disagreement on every front. Since it has now become an outright disagreement and argument, I turn to a debating stance to, at the very least, receive some answer beyond "your opinion is wrong, stupid, and irrelevant", and actually have a discussion. Admittedly, I was antagonistic in that last exchange, but before that? The
only time I could be called an instigator was by bringing up the subject in the first place. I may not be a victim, but trying to vilify me is just as false.
@Ericwinter, it's clear that we fundamentally disagree here.
This basically says it all, I'll agree. The majority seems to either be a simple disagreement with no recourse, or different perspectives triggering different reactions from certain words in certain relations to others. I apologize wholeheartedly. I will also admit that I was unaware of the difference between "creature" and "beast", so it was largely a product of my ignorance.
I also think it's unfair to accuse the opposition of your position of brainwashing things made in the forge when your argument also at least partially rests on the idea that picking their alignment for them will make them better vassals. Why is it programming when they're selfish and free will when they're selfless?
I'll admit there are certain parralels, though having gone through a similar conundrum on another quest, would argue that Loyalty written into a being's very nature at conception is less morally reprehensible than enforced loyalty outside their nature, due to the worth of a creature's nature itself. In this specific instance, however, the difference is even greater as we would only be writing a certain moral code into them, not even a garuntee of loyalty, as you point out above. Of course, another reason I support Good is because even should they decide not to serve us, we can trust they will Probably be helping the world than harming it elsewhere.
Anyways, I think I'll stop arguing now that things will probably be moving again. Feel free to respond to any of this if you wish, but I probably won't reply.
