Gheallie Sidhe and Alignment

[einarh@fagerborg.vgs.n]

>> Hmm.. I seem to recall that the elves tried to befriend the humans coming..
>> In fact, Rhoube Manslayer were the humans best friend at first.
>> Farming/logging. They are totally different.
>> Logging takes place in the forrests. farming is much better off on the
plains.
>
>I think that comes from the in character description of the situation in
the Blood
>Enemies entry for Rhoubhe himself. As such, I think it is a bit
questionable as a
>source. He also describes humans has "bringing back the humanoids" if I
am not
>mistaken.

Thats because there were a stalemate. And as humans pushed the
elves too, the elves coudn't resist them both.

>> Its a cultural war, where one part has been forced to take up arms because
>> the other part is so numerous.
>
>> And might I resume the sub-topic of this discussion:
>> Is GS evil?
>>
>> GS is a form of last defence. Defence is normally not considered evil.
>
>Arrgh! How is the GS even remotely a "last defence?" It's been going on for
>thousands of years. It started shortly after humans arrived on Cerilia.
I would
>think that a last defence would have to occur in a much shorter timespan
than that
>even from the elven standpoint.

Hmm.. ok.. I see your point.. not last defence.
Defense/border police.

>> There is a good way to get rid of GS: "Don't venture close to elven lands".
>> Then the GS wouldn't be able to recruit as many as they have done before.
>>
>> Its quite simple:
>> Humans attacked elves (though not always physically),
>> now elves defend.
>
>Well, again, I don't see how you can describe what the GS do as "defence".
They
>kill humans indescrimanately. Defenders don't go after non-combatants.
Defenders
>oppose attacks, which is not really what the GS are doing. They are hunting
>humans. Big difference.

Well.. Lets see.. how much of GS happens outside elven realms (not
including Dhoesone, as its split between elven and human pop with no
borders). Very little. Only the ones in Rhoubhe (there are exceptions).

The problem is: Humans continue to trespass on elven lands, no matter
what elves do. And so one can call GS as a border-patrol, with 007
tendencies (license to kill). They try to defend their forrest from others.

And GS does not hunt for humans. They hunt for trespassers.
The trespassers may be humans (normally), goblins (normally), dwarves
(seldom) and halfings (seldom).

Do you think elves would been allowed to keep their culture/forrest for
1000 years if they had had open borders all along?

Siebharrin the Lich

[Galwylin]

At 07:54 AM 10/16/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>Well, again, I don't see how you can describe what the GS do as "defence".

It seems more of an offensive movement than defensive. Apparently, it
wasn't effective as a defensive (which it seems to have been at first)
though it could be if humans will leave the elven lands alone. Of course,
its possible that it can't ever return to a defensive movement. Trade with
humans may be happening because they don't have the resources they once did.

This has been a Galwylin® Production

galwylin@airnet.net
http://www.airnet.net/galwylin/

[Pieter A de Jong]

Dammit Gary, I didn't want to get involved in this discussion. But now
you've gone and pushed by ON button.

Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
>
> There was a lot of time before humans arrived on Cerilia. It says that
> "civilization all but stagnated during this time. The elves built their slender
> towers and the dwarves constructed their stonewrought wonders, but all these
> marvels eventually fell to one marauding tribe or another."
>
> So here's a possibility that I don't think anyone has addressed. Maybe the
> elves' decline is inevitable. They simply don't produce enough in the face of
> more successful species. Let's take an example from the Baruk Azhik sourcebook
> in which Graybeard finds himself leading a race who are fighting what he believes
> to be a losing battle against the Orogs. Humans have little or nothing to do
> with this decline. They become involved only rarely in dwarven issues. In fact,
> the dwarves separated themselves from the rest of Cerilia for centuries. Yet the
> dwarves still decline. This is because dwarves reproduce so slowly in the face
> of their military losses against the Orogs.
>
> I think there is a similar situation going on with the elves. Elves reproduce
> even more slowly than dwarves do. They fought the humanoids to a standstill for
> centuries before humans came. Their strongholds were built and destroyed over
> and over again. If an elf generation is 200 years (which I think is a pretty
> good estimate of their birthing cycle) that's ten times the human cycle. If
> there is a even a 10% population growth per generation that means humans are
> going to create nearly 5.2 children in the same time that elves would create 2.2.
>
> The difference between elves and dwarves in this scenario is that elves are more
> directly in competition with humans. I still think this competition is much more
> oblique than is presented by many people on this message board. The elven love
> for trees, for instance, is only related to their survival in an indirect way
> from what I can see. But the elven "decline" may or may not be directly related
> to humanity's presence. It could be more directly related to their own slow
> reproduction combined with their need to fight both humans and humanoids putting
> them in harm's way in a way their birth cycle can't support.
>
> If this is true, then the elven racism against humans is even more displaced.
> It's a reaction to their own racial decline in the face of competition from
> humans or humanoids. I am starting to think elves realize their own weakness,
> but instead of dealing with it on a self-preservation level (there are plenty of
> things they could do to insure the continuation of their species under these
> circumstances) many of them have turned the situation into yet more conflict with
> more successful species.
>
> What do you guys think of this line of reasoning?
>
I hate to say this, but I think there is a problem what with the basic
premises. The assumption is that the humans are a superior species as
compared to everyone else. If it is inevitable that the humans will
conquer on numbers alone, why were the elves able to take and enslave
the goblin races (until the elves started fighting among themselves)
before the humans got to Cerilia. Let's get serious. The goblins have
an even faster birthrate than humans, and on average are *better*
fighters (try a great goblin vs. your average 0 level human soldier).
Also, the goblins had some spellcasters, shamans, and I believe that
goblin magicians have been proposed on this list, as well as in the
generic resource The Complete Book of Humanoids. Hell, Birthright
goblins should be exterminating the humans, not serving as fodder for
awnsheglien armies. Conclusion, it wasn't a superior human birthrate
and combat capabilities that lost the elves their previous wars against
humans.
All right, now we reach the kicker. Gods. Humans have clerics, elves
don't. There are people on this list who have argued fervently that the
humans clerics beat the elven wizards. I have great difficulty
believing this given that I find it extremely unlikely that spell
casting human clerics outnumber the elven wizards, who come from the
following people :"Cerilian elves are creatures of faerie dust and
starlight,gifted with immortality and powers of mind and body beyond
those of humankind.". Not to mention that the average elven wizard,
having lived 10 times as long as the average human cleric is probably
going to have at a minimum 2X (probably closer to 5X) as many experience
points and therefore will be significantly higher level than the human
cleric. This says one thing to me. Direct divine intervention. I
suspect that since Deismaar the elves have lost very little land to the
humans. However the elves are still in a recovery phase because of
their slower birthrate. In another 500+ years, the humans may discover
that elven population pressure is going to be a problem, but not yet.
This is my own personal view, but it puts a big whole in the Gheallie
Sidhe as a shock reaction to imminent elven extermination.


Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

[Pieter A de Jong]

Gary V. Foss wrote:
>
> What is the primary elven complaint about humans? They cut down trees. Cutting
> down trees is just as valid survival issue for humans as it is for elves.

Wrong Gary, plenty of human cultures have survived without large scale
deforestation.
Simple examples : Eskimos (no trees *to* cut down), Indians in North
America (great
plains and otherwise), Mongol horsemen, assorted arabic nomad
cultures in the Middle
East. I'm sure that there are other examples. The only reason human
cultures cut trees
is be because they are convenient. If they aren't available, we will
use something else
to keep ourselves warm.

> In fact, I'd argue that it was even more of one. Elves, being creatures more attuned
> to nature, are able to live in forests without the kind of shelter requirements
> that humans have. It's fine for an elf to tell humans that they think cutting
> down trees is wrong, but from what I can tell they didn't come up with much of a
> solution to the implied question, "How do I keep from freezing to death without a
> fireplace?"
>
> Elves have a solution to that question. Magic. According to the description of
> elves in the Rulebook "Cerilian elves are creatures of faerie dust and starlight,
> gifted with immortality and powers of mind and body beyond those of humankind."
> Even after Deismaar, elves have much more access to magics that would allow them
> to create homes out of trees and live in them without having to do the kinds of
> things humans have to do to survive.
>
> The Native Americans that people seem to find such a good comparison to elves,
> cooperated with Europeans in exactly the way the elves did not. The elves
> "thought they could all live in mutual enjoyment of the forest, with humans
> respecting elven lands and the ELVES CAREFULLY AVOIDING HUMANS." Emphasis added.
> Elves NEVER wanted to associate with humans.

Fair enough, I don't think that the native american comparisons are
very valid either.
However, that still doesn't give the humans leave to take elf-claimed
lands (as they
most surely did), because of their own, internally controllable
population pressures.
In other words, it would be possible for the humans and the elves to
live side by side,
provided that the humans were actually willing to abide by the
agreements that they
made with the elves to respect the Elven lands. Unfortunately, the
elves found out
1st-hand that the humans would break those agreements time and time
again. In effect,
chronically lying and cheating, in such a fashion as to cost many
elven lies. Who's
evil know? Both sides perhaps. You may have noticed not all humans
broke those
agreements, and not all elves are members of the Gheallie Sidhe.

