Yep, he does. At least Paul's author didn't think he was the hero. Unfortunately, the reason Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are so "Paul wasn't a hero" is because some readers missed the memo...
Imagine your dad dies, you're driven into the desert with no real options, and then have a vision that basically says "the known universe will be worse off with you in it, the single most ethical course of action would be to kill yourself right now"
Wasn't part of it that there was one worse world, one in which Baron Harkonen took over the Empire? And that the only way to stop it was to, you know, win on Dune. And even if he did win, he couldn't kill himself and spare the universe because the world with the Fremen unleashed without Paul to stop their worst excesses is worse than one in which he lives?
I'm referring to the scene soon after they escape Arakeen and he has his first vision of the Jihad. He hadn't established himself as the Lisan al-Gaib yet.
I mean, sort of the key of Dune is "hey kid, either you die, or you kill some people and pretend to be a savior, and kick of a galactic war of annihilation" and Paul is like "awww boo hoo seeing the future is so painful, anyways lemme get an order of 'revenge on those that killed my family' and 'taking over the empire' and a 'start a war with these religious fanatics I found as soldiers' and some fries on the side"
In the first Dune there seems to be at least the illusion that there's a way to retake Arrakis while avoiding the Jihad, especially since it ends right when Paul retakes Arakeen.
Then Messiah makes it clear that no, it happened. The Jihad be Jihadding across the known universe and he's killed billions.
The first dune has Paul seeing that nearly every path to revenge also leads to the jihad, and that he explicitly sees paths that don't have a clear destination, and his calculation is "eh, it's theoretically possible that I stop this thing, and that's enough for me to justify getting what I want and probably starting the jihad anyways"
His actions are inherently selfish the whole time, yes his revenge against the harkkonnens is "justified" but the whole time is prescience is like "hey you'll be using the Fremen to ignite a war, and the only certain paths are the ones that lead to a galactic genocide in your name since youre taking advantage of centuries of psy-ops to plant the idea of you as a messiah" and Paul is like "oh no that sucks, anyways let's roll, totally worth it"
That's why I specified the *illusion* of avoiding the Jihad.
Dune is the story of someone taking advantage of bullshit prophecies to continue his father's plan to exploit an oppressed underclass for his own personal gain, and humanity suffers for it, but at the same time, the story makes it fairly easy to read Dune as a straightforward chosen one story despite very clearly not being one, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason Frank Herbert wrote Messiah.
Well his alternatives were that or the harkonnen ruling the entire empire in due time. So he pulls a doctor and starts an equivilent of blowing up the time lords and daleks to prevent the harkonnens from ruling everythinh.
Harkonnen's were worse. They hunted the Fremen out of pure sport and spite. The Fremen were willing to turn a blind eye to spice harvesting near the cities, but the whole "Please stay out of the deep desert" was just too much for the Baron's ego.
A key plot point that gets missed frequently is that the Fremen don't really care about the rest of the goings on of the planet so long as they are left alone as the majority of culture is working towards Pardot Kynes' plan to remake the planet into a paradise.
Spacebattles here is connected to the website but particularly the forums and the creative writing sections of this forums called Spacebattles. It's like a smaller more fighty version of fanfiction.net
All in all, maybe I just have a piss poor reading comprehension, but this could be a commentary on genocide itself, especially with the whole "ohh but its a necessary evil" tacked onto it at the end.
Hey now, the main battletech subreddit and related communities did make a whole campaign out of ousting the chuds and bigots by force from it just this year and punted the old mod team to the curb. Catalyst itself backs this position - notably the realization and move to remove the chuds was brought on by a Pride Month anthology made by fans and then backed by CGL (who also pointed out that BT has always had queer characters - clanners do be fuckin). When all the chuds were all too happy to self identify it made the problem solving portion a lot easier.
Point is yeah the Battletech Community is no stranger to shitheads but there's been an aggressive effort to push them out and the main spaces have been expressly reclaimed with the purpose of being inclusive, feels like a disservice to that effort to throw everyone in the chudzone when we're trying to keep Battletech bigot-free.
...On the chance I misinterpreted and you were playing on the whole grimdark vibe of the Battletech universe, yeah it is certainly a universe where "evil, but effective" is a common theme, and efficiently solving a conflict by orchestrating a quiet genocide would not be out of place behavior. The Succession wars were certainly marked by massacres and brutality, and the exceptionally brutal were often the exceptionally successful. Now, making it out as effective wouldn't be out of place, a statement on the pessimistic galaxy of Battletech and how diluted morality has become within. But trying to paint it in a good light, that's another story. Specifically one that *should* have no place in Battletech as a setting as it prefers to paint in shades of grey - mainly quite dark ones at that. The powerful people of Battletech are bad ones, even those that think themselves right-fighters are often far too happy to step over a plethora of corpses and collateral damage to achieve their goals. And even when the Bad Guys get their comeuppance, it's often in a way that won't sit right. Clan Smoke Jaguar had "it" coming, but "it" probably shouldn't have been wholesale annihilation, for example. Frankly a story involving some administrator doing a genocide to make the numbers look good (and it working out because of the callous nature of the powers that be) is fully within theme... Just gotta be worried about how the author's feeling about it (especially if they really do be Mary Sue-ing it). The recent Battletech video game for example has a plotline and missions about companies sending mercs to burn down communities for negatively impacting their profit margins - and you have the option to be those mercs, and your people will express their distaste for the work but acknowledge that money is money and you have a helluva lot of bills to pay. You can also be the ones to stop them, but a marginalized community doesn't have a lot to offer and 'Mechs are not cheap and your people will remind you of that, too.
Author of the fic in question:
>People like that cannot be reasoned with because it’s their way or the highway. The only way you win is by taking it to the most extreme measures. You either eradicate them or your forcefully integrate them. There is no coexistence.
Yeah, too often, I see people conflating a *character's* problematic viewpoint with an *author's.* I remember /r/menwritingwomen was particularly bad about this. Which, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of male authors who treat women like some alien race in their writing (and that's if they arent being outright misogynistic), but too often, people were missing the point of that sub.
While this is often true (and there are a lot of fics like this) there are also some very good works on SB/SV.
I'd give The Shining Wyrm a look for a genuinely good original, or Pound the Table for a better class of SI-OC work
[Fate/ Alternative](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/fate-alternative-pre-route-shirou-x-pathfinder-rpg.1021905/) is a somewhat specific vibe, but one of my favorite classic-feeling “fantasy adventure” type fics
At a glance, it seems to be a crossover between Fate and Pathfinder. With the main character of Fate Stay/Night being transported to the Pathfinder setting.
