Are any in-game atrocities even relevant versus a hive?

[The Founder]

So, was just rampantly speculating the other night when it occurred to me that certain actions taken against the members of a hive mind don't have nearly the moral implications they do when taken against a non-hive civilization.

Blow up a Hive colony with Terror Bombing? They shouldn't care about it beyond the fact that they're inconvenienced, and honestly - so long as only members of the Hive died - neither should anyone else. After all, you didn't kill a single civilian of their species - because there is no such thing.

We actually have precedence for just these kinds of Situations:
T1 and T2 Robot pops. It is explicitly said they are "not sentient". There are explicitly overrides that allow you to always purge them - even if you have the AI accord and what not (actually getting them in that situation is another story).
The same way each drone is explicitly "not sentient". With even Autonomous Drones only being on the fence.
Or what about literall Pre-Sentient pops?
By lore and gameplay there is little difference between those 3 cases. There is a good argument for them being closer to pre-sentients* then Robots as far as purge penalties are concerned.

*They are pre-sentient in the sense that the right Genetic Engineering can make them sentient - removing the hivemind trait.

As for Hiveminds not being pised for you purging thier Drones? Nope. No mater how you slice it, if you cut of someones hand he will be properly pissed about that.
With the other empires (especially non-hive minds) we can talk about it. There is no way to not purge hive mind pops*, so there should be exceptions to the purge penalties in those cases. Otherwise attacking a hive mind just becomes unfeasible and Diplomatic Nightmare.

*I asume that is realised by a fixed setting of thier pops to "Undesireables". With you maybe still having the options to choose how to purge them.

Slavery is kind of moot because they won't survive outside the hive anyway, but that also makes purging basically irrelevant. They're already dying. I'm assuming right now that conquering their entire species causes them to waste away, but it would be amazing if you could effectively capture the hive locus, allowing you to have an entire hive as a single subject with many appendages within your empire.

Hiveminds can be both made and have vassals and all the other Diplomatic Options.
If you want pops withot happiness, there is T1+T2 Robots and Nerve Stapling Ascension Genetics. Of course unlike the Hiveminds, none of them have decent science and power options.

 

[AvalancheZ250]

So, was just rampantly speculating the other night when it occurred to me that certain actions taken against the members of a hive mind don't have nearly the moral implications they do when taken against a non-hive civilization.

Blow up a Hive colony with Terror Bombing? They shouldn't care about it beyond the fact that they're inconvenienced, and honestly - so long as only members of the Hive died - neither should anyone else. After all, you didn't kill a single civilian of their species - because there is no such thing.

Slavery is kind of moot because they won't survive outside the hive anyway, but that also makes purging basically irrelevant. They're already dying. I'm assuming right now that conquering their entire species causes them to waste away, but it would be amazing if you could effectively capture the hive locus, allowing you to have an entire hive as a single subject with many appendages within your empire.

So many questions!

It would still be an atrocity, but not one we would understand. It'd be more akin to cutting someones arm or leg off. It'd hurt, but they're only 1 being and their still alive.

That said in-game no non-hive mind species should really care if atrocities are committed against hiveminds, as non-hive mind empires can't understand the pain they are causing. The hive-mind empire would still get angry at you though, as well as other hive-mind empires.

 

[Bryartuck]

It's not even like cutting off someone's hand so much as cutting out a part of someone's brain.

Lobotomy, lobotomy, lobotomy, lobotomy!
DDT did a job on me
Now I am a real sickie
Guess I'll have to break the news
That I got no mind to lose
All the girls are in love with me
I'm a teenage lobotomy
-The Ramones

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Having standard diplo penalties applying to hive minds (either for or against) doesn't seem to make much sense from a game play perspective. If you go to war with a hive and force them to cede a planet, those pops will die unless you can gene mod them. if they take a planet from you, those pops will also die. You could liberate and vassalize them, but could never integrate them (though that really wouldn't make much logical sense).

 

[terrycloth]

Lobotomy, lobotomy, lobotomy, lobotomy!
DDT did a job on me
Now I am a real sickie
Guess I'll have to break the news
That I got no mind to lose
All the girls are in love with me
I'm a teenage lobotomy
-The Ramones

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Having standard diplo penalties applying to hive minds (either for or against) doesn't seem to make much sense from a game play perspective. If you go to war with a hive and force them to cede a planet, those pops will die unless you can gene mod them. if they take a planet from you, those pops will also die. You could liberate and vassalize them, but could never integrate them (though that really wouldn't make much logical sense).

If you liberate them, they take your ethics, which means they're hive mind pops in a non-hive mind empire and all of them die. Right?

 

[Drowe]

I think it depends on how a hive mind actually works. Right now I can only think of two ways a hive mind could work. Either it's a collective consciousness or it is one mind controlling mindless automatons. Both have very different implications on the morality of atrocities against the hive.

 

[Rubidium]

It would still be an atrocity, but not one we would understand. It'd be more akin to cutting someones arm or leg off. It'd hurt, but they're only 1 being and their still alive.

That said in-game no non-hive mind species should really care if atrocities are committed against hiveminds, as non-hive mind empires can't understand the pain they are causing. The hive-mind empire would still get angry at you though, as well as other hive-mind empires.

Well, we can imagine the pain they are suffering, that's why we are having this thread. So, presumably the other, non-hive-mind empires can picture it as well.