- --

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

[Daniel McSorley]

From: einarh@fagerborg.vgs.no
>Err... Trees is a natural part of the elven culture.
>And when humans go to elven lands to hunt and log, its a crime.
>
Trees are not part of a culture! They are trees! There are a lot of
them. They sit around, photosynthesising, little squirrels play in their
branches. There is nothing evil about cutting one down! There is nothing
evil about cutting a bunch down! They are a resource, that is all. If the
elves want to kill people for doing something that does _not_ harm the elves
physically, then they are psychotic!

>And might I resume the sub-topic of this discussion:
>Is GS evil?
>GS is a form of last defence. Defence is normally not considered evil.
>There is a good way to get rid of GS: "Don't venture close to elven lands".
>Then the GS wouldn't be able to recruit as many as they have done before.
>
It is not "defense" to kill helpless people. This is known as
"slaughtering". Entirely different.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Kai Beste
>Ok, killing defenceless (I won't say innocent) civilians is basically
>evil. This far I agree. But I don't think the gheallie sidhe were
>originally racists, but they may have become racists over time.
>The way I imagine the humans spread was that increasing population
>pressure and high taxes forced many poor peasants to look for new
>land elsewhere. A couple of them gathered together, packed their
>waggons and settled someplace in the "wild lands" or no man's land.
Did we read the same backstory for Cerilia? The tribes came to Cerilia
fleeing the Shadow, who basically said to them, follow me, or my other
followers will kill you. The ran, and when they reached safety, they needed
some homes, obviously, cut down some trees, plowed some land, and were
suddenly attacked by the elves!

>Now, if you are an elf, what would you do? Kill the people who do the
>real harm, i.e. the farmers (that's why they are not innocent!), or
>wait until the army moves in and fight it honorably but in vain? I
>know it is an oversimplification, but if there are no farmers to
>protect there's no need for an army. I won't say the farmers had much
>choice in the matter, but so do the elves. They tried to live
>together in peace when the humans first came to Cerilia, but it did
>not work out. They tried to fight them on the field of battle, and
>lost. There are not many options left to them. Elves have long
>memories, and they won't trust the humans as easily as they once did.
>But they also know they can't fight them, because humans are just
>too numerable.
So, being sneaky, racist cowards, they ride in and kill defenseless
peasants in their sleep. Good point.

>There is no glory in war, and no honor, and, above all, no real
>winner (except maybe the war industry :).
There is plenty of honor in war. Honor is found in the proper fulfilling
of your obligations. Warriors, especially those in the employ of the lawful
government, ie soldiers, have an obligation to defend those weaker and less
able to defend themselves. To do so, they risk life and health, but they
accept this. And in doing so, they are behaving honorably.
There is also glory to be found in war, that is, you can win praise,
renown, and distinction by performing well in war, it happens quite often.
Most of war isn't glorious, it is harsh and brutal, but people can win glory
in war.
There are also winners, at least in most wars. Sometimes there is
stalemate. But one side usually wins: defeats the enemy, drives back his
troops, and forces them to admit defeat, and pay the penalty for losing.

>Both sides will commit
>atrocities. To the gheallie sidhe, the war is not over until they
>have driven the humans from their ancestral lands. They see this as
>defense of their homeland, and don't see themselves as evil.
>On the other hand, the humans have "won" the war. From their point of
>view the gheallie sidhe murders defenseless humans without remorse.
>To the humans, this is evil. There is a saying in German (I don't
>know if there is an English equivalent) that says history is written
>by the winner.
(Didn't you just say that there is no winner?)

>So in a few hundred years elves will probably regarded
>as evil.
>
No, they're evil right now. The humans know this, the other elves know
this, and unless the GS is really delusional, they know this, but they don't
care, they enjoy being evil, it makes them feel strong to kill weak sleeping
humans.

>> Oh, I'm going to have to argue that point. Not killing people is one the
>> oldest moral statements in existence. It's Old Testament stuff.
>
>Yes, it is. But there is also stuff like "an eye for an eye".
>
Yes, this is in the sense of lawfully carrying out a just punishement on
a criminal, not forming a vigilante group and hunting people down. The
state has a responsibility to defend its citizens from harm; this may
include carrying out a sentence of death if the state decides this is
neccessary.

>> Besides, I don't think the argument has been that the GS are evil
>> because they kill. The argument is that the GS are evil because
>> they kill indiscriminately. Even when humans came to Cerilia and
>> committed the horrific crime of cutting down trees for which they
>> earned an elven death sentence, they did not cut down trees
>> indiscriminately. Humans did not gather together in bands and say,
>> "Tonight let's go out and cut us down some trees! Yeeehaaa!
>> Get them lousy leaf producin' photosynthesizin' good for nothin'
>> bark colored, woody plants! Get 'em!"
(That is the funniest thing I have read in a long time!)

