what's your opinion on stellaris getting a moral/alignment system?

[Ikael]

We have already a great political alignment system in the game (ideological axis between egalitarian VS authoritarian empires, etc, etc). Problem is, it doesn't influence the game nearly as it should.

As for "moral alignment", I always considered the D&D system to be insufferably Manichean and simplistic. "Good VS Evil"? Meh. Grey morality a la The Witcher makes for far more interesting decisions.

However, I do think that it would be great to have a system that changes your empire while you play depending on your actions. Ascension paths could perhaps act in this way, allowing for further differentiation as you advance.

 

[Ridixo]

Or better working ethics that go beyond simple bonus

 

[Cassilda]

I don't think Stellaris need a Dark vs Light side approach. But I do think that political faction and ethics should be a relevant aspect in-game. Now they are mostly a roleplay characterization, but they don't exist beside giving some influence points or not giving them. You don't get social polarization for things like slavery or IA rights, and nobody seems to really care about the government waging wars or not, or about the living standards of the population, or about the fact that elections exist or not. Not to mention things like trade unions, access to healthcare etc. And also the power balance between the civilian government or the crown and the armed forces and so on are completely unrepresented.

In my opinion, managing a regular empire doesn't feel that different than a gestalt consciousnesses, but it should. While I agree that especially in non democratic empires some of these things shouldn't matter much, as long as you appease the dominant citizens strata and the military can keep in check the rest, for democracies should count a lot and even the regular absolute ruler should need to cultivate enough political support.
But all that should be approached from a realpolitik point of view, not from a good vs evil or right vs wrong one.

 

[firenze419]

one of the things i absolutely loved about star wars: kotor 1&2 was the continuous development of your character depending on your choices towards three alignments (dark, light, neutral), which were further distinguished in "lawful", "chaotic" and "true"

this could be adapted on the empire level for example during the exploration phase, for the policies you pick, for how you fight wars, if you're using the colossus, how you treat xenos, how you respond to diplomatic offers etc.

leaning towards a side would grant buffs, towards the light side might gradually buff your ships' defense and hull points and make bastions stronger, the dark side might come with buffs to your weaponry and also unlocking new weapons, and neutrals might be rewarded with a flourishing economy

lawful empires would get random events with positive outcome (happiness, stability, leader skills etc.) as a reward for staying true to the alignment you pick while chaotic empires would see their unrest increased and so on because you would make erratic and impulsive choices, not actually following the moral alignment but rather the situational profit

it would also affect the appearance of your pops and leaders and the dialogues in the diplo screen, just for the flavour and nicer optics (it feels anyway to meet that cute little creature with deep dark eyes and an almost smiling face... who happens to be a fanatical purifier wanting to exterminate your species)

(or why the authoritarian advisor always sounds evil even if you're the galactic emperor declaring the eternal peace and defending the galaxy against crisis forces, while pacifists sound like saints even if they're inwards perfectionist and purge every single xeno they stumble upon by extermination)

Eany opinion on that, or other ideas?

I don't hate it, except for the part where the game punishes Chaotic and rewards Lawful behaviour. I didn't pay al this money for a sermon.

Now if the game rewarded consistent behavior (either Lawful or Chaotic) with unity and maybe stability that would be okay.

Definitely would want it to be toggle-able though.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

Noooooooope!

I really like the moral ambiguity of the ethics system, no need to add good vs evil into this.

EDIT: Take GCIII’s alignment system, you have benevolent, pragmatic and malicious. Basically equates to good, neutral or evil and very much the bonuses from these are divided into peaceful expansion, economic prosperity and warfare, which in turns gives you effectively three different empire types, with small bonuses here and there.

The ethics system, while not perfect, does at least grant much greater flexibility in the make up of empires (and with a mod of mine that ultimately creates AI personality types for each ethic combo, actually makes them unique)

 

[Quinzal]

(and with a mod of mine that ultimately creates AI personality types for each ethic combo, actually makes them unique)

What mod? I'm interested.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

You're seeing the planet Earth through the eyes of a human sitting at a computer, with a human evolution, human cultural bias, and human condition.

Stellaris is a game about an entire galaxy seen through the eyes of countless different species engaged in interstellar politics, trade, and warfare, with their own unique circumstances.

If morals are universal to you, why would it not make sense for me, a trade league run by goat people living in space stations, to have my own set of morals that I thought were universal?

It wouldn't make sense for morality to play a major role in the game unless you're playing the United Nations of Earth, one empire out of nigh unlimited.



So if said pacifist player does not yet have the technology to uplift, and chooses to hunt them so they stop tearing into their energy supply, that makes them evil? If a human in real life killed a tiger that was about to kill them, would that make them evil?



So all species in a galaxy are supposed to share your view on the Democratic Crusader bordering them who keeps insulting and claiming their systems every other week?



So war, in all cases except to end an existential threat, is evil. Nothing about proliferation, ending a threat before it begins, etc?

