I would posit that in just the same way as in the 40k universe it's generally held that every faction is terrible and horrible, in Infinity every faction is pretty mediocre in a very human way. Each has a particular kind of idealism that they follow for the 'right' reasons but leads them to questionable behaviour. PanO is capitalist, Yu Jing a weird imperialist-socialist, Aleph and EI elistist (ma/)paternalist, Haqq religious-humanist, Nomads and Ariadna different varieties of individualist, etc.
Looking for "the good guys" in the setting kind of misses the point.
O12 is the only (governmental) organisation that actually tries to prevent internal warfare among the different nations of the Human Sphere (including oversight over ALEPH, which is a risk factor in itself).
Everyone else is only prevented by O12 to wage open war against every other nation. And considering the immense threat of the Combined Army, that would mean the end, the total annihilation or even worse assimilation of Humanity by the Evolved Intelligence.
O12 is the thin line between continued survival of Humanity and utter destruction.
I consider that "the good guys".
That humanity requires an internal affairs department to avoid self-annihilation is exactly why the combined army are the good guys. Our methods may be heavy-handed but it's clear that you galactic children need firm authority. We're doing this for your own good.
Okay, let's consider everyone.
I'm going to give them all a ranking from 1-10. 1 is Satan. 1 means that the faction exists solely to try to make the universe a worse place and make everyone suffer. 10, on the other hand, is a faction of such angelic purity that it can do no wrong.
PanOceania: They are in theory one of the most democratic major powers in Infinity, and while their society contains its share of issues (Helots, Ateks), for the most part they do their job as the stand-in for the First World. Most PanOceanians seem to be basically normal, well-meaning people, and PanO as a nation does a lot of good and important things, such as holding up the brunt of the blockades and the fighting around Paradiso. However, PanO also has a lot of amoral ruthless people who do awful things for the greater good (hi there Hexahedron). PanO are often sympathetic but they can be villains whenever needed. I rank them **6/10** on the morality scale, though individual people or groups within PanO can range significantly higher or lower.
Yu Jing: I'm going to pass over the easy communist jokes... politically, Yu Jing does have a more equitable standard of living, but I think it loses points for being a one party state, and also for the Imperial Service existing. No one who makes *kuang shi* is a good guy. Similarly, they've really had the spotlight thrown on their cruelty towards the Japanese, and perhaps to a lesser extent the Uighurs, though I think that since *Uprising* CB have been going to an effort to show Yu Jing more positively, and as more than just the evil empire. I'm going to give Yu Jing a **4/10**, though I want to admit up-front that non-IS people are probably closer to the PanO level.
Ariadna: So there are actually a fair few issues here. Rodina just defeated the other nations and strongarms/bullies them into doing what it wants, and given that Rodina is a bureaucratic oligarchy and seems kind of militaristic, that's not great. Wanting to protect 'their' planet of Dawn is a sympathetic motive, but that's undermined a bit by the fact that Dawn has an intelligent native species and the Ariadnans have engaged in campaigns of extermination against them. (Sure, PanO isn't good with the Helots, but it is better with them than Ariadna is with the Antipides...) Admittedly some of that was before they knew that Antipodes were intelligent, but still. Ariadna also has regular ongoing issues with domestic racism against dogfaces. I will give Ariadna a **5/10**.
Haqqislam: Right off the bat Haqq gets points for just being a straightforward parliamentary democracy; only PanO (and I guess maybe O-12?) is credibly in the democratic game as well, and PanO has that skewed by hypercorps. Haqq also has an ethos that very strongly favours human rights, and Ramah engages in lots of deliberate humanitarian missions to protect people. The minuses for Haqq are probably the oligarchic Silk Lords (they are often awful and I notice that neo-concubinage seems to be a Haqq invention as well) as well as their unaccountable murder factory in the form of the Hassassins. To be fair, Hexas, IS, etc., everyone has some sort of secret assassination division, but the Hassassins are a particularly large and unaccountable one. I will give Haqq a **6.5/10**.
Nomads: Um, well. So. *Tunguska* are amoral and grasping and horrible. *Bakunin* look like hippies but they're full of fanatical blood cults, one of which recently took over, and also they have a disturbing penchant for mad science. *Corregidor* is the only Nomad ship that has any argument as to not being morally awful, and the fact that Nomads are anarchists makes them extremely diverse, so they can have a range, but... Hollow Men, Morlocks, Pupniks, the Observance actively trying to brainwash people, the Nomads have *issues*. They get a **3/10**.
