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[Dean_the_Young]

yorkj86 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

And she deals with people that normal authorities could deal with. She's not some special swat team that only takes the worst of the worst.

By definition, yes, she is.  "If a Justicar is involved, peaceful negotations are long past."  There are asari cops, and then there are the Justicars.  The Justicars are a brute-force solution to crime that has defied resolution every other way.  Thus, their extensive training, power and resources.

Samara deals with injustice wherever she finds it, as she finds it. She isn't called to it by the government in lieu of their law enforcement, nor does she refrain from intervening in it if it isn't 'serious enough.'

[Dean_the_Young]

AshiraShepard wrote...

adriano_c wrote...

You realize what a slippery slope that line of thinking rests upon, right?

FFS, I know there are shades of grey. I know there are times when its not right to just kill someone.

I am talking about killing people who are utterly and completely irredeemable, who will only go on to hurt people again, and again and a-f*cking-gain. I am talking about killing Complete Monsters

I am not talking about killing someone like Thane just because he went on a roaring rampage of revenge and slowly tortured and killed those who murdered his wife just to hurt him.

It's all good, people. Ashira has in this post proved she is wise and enlightened enough to know the difference and make the call as to someone else's character. The key is 'sympathetic criminal.'

Excellent Justicar material here.

[Ashira Shepard]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
It's all good, people. Ashira has in this post proved she is wise and enlightened enough to know the difference and make the call as to someone else's character. The key is 'sympathetic criminal.'

Excellent Justicar material here.

Right, because we all want to give someone who does it "for the evulz" to run around or get a second chance.

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
"
- Alfred The Dark Knight.

THOSE are the kind of people that should be dead. The kind of people that will run over an old lady... and then reverse just to make sure they killed her.

[CroGamer002]

^Samara must not see me playing GTA.

Modifié par Mesina2, 27 décembre 2010 - 06:04 .

[Flamewielder]

Xilizhra wrote...
Or the village Samara destroyed because Morinth was in it. Your home has
a a new protector, a goddess even, who's given you... well, something,
the description was kind of vague, but presumably everyone's happy with
it. And then another asari lands, who begins killing everyone, a
veritable angel of death. It's Mindoir as committed by one person. Your
goddess is gone and everyone adult you'd known for your entire life is
dead; effectively, your own life has been destroyed. And again, there
will never be recompense.

Clarification: Let`s not forget that children from this community (who were spared and handed over to proper authorities) were being sacrificed to this goddess. While everyone in that village may have felt happy about this, I doubt any civilized society would stand for this and still be considered "humane"... so innocent children were rescued from certain death at the hands of their "endoctrinated" parents. Whatever psychological trauma these children may have suffered because of Samara's intervention pales in comparison to their being sacrificed by their own parents.

Speculation: Nothing in what's been released regarding this incident precludes Samara from having been forced to kill "en masse" when charged by a mob of raving lunatics, in order to protect herself and these children.

What if Shepard's magical ability to be in the right place at the right time hadn't come into effect on Ilium? What if Samara had to fight her way out of police custody? You'd have quite a few families and friends with pieces ripped out of them that day, and what's more knowing that they would never have the sort of closure you're talking about, because the killer was a justicar and that makes it totally legal. What's more, Samara's probably done this before already, as have many other justicars. Ooh,  and as a delicious little bonus, part of the reason the Code exists is so that the justicars never think about this.

From the Nihlus incident we know that Justicars (or at least Samara) prioritizes the protection of the innocent over punishing the unjust. When Samara warns the police she cannot remain in their custody beyond a 24 hour period, she is not issuing a threat: it's a statement of probable consequences: police officers may be killed trying to prevent Samara from escaping; Shepard killed more than a few prison guards escaping Purgatory, regardless of his/her moral path.

The Justicar Code is an extreme example of a deontological ethics system, but at its core is no different than any other legal system. A Justicar's power is no more than what asari society wants them to have, just as any of our human law-enforcement officers.

Granted, asari acceptance doesn't mean universal accceptance; Samara herself acknowledges the potential for diplomatic incident if a non-asari was ever involved. But once you have ascribed to a deontological system that tells you what is "right" and "wrong", your personnal views or feelings become immaterial: the "law" (or Code) tells you what you must do.

