Suggestion: Innate Ethos

[TheDarkMaster]

One possible way to balance this is to have traits that force a species to stay as ONE ethos, while the other one/two can still drift. Say, innate greed or highly aggressive, which forces the given race to always maintain some level of materialism or militarism until the tech for gene modding becomes available. Your race may still have ethics divergence, but they'll always have one form of common ground. Note that this would be a trait and not a ethos choice, and it would add an opportunity cost from the fact that you're losing out on other trait bonuses in exchange for this.

 

[lemmox]

These just all seem to undermine the point of ethos: a fluid description of the beliefs and ethics of each individual pop.

There is nothing innate, or static about ethics and the way they have implemented this system is frankly one of the most exciting parts of the game.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

These just all seem to undermine the point of ethos: a fluid description of the beliefs and ethics of each individual pop.

There is nothing innate, or static about ethics and the way they have implemented this system is frankly one of the most exciting parts of the game.

Though without this then you have the issue of races that have certain instinctive behaviors suddenly deciding to change them which can potentially spoil the flavor of the race. For example, a race of psionically connected creatures that have no concept of self, only the whole. They should be fanatic collectivists, but the game's engine will have them suddenly flipping to individualists or losing that trait from events or being far from the homeworld, even though the species itself should be incapable of that.

 

[lemmox]

Though without this then you have the issue of races that have certain instinctive behaviors suddenly deciding to change them which can potentially spoil the flavor of the race. For example, a race of psionically connected creatures that have no concept of self, only the whole. They should be fanatic collectivists, but the game's engine will have them suddenly flipping to individualists or losing that trait from events or being far from the homeworld, even though the species itself should be incapable of that.

Why would they necessarily be incapable of that? Existing for years on an alien world on the other side of the galaxy from your home world should lead to an ethical divergence. Never mind the fact that even a unified group will inevitably drift overtime.

The point is that ethos are explicitly not instinctive. Those are traits. Ethos are much more fluid.

 

[GC13]

Though without this then you have the issue of races that have certain instinctive behaviors suddenly deciding to change them which can potentially spoil the flavor of the race. For example, a race of psionically connected creatures that have no concept of self, only the whole. They should be fanatic collectivists, but the game's engine will have them suddenly flipping to individualists or losing that trait from events or being far from the homeworld, even though the species itself should be incapable of that.

That's a deep rabbit hole. The devs simply cannot accommodate every possible alien eccentricity. Some can be taken care of by modding, but even the base game handles a very wide array of possible species.

 

[bel3338]

I can see the original point that there could exist a species of alien where their ethos/mindset'/way of thinking' is as fixed as the number of tentacles they have, because after all this is science fiction - having a few cubes of pacifist Borg in Star Trek would completely undermine that race (save for Hugh and the like but that's another discussion). With the current ethos drift, accurately playing such a hive mind wouldn't be possible.

However as the management of pops and factions is such an important mechanic in the game I can see why they haven't allowed this behavior, but there's always DLC

 

[Lemont Elwood]

One possible way to balance this is to have traits that force a species to stay as ONE ethos, while the other one/two can still drift. Say, innate greed or highly aggressive, which forces the given race to always maintain some level of materialism or militarism until the tech for gene modding becomes available. Your race may still have ethics divergence, but they'll always have one form of common ground. Note that this would be a trait and not a ethos choice, and it would add an opportunity cost from the fact that you're losing out on other trait bonuses in exchange for this.

This makes sense. It's also essentially what I was suggesting, except you tie it to Traits instead of investing more points (which I agree with). It'd probably have to be limited by banning other "fixed ethos" traits, and maybe even making the penalties for drift in other ethos more severe (like, if your species doesn't have the Spiritualism vs Materialism debate because they're all inherently Materialistic, they may channel all that energy into Militarism vs Pacifism, getting more violent over it).




I suppose I wasn't clear in the original post: the "Innate Ethos" would only be available at the start. It's not something that you could adopt after pressing play. It's also NOT something that you'd find Fallen Empires with. The point of a Fallen Empire is that it has become ideological extreme as a result of its collapse. The point of any kind of innate ethos would be that the species doesn't view it as an ideological issue to begin with; it's just how they think.

