Why do authoritarian, xenophobe and militarist empires care so much about terror bombing?

[Drachasor]

Let me know when you are capable of addressing any points I've made, or try to make any actual points, until then~

You've repeatedly ignored what I've said since the beginning and instead made up a strawman, and when I've specifically addressed this and pointed it out, you've ignored it and blatantly lied what I've said -- such as saying I argued aliens should look like us when I argued against that.

Hell, I've brought up several sci-fi examples of aliens that don't look like us and most of them don't think like us either.*

I just went into the evolutionary issues you touched on last night and you simply don't care to read or respondb in any way -- probably because you can't; so obviously I was right to think it would be a waste of my time.

*Edit: And if you don't get the references or need an explanation, you can just say so or look them up on Wikipedia. In addition to the other references, I recommended reading A Mote In God's Eye. While in some ways their thinking is similar to humans (some especially), their overall outlook is pretty alien and it's also has plenty of examples of how just because there's an apparent motive that seems human for an action, that doesn't mean it's the actual motive. Relevant to this thread's main topic, especially given how Motie civilization works.

 

[Trigaea]

No, regular alien minds, for all we know the default stance should be zero care about any kind of genocide, or civillian bombardment, and only xenophiles or fanatic xenophiles would get any reletions hit from those.

I mean, it makes sense, if they have zero xenophilia, the act of killing xenos should be irrelevant to them, thinking otherwise is just applying human standards as the baseline, which shouldn't be applied to truly alien species.

An alien species without any xenophilia would probably get a much bigger relation impact from having a neighbor with a very powerful, menacing fleet, than killing random aliens they don't care about in some distant planet a long time ago.

Plus the default alien cohabitation should probably be impossible too, unless species were specifically made to be adaptable in the same enviroment, with the same kind of mindset, it shouldn't even be possible for them to survive within the same society, even if you're a xenophile, but the default human mindset just thinks of aliens as humans from a different country.

It's too easy to create a tolerant interstellar empire

Want to create a tolerant empire where all species are equal and work together for a bright future? To achieve this ideal, almost utopian state you need to: 1. Not be genocidal 2. Set the highest laws for everyone as default 3. ... The easiest...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Even humanity, or at least 99.99% of it, could not tolerate the idea EVER being possible to live with a good portion of the alien portraits in the galaxy, just by nature of how they look and what it seems like they do.

The devs know this, this is why they made the Blorg as a joke empire a long time ago during their streams, about a repulsive fungus nobody could possibly be able to get along with, even though they really are friendly.

This is also the default, logical stance of many other games like Galciv or Distant Worlds as similar minds, similar species, can often tolerate one another, or even like them, the bugs can understand the mind of other bugs, and they can live together, but every other species hate them and trying to assimilate them in other empires lead to terrible issues, rebellions, and unhappiness, many species are simply unable to get along, but Stellaris doesn't model that, at all.

They've sort of added it as an option with Selective Kinship but honestly, that should be the default stance for every specieis in the galaxy, and traits like repulsive should also make you hated by your own species type, we shouldn't have to waste a civic for the obvious natural stance, just to get a "debuff" with certain species, instead, thre should be an exceptional civic for xenophiles that reduces the debuff from other species, justifying taking that civic.

Something like the Asari from ME that probably use deceiving psionic tricks to look similar to the species of the beholder.

It sounds like you're trying to rehash the conversation from the now-locked thread from a few months ago.

While it might be true that sapient alien species would never tolerate living alongside each other, hypothetical real world truths are irrelevant here.

Stellaris is fundamentally a game about rubber forehead aliens where even the most alien are still recognizably human-like in behavior and are capable of living alongside each other. The game is, at its core, a homage to the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek where aliens can dance and sing together in harmony, not an exercise in speculative xeno-relations.

 

[Voidian]

It sounds like you're trying to rehash the conversation from the now-locked thread from a few months ago.

While it might be true that sapient alien species would never tolerate living alongside each other, hypothetical real world truths are irrelevant here.

Stellaris is fundamentally a game about rubber forehead aliens where even the most alien are still recognizably human-like in behavior and are capable of living alongside each other. The game is, at its core, a homage to the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek where aliens can dance and sing together in harmony, not an exercise in speculative xeno-relations.

If what you're saying is correct then sure, you'd be right and I agree. To say it's flawed and it's meant to be flawed because it's based off some very specific cheesy kind of scifi is very different from trying to make up reasons as to why reality would, or even should be like that just to satisfy a personal preference.

I just never agreed, or ever even thought that was the actual premise they were trying to go for, it just looked like a flawed attempt of trying to emulate a real galaxy with true alien life forms.

Games and media that do this, like star wars, mass effect or star trek, as you've mentioned, just make the "aliens" look, as you said, like humans with rubber foreheads and very little deviation, it doesn't look like that's what they were going for here.

Even games that did go for that sort of aesthetic, like Galciv, still do a better job on these incompatibilities.

