Most of the other regulars aren't saying "let the world literally burn as long as we get revenge on the Enemy."
Once I find myself saying "let the world burn," I may not
think I've attained fanaticism, but I've attained fanaticism.
See, there's this thing where you seem to have mentally reset the ultimate goal of this quest to "absolute ruination of the nation of Russia no matter what else happens to America, the planet as a whole, or anything else."
That's not necessarily the goal that the rest of us have in mind. I, for one, am thinking the goal is "subdue the nation of Victoria and break down its government, reconstruct some recognizable mostly-united successor state to the United States of America, and see to it that Russia's geopolitical power is broken to the greatest extent consistent with having a good world to live in."
If your concept of quest mechanics is separate from your concept of quest outcomes to the point where you consider the "global climate collapse" ending and the "no global climate collapse" ending to be equivalent...
Your concept of quest mechanics is not useful to the way that most of us wish to play the game, I think.
Yeah pretty much.
What Russia's done to the US is
broadly comparable to what the British did to India in terms of severity. Hacked apart powerful local polities (Mughal Empire, Old United States). Brought about famines (both cases). Tolerated gross abuses by their local sepoys and arguably encouraged them (I don't know if any of the princely states and 'martial castes' and sepoy ethnicities the British empowered were anywhere near as bad as Victorians, admittedly). Reduced the national aspirations and desire for freedom of the nation and its people into a ground-down and brutally suppressed state for many decades.
And yet today India is not, on the whole, full of ferociously angry anti-British terrorists. Because that would be a huge waste of time and resources for an India that has much, much better things to do.
Based on
@PoptartProdigy 's descriptions, the world
outside of North America and the Middle East doesn't feel very destroyed. Europe wasn't destroyed- they're just dealing with an overweening superpower next door. Africa and South America are no worse off than they ever were, and arguably better off. China isn't destroyed. India and Southeast Asia aren't destroyed.
As I've explained previously at length, the main goal is to advance the interests of the people of the United States. The secondary goal is to take steps to tear down Imperial Russia, the existence of which is never going to be compatible with the survival and well-being of the American people, ie: goal #1.
You can make personal attacks if you think a world run by undisputed and morally bankrupt autocrats is acceptable. But it shouldn't be.
To put it simply, we are not in a position where the merits of Russian environmentalism factors into our decision making process/priorities. The world catching fire is not going to be targetted at us specifically. Russian assassins are.
As both you and clock seem to be overlooking as you
normalize the continued existence of autocratic regimes that commit crimes against humanity,
the British Empire no longer exists.
If it existed in any meaningful state as it previously had, there would be
legitimate reasons to escalate hostilities and grind it into dust.
Also, the citation of India is rather unfortunate on your parts as India...kinda
was filled with anti-British terrorists until the meaningful end of the Empire and concessions of literally all of their goals.
The day Imperial Russia similarly goes kaput (and notably, stops being an hereditary dictatorship with nukes that's normalizes the benefits of crimes against civilization just by continuing such policies!) is the day reassessing whatever form Russia takes can happen.
In any case, the Russia/India comparison doesn't work and doesn't add much beyond being imperialism/authoritarian apologism. Russia isn't going to forfeit all of its gains. It's not going to surrender and just pack up like Britain did- its system simply doesn't
allow for that sort of course correction. It's imperialism in its most malicious and ultimately indiscriminately destructive form. It's not going to not pursue a policy of aggressive containment of the US; unlike the British who accepted that India home rule was coming and got out.
But to further the comparison, the UK did lose its superpower status. The UK didn't end rationing until the 1950s - it gave up colonies because it had to; because holding on would have been economic death. Russia has no such qualms and unless we can hit them where it hurts, they will continue their campaign against us.
There is no path to freedom that doesn't involve kicking Russia down a peg or too - Someone has to do it even if it isn't us, be it the Chinese or Europeans.
Like, take the Suez crisis for another example. Even weakened, the UK and France weren't going to give up their control of Egypt's Suez canal, even though Egypt was an up and coming power who was slipping out of their sphere. They went ahead and messed them up and were going to win too if the US didn't forcefully tell them to knock it off. We don't have a superpower on our side - there's not going to be anyone to come and tell Russia to knock it off when they manufacture their own personal Suez in the Commonwealth. We may be the Nasser of the US, young and full of vigor and popular support, but all of that means nothing when the Russians come pouring in and we don't have any means of stopping them.
So we have to take Russia down a peg, before they come and do it to us. Either that, or make ourselves useful to another great power who is willing to step in. At this point, no one here is willing to do either of those as far as I can tell, and that's a big problem.
I also advise you to reread the Lore blurbs- literally no one else benefited from the Russians throwing fuel onto the Collapse- Africa, too, suffered for it. The world of Victoria Falls has been destroyed by any meaningful metric- everyone else is scrambling to rebuild from the ashes to a greater or lesser extent.
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