[DF] Why not have some pure "bad guy" races in DF?

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

My goblins don't HAVE babies. They have spawn. I absolutely loathe the cliche of walking into the nursery full of "evil" babies and "evil" desperate mothers making a last ditch stand. It's nonsense. An Always Chaotic Evil species is alien to human psychology, and that means they are also alien to human developmental biology. The natural world is full of creatures that are not in fact born helpless and requiring years of devoted nurturing and education. "They're cute when they're little" does not in fact apply to reptiles or bugs.

And that they are helpless when they are little might not apply as well.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

Do we kill and eat sapient animals?

The Japanese love their dolphin.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

The Japanese love their dolphin.

Which Japanese in particular? From what I see online, it's like whales: Not every Japanese person is demanding it, it's mostly a luxury product.

And even then, the sapience of dolphins is in question; at best, they're "near" it, but not quite at that level.

Also, I just want to say that going by some Asian countries for animal treatment probably isn't the argument you want to pursue. I can point out distinct animal abuse in Korea (based on personal experience, too) that would not fly in much of the Western world. Are you sure you want to go down that route?

Trying to support the argument that humans do and should treat sapient creatures poorly is really really disturbing for me. Like I said earlier, it's getting me really worried what happens when we start exploring outside our solar system.

[Mathulhu]

Can we not debate whether humans show Evil behaviour, please.

The Aliens from the first three films seem to be programmed to reproduce. I don't remember any malice in their actions. However in the fourth film one of them seems to take revenge on a scientist.
This makes me think that they might appear evil because of their lack of intelligence and reproduction method. But individuals can be without tarnishing the whole.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

Can we not debate whether humans show Evil behaviour.

The Aliens from the first three films seem to be programmed to reproduce. I don't remember any malice in their actions. However in the fourth film one of them seems to take revenge on a scientist.
This makes me think that they might appear evil because of their lack of intelligence and reproduction method. But individuals can be without tarnishing the whole.

Yes, okay.

After all, saying "The Japanese do X, therefore All Humans Are Like X", is pretty flawed for the bolded reason.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

And even then, the sapience of dolphins is in question; at best, they're "near" it, but not quite at that level.

David Brin (who among other things wrote the Uplift series and consulted on both GURPS Uplift and Tribes!) in the foreword to The Dogma of Otherness, tells about how he was forced to abandon his sentimental notions of intelligent dolphins. They're smart, but no more than chimps, and possibly less.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

Which Japanese in particular? From what I see online, it's like whales: Not every Japanese person is demanding it, it's mostly a luxury product.

And even then, the sapience of dolphins is in question; at best, they're "near" it, but not quite at that level.

Also, I just want to say that going by some Asian countries for animal treatment probably isn't the argument you want to pursue. I can point out distinct animal abuse in Korea (based on personal experience, too) that would not fly in much of the Western world. Are you sure you want to go down that route?

Trying to support the argument that humans do and should treat sapient creatures poorly is really really disturbing for me. Like I said earlier, it's getting me really worried what happens when we start exploring outside our solar system.

The point is that humans can be very remarkably cruel. I mean look at the Romans demonizing enemies for practicing human sacrifice while enjoying the games, which was really a form of human sacrifice that got more secularized.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by davidtmoore

David Brin (who among other things wrote the Uplift series and consulted on both GURPS Uplift and Tribes!) in the foreword to The Dogma of Otherness, tells about how he was forced to abandon his sentimental notions of intelligent dolphins. They're smart, but no more than chimps, and possibly less.

The point is that if say the party was dolphins humans could well seem like evil monsters. And really if they are intelligence but sufficiently alien we might be totally unable to communicate to them. If so is their intelligence relevant? For example if they have intelligence but lack empathy of any kind(especially for things not their own kind) is their intelligence important?

If dragons were all psychopathic but intelligent would it make them more or less monstrous than non intelligent dragons?

[blacksmith]

You want a pure badguy race, fine here are Dan's Evil Dragons.

Dragons are a race that has a racial memory and in females at least rather high levels of intelligence, but a total lack of any empathy. They have extreme sexual dimorphism were the females are much larger than the males and like in some species of spider eat the males after reproducing with them. The males are much smaller and commonly known a wyverns.

Do to their total lack of empathy and in general psychopathic personality they can never be trusted and are dangerous from a young age being born with a knowledge of magic that most human archmages would envy.

There you have it, a race that are loaners who can not ever be trusted and you can make good arguments for killing even newborn dragons.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

The point is that if say the party was dolphins humans could well seem like evil monsters. And really if they are intelligence but sufficiently alien we might be totally unable to communicate to them. If so is their intelligence relevant? For example if they have intelligence but lack empathy of any kind(especially for things not their own kind) is their intelligence important?

If dragons were all psychopathic but intelligent would it make them more or less monstrous than non intelligent dragons?

This goes both ways. if an alien culture cannot communicate with us (perhaps they communicate by ultrasound or the like), then they would be perfectly justified in making us extinct for our resources, no?