This is some correspondence between party members about an event in the Campaign.
Eric's character was not fond of halflings, and this character, King Phineas, received
a magical artifact capable of controlling the population growth for a given race through
certain arcane rituals. King Phineas used the device to slowly attrite the halfling population.
Phillip played two characters in the Campaign, Branham and Huvis. Huvis ``lived'' in the
Campaign 500 years after the end of Phineas' reign, but Huvis' family still remembers as Phineas'
actions caused a migration of halflings from Nerria, King Phineas' demense.
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Wow!
This generated quite a bit of commentary.
Phillip, your points are well stated and logically flow from your
observations and assumptions. I would like to respond to your thought
provoking comments.
For the record, I don't think Phineas can be painted in either
black, white or even assorted shades of gray. Phineas must be
examined in the context in which he found himself. Times were grim,
and ultimately Nerria was a more prosperous and peaceful place at the
conclusion of his reign than it was immediately upon his arrival to
the throne.
Here are some key points:
(0) This response is not a flame either. I am completely neutral
on the subject of halflings. We had two highly successful halflings
in the second party at MIT both of whom Phillip saw in action, and
halflings played prominent roles in earlier campaign segments I ran in
Stuttgart, Zweibruecken and Fort Riley. I *do* admit that the
halflings the party ran across in the first campaign segment at MIT
were less survivable than the remainder of the party. (Then again, I
always thought that JRRT's descriptions of hobbits and their actions
seemed quite incongruous.)
(1) Tremir always told Phineas not to use the artifact from the
day Phineas received it. I doubt Tremir would ever have tried to
discover the means of how the artifact worked. Why bother? As Tewks
pointed out to me, Tremir told Phineas he was opposed to its use.
Phineas politely told Tremir that he understood Tremir's position.
(2) Having seen Rose in two separate campaigns, Fort Riley and
MIT, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Rose did not generally pry
into anything that she did not have her nose rubbed in. (No comment
on La Mica --- it is just how she played Rose, and the strategy
prevented her from ever having Rose killed.) Rose would probably
never said anything to Phineas besides ``yes your majesty.''
(3) As a Chalana Arroy, Anna was opposed to armed conflict, but
Nerria had wars against various of the other Kingdoms bordering it
with the exception of Hamarsin. There are some things that spouses
will not advise their mates on. Additionally, Anna had her hands full
all the time trying to run a household, take care of the many Phineas
minions and keeping active in the healing circles. *Unless* the
artifact did something directly that would come to the notice of the
healers, the situation would never have *required* Anna to take
notice. (This implies the artifact worked in a subtle way as the
healers would surely be aware of some direct effect.) As in Tremir's
case, it would seem likely that Anna voiced some initial displeasure
and then did what should could to make Nerria a better place.
(4) It is not clear how the artifact worked. The results of and
the methods employed by the artifact are quite inseparable in
determining the morality of its use in this case.
It is not clear that taking an action without the explicit consent
of the populace is vile and evil. It could be argued that living
within the confines of a region ruled by a legitimate government is to
implicitly and tacitly agree to its governance. Since Nerria had open
borders, this is especially true. If Phineas used the ``18 Charisma
stone'' to increase his popularity, this could not be viewed directly
as being a great evil even though the population is having its will
affected without its knowledge. (by the by, I make a habit of
influencing people's wills as part of my job everyday.) Most
criminals do not like having their freedom taken away when they are
put in prison. Certainly the government is taking an action without
the criminals' explicit consent.
On the other hand, just because the end appears good, that does not
necessitate that any means is justified in its accomplishment. For
example, if the artifact increased the halfling population by
preventing the old, diseased halflings from dying and instead kept
them alive in some hideously painful limbo between life and death then
that would be quite horrible. If the artifact increased population by
massively increasing the halfling sex drive that could be viewed as
not so nice as well.
Likewise, if the net effect is to decrease the halfling population
*in Nerria* then we might be more likely to say that the outcome is
bad, but it still is not 100% clear. The artifact could have worked
through modifying the immigration and emigration rates for halflings.
What if the effect of the artifact was to cause the halflings in
Nerria to feel uneasy and have the desire to leave the country? Is
that vile? Not clearly.
Here are some methods for decreasing the population in Nerria along
a spectrum from vile to OK:
More VILE ----------------------------------------------------More OK
Blinding Immediate Death Infertility Apathy Desire
halflings to some fraction of halflings by to leave
so they of the hobbit halfling Nerria
starve to population race
death, slowly
(5) Zhalindor is not Earth. Right minded folks in Zhalindor think
nothing of killing Broo who are intelligent creatures. The Ring of
Good would judge Phineas by the standards of his own world. In the
same way it is a little stilted when groups berate Shakespeare for not
being politically correct. The elder races in Zhalindor, elves,
dwarves and trolls, hated each other and considered the other races to
be scrumptious delicacies. Phineas appears to be quite urbane when
considered with this as a backdrop.
I would like to address several statements directly.
>It is not the device that must be questioned as good or evil in this
>instance; it is the policy that was put into effect using the device.
