by what objective metric are you defining "agression"? He subjectively declared a certain subset of people to be more worthy of moral consideration and deemed all actions contravening the maximum utility calculation for the preferred group by the Untermensch (such as a Jew having the audacity to be a banker or scientist controlling Aryan money/ technology) to be aggressive action against it.
Yes. And notice something here. The Jews were simply a group of people living their lives. Until Hitler decided they needed to die. Please note that this does not describe the Rachni.
It would seem that a basic understanding of life-cycle sciences and demographics would render your assigning of collective responsibility and value judgement upon moral worth to every individual of an entire species to be quite ridiculous here. This might apply in the case of something hiveminded like the Borg, Necromorphs, Geth, Tyranids or Skynet where there is little distinction between the two and "individuals" are just organs of a collective with little to no actual agency, but there definitively is for the rachni even if you include all the drones under single queens to be a single individual. The single natural one we meet certainly isn't mindlessly genocidal
And note that we meet the single decent Rachni Queen thousands of years after the Rachni Wars, where all evidence indicates that the Rachni were singularly obsessed with the death of every other species, while being completely incapable
of passivation, even right up until the point of extinction. Also note that the not- mindlessly genocidal queen is now expressing her innocent intentions while conveniently in a state of capture, with the potential for abuse down the line.
The Rachni Queen on Noveria is killed for somewhat different reasons than the rest of her species. The genocide against the Rachni occurs because they won't stop trying to murder everyone. The Rachni Queen (may) be killed because we suspect that might also be in the cards for her.
So yes, it is fair to assign collective responsibility to a species where every single member is trying to kill us in some capacity. This is also helped by the extended time period over which the Rachni Wars occurred, which would allow ample opporunity to observe if there were some other Rachni hives who were not trying to kill us (there are none that we know of). And as a final point, we do have retroactive knowledge that the Wars were themselves caused by either the Reapers or the Leviathans, which further supports the idea of every last Rachni pushing to exterminate the galaxy. This is probably one of the few times where collective responsibility can be invoked against an entire species accurately, at least from the Council's perspective.
I did describe ones "that we know of", unborn, physically immature children, queens without access to any drones etc. are by definition incapable of resistance and comparable to "civilians". Killing them serves no legitimate self defense purpose. This before the fact that we aren't really given much insight into rachni society, but any person with even a small amount of sense would probably conclude that a species capable of such technological wonders as building spaceships that circumvent general relativity (something even modern humans are incapable of) and creating music probably isn't a bunch of mindless bugs living in caves with otherwise no civilization. It took humans 50,000 years of such to develop the technological, social and culture infrastructure to get to where they are today. You don't just go from "mindless" bug to magically evolving the ability to understand highly advanced technology like FTL drives or the Crucible (which they contribute to in ME3).
Somehow, I doubt most people would care about the rich culture of seemingly mindless bugs while they're trying to murder us. And considering they're doing it in mass, there's no argument to be made against their utter extinction.
As explained, your operative definition of "aggression" is subjective and therefore a meaningless distinction. Mine would include the ability to inflict harm, not just the will to do so. I can't just kill a toddler that desires aggression against me and hits my leg because I denied it sweets. The punishment does not fit the crime. Similarly, hunting down an executing individuals who are incapable of resistance unless you deliberately invade their planet and hunt them down to every corner of it is not morally justifiable, and slaughtering their noncombatants well past the point of military necessity definitely isn't.
No, you engaged in a Hitler comparison in order to make an emotional appeal. Aside from not working, it's inaccurate. If the toddler has the actual ability (and intent) to murder you upon birth, then yes, you would not be in a morally compromised position for killing the toddler. Look at the Rachni on Noveria; they're simply children protecting their mother and the damage they are capable of unleashing on Peak 15 is catastrophic.
So no, aggression being subjective is not a counterargument to my claim. Show me the Rachni bankers and innocent civilians who were simply living their lives until the Council decided to start taking away their rights. Then we might have a Hitler comparison. What we instead have is the entire Rachni Society (all of it, collectively) engaging in mass slaughter. Ultimately, it's not our job to protect the (seemingly) insane giant bugs who've demonstrated their willingness to kill us to the last man. Hunting them down and exterminating them is justifable assuming conditions: 1) every last Rachni is trying to help kill us, and 2) there has been no declarative surrender in any capacity. In short: every Rachni is effectively a combatant from the experience we've seen. This is also in keeping with Leviathan, which indicates that the "signal" whatever it was, drove the entire species insane.
An infintisemal number of individuals could then monitor Suen and report back any signs of reacquiring FTL capability, wherin the Council could deal with this in a manner that didn't involve Starship Troopers esque "kill em all". Hell, the Council devotes this listening post outside the Rachni relay even after genociding them from existence anyway.
I figured this was where the argument is going. In short: that's not our problem. If you're dealing with a combatant who can be reasoned with, that's a solution. If you're dealing with a combatant which does have a civilian population, that's a solution. Neither of those apply in this scenario, based on encounters with the Rachni during the Wars.
The indication of their stopping to any sane individual would have been when you are in a fleet of spaceships and they are incapable of reaching you on a toxic planet you have literally no need, nor use for. Again, humans aren't going into the forests to deliberately exterminate wild animals that would attack them on site if they could.
You're confusing their inability to continue with their intent to stop. That's not quite accurate, hence the "refusal to surrender" bit. There is no effective removal of arms, and pacify the Rachni population. From our understanding, they want us dead. Why exactly would I stop attacking against a group that's at this very moment trying to build enough forces/resources to continue the assault? Why would I devote the resources to bother keeping them alive at that point, given their intent? They haven't decided "I guess we have to give up the war effort" now. The only thing stopping them from killing us is that they can't reach us....until that changes.
Regarding the comparison: Wolves don't have a singular instinctive desire to murder us in mass. When wolves are a threat with the scale and focus of the Rachni, that might be an option, assuming there wouldn't be other negative factors to a wolf extinction.
ou just explained the other source that renders codex description inadequate. The fact that the Council were essentially hunting to extinction an entire species of sentients brainwashed and unethically modified into insanity against their will into engaging in self destructive violence, who are therefore not even responsible for their actions at all (as you were claiming earlier with the "collective responsibility" garbage) makes it all the more repugnant. I'll concede, however, they certainly had no knowledge Reapers or Leviathan this at the time, so it doesn't make the Council's actions any more reprehensible than simply killing an entire sentient and sapient species down to the last individual out of ideologically motivated racial violence.
^And I'll go to my previous statement: point to where the codex is contradicted on this point. Saying "the codex is flawed" is cute. But the codex is to be contested when we have secondary or primary resources that contradict it. No such bit exists with the Rachni.
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