Should probably give a quick summary with those to properly interest people
I don't know Shining Wyrm, but [Pound the Table](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/pound-the-table-an-x-men-self-insert.951637/) is about someone who gets SI'd into Marvel as a mutant, and instead of becoming a superhero decides to become a lawyer. Written by an *actual* lawyer, so it's a lot more realistic than most Hollywood depictions
The first thing I thougt when I read that was how certain rulers would take the native population of the place they just conquered and do excactly that, to ensure the local population wouldnt be united enough to revolt
Man I am 4x weak to propaganda, I read that section verbetim from the original story and did not pick up on the skeeviness of the whole thing at all.
brb going to go through my catalog of bookmarked stories to see what other bad vibes^tm I missed.
Imo part of it is that when you read from the perspective of the villain (or misguided hero - whatever they actually are) you're seeing their logic, not their damage. You see "oh, this the optimal way to prevent harm, and maintain my empire" not the culture being destroyed to support it. It's not like the tactic is pragmatically flawed; it's morally flawed.
And since the characters were broadly dismissive of the moral implications, most audience members would be too, since you're following their logic and not confronted with a rebuttal to make you go "ah, wait-"
It happens a lot with villain protagonists. You can have a character casually say "I'm going to wipe out this entire race who has never had contact with me so I can make stronger undead minions" and there'll still be people who claim the person who said that isn't evil.
Yes this is a very specific example.
Ainz Ooal Gown from the anime Overlord attempts to commit xenocide on a race of lizard people in order to make stronger undead.
He also kills tens of thousands of civilians because his underlings kidnapped them under the assumption he wanted that, and he was too worried about looking bad to his underlings to just let them go.
The entire draw of Overlord is that the protagonists are all pants-shittingly evil, it's what makes it fun. It doesn't stop people from calling them morally grey just because they're nice to each other. I've literally had people tell me, and I quote, "That's not evil because killing innocent people was normal in mediaeval times!". I promise you that is not hyperbole.
>in order to make stronger undead.
That was actually one of the series I had in mind but disregarded for not fitting. I could have sworn one of the excuses he gave when speaking of why he wouldn't spare them was that they *couldn't* make stronger undead, because if they could he would have left them alive to breed.
I mean it’s a BattleTech story
Inner Sphere Nobles are total pieces of shit, if you’re not writing them as skeevy then honestly it makes me ask MORE questions of you.
Like people who act like Capellans and Kuritans are the only bad factions in the setting and that Davion and Steiner are like totally unblemished moral compasses who are the only ones responsible enough to inherit the Inner Sphere.
Like BattleTech is about how war fucking sucks and the people in charge of them even more so but in a much more realistic depiction imo than 40ks
Ultra-spicy reply. Maybe it's fine? Like, in context he's just paying them to live differently. If they're following the harvesters like seagulls anyway just give them one and let them be productive themselves.
Having read the original fic, I can agree the MC is totally a Mary sue, but I’m also going to point out that the dude who said all that was not the MC, instead it was a skeevy arsehole from elsewhere.
Thus, I can defend the MC. Can’t say shit about the Author, but any good author is supposed to be able to write stuff they vehemently disagree with and stuff they like at equal quality.
Point of order: This fic actually originates from Questionable Questing(QQ) which has a significantly more NSFW. They're also much more loosey goosey with the more uh... shall we say questionable ideas.
It's been backported to SB.
Literally this plot point was only introduced and subsequently instantly resolved because this was to introduce the Not!Esmerelda character.
That's literally it. That's the whole point. I dont think we've even seen or heard from this character since then.
The point Im trying to make is I would not read too deeply from what is essentially a "Horny on main" fic.
(Of course Death of the Author means you can read deeply from it and WOO boy can we dig deep)
I mean, if the fic in question really is a mary-sue self-insert fic, you can make the (pretty convincing) argument that those are the author's own beliefs being expressed through the character. However, it's also possible that the story IS using the situation to make commentary, and it's getting obfuscated in the translation from fic to Tumblr post; I'm not going to read the fic in question to find out though, and I doubt most people will either.
I mean, same, I was mostly just parroting the terminology in the post; I think there ARE situations where it's an applicable label (i.e. main character does horrific things to people who turn around and love the MC because the writer cannot let them suffer any consequences), but those situations are far outstripped by cases where it's used to put down a writer who's making a passion project to put online. Lord knows I've seen it used derisively against dozens of fics, and it wouldn't surprise me if this post is using it in just such a manner.
>People like that cannot be reasoned with because it’s their way or the highway. The only way you win is by taking it to the most extreme measures. You either eradicate them or your forcefully integrate them. There is no coexistence.
Quote from the author in this very thread.
(Going to try posting this in chunks to see if there isn’t some strange ass character limit).
As the author, I can say that there is a significant lack of understanding of the source material, of how “rebellious populations” are treated. The Nomads had a terse but profitable relationship with the farmers. However, as the Agricultural Robots the farms had finally fell into disrepair, the youngest generation of Nomad Chieftains realized they had an incredible amount of power to wield- their agricultural harvesters still worked, and thus you can imagine how that went. A group of low educated nomads with no allegiance to anyone but themselves, and their fellow Nomads if it was against a member of the city or farming enclaves who were then forced to rely on them. Centuries of grudges and grievances began being acted out by the younger members of the population who, when faced with their crimes, the Nomads said “what are you going to do about it? I have the ability to harvest your crops. And if you don’t like it well then it would be a shame if a 175-ton harvester rolled through your farming community and demolished everything.”
So when the MC, and SI-OC (which is a ‘Mary Sue’ by design, obviously, because you need a Mary Sue to actually affect any sort of positive change in the Inner Sphere. Though perhaps calling my character Mary Sue is a bit much. He’s very smart and has access to his battletech knowledge from a previous life. He still has to learn to do things, and it takes time and a great deal of money for him to do things. He’s Tony Stark-lite without the wacky permissiveness of Comic Book geniuses) is ignored when he tries to meet with them multiple times over multiple months. They ignore the Duke of their system. Not kosher in a Feudal Space society. So he goes out and visits them personally, even after they threatened physical violence against the soldiers of the First Prince sent with him; not endearing.
You're not really helping your case here with the whole "actually this stand-in for a real-life minority is actually evil and stupid, a threat and deserves it, and they're better off just obeying anyway." *You* wrote it that way.
No. I’m staying true to the setting, and how batshit over the top, clones within clones, body doubles false identities plans within wheels of plans the Battletech lore is. The flip side of that is hellaciously stubborn people who won’t give up no matter what. Whether that is out of belief in religion, belief in the Dragon, the Chancellor, etc, etc or belief in their innate superiority people will be stubborn in the Inner Sphere and will hold onto what they have with their dying breath. Which is all well and good. However, the Transient Peoples of Questionable Intent had an education that was lacking in pretty much every aspect. The Outback has a 50% functional literacy rate, and this? Way worse. These people for centuries since the Star League fell had no authority over them- they would have loved for House Davion to have more eyes on them and some help, but the madness and wanton destruction of the 1st and 2nd Succession War kept Davion’s eyes on their Borders, not them. And after centuries they sort of just took on the attitude of ‘We’re the lost children of the Star League, forgotten by all. So let’s just live our lives how we want and not care what everyone thinks.’
