TheNoob
Dank Memes
I know that Hillary is going to pick Julian Castro to get the Latino vote locked up, but dear God I wish she would pick Warren.
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Official Civ4 S&T Off-Topic Thread
- Thread starter GreekAnalyzer
- Start date
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 3,240
Will vote for Hillary in the election (to split the Dem ticket and vote for Johnson is a death knell for a no-Trump campaign), but I am deeply saddened as always that the US political system is so crap that the idea of a significantly leftist candidate is unimaginable. Makes me wish we had a differently styled political system, much like a European proportional representation one, rather than the idiotic FPTP system we have right now. I wouldn't mind a coalition government being made, so long as I got to vote for a party that fits my political ideology a bit more.
On another note, Brexit was entertaining to watch and by entertaining I mean absolutely horrifying as I watched Scotland pretty much be the only one to try and stay with the EU.
On another note, Brexit was entertaining to watch and by entertaining I mean absolutely horrifying as I watched Scotland pretty much be the only one to try and stay with the EU.
mrrandomplayer
Hopeless Situation Warrior
Print Screen is massively lagging Civ4 (no reason whatsover why I'm asking this, I'm totally not working on a new AAR or something). Have any of you encountered this, and how do you fix it?
TheNoob
Dank Memes
Can't say I know how; I just use the snipping tool for my photos. Obviously it doesn't get the best pictures but oh well
On the part of the 2016 election: I can't vote (too young, yo), but here in Michigan you can register to vote about 30 days before your 18th birthday... so guess what I'm doing on September 16th, 2018?
On the part of the 2016 election: I can't vote (too young, yo), but here in Michigan you can register to vote about 30 days before your 18th birthday... so guess what I'm doing on September 16th, 2018?
GreekAnalyzer
Back from the Dead
- Joined
- May 9, 2013
- Messages
- 1,936
This same anti-establishment sentiment that you, I and many others feel is the reason why Trump got the GOP nomination, Bernie did as well as he did, and why Britain left the EU. People are sick and tired of the same old BS happening in Westminster, Washington and nearly every government in the West.
Unfortunately, many of those who feel justly that the system is failing them turn to nationalist, nativist demagogues (Trump, Farage, La Pen et al) which merely encourages partisanship and prevents anything from being done to fix our governments.
Also, don't forget about Northern Ireland! 56% of Northern Ireland voted Remain.
Tycho
AFK Forum Warrior
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
- Messages
- 3,240
Kind of shocking (or not, depending on your outlook) that actual neo-Nazi parties/ones that have accusations of fascism leveled at them, are steamrolling into power across Europe right now. Jobbik is one of the major ones, and Greece has 18 or somesuch number of neo-Nazis in their parliament. To me, at least, the wave of support that they have received recently is staggering, and with euroskeptic parties making their way to power, this could bode very ill for all parties involved.
CaterpillarKing
Conqueror of Cacoons
You could try downloading a free capture software and use it to take screenshots. That's what I do for some games.
Not all that surprising with the refugees and everything. It's shocking, but not surprising. It's how people always have been. Hate the system, tries to change the system, loves the system, hates the system, tries to change the system.
TheNoob
Dank Memes
I seem to recall some mrrandomplayer saying he would join my America story once his finals were done...
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CaterpillarKing
Conqueror of Cacoons
I've noticed a trend on this forum. The vast majority of people RP as a liberal in stories. We need some more people to rp as conservatives to keep stories interesting and not unanimous decisions for everything.
Remember that RP you is not actual you.
Have a good day
This was a public service announcement from the Better Stories and Tales Bureau (BSTB).
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Remember that RP you is not actual you.
Have a good day
This was a public service announcement from the Better Stories and Tales Bureau (BSTB).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
TheNoob
Dank Memes
I've noticed a trend on this forum. The vast majority of people RP as a liberal in stories. We need some more people to rp as conservatives to keep stories interesting and not unanimous decisions for everything.
Remember that RP you is not actual you.
Have a good day
This was a public service announcement from the Better Stories and Tales Bureau (BSTB).
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I would just like to second this motion.
Niccolo Edwards
Looking busy
I've noticed a trend on this forum. The vast majority of people RP as a liberal in stories. We need some more people to rp as conservatives to keep stories interesting and not unanimous decisions for everything.
