What do you think of the Empire and its contributions to the server?

[Fluffy Horror 496]

@Rigplease point out where I said the entire player base of the Empire was doing x, y, or z. I am not attacking ad hominem, I am discussing real issues.

 

Sure, it can be argued the symbol has been used by many. If people called it the Templar Cross, or the Warhammer Cross, I wouldn't care. But people are calling it the Rhodesian Cross, which puts it into a very specific context.

 

 

@Werew0lfwe can discuss this like the adults we are without resorting to ad hominem. Oh no, a single one of my characters has/had an unrequited crush on a single knight, which I discussed and asked permission to do OOCly before I did so, as well as thoroughly established boundaries, how horrible of me... 🙄

 

While I am sure the Empire has some irl racist fascists, like everywhere, I never claimed that all of you were racists/fascists. And I don't think that! People are not their characters, and just because someone roleplays a fascist, it doesn't mean they are one IRL, obviously.

 

I just think that people get too carried away on their characters and forget that this is a game. We can be a lot nicer to each other OOC. We can do horrible racist crimes to elves and then check in with their players to make sure they're okay. We can make sure that we're leaving safe spaces for every race. We can treat each other with human decency. We can have conversations about issues without flipping TF out.

[tasty_cheesecake 2298]

42 minutes ago, Fluffy Horror said:

But out of genuine curiosity, not accusatory in any way- how is burning at the stake RP better than crucifixion RP? They're both agonizing, torturous deaths that have been IRL historically used. I personally find burning at the stake RP worse.

 

Fire features centrally in my character’s religious rituals and practices, I thought the whole thing was barbaric and was going to shoot the man in the head before the crowd (you included) insisted on the most brutal death possible. Crucifixion has negative IRP history surrounding its use by the White Rose whereas burning at the stake lacks this RP context, and again I destroyed the cross elements of the wooden cross, so you insisting we burned a cross I find to be disingenuous. Simply put, crucifixion has more baggage to a priest, especially an Owynist, than burning a criminal (possibly vampiric/corc) alive and everyone else present wanted to see the man suffer so I picked something that would allow arcanechicken to soulstone sooner.

[Nooblius 7965]

9 minutes ago, Fluffy Horror said:

But people are calling it the Rhodesian Cross, which puts it into a very specific context.

Genuine question, have you bothered to ask anyone (including the person who emoted it, or anyone around them) why they use that symbol or why it is called that? If you did, you would be told that it's because it's the symbol used of the OSL from years ago, and that they one time ran a settlement or diocese called Rhodesia, and that since then players of all stripes have repeated the reference because that is the history on the server, and they exist within Roleplay.

 

I don't know why they chose that. But I would point out the mere mention of Rhodesia does not exist as a hate symbol, and I think it is a bit of a disservice both to people being haphazardly accused AND to genuine victims of any sort of tyrannical IRL actions to call nothingburgers on minecraft hatecrimes out of a lack of scholarship and basic communication.

 

-

 

For the record, I think it's fair to have conversations about how war and factionalism of the server both IRP and OOCly can affect the ability to make narratives. We can have those conversations, and justify disagreeing with eachother without calling another fascists, or without condemning the other perspective at all. The unfortunate truth is that LOTC is a community ran game, without really any paid game design behind it, so of course the rules aren't perfect and are free to be criticized. But if you want something to be better, try to analyze the actual substance of the issue rather than just accusing people despite them doing nothing against the rules, but rather doing the things explicitly encouraged by the server history and a majority of the playerbase.

[Fluffy Horror 496]

@tasty_cheesecakeI must have missed the emote where you cut the wings off the cross, but I don't know how you would have done it, considering he was tied to it and you would have had to cut off his limbs to do that.

 

My character was the one who cut his throat to end his suffering. She was making commentary along with the crowd, but planned to stay behind and slit the guy's throat once everyone else was gone so he wouldn't have to suffer. When yours suggested burning him alive, she gave up on waiting for people to leave and just threw the knife. What a character verbally says does not equal what they think. She ribbed the guards for not knowing the correct way to crucify someone to mask her own discomfort.

 

Thanks for giving me the context, that makes sense. I thought you were talking about OOC reasoning on this thread, not your character's IRP reasoning. It makes perfect sense that a church member IRP would not want to crucify someone.

 

 

@NoobliusI- why did people make a nation named after a fascist white ethnostate??? In the first place??? I didn't know that, that's really not coooooool.

