Challenge to all authors

[Jasonian]

In war, there is no "good guys" or "bad guys." It's simply "us" and "them." Whoever wins the war is considered the "good guys," and those that lose are the "bad guys." That's pretty much how it works.

In our stories, the factions we use the view point from are "us", and their enemies are "them." BUT, a good writter can make his/her/their audience think that that factiion are the "good guys."

My challenge is: Can anyone make a faction like the Hive be look like the good guys?

[Cotroneo]

is Raptor enjoying himself with the data angels? or does he belong somewhere else.

is sinder a good person? does a good person use X weapons? interesting..

a better challenge is making your faction from the us, point of view, bad

[Jasonian]

But that's not a challenge at all. Just have your character use an atrocity and now it's a "bad guy."

It would be a lot harder to make someone that's already disliked seem to be a good person, or at least have good ideas.

Someone a while back posted a one post story about Miriam praying her enemies woudl forgive her. I believe it was called "Godwinson's Hope," but I don't remember the author. THAT is what I'm talking about here. Everyone dislikes Miriam, but I couldnt' help feeling sorry for her after reading that story.

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- Jasonian (back to the Drone mines)

[Cotroneo]

true, godwinson hope was great....i wish the story actually continued....it was one of the first smac fictions i read after hydro's mindworm saga thingy(i think hydro wrote it)

i think google or hydro wrote it, but i may be wrong

your right about the challenge, now that i think about it, your write, its easy to make someone look bad.....sorry

i may do that in crossfire....time will tell

[Hydro]

Hello all,

Yup, I wrote both Godwinson's Hope and Bright Beginnings (the Mindworm Saga, if that is what you are referring to, was Googlie's). I did purposefully try to make Miriam a sympathetic character. It wasn't too hard, since this Miriam focused on the main messages (love, forgiveness, hope, salvation) of the three main monotheistic religions and NOT what its intolerant messengers frequently say (and what Miriam spews in standard SMAC).

Unfortunately, 'the sun' through the chapel's stained glass window in the very end of the story had two meanings: both 'the son of God' and the 'sun' of a nuclear inferno. It was a short story, and it ended with a PB ending Godwinson's Hope (another double meaning). So, Zak was the bad guy, along with the other 'good' factions of Lal and Deirdre.

Hydro

[Cotroneo]

thks for the clarification hydro....

you did i good job of showing the double meanings in the story, so you really didn't need to tell us, but i guess just in case someone didn't understood story....thks

great work.....any of you future spartans or crossfire guys going to do a little story like bright beginnings(which is long though) or Hope....just wondering?

[Googlie]

^

[Barshy]

Hmm... Making a faction such as the Hive look like a good guy takes more than sympathy. Instead of trying to make the Hive for example a good guy, a challenge would be to make all of the Hive's actions justifiable.
In my humble opinion, you should take a faction's given actions and work with that, not change the actions themselves.

For example, for the Hive, to make them good guys, having Yang get captured and tortured or whatever increases our sympathy, but it doesn't take away the fact that he "reeducates" and tortures his citizens. (This isn't meant to criticize Hydro's Godwinson's Hope post, which was REALLY good). And you can't have him treat his citizens well all of a sudden to make him "good."

The challenge is to place the reader into Yang's mind. Yang obviously doesn't think he's evil, he thinks democracy is evil. The reader has to see clearly from Yang's point of view. In my opinion, his views are an extreme form of Confucionism.

Anyways, i don't know if i made any sense. Probably not. Oh well.

[Cotroneo]

Confucionism...that can be argued i guess....i guess your refering to people working for the advancement of government

now, if we look at marxism and other forms of socialism we have seen in american + the globe, its not all that bad. Something we call communitarism(can't spell) developed.

working for the greater goal is perhaps the only way we will every see that "united earth" we see in sci fi films + shows. Its difficult to unite people under the democratic phisolphy...which puts oneself over the great good......acourse thats my opinion