Remember that RP you is not actual you.
Have a good day
This was a public service announcement from the Better Stories and Tales Bureau (BSTB).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
I would like to third this motion. I've got a fairly conservative character right now (America: Home of the Brave) though.
I've noticed a trend on this forum. The vast majority of people RP as a liberal in stories. We need some more people to rp as conservatives to keep stories interesting and not unanimous decisions for everything.
Remember that RP you is not actual you.
Have a good day
This was a public service announcement from the Better Stories and Tales Bureau (BSTB).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
Fourth!
I did that in Citis's Russia story with my character. Also, after the Socialist uprising in RT's original America story, I did that too to some extent.
TheNoob
Dank Memes
I would love some more people in my America story 
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adhiraj.bose
Deity
Forget Liberals, forget conservatives, forget any political loyalty. How about we have a completely unprincipled conspirator who'll join anybody to further his ambition ? xD
Any politician?
TheNoob
Dank Memes
Niccolo Edwards
Looking busy
As this is a Stories [and Tales] Subforum I have a question to pose about stories and media in general.
What does everyone here think of the capacity of stories to deal in no-win moral situations? That is a situation in which none of the sides are truly moral, right or righteous.
I think a major problem with doing this is that most of us like to think in terms of "black-and-white"; we like binary choices, in this case, between good and bad. Even when we eliminate this though (see, House of Cards, Game of Thrones) and introduce shifting morality and/or non-binary morality we still like to have characters that we clearly can/should be opposed to (Joffery/Lanisters in Game of Thrones, etc.) and wish for them to eventually lose. This doesn't necessarily reflect reality though. A number of conflicts (both in the military sense of the term and pretty much every other type of conflict) are started by two or more parties, each with intentions that conflict or they are drawn into a conflict by other means, despite all (or almost all) parties being morally and righteously equal.
In summary the question I'm asking is: Can the various storytelling media portray a conflict without one side being in any way morally superior to the other(s)?
What does everyone here think of the capacity of stories to deal in no-win moral situations? That is a situation in which none of the sides are truly moral, right or righteous.
I think a major problem with doing this is that most of us like to think in terms of "black-and-white"; we like binary choices, in this case, between good and bad. Even when we eliminate this though (see, House of Cards, Game of Thrones) and introduce shifting morality and/or non-binary morality we still like to have characters that we clearly can/should be opposed to (Joffery/Lanisters in Game of Thrones, etc.) and wish for them to eventually lose. This doesn't necessarily reflect reality though. A number of conflicts (both in the military sense of the term and pretty much every other type of conflict) are started by two or more parties, each with intentions that conflict or they are drawn into a conflict by other means, despite all (or almost all) parties being morally and righteously equal.
In summary the question I'm asking is: Can the various storytelling media portray a conflict without one side being in any way morally superior to the other(s)?
CaterpillarKing
Conqueror of Cacoons
Yes, it is possible to achieve this, here's an example.
The best way to avoid that is to create someone with strong traits that either make him loved or hated by the audience without trying to push them one way or another; one example of this is Aaron Burr or Alexander Hamilton in the play Hamilton. One may see one as a good person and the other as bad for what they did, and this is brilliant writing on the part of Lin-Manuel Miranda. By managing to write the play in a specific way, he let the audience decide the morality of the characters. Even then, though, the people still do decide on a morality in their own minds. Before the play was written, more people disliked Burr than Hamilton, simply because they only saw Burr as a murderer at that very moment, and were not entirely aware of all of the proceedings. (The play did embellish Aaron Burr a little bit more than his real life counterpart, but this is about the writing, not real life.) In the play Aaron Burr is portrayed as someone that takes his time, and is shown to be more than just the killer of Alexander Hamilton. He has very strong traits, strong emotions, and strong interactions with other characters. He is shown to have flaws, such as loving a woman who is married to a British officer and possibly swaying with the political winds as they change. Hamilton is not shown as just some brilliant man that helped to strengthen America's economy. He is shown as a man with faults, such as cheating on his wife, and being impatient, fiery, and prideful. These traits give them faults, and thus keep them from being morally perfect. To offset this, both have strong love for their children and both have tragic stories to garner sympathy (Burr was born pretty well off but his parents died and so did his wife, Hamilton was born in squalor, his parents, son, friend, and many others died). They also have little traits that make them likeable.