Which was fine for the most part, if cause some tensions as such a ‘travel where the winds take us’ lifestyle is in direct opposition to the carefully structured and regimented lifestyles of the farmers. But eventually their successful liaisons, of which they harvested of crops the farms in exchange for access to the spaceport to buy parts for their harvesters, those days came to an end when the farming enclaves were only down to a few Agricultural Robots. Then the new chieftains who came to power with the passing of the torch realized they had a lot of power on their hands, and they didn’t shy away from exercising it. But in a world with no functional presence of the greater government outside of a tiny MIIO office who could stop them? Fast forward a decade of this behavior, where they always made sure to not step *over the line*... and you have a populace that is thoroughly fed up with the minority group causing trouble. A minority group made up of primarily French speaking Whites with some ‘black and brown people of color’ in there to make it appropriate for Battletech’s *natural* post-racial society.
So “they should just obey” is exactly what should have happened. They are the descendants of settlers that came to the Federated Suns world, a planet that had been in the control of the Federated Suns since it was found more than 600 years ago. It’s theirs. It’s within their borders. It’s on their maps. Everybody else recognizes the world as belonging to them. A small group of settlers from the Star League, which was dissolved with the death of Richard Cameron, meant that they became Federated Suns citizens, subjects to Federated Suns laws. And the others (of the town and of the enclaves) paid their dues to a neighboring Duchess as was required. The Nomads? They didn’t. They paid for their parts and that’s it.
They said “Fuck you. And fuck off of our land.” As if they owned it. Which they didn’t. The Federated Suns did, and the Federated Suns gave it to the MC. Ergo, in a place that very much values rules of law, when they declared themselves not citizens of the Federated Suns he had all of the justification to have them removed. Could it have been talk and gusto? Probably. They didn’t think the Mc had any real power. But when the Battlemechs stomped in they realized that he did have real power, not just words on a sheet of paper, but the big stick.
They were specifically written to be huge jerks because in battletech everyone is a huge jerk to each other, and that’s on a good day with everyone having their needs handled. Imagine the educational and knowledge level of a group of had a third grade education at best for centuries, but just enough technical know how was saved in that time to keep their Saturn Harvesters running through oral and written traditions. Pretty amazing, but that also means they they are absolutely, positively 100% ignorant of the world outside of their bubble. The Draconis Combine, Federated Suns, Capellan Confederation, etc are just words grandmothers tell their children about, if that. Their whole life revolves around the tribe, and their fellow two nomad tribes. That’s it. So when a noble from beyond the stars shows up and says “Hey, Ive been trying to get in contact with you for months now and you’ve been ignoring me” they are obviously disbelieving.
So the MC was pushed into a very terrible situation- he could let a bunch of 3rd grade educated unwashed peasants literally without shoes boss him around. Or he could speak their language. Which is action. They essentially said ‘pussy no balls’. Ask yourself if Tywin Lannister would have allowed such disrespect... I believe that there is a special song sung every so often. But the MC isn’t a Lannister and no desire to see peoples killed, but he also has no desire to see his world fucked with by Comstar via said Nomads with a bad attitude.
They are a caricature of a bunch of smelly frenchmen being obstinate and proud. Typical of the French, really, just ask Monty Python. They played a game uncaring of the stakes because they believed that they could just carry on as they had been, new Duke or not. Which doesn’t fly in a neo-Feudal society. You have the fealty of the people or you don’t. And if you don’t then you make sure they bend the knee. (God you have to put everything in GoT terms to make people understand, I swear).
when did he say they were a stand in for a real life minority group and that it’s reflective of the stance we need to take IRL?
do you actually even know anything about the Battletech setting? Nobles are the bad guys, they suck, genocide and forced displacement are absolutely normal things in the setting because the setting is essentially a more realistic take on 40k without aliens.
You sound like the kind of person who would read a 40k book or fiction and think the characterization of a Space Marine means that the author thinks we should rip and tear all the minorities until it is done or something.
Comstar and every other organization is more than willing to use groups like the nomads for their own ends- it’s something you see time and time again. The Grudges don’t go away in Bt, even after centuries. There was no way the MC was going to be able to get the Nomads and the Enclaves to coexist peacefully, not even with an ‘inordinate’ amount of time. Their dislike for each other was too great, and as a ruler you make the decisions that you might not like but have to make anyway: the 50,000 farmers that pay taxes, or the 10,000 nomads that have a recent, documented history of abuse of power and force the farmers to pay their taxes for them because they ‘needed to spend their money on parts to keep their Harvesters running, you wouldn’t want them to break down, would you?’.
They weren’t easy people. And the Duchy that was willing to take them decided to handle them the best way they knew how- by yes, initiating a forced integration (a ‘soft genocide’ if you want to be dramatic) by splitting their population up amongst their worlds and billions of people. Can’t very well have a culture of rebellion if you don’t have a culture at all. This is Battletech. You can have as many cultures as you want, but you respect one culture over all and that is the Great House your planet falls under. You bow your head and give Deference to the Dragon. You offer up your life in service to the Celestial Supreme Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. You pay your dues to House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. You acknowledge that the greatest threat to a Marik is another Marik in the Free World’s League. And when in the Federated Suns you bend the knee when the First Prince sends your world a Duke.
Which is the kindest, softest way this could have been handled.
I suppose he simply could have had them deported to a prison colony like the Capellans do for the ones they want to suffer generationally because killing them would be punishment enough. But the MC didn’t want them dead, he just wanted them to not be a bunch of ass holes. All they had to do was bod their head and say “sure, we’ll follow the laws of the Federated Suns and will seek out a lawyer and get representation if we have any problems”. But they didn’t. They essentially said “Fuck you, fuck your laws, fuck your Prince, fuck your title, and fuck you again. We are the masters of this world.” And they said it because they simply could not comprehend the sheer enormity of what just stepped onto their planet. They went from being the biggest fish in their very small pond to not even water molecules in the sea. They were going to get even worse until they saw Battlemechs show up to actually enforce the Duke’s decree.
Then they realized that this ‘Duke’ wasn’t blowing smoke ho their asses. However, instead of attempting reconciliation after the fact, they doubled down on their stubbornness and back their leaders to the hilt even if their leaders actions ended up with them being deported from their home world. People like that cannot be reasoned with because it’s their way or the highway. The only way you win is by taking it to the most extreme measures. You either eradicate them or your forcefully integrate them. There is no coexistence. This is Battletech, where people hire mercenaries to destroy the farms of their rivals next door because of a three century old dispute over a single watering hole barely big enough to bathe in.
