Curse

Dante the Warlord · Sep 22, 2006, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnmedgla

People who say the ends can never justiy the means always amuse me, it's sort of a stunted view in which personal conscience overrides and all considerations, sometimes there really IS a greater good which must be served.

Speaking subjectively, as a vastly powerful race who enslaved, exterminated and mainpulated others towards their own ends, yes the Mursaat are text book evil, all they need is a maniacal laugh.

Objectively, and very much more usefully, irrespective of any and all other actions, what the Mursaat did directly prevented the release of the Titans, an Armageddon and so very much the End of The World and EVERYTHING in it. Saints, I say, canonize them immediately!

There's a very real difference between harming the few for the perceived or imaginary benefit, or even way of life of the many, and harming the few to ensure the actual survival of the many. In all but the most cowardly and weasely moral systems, the needs of the many ALWAYS outweigh the needs of the few, distinction between right and wrong is only valuable when considering how many must lose, and how much, and so how many will gain, and how much.

Simplified grossly, if there were some hypothetical (and absurd) situation in which the planet would explode and all life on Earth would end unless we rounded up and killed everyone over 6' 3" tall, you'd better believe I'd be out there with a metre stick and a shotgun.

Coincidentally, Darwin Never said the strong will survive, he wrote, after a fashion, survival of the fittest. By 'fittest,' Darwin did NOT mean those with rippling abs, adonine physiques or superior physical strength. Fittest means quite simply best adapted AND most adaptable.

Darwinism in a nutshell: traits which are beneficial (whatever those traits may be - most evolution has actually been AWAY from superior physical strength) give an advantage to those who possess them, who are therefore more likely to reproduce, and so those beneficial traits show up more and more in the population generation after generation.

Curiously, Darwinism can be used to put forward pretty convincing arguments for both Greed and Altruism.

Irrespective of anything else, the Mursaat act with Perfect logical consistency. Anyone who sees anything illogical in the Mursaat's actions really needs to learn that reason, logic and morality are three fundamentally different things.

Once again - Yay Mursaat! (Honestly, I just like their Hornbows

)

For someone with increased grammar...you seem too be lacking in history I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SAY "DARWIN SAID SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST"!!!!!!!!!! HERBERT SPENCER SAID THIS!!! HE COINED THIS TERM!

That said....the mursatt simplily thought that they were superior beings...which they were in a sort of way. but they did lack in the "real" power of a real superior being. A "real" superior being would never keep secrets from the lower beings they are helping and should never force anyone to do anything (especially if they don't understand what is going to happen) A "real superior" being would lead the way for the civilization to be where they are, not corrupt one as it stands. Most superior beings would never demand the beings to pay tribute.

Wow...this reminds me or the Ori versus Earth in Stargate SG-1

johnmedgla · Sep 22, 2006, 01:08 AM // 01:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dante the Warlord

For someone with increased grammar...you seem too be lacking in history I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SAY "DARWIN SAID SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST"!!!!!!!!!! HERBERT SPENCER SAID THIS!!! HE COINED THIS TERM!

That said....the mursatt simplily thought that they were superior beings...which they were in a sort of way. but they did lack in the "real" power of a real superior being. A "real" superior being would never keep secrets from the lower beings they are helping and should never force anyone to do anything (especially if they don't understand what is going to happen) A "real superior" being would lead the way for the civilization to be where they are, not corrupt one as it stands. Most superior beings would never demand the beings to pay tribute.

Wow...this reminds me or the Ori versus Earth in Stargate SG-1

I'm aware of Hubert Spencer, I wasn't attributing the quotation to Darwin, but rather the thought behind it. Neertheless, I stand corrected.

On the rest of it, I have to repspectfully disagree. It might be morally superior to lead creatures less advanced than yourself towards some sunny future, but in objective terms, that doesn't matter a jot. Whether something is superior to something else depends entirely upon which criteria you use to measure. As vastly powerful, intelligent and influential creatures, the Mursaat were undeniably superior to the other beings in GW. On any human spectrum of moral behaviour however, they're found wanting. Arguments about how superior being would assist lesser entities instead of using them for their own ends are all based upon pre-conceived , culturally derived senses of ethics and morailty, and are therefore of little value in judging anything.