Every time a traffic cop lets you off with a warning rather than a ticket when catching you red-handed speeding, he's breaking the law. We may feel grateful for the warning and be far more careful in the future but you still committed a crime and didn't get your law-prescribed punishment. We, as humans, may feel this is a more balanced approach (and I would tend to agree), but a line has to be drawn somewhere and that means "laws" and a strict enforcement of them.

Now, do I prefer an overzealous law-enforcement officer on my side, or an unpredictable serial-killer? As unfair as this choice might be to Morinth, it's an easy decision to make.

Modifié par Flamewielder, 29 décembre 2010 - 10:44 .

[Flamewielder]

There goes ol' Flame, killing the thread again... I must have bad breath or something...

But regarding Samara: the character IS written to include some moral ambiguity. Samara is NOT what most people would envision as "the ultimate paragon", although she could be if you defined Paragon as being as stickler about following rules...

When we look at what the designers apparently intended Paragons to be, they DO sound a bit "lawful good", as long as the "laws" are virtuous enough. We get paragon points for bending strict rules in favor of compassion/agreeable compromise/ethical problem-solving.

Renegades measure success with... success! Any way you can get it... Compassion, ethics, rules... are impediments and speed bumps on the road to survival. In a galactic-scale life&death struggle, such niceties are "bug-was" on the Normandy's windshield.

Now Shepard's moral path is determined by the actions he takes, which are taken to reflect his/her intent. Can the same criterium be used to assign a Paragon/Renegade label on NPC's?

When we look at Samara, should we assign her a Paragon/Renegade label based on the Code she follows, or the personal beliefs she expresses? The Code determines what most of her actions will be, but then how should we interpret what Samara's moral path is? The same quandary presents itself in Thane's case: if is body is just a tool, should his moral path be determined by his actions or his personal beliefs?

Modifié par Flamewielder, 29 décembre 2010 - 11:12 .

[Captain Iglo]

guys: is the plural Justicars or does it remain Justicar ?

and to type something at least a bit constructive:
I neither see Samara in Paragon or Renegade...she is rather the perfect middle..she would not ignore innocent in danger like renegade Shep would ..as much as she would not spare a wicked evil guy like paragon Shep would

Modifié par Captain Iglo, 30 décembre 2010 - 10:28 .

[Xilizhra]

Clarification: Let`s not forget that children from this community (who were spared and handed over to proper authorities) were being sacrificed to this goddess. While everyone in that village may have felt happy about this, I doubt any civilized society would stand for this and still be considered "humane"... so innocent children were rescued from certain death at the hands of their "endoctrinated" parents. Whatever psychological trauma these children may have suffered because of Samara's intervention pales in comparison to their being sacrificed by their own parents.

Really? Where did it say that children were being sacrificed?

[Flamewielder]

Xilizhra wrote...
Really? Where did it say that children were being sacrificed?

In Samara's own words, when she tells Shepard about the incident. You might be able to find that piece of dialogue on YouTube, otherwise you'd have to listen to it in-game.

The Code obviously appears rather inflexible (white is white, black is black, etc... ) but the mere existence of an "Oath of Subsumation" indicates that Justicars are allowed to judge for themselves if the Code should apply or not (implying the Code acknowleges such a thing as "the greater good"). Obviously this can be disregarded as poor writing, as it kinda defeats the notion of an inflexible Code... or that the Code itself has some sort of statement of purpose that explicits what the spirit of the Code is. For instance: the opening lines of the US Constitution are a statement of what the founding fathers considered to be their core values (equal rights for all, etc...).

Given a clear statement of values, such as "Save as many innocents as you can, then punish the guilty", a justicar can make an educated judgement as to when, and to whom, an Oath of Subsumation should be sworn. When Shepard states his mission to Samara (stop Collectors attacks on human colonies), she is offered the opportunity to protect/save many innocent lives while running a relatively low risk of doing anything dishonorable in the process (and she can always try and punish a renegade Shep later). Otherwise the whole notion of the Code makes no sense.