 

Regardless of the ill-advised decision to name a country after an IRL white nationalist country, people learn and grow. They may not have known about the irl context of it, so they aren't at fault for their ignorance there, but now that it is out there and people are being made aware, there is no excuse not to change the name of the cross.

 

Like I said, it sucks to realize that you've accidentally been using a Neo-Nazi dog whistle, but once you know about it, if you continue to use it, yeah, that's bad. I genuinely thought that a certain slur was what the correct thing was to call a certain group of the people IRL all the way into University. I was calmly educated about it, and then I never used that term again. That's what you do.

 

People are having knee jerk reactions here. Me calling the Empire fascist isn't me calling the players of the Empire fascist. IRP and OOC are two very different things. Me pointing out the racist symbols that are being inadvertently used isn't me calling the people who used them racist. Like you said, it's an issue of education. So I am educating.

[Helmet 1454]

I would like to congratulate @fizzyquack for hitting most popular post on the forums

[Rig 17580]

23 minutes ago, Nooblius said:

Genuine question, have you bothered to ask anyone (including the person who emoted it, or anyone around them) why they use that symbol or why it is called that? If you did, you would be told that it's because it's the symbol used of the OSL from years ago, and that they one time ran a settlement or diocese called Rhodesia, and that since then players of all stripes have repeated the reference because that is the history on the server, and they exist within Roleplay.

 

I don't know why they chose that. But I would point out the mere mention of Rhodesia does not exist as a hate symbol, and I think it is a bit of a disservice both to people being haphazardly accused AND to genuine victims of any sort of tyrannical IRL actions to call nothingburgers on minecraft hatecrimes out of a lack of scholarship and basic communication.

 

-

 

For the record, I think it's fair to have conversations about how war and factionalism of the server both IRP and OOCly can affect the ability to make narratives. We can have those conversations, and justify disagreeing with eachother without calling another fascists, or without condemning the other perspective at all. The unfortunate truth is that LOTC is a community ran game, without really any paid game design behind it, so of course the rules aren't perfect and are free to be criticized. But if you want something to be better, try to analyze the actual substance of the issue rather than just accusing people despite them doing nothing against the rules, but rather doing the things explicitly encouraged by the server history and a majority of the playerbase.

 

This p much. 

Genocide is either:
a.) The mass killing of a population for the desired result of their culture being destroyed. The Holocaust and other pogroms make good examples for genocide through murder. 

b.) The mass indoctrination and destruction of a person's native culture. That is why for instance the Red Power Movement took over Alcatraz, they were resisting the United States' attempts to terminate tribal sovereignty and bring the Indigenous into mainstream American culture. This could be an arguable case of genocide due to the systemic extermination of another culture over a long period of time (2-3 centuries?) Countless treaties violated, people displaced, their native languages lost.

c.) There's things that fall in-between and then other arguable cases of genocide that can be made in international courts. You can read about it some more online.

 

Neither of those things have occurred, majority of the protectorate states enjoy semi-sovereign status. They are just unable to declare war and are subject to certain laws (not to bring their religion into the Imperial heartlands). Their cultures are largely intact, independent, and their religions and way of life are unimpeded, asides from being levied in times of war and owing an oath to the Emperor of Man. The people who have overwhelmingly died are Maleficarum, AKA, blood-suckers, cannibals, ghost enslavers, and demon dragon worshippers. And Orcs, who harbor people whose fathers and grandfathers had a hand in attempting to mass kill and destroy the Emperor's family in recent IRP history. Orcs who have also practiced colonial expansionism in the past, and had an empire at one point themselves several times, and likewise most nations on the server have done this. It is a war narrative, and people who do not want to participate in wars can build a new house somewhere, or abstain from warclaims. War remains a mechanic nonetheless, and this is on par with saying that everybody playing Call of Duty has to factor in nonstop that it's American war propaganda. Most people don't play Call of Duty to LARP a Karbala HQ raid in Iraq, they're there to shoot other players, laugh, and run around the map. It's not that deep.

 

As for the cross you're discussing, I think maybe you mean is the Maltese Cross, which has been mistakenly conflated with the Iron Cross (of Prussian, Weimar, and Nazi Germany fame). The Iron Cross has a stigma but had a long use prior to its adoption by the Nazi Party, and was a symbol more or less used by the Prussian/German militaries. The Swastika, however, will have a very hard time for a very long time being distanced from the actions of the Nazi Party despite its ties to Asia. However, the Warhammer connotation is not comparable to a Swastika, and falsely conflating them is going to derail the conversation. Many European symbols do end up coopted by White Supremacist groups at some point, and obviously like you said there's going to be people who appropriate these kinds of symbols. I don't doubt that there's a Skinhead gang out there with a stormtrooper logo from Star Wars. Yes, stormtroopers are a fascist symbol - however, Star Wars for example, has an antifascist mission, because George Lucas was against the Vietnam War and American expansionism himself. Does that make a stormtrooper equal to a swastika if it has dual meanings? I'd posit probably not. Warhammer is also a fantasy setting, and apparently was originally intended to be a critique of 1980's Britain under Margaret Thatcher. 

