Pardon me, Force, your morality is leaning Orange and Blue

[virtualvoyages]

There really needs to be a trope for morality that thinks it's Black and White, but ended up somewhere else instead. Though the Force of Star Wars: The Old Republic might be the only example. The Jedi of the movies, particularly the prequel trilogy have their odd moments, but it's difficult to tell whether those odd moments were intended, whether they're plot errors, or whether Lucas and I have some pretty big divergences on the concept of "Good." (Mine doesn't involve leaving people in slavery, for example. Not when you've clearly got the power and the resources to rescue them.)

The movies still only give us characters having opinions on the Force and what is Good and Evil - Light Side or Dark Side. When you make a game with a morality meter based on these opinions, whether your morality meter ends up seeming spot on or tilted slight off toward Parsnip depends a lot on whether it's consistent. I can't find the consistency. Maybe I haven't played enough classes high enough. Maybe I've got morality that's tilted toward Parsnip. Or maybe the Force is supposed to be slightly Orange and Blue. (Red and Blue? Is that a hint? Or merely a lovely coincidence?)

The first Light Side/Dark Side choices that made me go "Wait, what?" (and at least some of which I've mentioned before, I believe) all could simply be me looking at things from a different point of view than the writer came at it from. But it adds up over time, and running a Sith Warrior through the first planet left me thinking maybe the Force really is a bit Orange and Blue. Or just inscrutable.

To run through the inconsistencies and just plain Bzuh moral moments:

The Force Believes in LIfe, Except When It Doesn't.

Your Smuggler finds him/herself faced with a choice of A) Killing a person who has killed another person (who, I might add, just wanted to live through the mess) to protect her self from her con being exposed or B) Letting that person go (bribe optional). Apparently, letting a lying murderer go free is Good. (I wanted an option of C) March her over to the nearest authorities as a, you know, murderer. Oh, and possibly traitor as well, since she was sort of helping the separatists.) But maybe the writer was thinking of A as being too much acting from anger. Or that the Force is always pro-life. (We'll skip the mass slaughter that is game play, shall we.)

Except later, your Republic character (I don't think this was a class quest), gets to mercy kill someone dying a horrible death and it's a neutral option. Right after potentially getting Dark Side points for killing the mad scientist who's responsible for the person's suffering. Though, at least that time, your Light Side alternative was to turn the guy over to the authorities. (Empire characters also get a mercy kill option on some people who've been horribly mad scienced. It's the Light Side choice.)

But! The first Empire side flashpoint suggests that the Force really is always pro-life, since killing the General is Dark Side and turning him over to be tortured and executed is Light Side. (I so wanted an option to commit treason and let him get away to the Republic there. I mean, come on, you just know that about half the people playing Light Side Imperials do it because being a traitor in an Evil Empire is hilariously awesome. Hilarisome? Completely unrealistic, but hilarisome.)

Do these choices not agree with each other because they were written by people who had different ideas of why they were Dark or Light choices? Perhaps killing the General is Dark Side because killing prisoners is wrong. (Which, yes, it is. But how is turning them over to be tortured right??? I could accept a Dark Side choice/neutral choice, but Light Side points? O_o) Perhaps mercy kills are okay because they're at the request of the person being killed. (Except in the Empire example the one still...capable of making the choice, I guess...makes the choice for all of the experimentees.)

Or is there some underlying morality that makes sense to the Force, but not to me?

Then there's Love is Wrong, or maybe Lying is Wrong, or maybe Breaking the Rules of Your Organization is Wrong, except, wait, Ow My Brain.

Jedi characters as Padawans (trainees) are asked to spy on two other Padawans because their masters believe they are having an affair. I guess asking students to spy on other students is A-Okay. You find out that, yep, they're totally getting jiggy. Turning them in is Light Side, not turning them in is Dark Side. Okay, for Jedi, Love is Wrong. (But over on the Empire side, your Agent can sleep with people for information and get Light Side points for it? Whut? Granted you're not a Jedi, but Light Side points? For trading sex for information? O_o Though, I suppose the consistency there is that it's not love. And not that I think it should be a Dark Side option, just, you know, neutral.) Or maybe the real problem is that the Padawans are lying about it. But you don't get a "tell your masters about your relationship and make your argument about love being something we should allow to the Council" option. Worse, a Light Side Imperial character is going to spend a lot of time lying about stuff. Also, my Smuggler has gotten Light Side points for lying at times. (Granted, not to good people.) Lying is bad if you do it to good people?