@ Igloo

I agree to a point: the Code doesn't appear to give a Justicar the option of being lenient. However, because of the implications drawn in the paragraph above, the Code MAY (and yes, this is speculation) have a stated Paragon aim in spite of its rigidity. This could perhaps result in a 75% paragon/25% renegade moral path.

I was thinking of running a ME1 campaign to see what kind of moral path Shepard would end up on if he followed the notion of protecting the innocent first, then punishing the guilty second (as in the Nihlus incident) but never got around to it:

Her respectful demeanor would have earned her most of the "chatter" +2 Paragon points,
Samara would have definitely let Balak go, but might have killed his batarian underlings in the last torch,
Samara would have accepted Helena Blake's information to stop both crime lords but would have ended up killing Blake as well,
Samara would likely have handed both Toombs and the scientist over to the authorities, or killed Toombs,
She would have negociated with the biotic activists to save the politician,
She would have killed off Major Kyle and his cultists (all murderers and accomplices to),
She would have killed Dr Saleon (and made Garrus' day),
She would have refused to collaborate with the Shadowbroker (no innocent lives to save/protect by doing so),
She would have refused the bribe and killed the Cerberus scientists working on thorian creepers,
She would have attemped to save as many scientists as possible from the biotic terrorists,
She would have helped the Zhu's Hope colonists,
She would have attempted to use non-lethal means of incapacitating the colonists on Feros,
She would have spared Shiara once she was free of the Thorian (she didn't kill any colonist),
She would have collaborated with Parasini and forced the turian to testify against Anoleis,
She would have spared the rachni queen, it being innocent of any crime,
She would have spared Wrex (having returned his family armor),
She would have spared Rana Thanoptis (as she was arguably under duress and wanted nothing more than escape),
She would have done everything to help Kirrahe's team,
She would have saved the Council (expecting soldiers to do their duty and die to protect the Council and it's civilian staff),
She would have killed Saren

All in all, the Code (or at least Samara's rendering of it) seems to result in a strongly Paragon moral path.

Modifié par Flamewielder, 31 décembre 2010 - 01:56 .

[Ashira Shepard]

Samara specifically states during the conversation about when Morinth endoctrinated the village that they would "bring young Asari as sacrifices" to Morinth.

[Dean_the_Young]

yorkj86 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Samara deals with injustice wherever she finds it, as she finds it. She isn't called to it by the government in lieu of their law enforcement, nor does she refrain from intervening in it if it isn't 'serious enough.'

Where's your evidence? Samara dealing with incidental crime along the way to the objective given to her doesn't mean she isn't given an objective.  No, she isn't called to resolve dangerous crime by her government, but that doesn't mean Justicars don't cooperate with asari police authorities.

Evidence that she isn't a swat team? The points of (a) she deals with incidental crime in general, which you admit, and ( that the Justicars aren't government controlled or directed. Part of the hole 'extra-legal' group category that they are: one of the few Code rules we actually know of is that they are only required to cooperate with police for a short amount of time, before being free to do whatever their personal mission is.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 31 décembre 2010 - 01:43 .

[Dean_the_Young]

AshiraShepard wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
It's all good, people. Ashira has in this post proved she is wise and enlightened enough to know the difference and make the call as to someone else's character. The key is 'sympathetic criminal.'

Excellent Justicar material here.

Right, because we all want to give someone who does it "for the evulz" to run around or get a second chance.

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
"
- Alfred The Dark Knight.

THOSE are the kind of people that should be dead. The kind of people that will run over an old lady... and then reverse just to make sure they killed her.

You're going to subscribe to Batman morality? Really?

If Samara only killed that sort of person, there'd be a lot less controversy about her. But, well, she doesn't, and that's a rather big problem with the Justicars.

[Xilizhra]

You're going to subscribe to Batman morality? Really?

Wait a minute... Batman morality is "no killing ever, otherwise you'll go nuts."

[Dean_the_Young]

Hence the distinct irony.

[Flamewielder]

Obviously, the Code is not perfect (Laws never are) and leave plenty of room for inner moral conflict; and honestly it's what makes a character interesting.