Here's another question, within the scope of Stellaris then.

You found a fanatic purifier empire, they are not victims of their government, they are in fervent support of the extermination of all alien life, they come from stable, happy worlds, they all favor their extremist government because this is what they, personally, want.

So you conquer one of their worlds.

Why are they assimilating?
Have you read the events surrounding the Baol and species that wiped them out? (astral rift event) Do you think they were just "misunderstood"? Is it just a matter of giving them elections and democracy and everything would be fine? How do you think they'd act within other alien societies?

I'd imagine it would be easier to integrate actual drones form hiveminds than those aliens.

 

[Trigaea]

If what you're saying is correct then sure, you'd be right and I agree.

I just never agreed, or ever even thought that was the actual premise they were trying to go for, it just looked like a flawed attempt of trying to emulate a real galaxy with true alien life forms.

Games and media that do this, like star wars, mass effect or star trek, as you've mentioned, just make the "aliens" look, as you said, like humans with rubber foreheads and very little deviation, it doesn't look like that's what they were going for here.

Even games that did go for that sort of aesthetic, like Galciv, still do a better job on these incompatibilities.

Stellaris has always been a self-described "love letter" to classic sci-fi.

The devs have been consistent that Stellaris isn't an attempt at realism as much as it's an effort to mash together classic sci-fi into one big grand strategy game.

Strictly speaking, using the term sci-fi to describe Stellaris has always been generous: it's a science fantasy game with space magic and is crammed full of reference to almost every noteworthy sci-fi universe ever created. I don't think anyone would consider Stellaris realistic at or scientific about, well, basically anything.

That's not bad, per se, but nearly everything about how aliens work in Stellaris falls squarely into the realm of falling apart if you think too hard about it.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

You natural xenophile stance would ironically make you one of the most xenophobic "pop" in the galaxy, as you'd be unable to tolerate anything that isn't extremely close to human reasoning

"you xenophiles are the TRUE xenophobes!" is not a take i expected to read here, but i'm glad i did. you give me a chuckle.

*spools up the Utopian Liberation Armada megaprinter*

now, prepare for utopia. whether you like it or not.

 

[CrazyJ]

I'm going to ignore the current argument between a xenophobe and an xenophile to point out that I'm pretty sure terror bombing numbers are currently still calculated based off of 3.14 pop numbers.

Before 4.0 I never got anywhere close to a -200 from terror bombing even in my most aggressive non-genocidal playthroughs, though I'm generally pretty careful to avoid killing too many of the pops I want to assimilate/exploit/facehug.

 

[hart30]

How much they care usually depends on their AI personality more than on the single ethics.
And basically everyone starts caring once its their own (or allies) planets that get terrorbombed.

 

[passeris]

I'm going to ignore the current argument between a xenophobe and an xenophile to point out that I'm pretty sure terror bombing numbers are currently still calculated based off of 3.14 pop numbers.

Before 4.0 I never got anywhere close to a -200 from terror bombing even in my most aggressive non-genocidal playthroughs, though I'm generally pretty careful to avoid killing too many of the pops I want to assimilate/exploit/facehug.

In other words: "You slaughtered 100 pops... you monster!"

4.0 is never short of surprises.

 

[Edorath]

Title question.

They’re angry they didn’t get to do it themselves real talk they’re probably afraid of getting bombed themselves after seeing how trigger happy you were

 

[Adonnus]

I'm going to ignore the current argument between a xenophobe and an xenophile to point out that I'm pretty sure terror bombing numbers are currently still calculated based off of 3.14 pop numbers.

Before 4.0 I never got anywhere close to a -200 from terror bombing even in my most aggressive non-genocidal playthroughs, though I'm generally pretty careful to avoid killing too many of the pops I want to assimilate/exploit/facehug.

Ayy wtf

In addition to this it has a ridiculously slow decay rate (1 per year). SO that's how I found out I had a pretty much permanent -250 relations with everybody in the galaxy lol.

 

[Voidian]

"you xenophiles are the TRUE xenophobes!" is not a take i expected to read here, but i'm glad i did. you give me a chuckle.

*spools up the Utopian Liberation Armada megaprinter*

now, prepare for utopia. whether you like it or not.

Isn't it, quite literally, what's done ingame though?

I'm sure we can trace some real life examples of a certain country bombing the crap out of backwards nations in the name of "nation building" and "democracy".
The entire Helldivers universe (and Starship Troopers movies) was created around the idea of mocking that kind of ideal that shed so much blood to force "democratic" ideals upon populations that never desired them, and gave them up the instant the occupying forces have left.

There's this misconception, even within earth, specially in western nations that everyone is the same, that we all want the same things, some of us are simply too ignorant, or misguided to be able to reach the same goals.