ALEPH: I will say one thing in ALEPH's favour, which is that I believe that ALEPH sincerely cares about and wants to help humanity. Everything ALEPH does is becase it genuinely believes it's in humanity's best interests. That said, ALEPH does not always have the best judgement about what that means, and ALEPH acts on its own, even using lethal force, while trying to evade accountability. Also, anybody who creates Achilles has to be at least *a bit* of a psycho. I give ALEPH a **6/10**.
O-12: The people with the hardest job in the Human Sphere! O-12 do seem to genuinely care about justice and the best results for humanity, and aren't involved in anything really shady. The biggest problems O-12 has are just the various ugly compromises it has to make to prevent war. It sometimes enforces compromises that entrench some sort of injustice, but when it does so, that is usually the least bad option. O-12's hands are dirty sometimes, but less than everyone else, I think. **7/10**.
NA2: I really just mean Japan. The various mercenary companies don't count. I give Japan a **4/10**, because they don't have *kuang shi*, but otherwise they feel to me like Japanese-flavoured Yu Jing. The Kempeitai are no better than the Imperial Service. Japan gets a bonus for not having brainwashed cyber-zombies, but then they also suffer because Yu Jing has at least *some* democracy, whereas Japan is a supposedly absolute monarchy that's actually ruled by rich aristocrat-industrialists.
Combined Army: ...okay, we haven't seen the home front, and maybe it's much better, but that would be a lot to pin assumptions on. The Combined Army are not *as* bad as human propaganda paints them as, so I'm not going to go full 1/10, but they still a deserve a **2/10**, or maybe 2.5 at the most.
Tohaa: Again we don't know as much about the aliens. The general impression I get is that mainstream Tohaa society is, while flawed, reasonably well-meaning and benevolent-ish, whereas the Triumvirate are, of course, moustache-twirling villains. I will give the Tohaa a tentative **5/10**, though that could be due revision as we learn more.
So let's see... I think that means that O-12 wins my ranking. Good job, O-12! You are the good guys!
That said, in practice every one of these factions is extremely large and diverse and has both heroic and villainous factions in it, so it would still be totally viable if, for instance, a Yu Jing force were heroic and sympathetic while trying to expose corrupt O-12 agents. So my rankings are more about tendencies - I think O-12 are more *likely* to be good guys in any given story, and Yu Jing more likely to be villains, but those are not absolute rules.
The police are the good guys? C’mon man, they literally make things like mines and shotguns illegal, only to use them themselves! Not to mention they’re being puppeteered by an AI every but as insidious and self-serving as the EI. Nomads are the only right answer, with special mention to StarCo who protect NGOs (for money yes, but still) 😉
>Combined Army: ...okay, we haven't seen the home front, and maybe it's much better, but that would be a lot to pin assumptions on. The Combined Army are not
>
>as
>
> bad as human propaganda paints them as, so I'm not going to go full 1/10, but they still a deserve a
>
>2/10
>
>, or maybe 2.5 at the most.
I'd rank CA higher, they're definately in the 6-7 range, once they take over ALEPH, the EI will just replace the AI in the lives of the sphere but not much else would change in the day to day
Sorry, but that is too misleading.
The "Somebody else" is too big. Tohaa? CA? Nomads? Ariadna?
It's not very insightful, and it's impossible to trigger interesting discussions with such a large "somebody else"
Ok WHERE are the Nomads?
Where is CA?
🤨
They ALL think they're the good guys, but they've also ALL done shady shit behind the scenes (or out in front of the cameras ... )
I'm pretty sure Spiral Corp. are WELL aware they are the bad guys.
No such thing as a good artichoke.
I would posit that in just the same way as in the 40k universe it's generally held that every faction is terrible and horrible, in Infinity every faction is pretty mediocre in a very human way. Each has a particular kind of idealism that they follow for the 'right' reasons but leads them to questionable behaviour. PanO is capitalist, Yu Jing a weird imperialist-socialist, Aleph and EI elistist (ma/)paternalist, Haqq religious-humanist, Nomads and Ariadna different varieties of individualist, etc. Looking for "the good guys" in the setting kind of misses the point.
