Let's talk Gaians

[Hawkwings]

You guys are arguing points that would be more appropriately argued in-character. Do you have out of character issues with the Gaians, or specifically the NLH?

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[Drake]

Moons, planets=same difference. Anyhoo, terraform mars or venus & yes, you bet it will effect the earth. The effects may not be obvious or understandable to our current limited knowledge, but when you terraform a body, it changes it's dynamic effect on the space around it...& that change is a domino effect that effects everything else far beyond it's epicenter.

A moon would certainly, but I say a planet certainly wouldn't. The distances are just too great. Belief that it would, without any scientific evidence to back it up, and the willingness to kill and die for that belief, continues to make the Gaian belief system sound quasi-religious to me.

You guys are arguing points that would be more appropriately argued in-character. Do you have out of character issues with the Gaians, or specifically the NLH?

Why do you care? If you have nothing to add to the discussion, why not just stay out of it?

[Hawkwings]

I can argue in-universe points and Gaian motivation if you'd like, but I believe that's a subject for a different thread. You see the Gaians as quasi-religiously pursuing their goal of no terraforming, ok fine. Is there a problem with this? You seem to be arguing that the Gaians who do this are fanatical/mindless and simply operating on reflex. If that's how you see it, fine, it doesn't really matter how people perceive Gaian motivations. In fact, misperceptions allow RP opportunities.

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[Marburg]

Alright, alright... in order to keep the peace I'll move on & address the kusari thing:

It's been said multiple times on multiple days: The reason why Gaians, Hogs & AFA are so friendly is based on over a year of RP...RP that most of the detractors never bother to read. I'll say it again (& people will ignore it again) but our alliance with our northern neighbors is nothing more complicated than "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The Gaians are not nationalistic. As a faction, they simply consider Kusari taking Bretonia the lesser of 2 evils & given the track record of how both govts treat their environment, Kusari is the lesser evil.

From very early on, NLH, AFA & BDS have always said that if Kusari ever wins the war, we will all adapt & change our relations accordingly. (& before a month from now I'll bet it will need to be said again.)

:P

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[Drake]

I can argue in-universe points and Gaian motivation if you'd like, but I believe that's a subject for a different thread. You see the Gaians as quasi-religiously pursuing their goal of no terraforming, ok fine. Is there a problem with this? You seem to be arguing that the Gaians who do this are fanatical/mindless and simply operating on reflex. If that's how you see it, fine, it doesn't really matter how people perceive Gaian motivations. In fact, misperceptions allow RP opportunities.

I'm arguing no such thing. You just seem interested in getting the discussion closed down, for some reason.

@Marburg: I've heard the reasoning for the Kusari friendship, still don't like it, not getting into it. Never meant to bring that up.

Anyway, bed time.

[Marburg]

@Marburg: I've heard the reasoning for the Kusari friendship, still don't like it, not getting into it. Never meant to bring that up.

Anyway, bed time.

Heh! I don't like that america is allied w/ saudi arabia, but I just have to take it with a grain of salt the size of a volkswagon...sleep well brothah.:cool:

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[bluntpencil2001]

There are many cultures that have or do practice euthanasia, the practice of suicide when one grows old or no longer is a productive member of the community.

Dying with dignity and relieving your own suffering are not the same as blowing yourself up for any reason. If it were dying, terminally ill militants, in perpetual agony, then sure, I might buy that.

Of course, it makes me wonder why bin Laden, with his dialysis which he can't reach in his cave, hasn't blown himself up.

Also: the IRA were quasi-religious, or at least used religion as justification for actions at times. Same with the PLO.

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[Friday]

Different times for different measures.

A suicide mission is a suicide mission.

Kamikaze pilots were suicidal (and not restricted to the Japanese either).
Suicide Bombers are well, suicidal by definition.
What about a soldier who stays behind to let his buddies escape - facing certain death?
What about soldiers who march into machinegun-fire, facing certain death?
What about a person who sacrifices their life to save a child?

You can split hairs about which one of these has more altruistic motives - but all of the above lead to the death of the individual involved, and all can be classed as 'irrational' in that respect.

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[pbrione]

I'm not sure that the whole debate about "rationality" is really acheiving much. Clearly the Gaians themselves are not going to beleive they are irrational and what the rest of the population beleives inRP is fairly irrelevant as, like most people with strongly-held beleifs, the gaians are hardly going to be convinced to abandon their cause by rational debate.

