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<blockquote data-quote="TwoSix" data-source="post: 9529346" data-attributes="member: 205">But it makes perfect sense to have a fictional faction that is defined as &quot;good&quot; that absolutely would make those trade-offs.&quot;Good but dangerous&quot; is exactly what we would want in a setting with muscular neutrals!&nbsp; They still take care of orphans, heal the sick, provide a shoulder to cry on.&nbsp; They agonize over decisions that will cause anyone to come to harm.&nbsp; But they absolutely WILL do it in pursuit of the utopian endpoint, where evil and suffering are eradicated.(And as a slight aside, if you're doing this in the 9-point system, you also need to define what differs between LG and CG, is it just a difference in emphasis and methodology, or do they have distinct, opposed, endpoints?)And again, that's what makes it so compelling for fictional positioning.&nbsp; &quot;Muscular neutrality&quot; makes more sense if &quot;good&quot; is strong, dangerous but compelling.&nbsp; But that still assumes that the point of &quot;good&quot; is to allow moral choice, and test the recipients.&nbsp; That the point of &quot;good&quot; is to struggle against a selfish choice and make the altruistic one.&nbsp; Like in [USER=2067]@I'm A Banana[/USER]'s post above, what if cosmological good is just the recognition that suffering is omnipresent, &quot;ontological goodness&quot; is false, and the best case scenario is oblivion?&nbsp; (And what I love about that post is that viewpoint could be used for &quot;good&quot; or &quot;evil&quot;, depending on the setting.)I don't see it that way.&nbsp; Let's say that cosmological Good has an end-goal of wiping out all of the evil planes, which will cause the destruction of the multiverse but all souls will be brought together into a singular, joyful communion.That's a perfectly feasible, logical &quot;good&quot; endpoint that a &quot;muscular neutral&quot; who values the status quo and personal autonomy more than happiness can oppose.Where I think I differ from you is that you're setting a requirement for Good to be &quot;maximally benevolent&quot; in order to be worthy of being considered as a &quot;cosmological Good&quot;.&nbsp; Whereas I think, per the parameters of the OP, that a &quot;good but dangerous&quot; force can still be considered Good but also capable of being rationally opposed.It's only if one force is actually capable of always taking the methods that are maximally benevolent that the existence of the &quot;neutral&quot; force would become irrational.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TwoSix, post: 9529346, member: 205"] But it makes perfect sense to have a fictional faction that is defined as "good" that absolutely would make those trade-offs. "Good but dangerous" is exactly what we would want in a setting with muscular neutrals! They still take care of orphans, heal the sick, provide a shoulder to cry on. They agonize over decisions that will cause anyone to come to harm. But they absolutely WILL do it in pursuit of the utopian endpoint, where evil and suffering are eradicated. (And as a slight aside, if you're doing this in the 9-point system, you also need to define what differs between LG and CG, is it just a difference in emphasis and methodology, or do they have distinct, opposed, endpoints?) And again, that's what makes it so compelling for fictional positioning. "Muscular neutrality" makes more sense if "good" is strong, dangerous but compelling. But that still assumes that the point of "good" is to allow moral choice, and test the recipients. That the point of "good" is to struggle against a selfish choice and make the altruistic one. Like in [USER=2067]@I'm A Banana[/USER]'s post above, what if cosmological good is just the recognition that suffering is omnipresent, "ontological goodness" is false, and the best case scenario is oblivion? (And what I love about that post is that viewpoint could be used for "good" or "evil", depending on the setting.) I don't see it that way. Let's say that cosmological Good has an end-goal of wiping out all of the evil planes, which will cause the destruction of the multiverse but all souls will be brought together into a singular, joyful communion. That's a perfectly feasible, logical "good" endpoint that a "muscular neutral" who values the status quo and personal autonomy more than happiness can oppose. Where I think I differ from you is that you're setting a requirement for Good to be "maximally benevolent" in order to be worthy of being considered as a "cosmological Good". Whereas I think, per the parameters of the OP, that a "good but dangerous" force can still be considered Good but also capable of being rationally opposed. It's only if one force is actually capable of always taking the methods that are maximally benevolent that the existence of the "neutral" force would become irrational. [/QUOTE]

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