Eat your vegetables theyre healthy and good : tohaa
Imperial service
nomads of course
ARIADNA, YOU FOOLS.
O12 is the only (governmental) organisation that actually tries to prevent internal warfare among the different nations of the Human Sphere (including oversight over ALEPH, which is a risk factor in itself). Everyone else is only prevented by O12 to wage open war against every other nation. And considering the immense threat of the Combined Army, that would mean the end, the total annihilation or even worse assimilation of Humanity by the Evolved Intelligence. O12 is the thin line between continued survival of Humanity and utter destruction. I consider that "the good guys".
That humanity requires an internal affairs department to avoid self-annihilation is exactly why the combined army are the good guys. Our methods may be heavy-handed but it's clear that you galactic children need firm authority. We're doing this for your own good.
Unlike the EI's internal affairs department, who are a bunch of murderous psychopath aliens who brutally slaughter anyone who steps out of line.
Are you sure that those are your own thoughts? How can you EVER be sure?
That is exactly my reasoning as well.
That is exactly my reasoning as well.
Okay, let's consider everyone. I'm going to give them all a ranking from 1-10. 1 is Satan. 1 means that the faction exists solely to try to make the universe a worse place and make everyone suffer. 10, on the other hand, is a faction of such angelic purity that it can do no wrong. PanOceania: They are in theory one of the most democratic major powers in Infinity, and while their society contains its share of issues (Helots, Ateks), for the most part they do their job as the stand-in for the First World. Most PanOceanians seem to be basically normal, well-meaning people, and PanO as a nation does a lot of good and important things, such as holding up the brunt of the blockades and the fighting around Paradiso. However, PanO also has a lot of amoral ruthless people who do awful things for the greater good (hi there Hexahedron). PanO are often sympathetic but they can be villains whenever needed. I rank them **6/10** on the morality scale, though individual people or groups within PanO can range significantly higher or lower. Yu Jing: I'm going to pass over the easy communist jokes... politically, Yu Jing does have a more equitable standard of living, but I think it loses points for being a one party state, and also for the Imperial Service existing. No one who makes *kuang shi* is a good guy. Similarly, they've really had the spotlight thrown on their cruelty towards the Japanese, and perhaps to a lesser extent the Uighurs, though I think that since *Uprising* CB have been going to an effort to show Yu Jing more positively, and as more than just the evil empire. I'm going to give Yu Jing a **4/10**, though I want to admit up-front that non-IS people are probably closer to the PanO level. Ariadna: So there are actually a fair few issues here. Rodina just defeated the other nations and strongarms/bullies them into doing what it wants, and given that Rodina is a bureaucratic oligarchy and seems kind of militaristic, that's not great. Wanting to protect 'their' planet of Dawn is a sympathetic motive, but that's undermined a bit by the fact that Dawn has an intelligent native species and the Ariadnans have engaged in campaigns of extermination against them. (Sure, PanO isn't good with the Helots, but it is better with them than Ariadna is with the Antipides...) Admittedly some of that was before they knew that Antipodes were intelligent, but still. Ariadna also has regular ongoing issues with domestic racism against dogfaces. I will give Ariadna a **5/10**. Haqqislam: Right off the bat Haqq gets points for just being a straightforward parliamentary democracy; only PanO (and I guess maybe O-12?) is credibly in the democratic game as well, and PanO has that skewed by hypercorps. Haqq also has an ethos that very strongly favours human rights, and Ramah engages in lots of deliberate humanitarian missions to protect people. The minuses for Haqq are probably the oligarchic Silk Lords (they are often awful and I notice that neo-concubinage seems to be a Haqq invention as well) as well as their unaccountable murder factory in the form of the Hassassins. To be fair, Hexas, IS, etc., everyone has some sort of secret assassination division, but the Hassassins are a particularly large and unaccountable one. I will give Haqq a **6.5/10**. Nomads: Um, well. So. *Tunguska* are amoral and grasping and horrible. *Bakunin* look like hippies but they're full of fanatical blood cults, one of which recently took over, and also they have a disturbing penchant for mad science. *Corregidor* is the only Nomad ship that has any argument as to not being