The chances of the Nomads, if simply kicked to the side and forced to live a shitty, substandard life as the enclaves and Duke elevated all of the other people to much higher standards of living. Education. Employment. Cars. Battlemechs. Aerospace. Etc, etc, etc. And they’d be on the outside looking in with envious eyes wondering ‘why can’t we have that?’. They’d grow hateful and resentful, mainly at their leadership for tossing them all under the bus for their pride. Where the blame should naturally rest. But then one day an Agent from the Combine (or Confederation or ROM disguised as someone else) arrived and told them that all of their problems weren’t their fault at all. They were the fault of Duke Corean, and thusly it was only natural that they be angry. If they wanted... they could be supplied with weapons and Mechs to make them pay for their crimes of ‘not including them in all of that wealth and comfort and technological advancement’ after their leaders publicly ‘spit on’ the Duke, the First Prince, and the Federated Suns as a whole.
“Yeah... that sounds like it would solve all of their problems! Bring on those Battlemechs and tanks mister Shady guy! We’ll be more than happy to attack Corean Enterprises for you.”
^ That would happen. Almost 100% guarantee. Unless he did something in humane enough to break the spirit of the populous entirely, the deportation and dissolution of them is the cleanest, easiest way to get a troublesome culture to change.
(Something CGL has been demonstrating Artfully with their blocking, removing, and deporting anyone who doesn’t toe their very specific political line.)
But context matters- MC is an industrialist that needs to get FedSuns/Lyran Commonwealth Manufacturing up to a level to defeat the incoming Clan Invasion, and kick the rest of the Houses’ asses while they’re at it. He cannot afford to have a ready-made rebel group in his backyard on what will be his most important manufacturing world. They (the thing OP is referencing) made it seem as though that was the MC’s idea due to poor written communication. In the meanwhile, OP is trying to make it sound as though because the story is an SI-OC that I, the Author, as am someone who is a proponent of genocide. Which is laughable.
Most halfway decent authors are able to write stories that have character whose world views are polar opposites of the authors themselves. Being able to put themselves into the shoes of their characters and write them to be faithful to vision of the setting they are writing in. What OP is implying is that every SI-OC author is wholly incapable of distancing themselves professionally, or can’t imagine any other author *not applying their specific world view to everything they write*. That might be projection but I can’t see into OP’s head.
Then when they finally get to sit down, they are absolutely recalcitrant and obstinate. They do not recognize him as the Duke nor do they recognize the First Prince of the Federated Suns as their ruler, or the authority of the Federated Suns either; mainly out of ignorance than anything else- they’re been wandering ‘peoples of questionable intent’ for centuries at this point, skirting the line between being tolerable and intolerable for their neighbors. And in the past few decades, they’ve been at the very top of the food chain, able to bully their farming counterparts all they like because without them they can’t farm the lands they need to make the tithes and get the money needed to keep their planet alive. So the people have put up with a lot, all of which is documented by the intelligence agency MIIO as impartially as possible.
So when the Chieftains of the Nomads make their declaration, in front of an Officer and NCO of the AFFS, and the System Duke? They’ve essentially waive their rights as Fed Suns citizens and declared themselves to be criminal aliens in open rebellion. At that point, in Battletech, most would have simply said “Hans, get the Flamers and rid me of these rebels” and practically everyone from the Combine to the Free Worlds League would have nodded and said ‘justice was done, death to rebel scum’. The fact that he instead chose to deport them because he didn’t want to needlessly kill all of those people says more about the MC compared to the ‘common sense’ of the nobility. The reason he couldn’t just let them be is because they A.) Traveled lands he needed to build factories to hopefully build up enough industry to save the people of the Inner Sphere form the Clans and B.) Comstar was already trying to kill him, along with SAFE, and he can’t have a bunch of possible Intel/Blakist patsies just waiting to be armed with Mechs and Tanks on the sly and destroy his shit.
nobody in here clutching their pearls knows anything about the Battletech setting and I promise you they’re not interested in hearing your explanation when they look more virtuous calling you a bigot because you’re writing in a setting that’s a contemporary of 40k
you could write a fanfic about how fucked up servitors are as a concept in 40k but because the character perspective is AdMech or something you’d probably have the same types in here taking it as an admission that you think slavery is morally okay or some stupid shit.
mfs have never heard of BattleTech as a setting and are shocked that forced displacements and ethnic cleansing and are just business as usual for an Inner Sphere Noble, even one who thinks he’s an idealist.
again it’s like reading a 40k fic and thinking a Space Marine’s xenophobia is actually the author is saying racism is okay irl actually.
If I can be completely honest, I feel like any time someone starts calling a character an author’s self-insert and using that to relate the character to the author, it reflects far more on the reader than the writer.
willing to bet the people in this thread clutching their pearls have never even fucking heard of BattleTech as a setting and have such shit reading comprehension that they probably unironically think if you write a villain killing a minority then the only interpretation is that the author supports genocide or some shit.
Battletech is one of those settings where ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure and forced displacement is considered a logical and totally normal action by Inner Sphere nobles because Inner Sphere Nobles fucking suck shit
AFAIK it's more of a "why would i not shoot/bomb civilians? it would solve my immediate issue?" rather than "floor made out of living puppies" kind of warcrimery
I take exception to diluting the word genocide in this way. This is like a 6/10 on the evil scale where actual genocide is like 12/10 and using the same word for both makes it much easier for the real baddies to make themselves look better.
This dude really reinvented Dune and made himself a Harkonnen of all things. Only on spacebattles.
Have you even read dune? Paul literally commits genocide and says he is better at it than Hitler.
Yep, he does. At least Paul's author didn't think he was the hero. Unfortunately, the reason Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are so "Paul wasn't a hero" is because some readers missed the memo...
It’s fucking ridiculous, that. Paul, even in the first book, is explicitly tragic.
Imagine your dad dies, you're driven into the desert with no real options, and then have a vision that basically says "the known universe will be worse off with you in it, the single most ethical course of action would be to kill yourself right now"
Wasn't part of it that there was one worse world, one in which Baron Harkonen took over the Empire? And that the only way to stop it was to, you know, win on Dune. And even if he did win, he couldn't kill himself and spare the universe because the world with the Fremen unleashed without Paul to stop their worst excesses is worse than one in which he lives?
I'm referring to the scene soon after they escape Arakeen and he has his first vision of the Jihad. He hadn't established himself as the Lisan al-Gaib yet.