This is how they justified trying to bomb the "authoritarianism" and fundamentalism out of certain populations for decades, but the reality is different, there are people that don't even share the root of the ideals we do right here in this planet, they aren't lost or misguided, there is no misunderstanding, they literally want the opposite of what you do, they consider your goals and desires to be evil, and condemn everything you consider to be good.

There's a vast world beyond europe and the americas that some people right here wouldn't even call human, as they are apparently too "barbaric and degenerate".

What would you call this type of mindset?

PS: Are you familiar with the famous letter writen by King Ghezo of Dahomey to the British?

If a certain hypothetical neighboring country were to bombard another hypothetical country with a different religion in the hypothetical middle east, as an act of indiscriminate bombardment, targeting civilian targets and killing a lot of innocent people, do you think the neighboring countries would get a negative relations modifier lasting for centuries?

Hell, there's at least one european country that went unequivocally genocidal in the past 100 years right here, how long did other nation's "genocidal" modifier last? How much did we truly care? How are our sanctions against them going? Or do we just pretend to care by censoring old political symbols so we can pretend we're fighting something?

We're not even talking about human standards here, we're specifically talking about european morals born from, and exclusive to this past century, shortly after we created the 2 worst, most genocidal ideologies in our history, and use this as the galactic standard. It's extremely short sighted.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Isn't it, quite literally, what's done ingame though?

I'm sure we can trace some real life examples of a certain country bombing the crap out of backwards nations in the name of "nation building" and "democracy".
The entire Helldivers universe (and Starship Troopers movies) was created around the idea of mocking that kind of ideal that shed so much blood to force "democratic" ideals upon populations that never desired them, and gave them up the instant the occupying forces have left.

There's this misconception, even within earth, specially in western nations that everyone is the same, that we all want the same things, some of us are simply too ignorant, or misguided to be able to reach the same goals.

This is how they justified trying to bomb the "authoritarianism" and fundamentalism out of certain populations for decades, but the reality is different, there are people that don't even share the root of the ideals we do right here in this planet, they aren't lost or misguided, there is no misunderstanding, they literally want the opposite of what you do, they consider your goals and desires to be evil, and condemn everything you consider to be good.

There's a vast world beyond europe and the americas that some people right here wouldn't even call human, as they are apparently too "barbaric and degenerate".

What would you call this type of mindset?

PS: Are you familiar with the famous letter writen by King Ghezo of Dahomey to the British?

If a certain hypothetical neighboring country were to bombard another hypothetical country with a different religion in the hypothetical middle east, as an act of indiscriminate bombardment, targeting civilian targets and killing a lot of innocent people, do you think the neighboring countries would get a negative relations modifier lasting for centuries?

Hell, there's at least one european country that went unequivocally genocidal in the past 100 years right here, how long did other nation's "genocidal" modifier last? How much did we truly care? How are our sanctions against them going? Or do we just pretend to care by censoring old political symbols so we can pretend we're fighting something?

We're not even talking about human standards here, we're specifically talking about european morals born from, and exclusive to this past century, shortly after we created the 2 worst, most genocidal ideologies in our history, and use this as the galactic standard. It's extremely short sighted.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that

it's hard to answer all of this without straying too far, but i will try to do it in a way that does not cross the line.

1. the imperialist "freedom campaigns" you speak of literally overthrew democratically elected egalitarians and IMPOSED the authoritarian spiritualist xenophobes they later used as an excuse for more genocidal bombings of those countries. the backwardness of those countries is actually an export of the imperialists, and they stepped in to crush the people every time they wanted to change things and progress, because it threatened megacorp profits. these were NOT liberation wars, that is just propaganda. my liberation wars in game are REAL liberation wars. and i DON'T liberation war anyone who isn't literally a xenophobe or authoritarian.

2. anyone who says some people aren't human is actually a xenophobe, that goes without saying

3. the country you speak of was literally split in half and prevented from reuniting or having an army for half a century by the rest of the world

4. calling any of these "morals" european is a xenophobic pov, born out of the propaganda i mentioned in point 1, which literally slaughters people any time they try to gain freedom and then says "they don't want freedom, their culture is anti-freedom"

5. at the risk of pushing you to consider something uncomfortable, those people you claim don't care about genocide are currently mass protesting it because they're currently seeing it happening, and poll after poll has shown crushing supermajorities (not even majorities) of people are opposed to it in every country on earth except one. people are being arrested and deported for opposing it

maybe the game can give you a realistic way of purging the people who care, but the fact that people do care is very much real and you're living in lala land if you disagree

finally, i think it's very clear that INSTANT COMMUNICATION has absolutely and utterly destroyed the capacity for propaganda to HIDE genocide, which is the REAL reason "people caring this much is recent". stellaris has Xenonion news, everyone can see what you're doing, live. you can't hide it from the public and they will get angry. if anything, there should be mass protests when you don't break relations with an ally who does genocidal bombings, and you should have to ban the organizers of the protests as "galactic terrorists" for throwing galactic paint on galactic shipyards arming your ally.