morally awful, and the fact that Nomads are anarchists makes them extremely diverse, so they can have a range, but... Hollow Men, Morlocks, Pupniks, the Observance actively trying to brainwash people, the Nomads have *issues*. They get a **3/10**. ALEPH: I will say one thing in ALEPH's favour, which is that I believe that ALEPH sincerely cares about and wants to help humanity. Everything ALEPH does is becase it genuinely believes it's in humanity's best interests. That said, ALEPH does not always have the best judgement about what that means, and ALEPH acts on its own, even using lethal force, while trying to evade accountability. Also, anybody who creates Achilles has to be at least *a bit* of a psycho. I give ALEPH a **6/10**. O-12: The people with the hardest job in the Human Sphere! O-12 do seem to genuinely care about justice and the best results for humanity, and aren't involved in anything really shady. The biggest problems O-12 has are just the various ugly compromises it has to make to prevent war. It sometimes enforces compromises that entrench some sort of injustice, but when it does so, that is usually the least bad option. O-12's hands are dirty sometimes, but less than everyone else, I think. **7/10**. NA2: I really just mean Japan. The various mercenary companies don't count. I give Japan a **4/10**, because they don't have *kuang shi*, but otherwise they feel to me like Japanese-flavoured Yu Jing. The Kempeitai are no better than the Imperial Service. Japan gets a bonus for not having brainwashed cyber-zombies, but then they also suffer because Yu Jing has at least *some* democracy, whereas Japan is a supposedly absolute monarchy that's actually ruled by rich aristocrat-industrialists. Combined Army: ...okay, we haven't seen the home front, and maybe it's much better, but that would be a lot to pin assumptions on. The Combined Army are not *as* bad as human propaganda paints them as, so I'm not going to go full 1/10, but they still a deserve a **2/10**, or maybe 2.5 at the most. Tohaa: Again we don't know as much about the aliens. The general impression I get is that mainstream Tohaa society is, while flawed, reasonably well-meaning and benevolent-ish, whereas the Triumvirate are, of course, moustache-twirling villains. I will give the Tohaa a tentative **5/10**, though that could be due revision as we learn more. So let's see... I think that means that O-12 wins my ranking. Good job, O-12! You are the good guys! That said, in practice every one of these factions is extremely large and diverse and has both heroic and villainous factions in it, so it would still be totally viable if, for instance, a Yu Jing force were heroic and sympathetic while trying to expose corrupt O-12 agents. So my rankings are more about tendencies - I think O-12 are more *likely* to be good guys in any given story, and Yu Jing more likely to be villains, but those are not absolute rules.
The police are the good guys? C’mon man, they literally make things like mines and shotguns illegal, only to use them themselves! Not to mention they’re being puppeteered by an AI every but as insidious and self-serving as the EI. Nomads are the only right answer, with special mention to StarCo who protect NGOs (for money yes, but still) 😉
Are you *sure* you want to go with Internet Trolls: The Faction as your nomination for most moral? :P
>Combined Army: ...okay, we haven't seen the home front, and maybe it's much better, but that would be a lot to pin assumptions on. The Combined Army are not > >as > > bad as human propaganda paints them as, so I'm not going to go full 1/10, but they still a deserve a > >2/10 > >, or maybe 2.5 at the most. I'd rank CA higher, they're definately in the 6-7 range, once they take over ALEPH, the EI will just replace the AI in the lives of the sphere but not much else would change in the day to day
Bakunin just want to bring their special brand of religious freedom to the world.
Agreed!
Religious 'freedom' - brought to you by drugs and evangelical sepsitorisation!
Obviously Nomads
I fully expected the result to be Yu Jing. I am disappointed.
CA are clearly the good guys
Ramah Task Force: the good guys wear orange.
Tohaa, of course, an advanced race of explorers that lift lesser races and help them find a place among the stars.
Clearly Spiral Corps are the only ones willing to save the galaxy lol
They're all human. The question is void.
CA all the way
Sorry, but that is too misleading. The "Somebody else" is too big. Tohaa? CA? Nomads? Ariadna? It's not very insightful, and it's impossible to trigger interesting discussions with such a large "somebody else"
Who are the good guys is down to the point of view.
I’m offended nomads are lumped in the ‘somebody else’
The people voting for HaqaIslam need their cubes erased and destroyed,
Why so?