Samara reminds me of Severian, the main protagonist of Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" cycle. Severian is a torturer or, as as he would call himself, a journeyman of the "Guild of the the Seekers of Truth and Penitence". He is not a sadist or sociopath, indeed he is banished for a crime of compassion (he granted a quick, merciful death to a woman lawfully condemned to excrutiatingly painful torment).

What sort of situation would cause a justicar to commit such a crime of compassion? One would expect asari litterature to include a few cautionnary tales about justicars and the pitfalls of hubris and compassion... I don't think Mordin's the only one to have second thoughts about his past actions, even being convinced it was "all for the best". Is Samara in danger of some day sparing an unjust person for compassionnate reasons? I think she is, as she states herself she doesn't want to know an unjust man is a devoted father. She barely found the strenght to kill her own child and is now, to use her own words: "a broken vessel of grief and regret". Could she break faith with the Code to spare Shepard? Possible. Would it destroy her? Most likely.

The reason divorced, heavy-drinking, suicidal cops are such a common motif in film and litterature is that it is difficult to reconcile the strict enforcement of Law with human compassion, regardless of how good you try to make this Law. I do not think justicars are an exception, even if the evidence we are given by other asari suggests the Code embodies the core values of asari society as a whole. Asari police seem to respect justicars because they display an adherence to the Code they themselves do not have the desire or commitment to follow THAT strictly.

Samara mentions samurai and knight errants as a human analogue to justicars and I doubt she refers to the samurai's exploitation of the japanese peasant masses or that of the medieval thugs who bullied serfs into the protection racket of european feudalism... What she refers to is the ideals of bushido and chivalry, something most people find admirable to a degree but few would sacrifice their lives over.

Modifié par Flamewielder, 31 décembre 2010 - 03:22 .

[Xilizhra]

One thing I wonder: is there anything in the Code that means that you have to hold true to promises you make to the guilty? I can definitely see her killing all of the biotic activists once that other guy was safe, and killing the batarians threatening Daniel in ME2 once they've lowered their own weapons. I also suspect that she would kill Jeong on Feros (though you can do that as a Paragon), kill the looters in Mordin's recruitment mission...

[Ashira Shepard]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
You're going to subscribe to Batman morality? Really?

If Samara only killed that sort of person, there'd be a lot less controversy about her. But, well, she doesn't, and that's a rather big problem with the Justicars.

Sorry, here I was under the impression that the conversation had switched to killing monsters in general, rather than sticking to the topic character.

I used that quote to describe the kind of people that shouldbe dead, that need to be dead for the sake of everyone elses safety.

In other news, things about morality and such, has anyone seen the movie Unthinkable? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/

I thought it was really good, and had plenty of moments where I wondered how Samara would react in its many situations.

[Xilizhra]

I used that quote to describe the kind of people that shouldbe dead, that need to be dead for the sake of everyone elses safety.

Of course, if they can be redeemed, it solves the safety issue as well since they'll no longer be threatening people.



Can Morinth be redeemed? We can be fairly certain that she's not congenitally sociopathic, as her sisters seem fine in that area; it's probably learned, having grown over the centuries she's spend as an addict on the run. There doesn't seem to be a physical reason why it's impossible.

Is it worth trying? Trickier, given that to do so, you'd have to kill Samara. Of course, Samara has a higher body count, but most of her victims will have been criminals... though, how many of them deserved to die? And can she be brought out of following the Code?

This is why my Paragon Shepard used the fact that she didn't want to betray an existing squadmate as a tiebreaker as a reason for saving Samara.

[Flamewielder]

Xilizhra wrote...
One thing I wonder: is there anything in the Code that means that you have to hold true to promises you make to the guilty? I can definitely see her killing all of the biotic activists once that other guy was safe, and killing the batarians threatening Daniel in ME2 once they've lowered their own weapons. I also suspect that she would kill Jeong on Feros (though you can do that as a Paragon), kill the looters in Mordin's recruitment mission...

We do know one thing: the Code was never actually written down as ME lore. Most of what we "know" about it is inferred from Samara's actions and words (which we're expected to take at face value). Most casual players will simply write her off as a "paladin in space" and it's a fair enough approximation, even if its a simplistic one.