Their actions and beleif system may certainly appear immoral or completely unjustifiable under all our conventional moral systems, which tend generally to focus on helping human life as the prime moral factor, or more generally sentient life at the very most (but still not including barren planets). However, whilst the Gaian mentality may appear absurd to us, it is at least self-consistent and therefore "rational" in the loosest sense of the word. There is nothing about beleiving morality ought to focus on preserving the natural state of the universe that contradicts any of their other beleifs. Mind you, there is nothing contradictory about beleiving life ought to be devoted to the production and worship of papier mache teapots either.

The fact is that most beleif-systems tend to be instilled into people from a young age, and if most gaians today are born and raised on stations, then it is entirely plausable that they should grow up fanatically dedicated to this cause that other people find utterly crazy. This is somewhat religion-like in its fanaticism, though the gaians themselves would not have to view themselves as religious in the slightest.

A beleif that preservation in the universe should take precendent over the human race, however, is not something that people are likely to aquire simply by studying on Planet Cambridge. Concern for the environment, yes, but still primarily human-centric, based on concepts of sustainability of human activites as opposed to the the extreme moral beleifs that Marburg suggests many gaians hold today.

My view is that the gaian movement would have begun with this more moderate environmentalist but still human-centric mentality, which eventually evolved into a hardcore group of fanatics that actively beleive planets matter more than people, though perhaps there are still many more moderate gaians around the fringes of the movement, who do not share this extremist mentality at its heart.

There are probably:
- An elite of fanatical Gaians with the beleifs Marburg has expressed, who beleive any interference in the natural order is immoral
- Fairly large numbers of moderate environmentalists, who aren't so bothered with terraforming barren planets, but still oppose what is (clearly) appalling and unsustainable anti-evironmental activity as has occured in Leeds by BMM, and Planetform work in Edinburgh.
- Some scientists who are fairly recent converts from Cambridge, who worry mainly about Planet Gaia itself as they don't want research opportunities there to be lost.
- A few people who are just pirates and thugs at heart, and only see the enivornment as a pretext for their way of life
- People born among the gaians who simply don't know any other way of life
- Mixtures of the above

They may not always agree with each other, but they would all work together and share similar ways of life, to help themselves acheive their respective goals, and so are all Gaians to an extent.

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Sir Stanley Nelson




<span style="color:#000066">Charles Canning </span><span style="color:#000066"> Foreign Secretary</span>

[farmerman]

I wanted to add some of my thoughts. For one thing, I think there is a good deal of variation among the Gaians in their backgrounds and general thoughts - much more than most of the unlawful groups (more like the Bundschuh perhaps).

But considering it's a major movement, I think one area they get recruits from is the same who would join the Bundschuh or GC if they lived elsewhere. It always seemed to me there was a noticeable anarchist feeling underneath everything Gaian. And to that, I always imaged there were many who were recruited from Cambridge University and such who were primarily interested in "sticking it to the man" as it were. The Gaians would give them a vehicle to do so.

Of course, there's also certainly a group of die hard Gaians who have lived their entire lives that way. Rather militarized and purely into it, like Marburg's perspective.

The Green Front is a major force in Cambridge so both residents there and students of the University would certainly be involved, though I think a lot of them would not be the major activists (but saying all would be wrong, too).

Disgruntled miners could very well also make up a part. Though most would probably favor the Mollys, it's not hard for me to think some would want to clean things up, literally and figuratively. In my view, it always seemed people who worked closely with such things were more in tune with them.

But at the same time as all of that, it is at its heart an idealistic movement, and as such must draw people for that very reason. Drifters and generic criminals could be recruited with the logic it's a way for them to turn around their life and do something right (while not really changing). This is my one Gaian's general background, actually.

And lastly, Bretonia doesn't really even HAVE much in the way of criminal groups. So I think there are many who flock to commit their crimes and such under the Gaian banner.

All in all, I think the majority of Gaians would be rather low key and made up of a lot of University recruits and idealists. Then there's a smaller group of the really hardcore extremists, which would have those raised in the Gaian way as their main core. With that in mind, I draw the distinction in game as the difference between the Gaian and the Gaian Guard ID - the latter being the extremists (and the NLH is primarily using that ID, too).

On that last note, what about something like renaming the Gaian Guard ID to Gaian Extremist ID, much like the BHG Guard is the Core ID? That was a thought I had anyway.

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