But yeah all factions in Infinity are pretty evil. Pano, the hyper capitalist nightmare. Yu jing, Political dissidents are dealt with in an extremely pragmatic fashion. Haqquislam, literal assassin sectorial. Tohaa, The triumvirate, literally the reason for all wars in the human sphere including the CA invasion, basically what Pano will eventually become. Ariadna, Hey Dog people! stop living on that Tesium! Aleph, friend robot just want to be part of your life! NA2, *gestures at all of NA2* Nomads, *Gestures at all of Nomads* CA: *Gestures at the combined army* Thing is you get a good view of all the factions apart from the CA, Yu Jing has the broadest middle class, haqq is a humanist utopia, Nomads give you ultimate freedom etc. With CA you only get to see the warcrimey bit, OCF who are a terror weapon designed to bring about assimilation by fear, Morats an unleashed shock assault army of extremely angry klingons, shas used to infiltrate and sow discord to weaken resistance. It's all pretty evil stuff. But the snippets about the Ur Hegemony behind the CA are a bit more like the other factions, "When the EI took over our planet stuff actually just ran better and we were no longer at war with the CA or being lied to by Trinomial leadership" -the Sigmaa "Yeah we'd have wiped each other out centuries ago but now the EI lets us fight people it doesn't like and our civilisation is saved" - the Morat Supremacy "We were worried about our kids futures but now we're part of an enormous safe space empire and we get to spread further at the forefront of it's expansion so we're less likely go extinct" - The Shasvastii continuum "We were all dead but now we're not!" - The Umbra. "Omnomnom" - Hungries Pure speculation - And when you give it a moments thought the CA is a subjugation tool rather than an extermination tool, the EI doesn't want to eliminate the things it finds it wants to assimilate them and the best way to do that is to leave as many alive as possible by making its enemies just give up say by terrorising them with the OCF, MAF or undermining them with the SEF. "Taking the most expedient path to victory with the fewest casualties is the least cruel path" That classic AI logic.
I'd even contest this. The indentured slavery, state-sponsored piracy, religious indoctrination and massive corruption so widespread that they need professional zealot assassins to keep the self-interested sultans in line are perfectly in line with all the other bad sides on display. I actually consider the Infinity setting to be an extremely good one because of this- there's no good and evil, black or white or grey. There's just ideology and power, and what is right is defined by those with the leverage to enforce it. It really shows off the RPG roots in that regard.
@SpectralOwl you're right on that one, I fully agree. On a side note, I submit to the conspiracy theory, that PanO (YJ, I stand corrected) strike on Shasvastii installation on Paradiso was outright instigated by CA, or that CA at least knew about it beforehand, and just let it happen. What better way to ensure your assassins and infiltrators absolutely hated their current target, and were in no way inclined to cut some kind of a deal with them?
Great to see I'm not alone in appreciating that the setting is all about relative morality. This right here says it all about CA, really: To me I've always found the Tohaa to be "the most" evil faction. You know what you get with CA and most other factions (except perhaps Aleph), but Tohaa. They basically threw humanity in front of a universe-spanning-evil-empire-bus. They did it to save themselves and you can't really blame them for that but they duped both humanity and CA for their own selfish gains. That's pretty ice-cold considering the outcome (and especially considering the cluster-fuck way of doing it they had). In a way Tohaa is the most human faction now that I think about it.... A very WW2 mentality...
this plus Ei will destroy any empire that could pose a threat to it (such as humanity and its AI) but its 'mind' is split on what to do with the human sphere. more context on EI (N1 lore, don't know if it was retconed) the Ur built Architect AI first and it succeed in the goal and told them they aren't worthy of transcendence before ascending. so they built EI more bound to its masters. it used its populations cubes as extra processing power but its new parameters prevented it from succeeding. that in turn caused it to make Nemesis; another Architect AI with same parameters as the OG with plans let it do all the work and steal its findings at the last moment. it figured out it was being used then started a war against EI, hijacking entire planetary networks. EI triumphs over Nemesis at a heavy cost to life and infrastructure with entire planets and species destroyed. this in turn has spawned its current galactic plans of conquer and assist promising species in their ascension goals .
I think CA are the Evil faction, but are not necessarily evil. Ruthless, absolutely. Selfish, undoubtedly. But the overwhelming description is tragic. Everything the EI does is pointless, based on a delusion, in pursuit of a singular goal - ascension. The tragedy is that this is an impossible reality. The Ur cannot attain ascension, hence the EI cannot attain ascension. Even if project transcendence is successful in assimilation of a candidate culture which then ascends, the EI will be left behind again. I dread the consequence for the galaxy when that eventually, inevitably happens.