Unlike some things, such as achievements and capabilities, morality (excusing those who believe in a supreme and divinely derived moral code) is both personal and relative, while two people could take a simple test of arithmetic and the results could be compared without disagreement, any 'morality test' depends only on the personal ethics of the person setting the test.

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree, nice though it would be if everyone could just get along, and follow the ethical Golden Rule (Act as you would choose to be acted upon), I don't think ascribing personal moral parameters is helpful in comparing species and cultures. To be totally honest, I'm not particularly convinced by the existence of either Good or Evil, there are only choices, and the reasons we have for making them - usually it boils down to a battle between selfishness and altruism, and even altruism is just a special case of selfishness. Yup, selfishness rules the world!

With that stark and depressing thought, I'm off to grab some coffee!

Dante the Warlord · Sep 22, 2006, 06:56 PM // 18:56

interesting point john medgla....i do agree that "there is no good or evil"...its simplily what most people view as right and wrong.

I just think that a superior being were to "interfere" he should lead the people to good and never demand anything from them. If they don't want to learn, then thats their problem, if they build temples for you, then they did it on their own will. You should never ever force anyone to do anything against their own will.

PanGammon · Sep 22, 2006, 08:44 PM // 20:44

To tell the truth the Mursaat were good in the fact that they held the titans at bay. However lying to the White Mantle that they were gods so that they could abuse their power isn't exactly very good. I'd say the Mursaat are just oppourtunists..................................

Tommy · Sep 23, 2006, 04:14 AM // 04:14

yeah they are just doing what is necessary to save the ppl they can... it is like if we dont kill a small number of ppl, we all die togethor... what choice do we have? we can't reply on a bunch of ppl to save the world from titans. sacrifice the chosen one is the logical choice imao. so mursarrs are good guys

btw they got wings on their back<angel?> so i think that they are good guy

!

Kane Inverse · Sep 25, 2006, 07:47 PM // 19:47

I agree with most here, even with what I said before, the Mantle were being used by the Mursaat. But, let's face it... we were intertwined in 3 seperate wars this whole time with the Charr, Undead and Mursaat.... So I think it's safe to say we'd take all the help we could get.

Kuna · Sep 30, 2006, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lordhelmos

Nice nice, where did you get all this info? Super cool stuff and explains alot more than I could, especially with with rotscale things and scepter.

And back to the question:

I guess you could say the mursaat did some messed up stuff playing around with soul magic, but then again they were pretty much just paranoid about the world ending. But yea they did WTF pwn a crapload of the other races, including the titans at some point.

Rotscale, in actuality, is just a dragon that the Stone Summit raised from the dead. DX

TheBaron82 · Sep 30, 2006, 11:14 PM // 23:14

I don't know if this have been mentioned before but we (the players) are the most evil of them all muhahahahhaha. We killed everything that walks lol.

Mesmer in Need · Oct 25, 2006, 02:38 AM // 02:38

lol we did

Hyper Cutter · Oct 25, 2006, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBaron82

I don't know if this have been mentioned before but we (the players) are the most evil of them all muhahahahhaha. We killed everything that walks lol.

Though most of it tried to kill us first...

Bane of Mortality · Oct 28, 2006, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Mursaat are obviously against the Titans, since they killed as many Chosen as they could get their hands on in an attempt to stop their release. Now based off of this, I have two theories on why they saved the people of Kryta.
1) They wanted the WM to serve them so they had a vast number of servants to hunt down Chosen
2) Mursaat are against Titans and Charr are for the Titans (If you look at their effigies, they're shaped like titans). Simple enemy relationship.

lapsus · Oct 28, 2006, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Basically the short sweet simple answer is- If you belive that its ok to sacrifice a small number for the whole the mursaat are good. If you believe every life is innately useful, good and invalueable the mursaat are the devil.