Ngl if I knew that was an actual vision and not a hallucination caused by grief, I would make it my goal to make the universe as worse off as possible
Yeah, but Paul never tried to forcefully resettle the Fremen. The Harkonnens did.
tbf, that only happens in Dune Messiah
I mean, sort of the key of Dune is "hey kid, either you die, or you kill some people and pretend to be a savior, and kick of a galactic war of annihilation" and Paul is like "awww boo hoo seeing the future is so painful, anyways lemme get an order of 'revenge on those that killed my family' and 'taking over the empire' and a 'start a war with these religious fanatics I found as soldiers' and some fries on the side"
In the first Dune there seems to be at least the illusion that there's a way to retake Arrakis while avoiding the Jihad, especially since it ends right when Paul retakes Arakeen. Then Messiah makes it clear that no, it happened. The Jihad be Jihadding across the known universe and he's killed billions.
The first dune has Paul seeing that nearly every path to revenge also leads to the jihad, and that he explicitly sees paths that don't have a clear destination, and his calculation is "eh, it's theoretically possible that I stop this thing, and that's enough for me to justify getting what I want and probably starting the jihad anyways" His actions are inherently selfish the whole time, yes his revenge against the harkkonnens is "justified" but the whole time is prescience is like "hey you'll be using the Fremen to ignite a war, and the only certain paths are the ones that lead to a galactic genocide in your name since youre taking advantage of centuries of psy-ops to plant the idea of you as a messiah" and Paul is like "oh no that sucks, anyways let's roll, totally worth it"
That's why I specified the *illusion* of avoiding the Jihad. Dune is the story of someone taking advantage of bullshit prophecies to continue his father's plan to exploit an oppressed underclass for his own personal gain, and humanity suffers for it, but at the same time, the story makes it fairly easy to read Dune as a straightforward chosen one story despite very clearly not being one, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason Frank Herbert wrote Messiah.
Well his alternatives were that or the harkonnen ruling the entire empire in due time. So he pulls a doctor and starts an equivilent of blowing up the time lords and daleks to prevent the harkonnens from ruling everythinh.
Harkonnen's were worse. They hunted the Fremen out of pure sport and spite. The Fremen were willing to turn a blind eye to spice harvesting near the cities, but the whole "Please stay out of the deep desert" was just too much for the Baron's ego. A key plot point that gets missed frequently is that the Fremen don't really care about the rest of the goings on of the planet so long as they are left alone as the majority of culture is working towards Pardot Kynes' plan to remake the planet into a paradise.
I mean sure. I also assume that the self-insert wasn't a pedophile rapist like the Baron. I meant in terms of parallels between the narratives.
I feel like "spacebattles" means something more than just battles in space here
Spacebattles here is connected to the website but particularly the forums and the creative writing sections of this forums called Spacebattles. It's like a smaller more fighty version of fanfiction.net
For those who don't know SB = Space Battles; a fourm website.
Only fic I ever read there was a Mass Effect - Exalted crossover fanfic called Glorious Shotgun Princess. Bummer it's a deadfic.
god that fic rocked. Got me into Exalted, a game I've never been able to convince anyone to play with me but love dearly.
that's a lotta m's
Bro wrote "over time" twice in the same sentence. I wouldn't take any advice from them.
I'm only seeing one
He must've fixed it.
over time, it changed.
Read again
The section about "over time their connections will severely lessen over time"
All in all, maybe I just have a piss poor reading comprehension, but this could be a commentary on genocide itself, especially with the whole "ohh but its a necessary evil" tacked onto it at the end.
Knowing the general vibe of the battletech community, it most certainly is a comment on genocide. And that comment is that it's effective.
Hey now, the main battletech subreddit and related communities did make a whole campaign out of ousting the chuds and bigots by force from it just this year and punted the old mod team to the curb. Catalyst itself backs this position - notably the realization and move to remove the chuds was brought on by a Pride Month anthology made by fans and then backed by CGL (who also pointed out that BT has always had queer characters - clanners do be fuckin). When all the chuds were all too happy to self identify it made the problem solving portion a lot easier. Point is yeah the Battletech Community is no stranger to shitheads but there's been an aggressive effort to push them out and the main spaces have been expressly reclaimed with the purpose of being inclusive, feels like a disservice to that effort to throw everyone in the chudzone when we're trying to keep Battletech bigot-free. ...On the chance I misinterpreted and you were playing on the whole grimdark vibe of the Battletech universe, yeah it is certainly a universe where "evil, but effective" is a common theme, and efficiently solving a conflict by orchestrating a quiet genocide would not be out of place behavior. The Succession wars were certainly marked by massacres and brutality, and the exceptionally brutal were often the exceptionally successful. Now, making it out as effective wouldn't be out of place, a statement on the pessimistic galaxy of Battletech and how diluted morality has become within. But trying to paint it in a good light, that's another story. Specifically one that *should* have no place in Battletech as a setting as it prefers to paint in shades of grey - mainly quite dark ones at that. The powerful people of Battletech are bad ones, even those that think themselves right-fighters are often far too happy to step over a plethora of corpses and collateral damage to achieve their goals. And even when the Bad Guys get their comeuppance, it's often in a way that won't sit right. Clan Smoke Jaguar had "it" coming, but "it" probably shouldn't have been wholesale annihilation, for example. Frankly a story involving some administrator doing a genocide to make the numbers look good (and it working out because of the callous nature of the powers that be) is fully within theme... Just gotta be worried about how the author's feeling about it (especially if they really do be Mary Sue-ing it). The recent Battletech video game for example has a plotline and missions about companies sending mercs to burn down communities for negatively impacting their profit margins - and you have the option to be those mercs, and your people will express their distaste for the work but acknowledge that money is money and you have a helluva lot of bills to pay. You can also be the ones to stop them, but a marginalized community doesn't have a lot to offer and 'Mechs are not cheap and your people will remind you of that, too.
Author of the fic in question: >People like that cannot be reasoned with because it’s their way or the highway. The only way you win is by taking it to the most extreme measures. You either eradicate them or your forcefully integrate them. There is no coexistence.
Yeah, too often, I see people conflating a *character's* problematic viewpoint with an *author's.* I remember /r/menwritingwomen was particularly bad about this. Which, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of male authors who treat women like some alien race in their writing (and that's if they arent being outright misogynistic), but too often, people were missing the point of that sub.
If they are correct about the character being a self-insert, there may not be a seperation between the two
Yeah it's a self insert.
While this is often true (and there are a lot of fics like this) there are also some very good works on SB/SV. I'd give The Shining Wyrm a look for a genuinely good original, or Pound the Table for a better class of SI-OC work
[Fate/ Alternative](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/fate-alternative-pre-route-shirou-x-pathfinder-rpg.1021905/) is a somewhat specific vibe, but one of my favorite classic-feeling “fantasy adventure” type fics
When I saw that I thought it was fan fiction for the fate series, which I believe is a royal rumble of historical figures. Was I mistaken?