 

[[Q]uik]

EDIT: Somebody has made a better suggestion later in this thread. I've still left my original comment for context, but here's an amended proposal: include mutually-exclusive traits that lock all Pops of your species (barring genetic engineering) from drifting in a given ethos. For example, a "Hive Mind" trait would make it so that your Pops can ONLY be Fanatic Collectivists, while a "Purely Objective" trait would make it so that your Pops can ONLY be Fanatic Materialists. This would allow people to roleplay as races with thinking/social structures so different from humanity that, for that ONE issue, ideology is not a factor.

I sincerely dislike this entire idea, i'm afraid. As that way well for one thing, the rebel thing kinda becomes mute; And secondly - even in a society, where there's a "hive mind" or everyone's mind washed, somewhere SOMEONE is going to break that chain eventually.

 

[Surimi]

It's only one of four sliders, though. You'd still have drift in the other three. You're making the choice to secure ONE slider, but the other three can move just as easily.

Right, but what it means is that pop ethics will never actually conflict with the state, since the state has no strong feelings on any of the other sliders, so where is the conflict going to come from?

At best, you have a small unhappiness penalty from pops of opposite ethics living on the same planet, something easily solved by simply allowing them to migrate to planets solely populated by like-minded pops, but once they've done so there is absolutely no reason for them to ever create factions or seek independence since your state caters perfectly to their ethics at all times, meaning you can just blob forever.

The reason you have exactly three ethics points is, I suspect, not just to get three totally sick bonuses or advantages, it's also to ensure that each empire has an ideology to which citizens can dissent and which will hopefully drive unrest.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Right, but what it means is that pop ethics will never actually conflict with the state, since the state has no strong feelings on any of the other sliders, so where is the conflict going to come from?

At best, you have a small unhappiness penalty from pops of opposite ethics living on the same planet, something easily solved by simply allowing them to migrate to planets solely populated by like-minded pops, but once they've done so there is absolutely no reason for them to ever create factions or seek independence since your state caters perfectly to their ethics at all times, meaning you can just blob forever.

The reason you have exactly three ethics points is, I suspect, not just to get three totally sick bonuses or advantages, it's also to ensure that each empire has an ideology to which citizens can dissent and which will hopefully drive unrest.

Well, the new suggestion would mean that you still have those three ethics points, you just have the option of forcing one of them to not change for your race, there will always be one ethic that can still diverge.

 

[aitaituo]

Right, but what it means is that pop ethics will never actually conflict with the state, since the state has no strong feelings on any of the other sliders, so where is the conflict going to come from?

At best, you have a small unhappiness penalty from pops of opposite ethics living on the same planet, something easily solved by simply allowing them to migrate to planets solely populated by like-minded pops, but once they've done so there is absolutely no reason for them to ever create factions or seek independence since your state caters perfectly to their ethics at all times, meaning you can just blob forever.

The reason you have exactly three ethics points is, I suspect, not just to get three totally sick bonuses or advantages, it's also to ensure that each empire has an ideology to which citizens can dissent and which will hopefully drive unrest.

In the Angry Joe interview, Doomdark said pops will like or dislike certain policy stances based on their ethics. So if you are neither pacifist nor militarist, your pacifist pops will still be upset that you have an aggressive first contact policy active.

 

[Korashy]

It's not that clear cut imho. Even in a Hivemind. How does the Hivemind function? Is it by having tons of "individuals" establish consensus in a sort of combined brain (I.E. Geth in ME), or is the Hivemind ruled by a single sentient entity and the pops are essentially drones without individualism (I.E. Formic in Enders Game).

 

[vader026]

I think a lot of these issues stem from the source that the ethics system doesn't work very well to represent species that think or operate in a way that's radically different from us. As a 40k fanboy the two most obvious examples of these to me would be the Tyranids (hivemind) and the Orks (simply don't ever think of anything but war). It wouldn't make sense for the ethos system to try and depict orks (pacifist ork rebels?) or a hivemind that would obviously not work anything like the system we currently have. On the opposite end of that though, I think it does work really well in representing creatures that think like we do, which is the vast majority of species in any given setting. So rather than try to change the existing system, I think that we should just hope for additional systems down the line that will model things like hiveminds and space orcs.

 

[Safehold]

Fanatic ethos might already be resistant to change. I'll have to look at the in game files to be sure.

Traits would provide the "stable" genetic biological base for a species.