My opinion, the mursaat are acting upon the basic realities of life. Every person is cruel, mean, and cold at heart, we all innately want the other guy to fail so we can succed. We dress it up and try and get rid of it but all in all its still there. The Mursaat saw the damage the titans could do. In their own best intrest they acted. The side effect of saving themself was saving the majority of humanity. Just because they acted without the pressures of our societies required moral highness doesnt make them evil.

Mursaat=my heroes.

Amy Awien · Oct 28, 2006, 06:39 AM // 06:39

You are confusing your own self with every person. You may be cruel, mean and cold at heart, but that does not mean that everyone is.

lapsus · Oct 30, 2006, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Every successful person is. war is cruel cold and mean, society is cold and mean. society is everyones beliefes as a whole. the big rich business man, fires thousands of workers he is being cruel but hes also successful. Bill gates lies, cheats and steals not to mention he is ruthless and mean. Any athelete is mean and self centered, they have to be.

Charities, support groups and many other concessions we give the weak and the helpless only exist to make us feel like less of an animal. We have a rising number of shrinks and analysts to tell us were repressing things, to say we arnt expressing ourselves fully this is a sign of the falsity we are all living.

We deny we are animals, we invent religion to makes us feel better about death. we have wars but we condemn them, we dispise that which we are. we invent technology to raise us from being animals. All of the human animal is mean, because we need it to compete, we are all cruel at times, because we are all spiteful, we are all cold because we think of ourselves before anyone else to survive.

Guildmaster Cain · Oct 30, 2006, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Well they could have asked for people to sacrifice their lifes to keep the door of Komalie closed. About the same with the Kurzick Juggernaut story, the people see it as a way to redeem themselves.

lapsus · Oct 31, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Yeah but the mursaats presence causes massive death pain to heroes let alone to the random villager. Besides if people knew that the titans existed in the flesh chaos would ensue..... Like finding out the devil isnt just a myth in some dusty tome and you cant repent and save yourself. Its much easier to lie....

Amy Awien · Oct 31, 2006, 06:33 AM // 06:33

Nonsense, they'd organize and do something, as people have always done. And if really nothing else worked, some would probably volunteer for the job.

But, since that is not what happened and the whole thing was kept secret, this whole Titan invasion threat was a huge exageration the Mursaat - and some here - used to 'justify' these sacrifices. In truth it was just about there own power.

So, don't feel guilty about messing with their plans, or killing a few of them.

lapsus · Nov 02, 2006, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Dont feel guilty? Ah so condone murder of sentient beings but look down upon liars? Killing is the root of the game though, so reasons dont matter just hack and cut through it all! The only answer to this question is as I stated dependant on whether or not you see human sacrifice and lieing and self centeredness as virtues.

Bellucci · Nov 02, 2006, 06:38 AM // 06:38

i think this is what makes prophecies the best, it's story...

Keep in mind though that the Summit and the Mursaat would battle eachother, but does that make the Stone Summit good? or may be that makes the mursaat good, as the summit are clearly evil. However, i think the biggest issue are the 5 True Gods. Remember, the Mursaat were opposed of the 5 True Gods. There is really only 1 component of the prophecies story that is never explained, partially at best. And that story is the story of the Charr. Guys, dont be surprised if a new Guild Wars is released, escalating the story of Ascalon and Charr. That new Guild Wars could feature a new ascalon with a new Rin... but then again, who the hell knows how that would work... a guild wars paralell universe with 2 ascalons? eek

Sophitia Leafblade · Nov 02, 2006, 09:49 AM // 09:49

I think the mursaat were evil, they opposed the Titans because they were the onlys ones who could defeat them and they knew it. The titans were the big Bad of Phophecies but they never were proved to be evil since they were under control of the evil Lich so in advertently they weren’t in control of their own actions. And The Charr despite having a deep hatred of the humans may have attemped to invade the lands of tryia but there true motives behind it were never explained. If/When anet makes Guild Wars 2 in the future (with a whole new game engine, graphics, etc.) im sure they will return to the missing sections of the storys and continuations, like the Charr and the rebuilding of Ascalon without Rurik, Kryta without the White Mantle and the new queen, The Shining blade establishing there own kingdom in Magumma, and perhaps the continual War between the Stone Summit and the rest of the Dwarf kingdom finally commming to an end.