In one of the last scene's the duel between Hamilton and Burr, it's not seen as an act of aggression by either one, but as something that could have been defused by either but wasn't purely based on principle. As the duel is about to commence Burr states that "this man will not make an orphan of my daughter", giving him possible justification to not let Hamilton shoot him. There's a scene where, as the bullet travels to Hamilton, he reflects on his life, making people feel emotions for him as well, and finally, at the end, Hamilton refuses to shoot and raises his gun at the sky, sealing his fate. In Burr's final lines of the play he seems to have regret, but whether he actually does is still debatable, as his lines are vague.
By showing both Burr and Hamilton as flawed but loveable characters that are not morally superior to the other. Personally I think Hamilton was the better of the two, but I know most of my friends disagree with me, pointing out his infidelity.
I know this was long, but the overall point was to agree with what Niccolo Edwards said. It is possible to create two (or more) sides that are not inherently morally superior. However, they need to have strong traits, otherwise they will simply be bland. While the writer maybe ought not to create a side that is morally above the others (sometimes it is necessary for story-telling), they do need to create multiple sides to which the readers can latch onto.
Sorry for the text block, I sort of got carried away.
(Edit: I should talk about cases where moral superiority can be necessary.
There can be multiple reasons for moral superiority in writing, the biggest of these I have seen is justification One instance used by Miranda in Hamilton is when King George III is shown as an almost misogynistic boyfriend of America in his songs. He makes the audience hate his stance and his attitude(his character is hilarious), thus giving justification for the American Revolution. It is used in the song "Stay Alive", where Charles Lee is portrayed as a bumbling fool of a general and publicly denounces General Washington who is shown as pretty morally upright. His denunciation of Washington, which is meant to upset the audience, gives justification for John Laurens to duel Charles Lee. At no point does the majority of the audience want Charles Lee to win the duel, and this is due to making him morally inferior to Washington and the others.
If a writer needs to create justification for something, moral inferiority is one of the best ways to do it. Why hate the KKK? They're racist bigots that don't tolerate anything but heterosexual, Protestant Anglo-Saxons. If we didn't already know about the KKK and it wasn't shown that they are bigots, then there would be no reason to hate them, and no reason to try and eliminate them. This can be used in more subtle ways to get a specific character to be disliked instead of just branding them "RACIST" or something of the sort. Anyways, there are cases where polarizing morals is good for writing a story.)
The best way to avoid that is to create someone with strong traits that either make him loved or hated by the audience without trying to push them one way or another; one example of this is Aaron Burr or Alexander Hamilton in the play Hamilton. One may see one as a good person and the other as bad for what they did, and this is brilliant writing on the part of Lin-Manuel Miranda. By managing to write the play in a specific way, he let the audience decide the morality of the characters. Even then, though, the people still do decide on a morality in their own minds. Before the play was written, more people disliked Burr than Hamilton, simply because they only saw Burr as a murderer at that very moment, and were not entirely aware of all of the proceedings. (The play did embellish Aaron Burr a little bit more than his real life counterpart, but this is about the writing, not real life.) In the play Aaron Burr is portrayed as someone that takes his time, and is shown to be more than just the killer of Alexander Hamilton. He has very strong traits, strong emotions, and strong interactions with other characters. He is shown to have flaws, such as loving a woman who is married to a British officer and possibly swaying with the political winds as they change. Hamilton is not shown as just some brilliant man that helped to strengthen America's economy. He is shown as a man with faults, such as cheating on his wife, and being impatient, fiery, and prideful. These traits give them faults, and thus keep them from being morally perfect. To offset this, both have strong love for their children and both have tragic stories to garner sympathy (Burr was born pretty well off but his parents died and so did his wife, Hamilton was born in squalor, his parents, son, friend, and many others died). They also have little traits that make them likeable.