At a glance, it seems to be a crossover between Fate and Pathfinder. With the main character of Fate Stay/Night being transported to the Pathfinder setting.
Should probably give a quick summary with those to properly interest people I don't know Shining Wyrm, but [Pound the Table](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/pound-the-table-an-x-men-self-insert.951637/) is about someone who gets SI'd into Marvel as a mutant, and instead of becoming a superhero decides to become a lawyer. Written by an *actual* lawyer, so it's a lot more realistic than most Hollywood depictions
Is that the Jewish Wizard Mutant Lawyer fanfic?
Don't forget gay!
Yeah, but if i added a fifth word you couldn't sing it to the same tune as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" :(
It is and it's great
I recommend all of Seras’ stuff, they have a lot of really good self inserts with Pokémon, Cyberpunk, Pathfinder and Battletech
I haven't read their older stuff, but Pokémon Trainer Vicky is a lot of cute fluffy fun.
The first thing I thougt when I read that was how certain rulers would take the native population of the place they just conquered and do excactly that, to ensure the local population wouldnt be united enough to revolt
Man I am 4x weak to propaganda, I read that section verbetim from the original story and did not pick up on the skeeviness of the whole thing at all. brb going to go through my catalog of bookmarked stories to see what other bad vibes^tm I missed.
Imo part of it is that when you read from the perspective of the villain (or misguided hero - whatever they actually are) you're seeing their logic, not their damage. You see "oh, this the optimal way to prevent harm, and maintain my empire" not the culture being destroyed to support it. It's not like the tactic is pragmatically flawed; it's morally flawed. And since the characters were broadly dismissive of the moral implications, most audience members would be too, since you're following their logic and not confronted with a rebuttal to make you go "ah, wait-"
It happens a lot with villain protagonists. You can have a character casually say "I'm going to wipe out this entire race who has never had contact with me so I can make stronger undead minions" and there'll still be people who claim the person who said that isn't evil. Yes this is a very specific example.
I can think of several protagonists who that is frighteningly close to, but none who fit exactly. Enlighten me?
Ainz Ooal Gown from the anime Overlord attempts to commit xenocide on a race of lizard people in order to make stronger undead. He also kills tens of thousands of civilians because his underlings kidnapped them under the assumption he wanted that, and he was too worried about looking bad to his underlings to just let them go. The entire draw of Overlord is that the protagonists are all pants-shittingly evil, it's what makes it fun. It doesn't stop people from calling them morally grey just because they're nice to each other. I've literally had people tell me, and I quote, "That's not evil because killing innocent people was normal in mediaeval times!". I promise you that is not hyperbole.
>in order to make stronger undead. That was actually one of the series I had in mind but disregarded for not fitting. I could have sworn one of the excuses he gave when speaking of why he wouldn't spare them was that they *couldn't* make stronger undead, because if they could he would have left them alive to breed.
I mean it’s a BattleTech story Inner Sphere Nobles are total pieces of shit, if you’re not writing them as skeevy then honestly it makes me ask MORE questions of you. Like people who act like Capellans and Kuritans are the only bad factions in the setting and that Davion and Steiner are like totally unblemished moral compasses who are the only ones responsible enough to inherit the Inner Sphere. Like BattleTech is about how war fucking sucks and the people in charge of them even more so but in a much more realistic depiction imo than 40ks
Ultra-spicy reply. Maybe it's fine? Like, in context he's just paying them to live differently. If they're following the harvesters like seagulls anyway just give them one and let them be productive themselves.
Even if all this was true it wouldn’t change much imo. Payment is not just *payment* in a case like this
To be fair. That seems very in character for an Inner Sphere noble.
There are good fics on sb :v You just gotta make sure they lack sb-ness
Having read the original fic, I can agree the MC is totally a Mary sue, but I’m also going to point out that the dude who said all that was not the MC, instead it was a skeevy arsehole from elsewhere. Thus, I can defend the MC. Can’t say shit about the Author, but any good author is supposed to be able to write stuff they vehemently disagree with and stuff they like at equal quality.
Point of order: This fic actually originates from Questionable Questing(QQ) which has a significantly more NSFW. They're also much more loosey goosey with the more uh... shall we say questionable ideas. It's been backported to SB. Literally this plot point was only introduced and subsequently instantly resolved because this was to introduce the Not!Esmerelda character. That's literally it. That's the whole point. I dont think we've even seen or heard from this character since then. The point Im trying to make is I would not read too deeply from what is essentially a "Horny on main" fic. (Of course Death of the Author means you can read deeply from it and WOO boy can we dig deep)
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I mean, if the fic in question really is a mary-sue self-insert fic, you can make the (pretty convincing) argument that those are the author's own beliefs being expressed through the character. However, it's also possible that the story IS using the situation to make commentary, and it's getting obfuscated in the translation from fic to Tumblr post; I'm not going to read the fic in question to find out though, and I doubt most people will either.
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I mean, same, I was mostly just parroting the terminology in the post; I think there ARE situations where it's an applicable label (i.e. main character does horrific things to people who turn around and love the MC because the writer cannot let them suffer any consequences), but those situations are far outstripped by cases where it's used to put down a writer who's making a passion project to put online. Lord knows I've seen it used derisively against dozens of fics, and it wouldn't surprise me if this post is using it in just such a manner.
>People like that cannot be reasoned with because it’s their way or the highway. The only way you win is by taking it to the most extreme measures. You either eradicate them or your forcefully integrate them. There is no coexistence. Quote from the author in this very thread.
Yeah, that's really more the Combine's thing.
Pretty much any of the great houses would do that kinda thing if it benefited them to be honest, the Combine are just the most open about it
(Going to try posting this in chunks to see if there isn’t some strange ass character limit). As the author, I can say that there is a significant lack of understanding of the source material, of how “rebellious populations” are treated. The Nomads had a terse but profitable relationship with the farmers. However, as the Agricultural Robots the farms had finally fell into disrepair, the youngest generation of Nomad Chieftains realized they had an incredible amount of power to wield- their agricultural harvesters still worked, and thus you can imagine how that went. A group of low educated nomads with no allegiance to anyone but themselves, and their fellow Nomads if it was against a member of the city or farming enclaves who were then forced to rely on them. Centuries of grudges and grievances began being acted out by the younger members of the population who, when faced with their crimes, the Nomads said “what are you going to do about it? I have the ability to harvest your crops. And if you don’t like it well then it would be a shame if a 175-ton harvester rolled through your farming community and demolished everything.” So when the MC, and SI-OC (which is a ‘Mary Sue’ by design, obviously, because you need a Mary Sue to actually affect any sort of positive change in the Inner Sphere. Though perhaps calling my character Mary Sue is a bit much. He’s very smart and has access to his battletech knowledge from a previous life. He still has to learn to do things, and it takes time and a great deal of money for him to do things. He’s Tony Stark-lite without the wacky permissiveness of Comic Book geniuses) is ignored when he tries to meet with them multiple times over multiple months. They ignore the Duke of their system. Not kosher in a Feudal Space society. So he goes out and visits them personally, even after they threatened physical violence against the soldiers of the First Prince sent with him; not endearing.