And it can't be about following the rules of your organization because, again, Light Side Imperial characters are so not doing that. No, Light Side Imperial characters commit treasonous acts.* Unless this is dependent on whether the organization is good or bad. Except, wait, I can play a Smuggler Republic side. Who is, yes, wanted by Customs. Clearly, she's doing an awesome job of following all the rules.

Different writers? Something I'm missing?

Cheating: Good if You're a Sith/Bad if You're a Jedi

So, your Jedi Padawan runs into another student, who's been tasked by his master to reach the important stuff behind a giant boulder. But he can't move the boulder. You give it a shot and move the boulder. His master, who intended the task to be impossible (So that he'd learn that his sense of self-worth can't depend on success (No, I don't get it either.)), is upset. The student claims that you suggested it. You can either sound like a total shit and get Light Side points for telling the master it was the students idea (Seriously, I don't know if it's the line or the voice acting, but you sound exactly like the sort of kid who went around just waiting for fellow students to make one tiny mistake and then shouted for the teacher.) or get Dark Side points for claiming you offered out of hand. Again, is this Lying is Wrong? Cheating is Wrong? It wasn't exactly cheating, the other Padawan just wanted someone else to give it a shot to find out if it was him or the task. (The task itself broke my brain. Here, kid, do this impossible thing that I'm not going to tell you is impossible then come back when you're done. WHAT WAS HE SUPPOSED TO DO!?)

Then comes the Sith side. You're supposed to get these shards from a tomb full of nasty beasties. You get your shards and come traipsing back to give them to your master and are stopped by a fellow Initiate (or whatever it is you're called over there) who failed to get his. He asks if you'll give him yours to spare him your master's wrath. Light Side option: Here you go. Dark Side option: No. So... Cheating, and this really is cheating, is good? Or is it because the consequences here would be fatal to the fellow student if you don't help him?

Seriously, those two choice sets felt like parallel story bits. Only they don't seem consistent as far as Light/Dark. In both cases, you're being kind to a fellow trainee who really isn't up to snuff. But, as a Jedi, you get Dark Side points if you're not promptly a jerk to the guy.

For icing on the Jedi/Sith WTF? Why Isn't This Consistent!?, there are other times when you're just flat out unkind to people as a Jedi, at least if you're Light Side. Example: preaching at a guy who's father was killed who asks if you made the people who killed him pay. (Light Side: Let me ignore your pain and preach at you. Dark Side: Yep, I made them pay. What, you can't lie to make him feel better? Or at least not fricking preach at him. WHY NOT?) But as a Light Side Sith, you can lie to people to make them feel better. Force, I do not get you. At all.




*And get away with it. To what is reaching has reached suspension of disbelief breaking lengths on my Agent. Which I will have to address in my, er, alternate timeline** SWTOR fan fics. Because it is utterly absurd in game. I don't care how big the galaxy is, you cannot work for an Evil Empire and go around not killing people, not turning in criminals, lying to your superiors (among others), disobeying orders, and telling evil religious leaders/government officials to take long walks off short piers without getting yourself in serious trouble. (Realistically, you'd get yourself dead. But I write fluff. And, yes, the game is fluff. But come on. There should be some consequences! (Okay, telling off Sith has cost me a force lightninging and once getting no quest reward.) All I'm asking for is a little suspicion at least. I disobeyed orders and let someone live on my first assignment as an Imperial Agent. Someone who promptly did something that suggests he's alive. Imperial Intelligence should be perpetually suspicious from that point forward. I know the game can't have me arrested for treason (well, it could and then I prove I'm not/am too useful/something), but, yee gad. My own stories, of course...)

**What do you call fan fic stories that could happen in a setting, but not in the canon story? (And, yes, I'd consider the game to have canon stories.) "If person A had made choice C instead..." or "Met such and so..." or things like that. That'd be an alternate timeline, right? Or? I iz fan fic noob.

Comments

[nebelstreif]

You're totally right! I was really rubbed the wrong way by two quests in particular:
-- The kidnapped kid on Ord Mantell. Demand that he return to his parents? DARK SIDE
-- The AWOL Republic soldiers on Taris. Point out that they're abandoning their posts and that they have an obligation that promised to fulfill? DARK SIDE (Help them go AWOL? LIGHT SIDE)

And you're absolutely, totally right about the "light side Sith" problem; I do most of the crazy things that I do because I know their won't be any negative repercussions. At least with my Sith Inquisitor, I can stare angrily at people and demand to know if they publicly disagree with me.


