It's time for another TV dilemma again.
Disclaimer: this topic needs to stick to talking about Elves and the King's Guard.
I've been watching that show with that guy who has a really busy day every 6 to 18 months.
This time, he's just gotten out of Dwarven prison and Elven Terrorists are blowing up parts of the kingdom. The guy in charge of the King's Guard wants to round up all the elves and put them under guard as a precaution.
We all know it's not Good to round up people based on Race or Class and put them in a camp.
And we all know the King's Guard gets the jerkiest guys to do it, which only incites the other Elves to become rebels as they hear about incidents.
I tend to approach morality and ethics and something that can be tactically justified, not just acting a certain way because the Clerics said so or they wouldn't Heal you. I am not actually advocating rounding up all the elves, I'd like to see a tactical explanation on why it's not a good idea.
Aside from moral ground, however, what is tactically wrong with rounding up or killing all the elves in the kingdom?
Here's what I see as the logic behind taking out the elves:
if you had a plague rat infestation, is it easier to detect and capture JUST the infected rats, or kill every rat you can? You might get a few other non-rat animals killed as well if your rat killing system doesn't differentiate too well, but it will probably be effective at solving the problem.
Racial profiling in combat makes things easier. Don't fire until you see the points of their ears. Makes it pretty easy to avoid hitting friends. Sure, the enemy will try to change things up by surgically altering a spy's ears, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
Back in our kingdom, apparently elves have been living or relocating to our lands for some time. Now some of them have gotten violent over issues in OTHER kingdoms. It's really hard getting good intel on who the bad elves are. It's really easy just to round them all up. Even if you miss a few, once the rest are gone, they will stand out and not be able to move freely, which will limit their remaining ability to do harm.
Now there's a difference between roundiing up and exterminating. I think the latter is simply the next logical conclusion one would make. It's cheaper and safer to execute than to imprison. Things could escalate where all the Elves are in active hostility within our kingdom's borders and that's where nearly every citizen considers killing an elf or two themselves, just to protect their family.
So, what's the tactical counter-argument?
Disclaimer: this topic needs to stick to talking about Elves and the King's Guard.
I've been watching that show with that guy who has a really busy day every 6 to 18 months.
This time, he's just gotten out of Dwarven prison and Elven Terrorists are blowing up parts of the kingdom. The guy in charge of the King's Guard wants to round up all the elves and put them under guard as a precaution.
We all know it's not Good to round up people based on Race or Class and put them in a camp.
And we all know the King's Guard gets the jerkiest guys to do it, which only incites the other Elves to become rebels as they hear about incidents.
I tend to approach morality and ethics and something that can be tactically justified, not just acting a certain way because the Clerics said so or they wouldn't Heal you. I am not actually advocating rounding up all the elves, I'd like to see a tactical explanation on why it's not a good idea.
Aside from moral ground, however, what is tactically wrong with rounding up or killing all the elves in the kingdom?
Here's what I see as the logic behind taking out the elves:
if you had a plague rat infestation, is it easier to detect and capture JUST the infected rats, or kill every rat you can? You might get a few other non-rat animals killed as well if your rat killing system doesn't differentiate too well, but it will probably be effective at solving the problem.
Racial profiling in combat makes things easier. Don't fire until you see the points of their ears. Makes it pretty easy to avoid hitting friends. Sure, the enemy will try to change things up by surgically altering a spy's ears, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
Back in our kingdom, apparently elves have been living or relocating to our lands for some time. Now some of them have gotten violent over issues in OTHER kingdoms. It's really hard getting good intel on who the bad elves are. It's really easy just to round them all up. Even if you miss a few, once the rest are gone, they will stand out and not be able to move freely, which will limit their remaining ability to do harm.
Now there's a difference between roundiing up and exterminating. I think the latter is simply the next logical conclusion one would make. It's cheaper and safer to execute than to imprison. Things could escalate where all the Elves are in active hostility within our kingdom's borders and that's where nearly every citizen considers killing an elf or two themselves, just to protect their family.
So, what's the tactical counter-argument?