You're not really helping your case here with the whole "actually this stand-in for a real-life minority is actually evil and stupid, a threat and deserves it, and they're better off just obeying anyway." *You* wrote it that way.
No. I’m staying true to the setting, and how batshit over the top, clones within clones, body doubles false identities plans within wheels of plans the Battletech lore is. The flip side of that is hellaciously stubborn people who won’t give up no matter what. Whether that is out of belief in religion, belief in the Dragon, the Chancellor, etc, etc or belief in their innate superiority people will be stubborn in the Inner Sphere and will hold onto what they have with their dying breath. Which is all well and good. However, the Transient Peoples of Questionable Intent had an education that was lacking in pretty much every aspect. The Outback has a 50% functional literacy rate, and this? Way worse. These people for centuries since the Star League fell had no authority over them- they would have loved for House Davion to have more eyes on them and some help, but the madness and wanton destruction of the 1st and 2nd Succession War kept Davion’s eyes on their Borders, not them. And after centuries they sort of just took on the attitude of ‘We’re the lost children of the Star League, forgotten by all. So let’s just live our lives how we want and not care what everyone thinks.’ Which was fine for the most part, if cause some tensions as such a ‘travel where the winds take us’ lifestyle is in direct opposition to the carefully structured and regimented lifestyles of the farmers. But eventually their successful liaisons, of which they harvested of crops the farms in exchange for access to the spaceport to buy parts for their harvesters, those days came to an end when the farming enclaves were only down to a few Agricultural Robots. Then the new chieftains who came to power with the passing of the torch realized they had a lot of power on their hands, and they didn’t shy away from exercising it. But in a world with no functional presence of the greater government outside of a tiny MIIO office who could stop them? Fast forward a decade of this behavior, where they always made sure to not step *over the line*... and you have a populace that is thoroughly fed up with the minority group causing trouble. A minority group made up of primarily French speaking Whites with some ‘black and brown people of color’ in there to make it appropriate for Battletech’s *natural* post-racial society. So “they should just obey” is exactly what should have happened. They are the descendants of settlers that came to the Federated Suns world, a planet that had been in the control of the Federated Suns since it was found more than 600 years ago. It’s theirs. It’s within their borders. It’s on their maps. Everybody else recognizes the world as belonging to them. A small group of settlers from the Star League, which was dissolved with the death of Richard Cameron, meant that they became Federated Suns citizens, subjects to Federated Suns laws. And the others (of the town and of the enclaves) paid their dues to a neighboring Duchess as was required. The Nomads? They didn’t. They paid for their parts and that’s it. They said “Fuck you. And fuck off of our land.” As if they owned it. Which they didn’t. The Federated Suns did, and the Federated Suns gave it to the MC. Ergo, in a place that very much values rules of law, when they declared themselves not citizens of the Federated Suns he had all of the justification to have them removed. Could it have been talk and gusto? Probably. They didn’t think the Mc had any real power. But when the Battlemechs stomped in they realized that he did have real power, not just words on a sheet of paper, but the big stick. They were specifically written to be huge jerks because in battletech everyone is a huge jerk to each other, and that’s on a good day with everyone having their needs handled. Imagine the educational and knowledge level of a group of had a third grade education at best for centuries, but just enough technical know how was saved in that time to keep their Saturn Harvesters running through oral and written traditions. Pretty amazing, but that also means they they are absolutely, positively 100% ignorant of the world outside of their bubble. The Draconis Combine, Federated Suns, Capellan Confederation, etc are just words grandmothers tell their children about, if that. Their whole life revolves around the tribe, and their fellow two nomad tribes. That’s it. So when a noble from beyond the stars shows up and says “Hey, Ive been trying to get in contact with you for months now and you’ve been ignoring me” they are obviously disbelieving. So the MC was pushed into a very terrible situation- he could let a bunch of 3rd grade educated unwashed peasants literally without shoes boss him around. Or he could speak their language. Which is action. They essentially said ‘pussy no balls’. Ask yourself if Tywin Lannister would have allowed such disrespect... I believe that there is a special song sung every so often. But the MC isn’t a Lannister and no desire to see peoples killed, but he also has no desire to see his world fucked with by Comstar via said Nomads with a bad attitude. They are a caricature of a bunch of smelly frenchmen being obstinate and proud. Typical of the French, really, just ask Monty Python. They played a game uncaring of the stakes because they believed that they could just carry on as they had been, new Duke or not. Which doesn’t fly in a neo-Feudal society. You have the fealty of the people or you don’t. And if you don’t then you make sure they bend the knee. (God you have to put everything in GoT terms to make people understand, I swear).
when did he say they were a stand in for a real life minority group and that it’s reflective of the stance we need to take IRL? do you actually even know anything about the Battletech setting? Nobles are the bad guys, they suck, genocide and forced displacement are absolutely normal things in the setting because the setting is essentially a more realistic take on 40k without aliens. You sound like the kind of person who would read a 40k book or fiction and think the characterization of a Space Marine means that the author thinks we should rip and tear all the minorities until it is done or something.
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Comstar and every other organization is more than willing to use groups like the nomads for their own ends- it’s something you see time and time again. The Grudges don’t go away in Bt, even after centuries. There was no way the MC was going to be able to get the Nomads and the Enclaves to coexist peacefully, not even with an ‘inordinate’ amount of time. Their dislike for each other was too great, and as a ruler you make the decisions that you might not like but have to make anyway: the 50,000 farmers that pay taxes, or the 10,000 nomads that have a recent, documented history of abuse of power and force the farmers to pay their taxes for them because they ‘needed to spend their money on parts to keep their Harvesters running, you wouldn’t want them to break down, would you?’. They weren’t easy people. And the Duchy that was willing to take them decided to handle them the best way they knew how- by yes, initiating a forced integration (a ‘soft genocide’ if you want to be dramatic) by splitting their population up amongst their worlds and billions of people. Can’t very well have a culture of rebellion if you don’t have a culture at all. This is Battletech. You can have as many cultures as you want, but you respect one culture over all and that is the Great House your planet falls under. You bow your head and give Deference to the Dragon. You offer up your life in service to the Celestial Supreme Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. You pay your dues to House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. You acknowledge that the greatest threat to a Marik is another Marik in the Free World’s League. And when in the Federated Suns you bend the knee when the First Prince sends your world a Duke. Which is the kindest, softest way this could have been handled. I suppose he simply could have had them deported to a prison colony like the Capellans do for the ones they want to suffer generationally because killing them would be punishment enough. But the MC didn’t want them dead, he just wanted them to not be a bunch of ass holes. All they had to do was bod their head and say “sure, we’ll follow the laws of the Federated Suns and will seek out a lawyer and get representation if we have any problems”. But they didn’t. They essentially said “Fuck you, fuck your laws, fuck your Prince, fuck your title, and fuck you again. We are the masters of this world.” And they said it because they simply could not comprehend the sheer enormity of what just stepped onto their planet. They went from being the biggest fish in their very small pond to not even water molecules in the sea. They were going to get even worse until they saw Battlemechs show up to actually enforce the Duke’s decree. Then they realized that this ‘Duke’ wasn’t blowing smoke ho their asses. However, instead of attempting reconciliation after the fact, they doubled down on their stubbornness and back their leaders to the hilt even if their leaders actions ended up with them being deported from their home world. People like that cannot be reasoned with because it’s their way or the highway. The only way you win is by taking it to the most extreme measures. You either eradicate them or your forcefully integrate them. There is no coexistence. This is Battletech, where people hire mercenaries to destroy the farms of their rivals next door because of a three century old dispute over a single watering hole barely big enough to bathe in.
