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[PaintedWolf]

So most Battletech is very Grey Area and Relativist. I don't mean relativist in the subjectivist sense, but in the deterministic one- where material factors, which are objective, do influence moral judgements.

So the Clans were sympathetic in a way. Even the Word of Blake. But the Aggressors, really? Is there any real way to justify "Reaving" the Entire Inner Sphere? "Kill all X Trillion of them!"

Not sure how you write a moral case from their perspective.

[Craig Steele]

PaintedWolf, on 23 April 2014 - 07:32 PM, said:

So most Battletech is very Grey Area and Relativist. I don't mean relativist in the subjectivist sense, but in the deterministic one- where material factors, which are objective, do influence moral judgements.

So the Clans were sympathetic in a way. Even the Word of Blake. But the Aggressors, really? Is there any real way to justify "Reaving" the Entire Inner Sphere? "Kill all X Trillion of them!"

Not sure how you write a moral case from their perspective.

This is a long time into the future (3065?) so not really where we are today, but I don't think the Reaving war was exactly as you portray.

It was more of the same basis of Clan Culture has always been just with less paitence for those not coming on board.

That was that the ruling classes (read House Lords) had to be eliminated so that the Clans could "educate" the masses and return them to a Golden Age of peace and prosperity.

Where the Reaving kicks it up a gear is that if the masses don't immediately bow to the wisom of the Clans, they get treated in the same way but with efficiency, ergo Weapons of Mass Destruction.

So the Reaving was more about wiping out the leadership of Clans / Houses and not the masses, but if the masses were not prompt in agreeing they too became tainted by the IS culture.