 

[aitaituo]

I think a lot of these issues stem from the source that the ethics system doesn't work very well to represent species that think or operate in a way that's radically different from us. As a 40k fanboy the two most obvious examples of these to me would be the Tyranids (hivemind) and the Orks (simply don't ever think of anything but war). It wouldn't make sense for the ethos system to try and depict orks (pacifist ork rebels?) or a hivemind that would obviously not work anything like the system we currently have. On the opposite end of that though, I think it does work really well in representing creatures that think like we do, which is the vast majority of species in any given setting. So rather than try to change the existing system, I think that we should just hope for additional systems down the line that will model things like hiveminds and space orcs.

Indeed, the assumption is that all intelligent species have some basic fundamental similarities. Every species is made up of individuals, every individual has beliefs, every species has a culture, every species has a government, every species uses technology, every species is capable of language, etc.

There's really not much room for outdated notions of genetically mandated culture, government, or beliefs, which has been dying slowly and quietly in sci-fi since the '40s.

 

[sethfc]

I think having to both take an ethos, and pay 2 trait points would be sufficient to allow someone 'innate' ethos.
Example, a highly aggressive species with a trait "naturally aggressive" or something akin to that, which locks them at militarist, they might go down from fanatically militaristic, but their pops will never become pacifists or neutral in regards to militancy, they can still become collectivists, individualists, spiritualists etc, but they just won't drift on militarism, it's ingrained in them.
You could limit it such that no race can have 2 of these traits, just one, and all it would do is allow races like insects to be collectivists by nature, or on the reverse side a race of birds or something to be naturally individualists etc.

I don't see how this would be unbalanced, their giving up significant advantages to simply not deal with ethos divergence on a single axis.

To put it in prespective conformist (2 points) reduces all ethos divergence by 20% this would for 2 points reduce ONE ethos axis by 100% (or rather, prevent it from sliding entirely out of the ethos) that's essentially equivelent to conformist, just focused in on a single axis of the ethos 'wheel'.

Also lets look at a recent scifi example of innate ethos.
Hunters in Halo, they are Innately fanatic collectivist hiveminds, being that each 'individual' is composed of thousands of worm like creatures, and then further divided into groups of these individuals that operate as hives. The Zerg from starcraft, are an innately (modified to be so) collectivist hive mind, whereas the native zerg are an innately individualist group (with power being what determines strength, and individual advancement being key)
Mass Effect, Asari, They are naturally xenophilic due to their bonding methodology and culture, and practically nothing will move them from this.
The protoss from starcraft, as the Kala (their psionic link) enforces their collectivism, with the only way to end their collectivism being through a Massive upheavel (or rejecting joining it in the first place as with the dark protoss) and only ended it in response to losing their homeworld (and having it corrupted via some space magic) so in other words only via an event.
Also pretty much every X-com alien race has genetic predispositions toward specific behaviors.
All of these are good examples from post 2000.
If we go back further than 2000 (but certainly past 1940) we get the entirety of startrek, warhammer 40k, and even many races in starwars all having racially determined personality traits.

All I'm saying is that there is definitely modern examples of racial/genetic inclinations in culture, behavior, and 'ethics'.

Also https://www.boundless.com/psycholog...the-influence-of-genes-on-behavior-137-12672/
The effects of genetics on human behavior are Well documented and continue to be proven by study after study. Who is to say that an alien species couldn't have stronger or more prevelent genetic heritability for genes relating to behavior or specific philosophies.

 

[Surimi]

In the Angry Joe interview, Doomdark said pops will like or dislike certain policy stances based on their ethics. So if you are neither pacifist nor militarist, your pacifist pops will still be upset that you have an aggressive first contact policy active.

However, the policies you can enact are broadly guided by your state ethics, so if you're an "innately" individualist species, for example, you wouldn't be able to enact forced relocations at all. Thus, noone would be unhappy about forced relocations. Again, we're left with a situation where you can, at best, pick up minor unhappiness penalties here and there, but never anything significant because all of your pops will always agree with the state ethos at all times.

I think having to both take an ethos, and pay 2 trait points would be sufficient to allow someone 'innate' ethos.
Example, a highly aggressive species with a trait "naturally aggressive" or something akin to that, which locks them at militarist, they might go down from fanatically militaristic, but their pops will never become pacifists or neutral in regards to militancy, they can still become collectivists, individualists, spiritualists etc, but they just won't drift on militarism, it's ingrained in them.

From a realism standpoint, why would being "naturally aggressive" force everyone to be a militarist though?