>I can agree on most of this. The gheallie sidhe are evil because they
>kill indiscriminately. But does this make the humans any better?
You cannot generalize all humans this way! The ones that slaughter
innocent elves are definitely evil, this has never been argued! The GS
commits the logical fallacy of generalizing this to _all_ humans, so yes,
the innocent humans are better than the GS!

>It surely does not make them martyrs.
It sure does!
_Martyr_
: A person who sacrifices something of great value and esp. life for the
sake of principle;
: VICTIM; esp : a great or constant sufferer.
The innocent VICTIMs of the GS, who risk, and lose, their lives because
they need to earn to survive, are martyrs.

> I've tried to point out on
>possible motivation for the elves to kill peasants and lumberjacks.
Fine, they have a motivation. It is a logically indefensible one,
completely immoral, but they have a motivation.

>The elves tried to live in peace with the humans, but it did not work
>out. And why? Because of the most basic human motivation: greed.
>
The original humans to come to Cerilia were motivated by survival, that
of themselves, and that of their families. I am a die-hard cynic, but greed
is not the "most basic human motivation". Survival is, it's genetic, if you
aren't programmed to survive, you don't live long enough to pass on that
trait.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[Kenneth Gauck]

At 03:38 PM 10/16/98 CET, Kai Beste wrote:
>The way I imagine the humans spread was that increasing population
>pressure and high taxes forced many poor peasants to look for new
>land elsewhere. [...] The farmers called out for help, and the army was
>sent in to protect them.

Sounds like typical humans. Complain about the taxes and then demand the
services the taxes support anyway.

>There is no glory in war, and no honor, and, above all, no real
>winner (except maybe the war industry :). Both sides will commit
>atrocities.

Keep in mind that glory and honor, like beauty is where you find it.
Looking at texts from eras that paid the most attention to glory and honor,
we find that the participants were very satisfied with their conduct for the
most part.
Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Siebharrin / Arathorn
>If I occupied your house for 1000 years... Would you still consider it
yours?
>
Bad example. I'll only live to be 100 tops, figure. So, I'm 19 now, in
a couple of years I buy a house. 5 years later, evil Canuckians invade, and
throw me out. Some of their soldiers live in my house. 25 years later, I
wander back through. Yes, it is still my house, however, I find a Canuckian
family living there, none of them have ever been in the Canuckian Red
Brigade, I've never met them before. If I break in and kill them, I am like
the GS. However, being a generally nice guy, I wouldn't do that, I'd say,
"oh, darn", and buy the house next door, which is what the _non_
racist-psycho-murderer elves have done in BR.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Galwylin
>Again, I don't distingish the difference between humans and humanity. We
>all should carry ourselves as if our personal actions relect on humanity.
>The gheallie Sidhe should do the same because Cerilians do form a basis of
>assumptions on elves because of the actions of a few.
>
I agree we _should_ however, most people don't, and if you assume that
the acts of one person _do_ refect completely on humanity, that's a logical
fallacy, you can't generalize in that fashion.

>By this I meant that if we say elves are acting evil then their claim to
>the forests should be cast aside. They are undeserving. Evil is
>undeserving of freedom, happiness, and life (in my opinion).
>
That's just like the GS. They kill humans because some humans were bad.
If we ran off all the elves because some of them were bad, we would be just
as wrong as the GS is. We can't blame all the elves for the actions of the
GS, just like they can't blame all the humans for the actions of a few bad
ones. I'm not saying all the elves are evil, I'm saying the GS is.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Galwylin
>Many of our heroes
>are those that stood against hopeless odds and didn't necessarily survive.
>It was the struggle.
Agreed, however, our heroes are the ones who fought their enemies in the
face of hopeless odds. The peasants/merchants/lumberjacks/berry-pickers are
not the enemies of the elves, until the GS kill a few and make them so.

>It is a racist view that humans are better than elves
>and they hate them for that. But if all these people that see UFOs are
>right and a new alien race comes to Earth that is better than we and wants
>our resources, will we act any differently? Fear, hopelessness,
>determination for survival are very powerful motivations.
>
If invading aliens came and attacked us, we should kill them if we could.
If we then went to Mars and nuked their hometowns, we would be as bad as
they were. Same as if we killed the invaders, but they later sent in
diplomats and business-aliens to open relations. If we killed those guys,
too, we would be morally in the wrong.

Daniel McSorley- mcsorley.1@osu.edu