Morals aside, this sounds like a great way to chase people away from the game.

i don't have to travel to every single corner of the universe to judge that harming other species without justification (e.g. as an act of self-defense to end an attack or threat) is morally bad. this is completely a universal truth and as auch out of question. if you actually do find it disputable in real life (and are not just trolling here for the lols and to practice arguing) then i'm very much sorry for you

i also don't see the content of stellaris being completely unique and not comparable with circumstances found on earth and in human societies. in fact, stellaris is merely an abstraction of the abundant and diverse life forms and especially human politics and ethics. as such, the developer was even more free to implement "bad taste mechanics" that are otherwise not being depicted in any other pdx title (slave market, genocidal extermination, civilian casualties on bombardment of the planet etc.)

when you say that stellaris is about seeing the world from the eyes of its species, you're actually seeing through the eyes of humans following different world views and ideologies; and while relativism of certain cultural aspects is absolutely valid, there are too are universal values and thus objective truths on moral matters that are in the hierarchically above said relativist aspects

I don't think real world issues of moral relativism and amorality apply here. Stellaris tells a story in which ethics are subjective. Authoritarians think that it's amoral to reject your proper place in society, while egalitarians think that it's amoral to force people into those roles. Pacifists think that it's amoral to fight for almost any reason, while militarists think that it's amoral to let weakness grow and thrive.

Of course you're free to want a light/dark axis applied on top of that. (Although it seems like you want to literally just copy the D&D alignment chart of Good/Evil Lawful/Chaotic?) To each his own, by absolutely all means! Personally I don't think it would add anything to the game. If anything, I think the subjectivity of ethics in Stellaris should be much stronger. Militarists should be rewarded for fighting and should be punished for peace. Spiritualists should function better when they pursue their faith and should fall apart when they don't. Imo empires should behave like societies in which these ethics define the common good.

The question is just what someone thinks would make the game more fun. Just because someone likes Stellaris' story about subjective ethics, it doesn't mean that they don't understand issues of moral relativism in real life. They can also like FTL without needing a primer on Einstein, space dragons without needing a lesson in biology, and centralized resources without a course on long haul truckers. Whether we're talking about space logistics, planet populations or moral relativity, realism is never the point.

as i have already pointed out and even showed with the help of real-life examples, the dichotomy of the ethics currently present in stellaris is not applicable on the dichotomy of the objective good and the objective evil. the other way around though it, in fact, is. ingame actions can be objectively judged as evil or good (or neutral) even within the given system of governmental ethics

 

[Zenicetus]

i see that many users are in favour of moral relativism, which i personally reject as amorality. i'm convinced of the universality of moral values, and reading most of the brought up examples (well, maybe except for the hilarious point of view on the jedi ^^) i get the feeling that the posters are well aware of what is objectively the right moral decision

The right moral decision?

What's the right moral decision for a Great White Shark on a feeding frenzy? What's the right moral decision for a Parasitoid Wasp injecting her eggs into a paralyzed caterpillar host? What's the right moral decision for a Saberhagen Berserker machine bent on eradicating biological life in the Galaxy? You can't map these things onto a human-centric morality system. Real aliens if they're out there, are liable to be even weirder than these examples.

This is an open ended sci-fi game. It already has too much human-centric design in some of the civics and other areas. We don't need even more of it.

 

[苏白@夢璃花]

i don't have to travel to every single corner of the universe to judge that harming other species without justification (e.g. as an act of self-defense to end an attack or threat) is morally bad. this is completely a universal truth and as auch out of question. if you actually do find it disputable in real life (and are not just trolling here for the lols and to practice arguing) then i'm very much sorry for you

i also don't see the content of stellaris being completely unique and not comparable with circumstances found on earth and in human societies. in fact, stellaris is merely an abstraction of the abundant and diverse life forms and especially human politics and ethics. as such, the developer was even more free to implement "bad taste mechanics" that are otherwise not being depicted in any other pdx title (slave market, genocidal extermination, civilian casualties on bombardment of the planet etc.)

when you say that stellaris is about seeing the world from the eyes of its species, you're actually seeing through the eyes of humans following different world views and ideologies; and while relativism of certain cultural aspects is absolutely valid, there are too are universal values and thus objective truths on moral matters that are in the hierarchically above said relativist aspects



as i have already pointed out and even showed with the help of real-life examples, the dichotomy of the ethics currently present in stellaris is not applicable on the dichotomy of the objective good and the objective evil. the other way around though it, in fact, is. ingame actions can be objectively judged as evil or good (or neutral) even within the given system of governmental ethics

Have you ever watched any Predator movies, besides there are still people on earth hunt animals for fun.
And I will just leave this Society Technology with its description here.

Artificial Moral Codes - It is circumstance that dictates what is moral. Define the circumstances, and ethics is like clay in your hands.

 

[Ffc]

i haven't thought about expanding the current ethics system but making it gradually change itself depending on how you play the game. i would second it though

in this context it might also be better if the ethics had a greater impact (maybe as some sort of levelling over time)

It's actually already in the game, Ethic attraction changes with how you play, and ethic attraction is what allows you to change ethic

 

[Ryika]

i see that many users are in favour of moral relativism, which i personally reject as amorality. i'm convinced of the universality of moral values, and reading most of the brought up examples (well, maybe except for the hilarious point of view on the jedi ^^) i get the feeling that the posters are well aware of what is objectively the right moral decision

That's such a simplistic view of morality. How could it be "objective"? What's backing the objectivity? People who believe in a god can maybe say that, but even then, isn't "morality" just the opinion of their god?

