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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1468703" data-attributes="member: 3146">Of course this is utterly incoherent. Learning is necessary for humans or other beings to produce music, create families, maintain honor, or live in ordered societies. And, love is a necessary product of functional families (though not necessarily the Hollywood Romantic Comedy kind of love).Similarly, all of the supposed goals of chaos are dependent upon their corruptions.And, since both the law and chaos powers are going to, in some way, be recognizable as actual entities, they will have at least some of the characteristics listed above (learning, free will, the appearance of creativity (sure, the law side could have a standard series of responses and reactions for various situations, but such things would have, at a minimum, had to be created at one time or another, thereby requiring creativity), etc. Similarly, things like continuity and consistency of essence are necessary for the chaos powers to be recognizable as entities rather than impersonal forces. And it's necessary for them to be entities rather than forces or the entire anti-human cosmology falls apart since they are forces to be harnessed and used for our purposes rather than entities that would try to use us for their purposes.More problematically, it posits as the primary cosmic conflict, one which any rational being would respond to by saying, "a pox on both your houses." In a good/evil conflict, there are at least apparently rational reasons for choosing the side of evil or for being evil on the side of "good." (We value the appearance of or reputation for virtue rather than virtue itself, etc). In the cosmology that you are proposing, no rational being could possibly choose either of the primary sides. Even balance is a chimera because what rational beings would want is NOT a balance between the opposing forces but a cessation of conflict where they go away.And, perhaps more to the point, the obvious rational decision re-intoduces a good/bad (since you obviously don't want to call the other side evil) conflict. If the vorlons aren't good (since Kosh died) and the Shadows aren't good, they both become bad and Sheridan represents the force and perspective of good. So, you haven't really made a real law/chaos conflict in the cosmology; you've just removed all of the good transcendental powers and made good a solely human/mortal invention.If you want something that will really look like a law/chaos conflict, the answer isn't in any incoherent Melinbournian cosmology; the answer is to make one side clearly a bad choice and the other clearly less bad (but not remotely good). The Warhammer 40k millieu is a good example of this. The forces of Chaos are clearly bad. On the other hand, it's pretty much impossible to pretend that the Empire is good. There are no good forces in the world, but the empire is not so bad as that its victory would be worse than its defeat. So it's possible for rational beings to actually believe in and fight for the empire and even to justify its existence and all the while not be under the illusion that it's good. (And there are reasons to take the side of Chaos too). If one, however, makes the cosmos so that neither side in the conflict is remotely palatable, rational creatures will check out of it and thereby create the good/bad conflict that you didn't want.</blockquote>

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