 

Whether you know it or not, you were saying and implying some pretty nasty things in your initial posts. In the same way you'd like other people to be mindful of your feelings, that's a two-way street, take some responsibility and move on. 

[Fluffy Horror 496]

@RigLike I said, if people called it the Maltese Cross, I wouldn't care, but they called it the Rhodesian Cross. That's not a symbol that was co-opted, Rhodesia was just fully a white supremacy nation. It's not like it's Nazis stealing Norse imagery. It started out that way.

 

C'mon man, Haelun'or was just genocided. Yes yes, they were also horribly racist, it doesn't change the fact that it was a genocide.

 

Where's the call for other people to take responsibility? I have never once personally attacked people in this thread. I shed some light on the inadvertent use of a white nationalist dog whistle, and called for mindfulness. That shouldn't be controversial.

[Rig 17580]

7 minutes ago, Fluffy Horror said:

@RigLike I said, if people called it the Maltese Cross, I wouldn't care, but they called it the Rhodesian Cross. That's not a symbol that was co-opted, Rhodesia was just fully a white supremacy nation. It's not like it's Nazis stealing Norse imagery. It started out that way.

 

C'mon man, Haelun'or was just genocided. Yes yes, they were also horribly racist, it doesn't change the fact that it was a genocide.

 

Where's the call for other people to take responsibility? I have never once personally attacked people in this thread. I shed some light on the inadvertent use of a white nationalist dog whistle, and called for mindfulness. That shouldn't be controversial.

 

1. The Rhodesian Cross is not a RL symbol. If somebody called it a Rhodesian Cross, speak to them, but that's not what it's called.

 

2. No? The Mystics there got destroyed and the people exiled. The people moved to other nations. A city being sacked isn't genocide. They lost their city in a time of war. Mystics kill people and enslave them as ghosts in rock btw, or enslave pre-existent ghosts. Seems pretty justifiable to me. 

 

3. You've not really shed light on anything except your own ignorance on what you're talking about. Please just go take an ethnic studies class at your local community college or something. 

[lemonke 6014]

2 minutes ago, Rig said:

2. No? The Mystics there got destroyed and the people exiled. The people moved to other nations. A city being sacked isn't genocide. They lost their city in a time of war. Mystics kill people and enslave them as ghosts in rock btw, or enslave pre-existent ghosts. Seems pretty justifiable to me. 

hello

[Fluffy Horror 496]

1. Lemme grab the references for you, will post them soon.

 

EDIT:  deleted active report

 

2. I was in the throne room, the Emperor said "kill all the elves", and they slaughtered the entire delegation, including kids and spectators. They then went and sacked the library- a main feature of the culture and the compendium of their people's knowledge, permanently destroying or stealing their heritage. They were scattered to the winds and have nowhere safe to practice their cultural beliefs anymore. It falls under b and c.

 

3. I have my man, I have. I studied sociology, genocide studies, and women's studies as part of my degree. Granted, that was over a decade ago, great advancements in our understanding of these subjects have undoubtedly been made. In addition, Holocaust studies is a mandatory course in Canadian schools, every year. I also serve on a DEI Board (I know, the dreaded DEI) for an international organization, and have taken training courses to better do my job with that.

 

I am well aware that I am far more on the left than most people on LOTC, so I don't try too much to impose my values on everyone I meet, but there are a few sticking points I would assume even the more central leaning people can agree on, like not referencing Rhodesia.

[Rig 17580]

6 minutes ago, Fluffy Horror said:

1. Lemme grab the references for you, will post them soon.

 

EDIT: Here's the compilation:

Not written or compiled by me, by the way, but a collaboration between several other people. I'm not the only person who noticed.

 

2. I was in the throne room, the Emperor said "kill all the elves", and they slaughtered the entire delegation, including kids and spectators. They then went and sacked the library- a main feature of the culture and the compendium of their people's knowledge, permanently destroying or stealing their heritage. They were scattered to the winds and have nowhere safe to practice their cultural beliefs anymore. It falls under b and c.