Why could you not have a pacifist faction which recognizes the destructive consequences of aggression and advocates staunch personal-discipline. Why could you not have a "naturally aggressive" species with a society which utterly rejects physical violence (is pacifist) but publicly channels all their aggression into politics, or business, or team sports. One could very easily argue that we, as modern humans, are such a society.

I think one problem here is that, in an effort to get away from the "everyone is basically human" model of science fiction species design, people have simply replaced that with "everyone is basically animals", but animals, of course, don't build spaceships. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that any species capable of building a spaceship would be capable of responding in a complex or even reactive way to any behavioural predispositions.

To put it in prespective conformist (2 points) reduces all ethos divergence by 20% this would for 2 points reduce ONE ethos axis by 100% (or rather, prevent it from sliding entirely out of the ethos) that's essentially equivelent to conformist, just focused in on a single axis of the ethos 'wheel'.

Right. But this doesn't get around the fact that not all axes of the ethos wheel are going to be equal. Divergence from the state ideology is going to be vastly more significant than divergence from other axes, so if you could decide that all of your pops are going to be spiritualist and then make a fanatically spiritualist state then you're securing a vastly, vastly bigger advantage than the conformist trait would normally allow. After all, the biggest thing about the conformist trait is that it makes your species 20% less likely to diverge from the state ethics. What you're proposing would make that impossible.

Now let's think of another example. Let's say you're a militarist empire and you conquer an "innately" pacifist species. Do you like endless rebellions forever? Because you're going to have them! The overwhelming presence of your culture and the syncretic merging of ideas between pops will never have the slightest jot of influence, which even putting aside realism would be incredibly annoying and a bit boring.

Also https://www.boundless.com/psycholog...the-influence-of-genes-on-behavior-137-12672/
The effects of genetics on human behavior are Well documented and continue to be proven by study after study. Who is to say that an alien species couldn't have stronger or more prevelent genetic heritability for genes relating to behavior or specific philosophies.

And yet, noone has ever been able to demonstrate a single behavioural tendency derived from human genetics which cannot be overridden through conscious will by an adult human being (with the exception of a few genuinely instinctive innate behaviours like gagging or vomiting at the smell of certain sulphur odours) Even that web page points out that genes do not determine behaviour. Whatever behavioural predispositions come from our genes, we override them every single day in a manner which is so commonplace and routine we generally don't notice it.

 

[aitaituo]

However, the policies you can enact are broadly guided by your state ethics, so if you're an "innately" individualist species, for example, you wouldn't be able to enact forced relocations at all. Thus, noone would be unhappy about forced relocations. Again, we're left with a situation where you can, at best, pick up minor unhappiness penalties here and there, but never anything significant because all of your pops will always agree with the state ethos at all times.

Your point being that this is a reason why an innate ethos would be bad from a gameplay perspective, yes?

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Right. But this doesn't get around the fact that not all axes of the ethos wheel are going to be equal. Divergence from the state ideology is going to be vastly more significant than divergence from other axes, so if you could decide that all of your pops are going to be spiritualist and then make a fanatically spiritualist state then you're securing a vastly, vastly bigger advantage than the conformist trait would normally allow. After all, the biggest thing about the conformist trait is that it makes your species 20% less likely to diverge from the state ethics. What you're proposing would make that impossible.

Now let's think of another example. Let's say you're a militarist empire and you conquer an "innately" pacifist species. Do you like endless rebellions forever? Because you're going to have them! The overwhelming presence of your culture and the syncretic merging of ideas between pops will never have the slightest jot of influence, which even putting aside realism would be incredibly annoying and a bit boring.

It is worth noting that in the blog streams, thus far the blorg have never had their pops diverge from their fanatical xenophilism, only militarism. Their blorg factions have all been pacifist factions, which were definitely giving them problems. We don't know how bad it would be to have them flip away from xenophilism, but differing on only a single minor ethos already does cause quite a few problems. It is really, really, hard to say if having an innate ethos would be a good or bad pick for a trait compared to conformist since we don't have access to the game and can't test it. A dev would have to actually test this (or it would have to be tested in a mod) before we could really say if it's a good or bad inclusion from a gameplay standpoint.

 

[TheLand]

Basically this would reduce the gameplay on offer by taking out all of the consequences of pop divergence.

I mean, if you want to mod it in so you can play a genuinely fanatically individualist nation, fine - but the effect is to make the game smaller and easier.