All of this simply convinces me that Kreia was right.

[virtualvoyages]

I forgot about the AWOL Republic soldiers! Sure, on my Smuggler, siding with them made sense. The planet sucks and the leader of the Republic stuff there is not very sympathetic about the suckage. Besides, meh, rules, who cares? When I get there on a Trooper, I am getting Dark Side points.

The kidnapped kid is a very weird one. My best guess at what the writers were thinking there was that he'd be in danger (and a danger to his parents) as long as he stayed on planet. But where's option: Get the whole family off planet? And, better still to somewhere the kid can get help.

I suspect my suspension of disbelief will hold up a little better on my light side Sith Warrior. Sith are arrogant, generally, and have a huge leg up on everybody else on account of being, well, Sith. Who's going to argue with you? (Besides, given that they let the second Sith Agents are stuck answering to be on the Dark Council, I'm thinking standards of behavior for Sith are pretty nonexistent.)

[nebelstreif]

For your Sith Warrior: exactly! The Sith Inquisitor was -- immediately before the opening scroll -- a slave; you can basically make him/her as evil or as good as you want, because this whole "Sith" thing is just superstructure to an already-lived life. (That said, it's quite intoxicating to see Royal Guards kneel at your approach.)

When my Sith Inquisitor says "The prisoners live", no one disagrees with her, because she will electrocute dissenters.

[loquat.myid.net]

Tomorrow, when I am less tired, I will attempt to come up with a coherent moral framework that accounts for all of these things. For now, all I can think of is that I read somewhere a Vedic dietary guide that claimed onions and garlic are earthy foods that inhibit the eater's spiritual growth, and I think the Jedi put emotions in that same category. Especially negative emotions like anger and the thirst for vengeance.

Also, I think that Jedi student who'd been set an impossible task was being deliberately set up for failure by his instructor - the guy had clearly decided this kid didn't have the right temperament to be a Jedi, so he put him in a situation where he'd "cheat", get caught, and react badly to getting caught, thus providing an excuse to expel him. If you buy the idea that this student really was an immature jerk who shouldn't have force powers, and that his attempt to blame you rather than straightforwardly say "dude, I wanted to see if this was an achievable thing or not" proved he wasn't the sort of person who should have power, then it's justifiable. Maintaining the standards of the Jedi Order and all that.

[virtualvoyages]

I think you're right about the Jedi student being set up to fail. However, that seems like an incredibly unwise way to bounce someone from the Jedi Order. Unless resentful half-trained Force users are a good thing now. The wiser thing to do would be to sit him down and either figure out something else for him to do or figure out how to help him become someone worthy to be a Jedi. (Or do, off screen, Jedi kill their failures, too? I've no idea what happens to failed Jedi Padawans, and so far, the game has not enlightened me.)

That kind of highlights a flaw in the Jedi training, really. You don't want to have people who shouldn't have power get enough training to become potential dangers down the road. They really should be weeding out problem candidates long before then - ideally without revealing that said candidates are Force sensitives. The most obvious way to do that puts the Jedi in charge of all schooling in the Republic, though, and I kind of shudder at that idea.

[redsixwing]

In book canon, Jedi failures get shipped off to an agricultural corps, where they get to use their half-fledged Force sensitivity to grow plants, detect problem areas and generally the order can pretend they don't exist.

Pretty awful, really, although there's a lot of rhetoric about "the agricultural corps are TOO an honorable position!"

[virtualvoyages]

...

That may be an onion of wrong, there. Farming, what washouts do! Jedi, we decide your future for you, no matter what (but we're totally different from the Sith!). Washouts, wandering around the galaxy from farming world to farming world, ignored by the order...gotta hope they don't find any Sith artifacts or otherwise pursue their training since they're in the back of beyond and nobody's looking.

Also, what if someone wanted to be part of the agricultural corps because going about helping feed the galaxy is really satisfying to them?

And that's just of the top of my head!

Still, I suppose it's better than being killed.

[loquat.myid.net]

Theorycrafting complete!

