To kill or not to kill. Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents)

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

No, but it does mean they are going to antagonize the cops. When confronted, they won't meekly submit. Indeed, they might even go out of their way to poke the cops and some will think of the cops as inferior, thus leading them to underestimate them.


Thus, Intolerant (law Enforcement Officers) on a criminal is almost as bad as Bad Temper and Berserk on a 90 lb weakling in a fantasy game.

I think the whole point of cops is to be antagonized by criminals.

They might be more Intolerant of deep-cover people then beat cops as those are tricky and muck up their deals.

Also criminals have an interest of their own in public order. They just do not have a desire to be bound by the logical duties of it. In other words if police keep all other criminals in line that is fine as long as it does not affect their business.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

No, but it does mean they are going to antagonize the cops. When confronted, they won't meekly submit. Indeed, they might even go out of their way to poke the cops and some will think of the cops as inferior, thus leading them to underestimate them.


Thus, Intolerant (law Enforcement Officers) on a criminal is almost as bad as Bad Temper and Berserk on a 90 lb weakling in a fantasy game.

Show me a career criminal that will meekly submit and is able to appear respectful to random egotistical cops. I seriously doubt they're the majority or even significant minority.

Intolerance allows grudging interaction when necessary. And dealing with armed cops that could shoot you without any legal problems make it necessary. It's not literal insanity like Berserk.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

In other words if police keep all other criminals in line that is fine as long as it does not affect their business.

That's not Intolerance at all.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

...
They might be more Intolerant of deep-cover people then beat cops as those are tricky and muck up their deals.
...

That might be a combination of Intolerance to cops and more importantly RATS! No one likes being betrayed, and being betrayed by someone that turns out to be a member of a group you already dislike... multiplicative hate.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The way I saw it, executing Dr. Cotton was not a violation of Pacifism: Cannot Harm Innocents, though it was admittedly on the brink. But as he was a sadistic monster who fully planned on continuing using his hypnotic abilities to torture and kill people in the name of 'science', albeit with new masters, killing him could be justified as defense of his future victims.

But as it was dishonourable and only technically did not go against his pacifism, I'm roleplaying him as suffering from depression, guilt and post-traumatic stress in the aftermath.

I don't think that its even a technicality. As you described him, Dr. Cotton was anything but "Innocent". Dishonorable killing has nothing to do with it. Yes, he went against the code of honor, but that doesn't have much to do with "cannot harm innocents".

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That's not Intolerance at all.

I know. It is however a reason not to have Intolerance of cops that are not specifically bothering them.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I don't think that its even a technicality. As you described him, Dr. Cotton was anything but "Innocent". Dishonorable killing has nothing to do with it. Yes, he went against the code of honor, but that doesn't have much to do with "cannot harm innocents".

Well, to be sure, Dr. Cotton wasn't 'innocent' in normal English usage.*

On the other hand, the naming of a trait in GURPS is irrelevant to the actual effects. And Kromm has clarified that 'Innocent' in the context of 'Cannot Harm Innocents' should be read as 'bystander' or 'uninvolved in the conflict'.

It's there that the technicality comes into play, as for all that Taylor knew at the time, there might have been a chance that a Dr. Cotton could have been uninvolved in the current violent conflict.

Taylor had deduced that Dr. Cotton was responsible for creating the circumstances that allowed it to happen, as part of the past five years of idly sadistic experiments in hypnotic suggestion, terror stress testing, effects of induced paranoid delusions on group dynamics and other fascinating pseudo-scientific bits of justifications for getting his jollies.

But the 'evidence' for it boils down to an onverheard conversation and a tearful accusation against Dr. Cotton, made by a mental patient known to be a manipulative fantasist. And she didn't even say much about what he had done, leaving most of it to be inferred.

Granted, Taylor was confident that she was telling the truth and that Dr. Cotton had perpetrated upon her and the other people on the island a litany of unprecedented horrors, but he's basing that on his Empathy (Hypersensory) and his astronomical Body Language and Detect Lies skills, as well as decent Psychology (Applied), not actual evidence.

But the thing is, even if all of this was true, that didn't make Dr. Cotton any kind of combatant or even participant in the current conflict. He might have pushed a bunch of people into insanity, but that didn't mean he was actively taking part in the havoc they wreaked when their paranoid delusions triggered a violent outburst.

Not to mention that Dr. Cotton had specifically made a deal that he would help Onyx Rain, the government task force we technically work for, to handle the crisis. So at the time he was killed, if he was any kind of participant in the confict, he would have been on our side.

What made executing him technically okay from a 'Cannot Harm Innocents' standpoint are three things:

a) From the fact that he was left alone with hostages, with a gun on the table and one of the hostages bearing signs of chemical interrogation, Taylor could deduce, seconds before he shot him, that Dr. Cotton had actually been taking full part in the guards' mutiny and kidnapped a federal agent;

b) Intolerance (Bullies) and a Sense of Duty that covers any future victims of Dr. Cotton means that he probably counted as a legitimate enemy for Taylor at any time and Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents) allows preemptive strikes;

c) Charitable led Taylor to promise to save a specific past victim and Code of Honour means that kind of promise is pretty sacred to him, so not executing Dr. Cotton out of hand would have meant violating other disadvantages and caused someone Taylor cared about serious harm or death.

All the same, killing somebody to ensure that they don't reveal a Secret is a positively Jesuitical interpretation of the 'intends you** serious harm' part of Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents).

*Though by shooting him without benefit of trial, Chase Taylor ensured that he would forever more remain so in the eyes of the law.
**We are naturally interpreting that 'you' as the plural 'you'. Actually the most reasonable part of the interpretation.