This is a great point. Essentially the EI is a super smart all powerful child that will never get what it wants. Tragic really. Almost makes you root for the guy...thing....EI
Yeah, it’s not truly important, just nagged at me. The Hexahedron is blood thirsty enough, no need to misallocate atrocities.
Wasn't the strike on the Shas hatchery ship caused by intelligence fed to YJ by the Tohaa? Seems more likely it was a Triumvirate plot to make sure that humans and the CA didn't negotiate. Also, there is a segment of the CA that does things for "teh evulz" and that's the Umbra. Jury's still out on whether the EI itself is down with that, but signs point to yes.
*catches up with the thread* Hmmm. I agree that Infinity's fluff is all about relative morality and shades of grey, but what I've read of CA makes it seem (to me) that they break that subtle line between grey morality and outright, indefensible evil. I mean, I'm sure we can find examples of reprehensible behaviour by PanO and YJ, but these could be seen as situations when the government made some moral lapse, applied cold realpolitik or ended up carried up by its own fanaticism. But these don't seem like the central lasting agenda of these factions... I mean, we all know that YJ did awful stuff during the Uprising, that they oppress political dissenters etc. - but overall, YJ's general goal isn't "Let's kill everyone else down to the last child". Meanwhile, that's how the EI seems to operate: its idea for achieving its goals is expanding across the universe, subjugating all the useful races and exterminating everyone else. Universe-level genocide is its main method of operation. Also, the Morats seem to be a species that cannot exist if it's not oppressing somebody... Is there anything that's likeable about this faction?
@Varsovian do you think that PanO wouldn't conquer YJ if it could? The only difference between the EI and PanO in that context is opportunity.
Well, there are the miniatures to consider. Apart from that, the EI's approach is not a completely unreasonable strategy to pursue if you care mostly about results and the bigger picture of a unified galaxy. Our concept of ethics is informed and restricted by the human condition, so there is plenty of room for reconsideration when the context allows for collective consciousness and other ways of transcending existence. It's difficult to apply to our reality, but in a Sci-Fi context I can totally see the appeal of the EI.
I'm pretty sure all factions in Infinity are evil. Except of course the ones i play. Those are definitely the good guys.
Just note that likeable =/= Good. But I would guess that for the majority of people living under the EI, they have peaceful and good lives. In CA, we just see the enforcers and the ones that make that peace happen. And like all armies, you can have heroes and villains in their stories. Not all forces of the EI, specifically the black ops teams, have to be "bad." They can have their own motivations and side goals. They can just be doing their tour of service.
The people living in civilisations that the EI didn't deem "Useful" to it's project also don't complain much!
Nomads are definitely no different than others. Tunguska is a self serving gangsterdome - ruthless and all about money. Hack the world, break the law of Human Sphere, bribery, gangsters etc. Due to limited resources Corregidor is pragmatic to a point of floating people unable to provide enough service to be useful to the Mothership. Corregidor is also mercenaries - they go where the money is. Bakunin is human experimentation, no limits to science, slavery and more. All veiled behind rich and glamorous ideas of freedom and fight against the system. Now Nomads as a faction tend to bring in players with ideals of freedom and fight against oppression. There's seriously a lot of players that pick this faction because of own political views. I bet same goes for the faction fluff wise - young people being like "I'm done with megacorporations, I'm done living under someone else's boot!" and go to become a Nomad - free people of the Human Sphere. I bet a lot of these becomes drug addicted slaves or involuntary organ donors in Praxis Labs. Nomads is Survival of the fittest in it's prime form. No hyperpower hand to guide you where you belong. You're your own man for what it's worth, but also you're on your own.
Just a point of note: when I asked whether there was anything likeable about the CA, I didn't mean to bash the faction. I'm simply wondering whether there are any aspects of the faction one could genuinely empathize with. I know I'm kind of liking the Sygmaa, but they have so few units... Okay, I admit I don't know the PanO fluff in its details yet - but while they look like awful colonialists, I just can't imagine their government giving the command to kill all of YJ's people the second the possibility arises. Similarly, while YJ is an authoritarian government, I don't think that their government's debates go in the vein of "So, we'll kill all the PanO in ten years, then we blow up those pesky Nomads five years later, then we'll exterminate everyone on Bourak, because we have no need for them"... Really? Personally, I'm not as flexible ethically, even in the sci-fi context. That's why I find it hard to stomach the Dune books, for once - because they seem to suggest that if a prescient living god deems it necessary for billions of people to suffer in the name of the greater good, then it's okay. Ugh. Out of curiosity: any examples of this in the fluff? And true, likeable doesn't equal Good. I mean, one of my favourite WH40K factions are the Drukhari. ;) Personally, I tend to like the Nomads. Even though I see they have a shady side... I also like ALEPH, which can also be shady, but I consider them the good guys nevertheless.