And more practically, if your species is willing to go straight to terror-bombing against one species, shouldn't you worry if they are going to terror-bomb you next?

 

[Riftwalker]

Blow up a Hive colony with Terror Bombing? They shouldn't care about it beyond the fact that they're inconvenienced, and honestly - so long as only members of the Hive died - neither should anyone else. After all, you didn't kill a single civilian of their species - because there is no such thing.

you punch me in the face, and i'll still be pissed. I think terror bombing a planet is like decking a hive in the snozz.

I think it depends on how a hive mind actually works. Right now I can only think of two ways a hive mind could work. Either it's a collective consciousness or it is one mind controlling mindless automatons. Both have very different implications on the morality of atrocities against the hive.

yeah, it's either getting punched in the face where it hurts, or getting punched in the face hard enough where you get brain damage...

 

[Untrustedlife]

Wouldn't it be in a pain constantly then? I mean, if there are billions of them, every second some drone would be stubbing it's toe.

I mean it would not be pain, more like a tickle, if the entire thing is one being and there are billions the scale of this cretaure is enormous, a single drone stubbing its toe would probably not even register, a few million being purged however? would perhaps feel like an ache, a billion dying would be real, screaming, bright blinding pain.

If you liberate them, they take your ethics, which means they're hive mind pops in a non-hive mind empire and all of them die. Right?

You are not allowed to liberate a hivemind, wiz has said.
It also cant be done the other way around. (unless you have a non-hivemind ally in the war in which case you can have them liberate)

You may be able to get around it by ceding the hivemind planet then going into your demographics screen and "creating vassal" of their species, like you currently can though (with any species).Doing so would simply create a new hive-mind empire. Unless they thought of this case and disabled it .

 

[Jabby]

Concerning purging hive-minded pops: i think purging them wint make the hive empire upset. For example in the enderverse saga specifically i think it was speaker for the dead, andrew states that the formics didnt know that each human was an individual and that was why they killed so many without thought.

 

[Shermanator]

If it is morally wrong to kill ants just for the sake of it, killing members of an advance hive mind should be considered immoral too. After all, as long as you are using the "living' or "sentience" criteria, Hive-mind members should still be considered as moral persons. In game, we can expect xenophiles to care about it, even if it to a lesser degree.

As for subduing an hive mind, you should be able to vassalize hive minds so it's quite close to subjugating it.

Morally wrong perhaps, but certainly not an acctrosity.
But that comparison doesn't really work. Ants are individual beings, they just have highly collectivist survival instincts. When you step on an ant, you are destroying it. Hive Mind drones are not individual beings like ants are, when you kill a drone you are not destroying a being, you are hurting a being.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Some people object to atrocities out of an empathic love for strangers, most people object to atrocities because they're afraid you'll do it to them later.

Owing to that, I'm all right with people not liking the kind of person who would Armageddon Bomb a planet full of enemy noncombatants just to avoid wasting the man power needed to destroy their likely meager defensive armies.

You can take over a hive world through the normal practice of war, and when you do so you are allowed to sit idly by and watch as the population you just conquered wastes away to death, in effect an automatic purge, that you suffer no diplomatic malus for. That should be enough to satisfy your wish for galactic indifference to the loss of the hive queens left foot.

 

[Nirmara]

Morally wrong perhaps, but certainly not an acctrosity.
But that comparison doesn't really work. Ants are individual beings, they just have highly collectivist survival instincts. When you step on an ant, you are destroying it. Hive Mind drones are not individual beings like ants are, when you kill a drone you are not destroying a being, you are hurting a being.

Granted, the example is limited since ants are not cognitively equivalent to the drones of a spacefaring hive mind.

I would still maintain that the analogy stand tough since drones do have a form of "individuality" in the sense of they should have a limited consciousness and a self-preservation instinct.

Considering that consciousness is, from a evolutionary perspective, a very effective mechanism to increase the chances of survival of a complex specie, drones probably have it too. Of course, they are not conscious like non-hive minds, but having a somewhat limited degree of autonomy would enable drones to react much more quickly to danger. Also, there is no need for the hive to have total control over all drones at all time. Just think of digestion, most of the time, you are not conscious that it is happening because you don't need to be. Drone can therefore be considered as conscious being, even if it is to a very limited degree.

Considering that members of any species, including drones, that would not have any self preservation instinct would not fare very well in any environment having at least a predator. It is safe to assume that drones have it, even if the survival of the hive is superior to their own.

 

[Talanic]

That should be enough to satisfy your wish for galactic indifference to the loss of the hive queens left foot.

Oh, you misunderstand. I'm not actually asking for galactic indifference. I was struck by these ideas and thought they'd be fun to discuss.

 

[Your3rdShadow]

Oh, you misunderstand. I'm not actually asking for galactic indifference. I was struck by these ideas and thought they'd be fun to discuss.

Oh I agree, this has been an interesting discussion, you made an excellent point I'm in agreement with. For a hive mind, there is no such thing as civilians, terror bombing shouldn't be a thing with them, or at least, it should be replaced with something else. Because realistically, since they don't have civilians if other races get mad from your terror bombing, they're really just getting mad that you attacked the hive mind, which they're mad about anyway, so they're getting twice as angry for no actual reason. That said, xenophiles would be justified in raging by virtue of their ethic. Defensively speaking, terror bombing should never occur when your defending against a hive mind. I'm aware I just regurgitated your post, but I felt the need to agree with it.