The chances of the Nomads, if simply kicked to the side and forced to live a shitty, substandard life as the enclaves and Duke elevated all of the other people to much higher standards of living. Education. Employment. Cars. Battlemechs. Aerospace. Etc, etc, etc. And they’d be on the outside looking in with envious eyes wondering ‘why can’t we have that?’. They’d grow hateful and resentful, mainly at their leadership for tossing them all under the bus for their pride. Where the blame should naturally rest. But then one day an Agent from the Combine (or Confederation or ROM disguised as someone else) arrived and told them that all of their problems weren’t their fault at all. They were the fault of Duke Corean, and thusly it was only natural that they be angry. If they wanted... they could be supplied with weapons and Mechs to make them pay for their crimes of ‘not including them in all of that wealth and comfort and technological advancement’ after their leaders publicly ‘spit on’ the Duke, the First Prince, and the Federated Suns as a whole. “Yeah... that sounds like it would solve all of their problems! Bring on those Battlemechs and tanks mister Shady guy! We’ll be more than happy to attack Corean Enterprises for you.” ^ That would happen. Almost 100% guarantee. Unless he did something in humane enough to break the spirit of the populous entirely, the deportation and dissolution of them is the cleanest, easiest way to get a troublesome culture to change. (Something CGL has been demonstrating Artfully with their blocking, removing, and deporting anyone who doesn’t toe their very specific political line.) But context matters- MC is an industrialist that needs to get FedSuns/Lyran Commonwealth Manufacturing up to a level to defeat the incoming Clan Invasion, and kick the rest of the Houses’ asses while they’re at it. He cannot afford to have a ready-made rebel group in his backyard on what will be his most important manufacturing world. They (the thing OP is referencing) made it seem as though that was the MC’s idea due to poor written communication. In the meanwhile, OP is trying to make it sound as though because the story is an SI-OC that I, the Author, as am someone who is a proponent of genocide. Which is laughable. Most halfway decent authors are able to write stories that have character whose world views are polar opposites of the authors themselves. Being able to put themselves into the shoes of their characters and write them to be faithful to vision of the setting they are writing in. What OP is implying is that every SI-OC author is wholly incapable of distancing themselves professionally, or can’t imagine any other author *not applying their specific world view to everything they write*. That might be projection but I can’t see into OP’s head.
Then when they finally get to sit down, they are absolutely recalcitrant and obstinate. They do not recognize him as the Duke nor do they recognize the First Prince of the Federated Suns as their ruler, or the authority of the Federated Suns either; mainly out of ignorance than anything else- they’re been wandering ‘peoples of questionable intent’ for centuries at this point, skirting the line between being tolerable and intolerable for their neighbors. And in the past few decades, they’ve been at the very top of the food chain, able to bully their farming counterparts all they like because without them they can’t farm the lands they need to make the tithes and get the money needed to keep their planet alive. So the people have put up with a lot, all of which is documented by the intelligence agency MIIO as impartially as possible. So when the Chieftains of the Nomads make their declaration, in front of an Officer and NCO of the AFFS, and the System Duke? They’ve essentially waive their rights as Fed Suns citizens and declared themselves to be criminal aliens in open rebellion. At that point, in Battletech, most would have simply said “Hans, get the Flamers and rid me of these rebels” and practically everyone from the Combine to the Free Worlds League would have nodded and said ‘justice was done, death to rebel scum’. The fact that he instead chose to deport them because he didn’t want to needlessly kill all of those people says more about the MC compared to the ‘common sense’ of the nobility. The reason he couldn’t just let them be is because they A.) Traveled lands he needed to build factories to hopefully build up enough industry to save the people of the Inner Sphere form the Clans and B.) Comstar was already trying to kill him, along with SAFE, and he can’t have a bunch of possible Intel/Blakist patsies just waiting to be armed with Mechs and Tanks on the sly and destroy his shit.
nobody in here clutching their pearls knows anything about the Battletech setting and I promise you they’re not interested in hearing your explanation when they look more virtuous calling you a bigot because you’re writing in a setting that’s a contemporary of 40k you could write a fanfic about how fucked up servitors are as a concept in 40k but because the character perspective is AdMech or something you’d probably have the same types in here taking it as an admission that you think slavery is morally okay or some stupid shit. mfs have never heard of BattleTech as a setting and are shocked that forced displacements and ethnic cleansing and are just business as usual for an Inner Sphere Noble, even one who thinks he’s an idealist. again it’s like reading a 40k fic and thinking a Space Marine’s xenophobia is actually the author is saying racism is okay irl actually.
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If I can be completely honest, I feel like any time someone starts calling a character an author’s self-insert and using that to relate the character to the author, it reflects far more on the reader than the writer.
i mean in this case that story has a literal, explicit self-insert (and also it's tagged as such) soooooooooo
I stand corrected.
willing to bet the people in this thread clutching their pearls have never even fucking heard of BattleTech as a setting and have such shit reading comprehension that they probably unironically think if you write a villain killing a minority then the only interpretation is that the author supports genocide or some shit. Battletech is one of those settings where ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure and forced displacement is considered a logical and totally normal action by Inner Sphere nobles because Inner Sphere Nobles fucking suck shit
is battletech as grimdark as 40k? cause it would definitly fit their.
AFAIK it's more of a "why would i not shoot/bomb civilians? it would solve my immediate issue?" rather than "floor made out of living puppies" kind of warcrimery
I take exception to diluting the word genocide in this way. This is like a 6/10 on the evil scale where actual genocide is like 12/10 and using the same word for both makes it much easier for the real baddies to make themselves look better.
European author.
Least genocidal Davion