We can ask ourselves:

1) Are the biotic activists an immediate threat to innocent lives once they have surrendered their hostage? No.
2) Is there legitimate authority available on short notice to take over the situation? Yes, an Alliance ship is on its way to pick up the rescued hostage and take the activists into custody.
3) Is there a reasonable likelyhood that justice will be served under the Code without resorting to violence? Yes. So I don't think Samara would have reason to kill anyone not resisting arrest.
4) Have the batarians hurt Daniel? No. They actually believe him to be responsible for killing THEM with the plague.
5) Did they release Daniel unharmed? Yes. No crime committed, misunderstanding cleared up. No killing required.
6) Is Jeong threatening innocent lives? Yes. Confrontation may be unavoidable (i.e. negociation failed) and Jeong may have to be killed to protect the colonists.
7) Looters are a bit more difficult to sort out because it amounts to petty theft: they are stealing from dead people, not killing people to steal their stuff. The only crimes Samara explicitely mentions having dealt with are killings or assaults, to which deadly response appears to be the stock punishment. Do justicars bother with petty theft? What about moving violations? The sense I get from the gravitas displayed by Samara is that justicars are concerned with life or death matters (unless specifically requested to adjudicate a case) and not petty crime. Or at least that she won't biotically flip your car and crush you in it for driving 5 mph over the speed limit...

The problem is, people will take a statement such as "I shall have to retun to Tuchanka to teach the krogans about compassion... I shall need many bullets" and assume that she is spoiling for a fight rather than stating the likely outcome of her teaching attempt. Same for the police station on Illium: she's stating the likely outcome, not promising to kill everyone. She is under no illusion that everyone will bow to the rules of the Code; she, however, is bound by it.

Modifié par Flamewielder, 31 décembre 2010 - 07:45 .

[Flamewielder]

Xilizhra wrote...
Can Morinth be redeemed? We can be fairly certain that she's not congenitally sociopathic, as her sisters seem fine in that area; it's probably learned, having grown over the centuries she's spend as an addict on the run. There doesn't seem to be a physical reason why it's impossible.

Sadly, while it's true that Samara's younger daughters have not become "vampires", they suffer from the same psychiatric disorder (the A-Y syndrome) which IS congenital (as far as we can claim to understand something of asari genetics...). They are kept in isolation so that they are never tempted to attempt mating and kill someone, presumably because they share the acute version of A-Y Morinth is afflicted with.

As the in-game codex explains, a sizeable portion of the asari population suffer from the A-Y syndrome but only a few rare individuals actually kill while attempting to mate (like Morinth). The vast majority are simply unable to mate, cultivating a long series of abusive relationships and essentially being unable to emotionally grow-up into the matron stage. Their lack of ability to meld stunts their emotional growth, they become withdrawn, sociopathic and display a general lack of empathy when compared to normal asari (something Morinth displays quite clearly).

Interestingly, a mild case of A-Y would likely have little trouble blending into human society; she would develop some empathy the same way humans do: by talking and reading body language. She might actually be relatively happy, as much as any woman could hope to be without being able to give birth to children (she can always adopt or decide not to have any). The sex might not be as fulfilling as a meld, but a human mate would likely not mind anyway...

The problem with Morinth is that she HAS killed... more than once. This, we are told, is highly (and irrevocably)addictive. Worst, her appetite grows as does her power, as she accumulates memories and experiences from her victims; which in turn makes it more likely that she would successfully escape confinement were she ever captured. So justicars hunt down these "vampires" and kill them, as much as punishment for past murders as to prevent future ones. And when you compare a broken neck to several centuries spent in a padded cell and a straightjacket (to keep the Mother of All Withdrawal Psychosis from getting you to split your skull open against the cell walls), the broken neck (sadly) sounds more humane...

Modifié par Flamewielder, 31 décembre 2010 - 11:21 .

[Flamewielder]

Ah, york... you beat me to the answer!

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Everyone on here sounds intelligent... I feel dumb LOLZ

[Flamewielder]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
Everyone on here sounds intelligent... I feel dumb LOLZ

Thanks, we try to anyway...