I agree with you 90%, but there are some cases where *any* policy
using the device would be vile, depending on how the device operated.
>The relevant real-world analogy would
>be either forced sterilization of welfare mothers or China's one
>child per couple family planning policy; both policies represent
>attempts by the government to reduce populations of groups deemed
>undesirables.
It is not obvious to me that the two cases cited are equivalent.
Forced sterilization of welfare mothers seems a bit different than
China's policy. The Chinese policy appears to apply to the entire
population. China is no leader in Western style human rights; this is
clear. After living for an extended period in the Far East and
observing a culture where: women are sold into slavery, a squad of
firemen was willing to let a village full of old people and children
burn to the ground rather than walk up the side of a mountain, and
*observing* a father kill his daughter, I conclude that their concepts
of the value of human life and liberty are quite different than our
shared Judeo-Christian culture.
None the less, I could not state with certainty the policy as I
understand it is vile. (I would state that the killings at Tinament
Square were vile.) So, in the case of China, my first question is
what is the alternative? The officials in China believe the
alternative is wide spread disease, starvation, unemployment, reduced
standard of living and ultimately revolution. That could be worse
than asking the parents to settle for one child each. Not clear.
China does not kill unwanted infants though that I am aware of. (They
might; I've seen worse in that part of the world.)
>But Fineous explicitly would
>not have used the artifact in these circumstances; his stated policy
>was that the artifact was to be used when the halfling population was
>predicted to increase, and not used when it was scheduled to
>decrease.
There is an implicit assumption in this statement that the halfling
population rate of increase is correlated fairly tightly with the
other races. To the extent that the races share the same environment,
then favorable environments tend to favor all the races and hostile
environments tend to affect all the races negatively. However,
halflings are like small herbivores. They make up for their
disadvantages by breeding extremely rapidly. Halflings have multiple
births, almost always 6+, and the gestation period on halflings is
only four months. While the human population might still be
decreasing, the halfling population might well be on the increase
already. A typical halfling couple is ready to reproduce by age 9
while a corresponding human couple would be ready about age 16 or so.
Remember the tribbles from Star Trek? The tribbles kept
reproducing the more you fed them. The Enterprise crew finally agreed
to stop feeding the critters so they would stop reproducing. Hobbits
are less cute and more intelligent than tribbles, but Phineas might
well have viewed these only as matters of degree.
>This would inevitably lead to a situation where halfling prosperity
>bounced between stability and starvation.
This is not clear. If anything, whether we agree with Phineas use
of the artifact or not, it led to less starvation for those remaining.
>Whether this set of circumstances would have had the effect of
>generating an "an overall improvement in the survivability of the
>race" is irrelevant; that was not the end to which Fineous was
>working. He was working on reducing the halfling population
>of Nerria essentially because he personally didn't like them, and all
>of us know it; and the ring should have too.
Hmmmm... it is not clear that the improvement of the halfling stock
was irrelevant, but I grudgingly admit this did not appear to be
Phineas' goal. If Phineas had turned his genetic research attentions
to developing viruses with RDNA that would affix themselves to
halfling genomes, producing massive increases in birth defects then
this would have been more evil than the use of the artifact. There
was more than a personal bit of dislike involved it would seem.
The real moral issue rests on several questions.
First, was Phineas' overall goal in using the artifact in the best
interests of Nerria as far as Phineas could tell?
Second, were the methods used by the artifact to accomplish the
ends to which it was tasked inherently evil?
Third, what were the alternatives to the use of the artifact?
I maintain that Phineas believed the halfling population to be
inferior in intelligence and overall capability to any of the other
sentient races native to Nerria. I further maintain this was an
accurate belief *from Phineas' experience*. Additionally, when
Phineas ascended to the throne, Nerria faced severe infrastructure
problems. Disease and starvation were rampant, and Nerria was
involved almost immediately in a war with Hemen, bastion of hobbits.
In a general sense, it is *possible* to accept Phineas as acting in
the best perceived interest of Nerria.
The most accurate analogy would be to substitute Drow for Halfling.
If Phineas had set out to decrease the number of some evil race in
his domain, the cry and hue would be lessened if not eliminated.
It is not clear the methods employed by the artifact were
inherently evil. We are not sure what those methods were. The key
point is that the population was only stabilized within the confines
of Nerria. Also, it is not clear how powerful the artifact was. For
example, if there remained only one halfling in all of Nerria, and the
borders were sealed then if the one halfling were killed, would he be
resurrected by the artifact in order to maintain the population?
I'm not sure what the alternatives to the use of the artifact were.
Probably the hobbits would have been far more populous when Istalome
was in power. He may have been able to gain a better foothold in
Nerria and eventually carried out the work that Nigilranthrib started.
Then again, there might have been no ill effects what so ever.
Got to fly and pick up Kathy!
Tschuess!
Rich
PS Please let me know what you think! RCS
PPS This might be a good topic to write up for IR. This would be an
interesting area of discussion. We should see what Pete thinks. RCS