In one of the last scene's the duel between Hamilton and Burr, it's not seen as an act of aggression by either one, but as something that could have been defused by either but wasn't purely based on principle. As the duel is about to commence Burr states that "this man will not make an orphan of my daughter", giving him possible justification to not let Hamilton shoot him. There's a scene where, as the bullet travels to Hamilton, he reflects on his life, making people feel emotions for him as well, and finally, at the end, Hamilton refuses to shoot and raises his gun at the sky, sealing his fate. In Burr's final lines of the play he seems to have regret, but whether he actually does is still debatable, as his lines are vague.
By showing both Burr and Hamilton as flawed but loveable characters that are not morally superior to the other. Personally I think Hamilton was the better of the two, but I know most of my friends disagree with me, pointing out his infidelity.
I know this was long, but the overall point was to agree with what Niccolo Edwards said. It is possible to create two (or more) sides that are not inherently morally superior. However, they need to have strong traits, otherwise they will simply be bland. While the writer maybe ought not to create a side that is morally above the others (sometimes it is necessary for story-telling), they do need to create multiple sides to which the readers can latch onto.
Sorry for the text block, I sort of got carried away.
(Edit: I should talk about cases where moral superiority can be necessary.
There can be multiple reasons for moral superiority in writing, the biggest of these I have seen is justification One instance used by Miranda in Hamilton is when King George III is shown as an almost misogynistic boyfriend of America in his songs. He makes the audience hate his stance and his attitude(his character is hilarious), thus giving justification for the American Revolution. It is used in the song "Stay Alive", where Charles Lee is portrayed as a bumbling fool of a general and publicly denounces General Washington who is shown as pretty morally upright. His denunciation of Washington, which is meant to upset the audience, gives justification for John Laurens to duel Charles Lee. At no point does the majority of the audience want Charles Lee to win the duel, and this is due to making him morally inferior to Washington and the others.
If a writer needs to create justification for something, moral inferiority is one of the best ways to do it. Why hate the KKK? They're racist bigots that don't tolerate anything but heterosexual, Protestant Anglo-Saxons. If we didn't already know about the KKK and it wasn't shown that they are bigots, then there would be no reason to hate them, and no reason to try and eliminate them. This can be used in more subtle ways to get a specific character to be disliked instead of just branding them "RACIST" or something of the sort. Anyways, there are cases where polarizing morals is good for writing a story.)
Niccolo Edwards
Looking busy
That wall of text is actually greatly appreciated (I like walls of text for some reason) and your answer was great.
Obviously sometimes you have to have characters who are on a different moral level from the POV of the story and/or are polarizing characters. I cannot deny that they can be (and often are) important in driving the plot.
Personally though if you're going to have polarizing characters I'd like to see different moral systems (or at least individual morals) forced into conflict, but forced together as mutual goals are the same. i.e. Group A has moral system A that conflicts with Group B's moral system B. Group C's moral system C though is in conflict with both moral system A and B. Thus Groups A and B are forced to work together which brings their moral systems into conflict, despite this moral system C is still the larger conflict between the two. If we consider moral systems A and B to be equal before the audience (both have positives and negatives to the audience's collective morals) then the conflict between the two is present despite the threat of moral system C. Thus, moral system C (the polarizing one) has forced A and B together and into conflict. I think forced conflict, while both sides try to create a solution (even if temporary and only to last as long as mutual goals are present) is far more intriguing then just conflict while both sides seek victory.
Obviously sometimes you have to have characters who are on a different moral level from the POV of the story and/or are polarizing characters. I cannot deny that they can be (and often are) important in driving the plot.
Personally though if you're going to have polarizing characters I'd like to see different moral systems (or at least individual morals) forced into conflict, but forced together as mutual goals are the same. i.e. Group A has moral system A that conflicts with Group B's moral system B. Group C's moral system C though is in conflict with both moral system A and B. Thus Groups A and B are forced to work together which brings their moral systems into conflict, despite this moral system C is still the larger conflict between the two. If we consider moral systems A and B to be equal before the audience (both have positives and negatives to the audience's collective morals) then the conflict between the two is present despite the threat of moral system C. Thus, moral system C (the polarizing one) has forced A and B together and into conflict. I think forced conflict, while both sides try to create a solution (even if temporary and only to last as long as mutual goals are present) is far more intriguing then just conflict while both sides seek victory.
