Accidental civilian deaths as the result of attacking a strategic or military target are termed "collateral damage" to distinguish them from cases in which the civilians were specifically targeted, such as in the firebombings of London, Dresden and Tokyo. If the term offends you, substitute any term you like. The distinction won't mean much to the dead, but it certainly should mean something to the living.boldilocks wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 8:21 amThe very concept of civilian deaths by bombing as "collateral damage" is fundamentally dehumanizing. That's not giving people unsightly tattoos, that's rendering them as part of the landscape. As less than cattle.
If accidental civilian death due to military action is totally unacceptable, then it is impossible to conduct warfare. All the enemy has to do is cover himself and his assets in human shields, and that's it; you lose.
If you're saying that the existence of a deranged or evil Loroi individual in a position of power means that all Loroi are evil, that doesn't make much sense. Humanity has had some pretty deranged, evil individual members who rose to great power and did great evil. Does that mean that there is a flaw in the fundamental makeup of human culture?boldilocks wrote:And argument could be made that this indicates a flaw in the fundamental makeup of loroi culture. That the appearance of such deviancy from what regular loroi would consider 'good morality' makes for disastrous stewards of the conquered, while at the same time the Umiak appear more as a species whose entire line of morality is fundamentally different on a biological level, but not actually morally flawed, since that would require them to hold to a morality that we share, which they seemingly don't.
The nature of interstellar travel in Outsider means that local commanders have to have a great deal of autonomy to act, because sending a message to headquarters and waiting for a response could take weeks or even longer depending on the location. If a local commander goes General Ripper, it could be some time before HQ even knows it happened, much less being able to do anything about it. In the military I'm legally responsible for what my subordinates do, but saying that I'm evil because one of my subordinates cracked and committed war crimes lacks... a certain nuance.
I'm not absolving the Loroi of guilt in the Mannadi massacre, I'm just pointing out the fact that it was not official policy. The Umiak liquidation of Loroi in the Steppes was official policy. Just putting that out there.
If I had wanted to paint the Loroi as saintly and without fault, I wouldn't have invented such a bloody history for them. The fact that I gave the heroes some flaws and the villains some virtues seems to be confusing people, but I don't see why it should.
On the contrary, the criteria in the Third Geneva Convention for a resistance fighter to qualify for treatment as a prisoner of war specifically require "that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates." There is no prohibition against this person being military or in or out of uniform. As far as I'm aware, there is no prohibition against members of the military fighting out of uniform, only against them fighting in enemy uniform. A combatant is a combatant. Unfortunately, neither the Hague nor Geneva conventions define what an "unlawful combatant" is, only the criteria that must be met to earn POW status and protections, which doesn't make you immune from prosecution under local law. In WWII the French resistance definitely had both French and British military officers directing them and operating with them, and I expect that this was also the case in Poland and occupied Russia and pretty much everywhere that resistance movements have been operating since the industrial age.boldilocks wrote:Maybe I don't understand the story correctly, but my understanding was that branches of loroi military and intelligence were continuing to operate on conquered worlds while remaining hidden in the civilian population. I thought the point of the law is supposed outlaw these sorts of efforts precisely because they make retribution against civilian populations necessary to either enforce compliance in the military assets or cause the civilian population to defect out of desperation.
Again, if you prefer a different word, feel free to substitute it. A species-agnostic synonym for "humaneness" didn't leap to mind.boldilocks wrote:Which I'm not sure could ever truly apply in a war against aliens as different from us as the umiak. I mean, imagine if we were at war with some kind of race of space-spiders. Just saying the word just caused a shiver to run down my spine, but somehow I'm supposed to see the humanity, or some fellow sentient kinship while staring into the multi-eyed face of a giant arachnid?
As I said in the previous post, I'm talking about the humaneness of the perpetrator, not the act. A dead person is a dead person. There are lots of people who can stomach piloting an aircraft and dropping bombs on people they never see, but not that many that can work as a guard in a death camp and look their victims in the eye. You may not think there's any difference, but I'm betting the concentration camp guards have a lot more trouble sleeping at night.boldilocks wrote:And the example is a great place where moral intuition breaks down. In one moment you're dropping 50 tons of liquid fire on a chinese town with the push of a button, causing a firestorm that will kill hundreds of people. In the next you're strangling a chinese woman to death. Somehow the second act is more inhumane because we're seeing the face of the one person we're murdering and in the previous we don't even see the bombs hit, our superior officers only read the casualty estimates after the bombing run is over.
I suppose that just shows that humans, and our morality, are evolved to function on a personal level, and not on a button-pushing one.
For some reason I'm reminded of a passage from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen:
Vulcan: This is our prototype. RX Intercontinental, radar-sneaky, multi-warheaded nuclear missile.
Baron Munchausen: Ah. What does it do?
Vulcan: Do? Kills the enemy.
Baron Munchausen: All the enemy?
Vulcan: Aye, all of 'em. All their wives and all their children and all their sheep and all their cattle and all their cats and dogs, all of them. All of them gone for good!
Sally: That's horrible!
Vulcan: Ah. Well, you see, the advantage is you don't have to see a single one of them die. You just sit comfortably thousands of miles away from the battlefield and simply press the button.
Berthold: Well where's the fun in that?
Vulcan: Oh... we cater for all sorts here. You'd be surprised.