 

3. I have my man, I have. I studied sociology, genocide studies, and women's studies as part of my degree. Granted, that was over a decade ago, great advancements in our understanding of these subjects have undoubtedly been made. In addition, Holocaust studies is a mandatory course in Canadian schools. You did a Google and a copy and paste, you ain't slick.

 

1. Then speak to the player?

 

2. Yes, people die during war, especially when their leader is a satanist who enslaves ghosts, and allows ghost worshipping cultists to live in their city. Oh no! They can't be racist safely in their own huge city anymore. What a disaster. By your logic the bombing of Dresden was genocide, because you have a completely uncritical view of history. 

 

3. Yeah look up my thing in Google and you'll see it's completely written by me. But make up what you want. I've studied sociology and women's studies as part of my degree in the past 3-4 years. And I'm telling you, de facto, that the things you're saying are completely distorted. We're just not going to agree and frankly that's fine, but honest to God please go and do some reading because with people like you misrepresenting these things, it's just going to further enable actual corporatists and fascists to produce more rhetoric that WASPs love. Killing somebody in a video game is not fascism, and these themes are not inherently fascist just because there's a cross stitched onto some clothes. You're legitimately cracked. 

[Midnight_Runner1 48]

Ngl wouldn't miss it if it disappeared one day

[Cheeseycereal 829]

34 minutes ago, Fluffy Horror said:

C'mon man, Haelun'or was just genocided. Yes yes, they were also horribly racist, it doesn't change the fact that it was a genocide.

 

bro... Haelun'or was just genocided... and you're laughing....... :/

[Fluffy Horror 496]

@RigGenocides can happen to terrible people, too. Hell yeah Haelun'or was evil and racist. Cool story, still genocide. The bombing of Dresden didn't target an entire ethnic group. Haelun'or was the sole state of a homogenous ethnic group.

 

Video games do not exist in a vacuum. We can, and should, in fact, apply the real world to our understanding of them.

 

If it's just a cross, why are people calling it the Rhodesian Cross?

 

The Empire on LOTC IS fascist. It is intended to be. People put fascists in media all the time for storytelling purposes. The difference is how that representation of fascism is handled. There is an ethical way to include stories of discrimination, fascism, and genocide in your games- especially when it's not NPCs playing the victims, but real people. What about that rhetoric is harmful? It just boils down to don't be a ****, check on your fellow RPers, and don't use actual real life Nazi dog whistles for your fictional fascists.

 

And I ultimately edited out my accusation of a copy and paste because I didn't want to use ad hominem. It was rude of me, and I apologize.

[Rig 17580]

Just now, Fluffy Horror said:

@RigGenocides can happen to terrible people, too. Hell yeah Haelun'or was evil and racist. Cool story, still genocide. The bombing of Dresden didn't target an entire ethnic group. Haelun'or was the sole state of a homogenous ethnic group.

 

Video games do not exist in a vacuum. We can, and should, in fact, apply the real world to our understanding of them.

 

If it's just a cross, why are people calling it the Rhodesian Cross?

 

The Empire on LOTC IS fascist. It is intended to be. People put fascists in media all the time for storytelling purposes. The difference is how that representation of fascism is handled. There is an ethical way to include stories of discrimination, fascism, and genocide in your games- especially when it's not NPCs playing the victims, but real people. What about that rhetoric is harmful? 

 

1. Not genocide, they still exist, just can't use the name or practice their racist ideology. It's a disservice to the actual victims of genocide to conflate the destruction of an apartheid state with foundational racist themes with how Romani, Jews, Palestinians, disabled folks, etc, have been treated. It's crass. Your own logic when turned on itself just doesn't work.

2. It's not called a Rhodesian Cross. Maybe saying it another five times will help. Maybe you need to make a Google Search?

3. The Empire on LoTC is monarchist and consists of a multitude of player bases who are (for the most part) sovereign and collectively work together. They have vibrant and thriving cultures that exist outside of the Heartlands. Most of the places which have been destroyed, such as Hanseti-Ruska, are likewise guilty of imperial colonialism, though they used a more neocolonial framework. There are ethical ways, which is why the staff exists, and you repeatedly calling a Maltese Cross a "Rhodesian Cross" (which again does not exist) is deliberately obtuse. Other people mislabeling a symbol does not produce a hate symbol. An old imperial city 10 years ago was called Johannesburg. Is that something that merits discussion too? Probably, the server used to be a lot worse in terms of tolerance, but ignoring history just dooms people to repeat it. 

 

With any real world understanding, your fundamentally illogical perspective collapses. You're trying to fit a square into a round peg.