So, as I think I mentioned on an earlier post, Jedi are vaguely based on Buddhist monks. The ideal light-side Jedi knight gives up worldly attachments, meditates a lot, and generally behaves like a monk seeking Enlightenment. That's perfectly healthy in a monastic order, but unwise to hold up as the only non-evil way to learn how to use the Force. So I think it's clear that the Jedi Order started out as a small group of monks who learned how to use the Force before anyone else did, and as they expanded into the galactic organization they've become in SWTOR they held onto the idea that only dedicated monks should get Force training, both to maintain their own power and to make sure nobody who seemed likely to abuse the Force got trained. In fact, by the time of the events of SWTOR, the Jedi Order has probably become similar to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages - an institution with tremendous sway over the political and moral environment of the entire civilized world they know.

So "Light Side" doesn't mean "Good" so much as "in compliance with Jedi doctrine". Jedi doctrine holds that you should strive to not feel anger or the desire for vengeance, so killing for revenge would be dark-side, whereas mercy-killing someone who would otherwise die a slow and agonizing death is light-side, and capturing a traitor so someone else can do the revenge killing is neutral if you squint and tilt your head. On top of that, there seem to be two different standards. If you're on the Republic side, you're assumed to start out more-or-less good, and your light-side/dark-side points will be based on the extent you try to act like George Lucas's idea of an Enlightened Being. Meanwhile, if you're working for the Empire, you're assumed to be starting from a position of evil, and can gain light side points just from non-evil acts like gaining information via sexual bribery rather than violent threats.

I think this is a pretty robust theory for not having played SWTOR past level 17 - thoughts?

[virtualvoyages]

Hmm... I rather like your explanation of the Jedi Order. Explains a lot, really.

And the the idea that it's a double standard of sorts explains some odd bits, anyway. But capturing a traitor for torture and execution earns Light Side points. Neutral, I could buy, for any number of reasons. (Including the character making the choice operating from the Golden Rule - that is that they would rather be captured and have a chance of escape than be killed on the spot.) It's the Light Side part that hurts my brain. Unless my parenthetical is the explanation... *head tilt*

You might be right about Light Side being simply "non Evil" Empire side, though. It's just such a mixture of genuinely good seeming acts (depending on your point of view) and merely non-evil acts. The Light Side points for - I love your way of putting it (though it sounds a bit dark, somehow) - sexual bribery might make more sense if I knew what the other options ended up being. If the alternative did end up being threats, then it makes a bit more sense.

Not having to match Lucas's idea of an Enlightened Being might be why my idea of a good person matches up better to Light Side on the Imperial side, though. All of my Republic characters ended up with Dark Side points before they got off their first planet!

[loquat.myid.net]

*tilts head to the left*

*tilts head to the right*

Ermmmm...

Maybe it's assumed that anyone loyal enough to be sent after a traitor would also be bloodthirsty and vengeful enough to kill him on the spot, to the point that it's an amazing surprise when someone doesn't do that? Or, from a metagaming standpoint, perhaps the devs didn't want to give players the chance to commit open treason that early in the game. Aside from those crappy excuses, I got nothin'.

I'm assuming that all instances where sexual bribery earns you light side points have violent extortion or murder as their dark side alternatives based on my experience with Bioware moral choice systems. But this is one of those instances where the Mass Effect-style dialogue system gets irritating; if you got to see the actual lines your character would deliver rather than vague summaries, you probably would have seen some threats available.

When I get around to buying SWTOR, I think as a personal challenge I'm going to see how many Dark Side points a Jedi can rack up without doing anything I'd consider evil.

[virtualvoyages]

Yeah, that would be more open treason, especially as it's a Flashpoint (meaning at least two players on the mission). Still, some of the Light Side choices in later Emperial side Flashpoints would be seriously questionable (aiming another group's missiles that can't be aborted not at the Republic fleet, for example). And you can commit fairly open treason through a Dark Side option on the first Republic Flashpoint by abandoning a Republic official on an Imperial ship.

The more I think about it, the more unfair it seems that Imperials don't get a treason option. Really! Is equality in treason too much to ask for?

Yeah, the vague summary dialogue wheel has lead to the occasional use of the escape key. A little more accuracy in the summary at least would be nice.

I like your personal challenge idea. I'm finding Republic side much less interesting (except for my Smuggler), probably because you mostly have a choice between a crappy version of Lawful Good or Puppy Kicking Evil on the other classes. *frowny face*