The reality is, morality is entirely subjective. We, as individuals, have things what we, as individuals, value, and we make subjective moral judgement from that perspective. There's obviously a lot of overlap between different people, but that's us, having evolved in very similar environments - I see no reason why a species that took a very different evolutionary route from us would arrive at the same view of morality. And even then, unless you go to the very extreme ends of the potential opinions that one could hold, you will find dissenting opinions on pretty much any topic even among our very species. And you certainly do find a very different understanding of moral values and goods when you go back in history.

The only objective component in morality is that if we agree on a basis for our moral system, then we can evaluate how well certain behaviors align with that standard and then potentially classify them as "good" or "bad" behaviors within that moral system. But the standard for that moral system must still be agreed upon based on our subjective biases and preferences.

 

[Quinzal]

i don't have to travel to every single corner of the universe to judge that harming other species without justification (e.g. as an act of self-defense to end an attack or threat) is morally bad. this is completely a universal truth and as auch out of question. if you actually do find it disputable in real life (and are not just trolling here for the lols and to practice arguing) then i'm very much sorry for you

But you would have to travel to every single corner of the universe to see if every species feels the same way about harming other species without justification. That's the point I'm trying to get across: If you grow up in a warrior culture, you're going to thinking fighting for no reason is cool. We have no idea what alien species would think, but the chance that every single sapient being on some backwater planet somewhere in the galaxy has the exact same moral compass is so low that it's not even worth considering.

You can't know if something is a universal truth until you know the universe. We only know the Earth and our neighborhood, and what light has reached us from further beyond.

And honestly, if anyone is trolling at this point, it's you.

i also don't see the content of stellaris being completely unique and not comparable with circumstances found on earth and in human societies. in fact, stellaris is merely an abstraction of the abundant and diverse life forms and especially human politics and ethics. as such, the developer was even more free to implement "bad taste mechanics" that are otherwise not being depicted in any other pdx title (slave market, genocidal extermination, civilian casualties on bombardment of the planet etc.)

Of course you can compare it with circumstances on Earth, because Earth is the only frame of reference we have. Maybe some slug people invented 'super genocide' on a world orbiting a star 5 seconds from being sucked into our galactic core. But I will say again: We are humans, evolved to be humans, living in a human society, looking through human eyes. We cannot superimpose our morals on something that has an impossible to understand way of thinking.

when you say that stellaris is about seeing the world from the eyes of its species, you're actually seeing through the eyes of humans following different world views and ideologies; and while relativism of certain cultural aspects is absolutely valid, there are too are universal values and thus objective truths on moral matters that are in the hierarchically above said relativist aspects

No, I'm seeing it through the eyes of the space station-dwelling mercantile goat people who don't value individual freedoms as much as a human might, due to how they evolved and how their society developed. I'm seeing it through the eyes of space orcs who beat the snot out of each other for breakfast, because that's how they evolved and how their society developed. I'm seeing it through the eyes of a murder machine who has it hardwired into it's core directive to murder all organic life, because that's how it evolved and how it developed.

There is no such thing as 'universal' except for the laws of the universe, because the circumstances any one being can be put through are so varied, complex, and random that there's no way of knowing what any one being can think is right or wrong.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

That's such a simplistic view of morality. How could it be "objective"? What's backing the objectivity?

normative science, especially jurisprudence

People who believe in a god can maybe say that, but even then, isn't "morality" just the opinion of their god?

The reality is, morality is entirely subjective. We, as individuals, have things what we, as individuals, value, and we make subjective moral judgement from that perspective. There's obviously a lot of overlap between different people, but that's us, having evolved in very similar environments - I see no reason why a species that took a very different evolutionary route from us would arrive at the same view of morality. And even then, unless you go to the very extreme ends of the potential opinions that one could hold, you will find dissenting opinions on pretty much any topic even among our very species. And you certainly do find a very different understanding of moral values and goods when you go back in history.

The only objective component in morality is that if we agree on a basis for our moral system, then we can evaluate how well certain behaviors align with that standard and then potentially classify them as "good" or "bad" behaviors within that moral system. But the standard for that moral system must still be agreed upon based on our subjective biases and preferences.

yeah, there are always some folks aiming for amoralism concealed as moral relativism because they would like to continue genocides, enslavement, land grabbing, displacement and all other sorts of atrocities

some of them would even issue their own declaration of human rights. but none of them matter because objective truth stays the way it is no matter how you look at it

btw.: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights (a milestone in the cultural development of the humanity, against all odds and counter-measures of the despotic ruling class in fear of losing power)

There is no such thing as 'universal' except for the laws of the universe, because the circumstances any one being can be put through are so varied, complex, and random that there's no way of knowing what any one being can think is right or wrong.

you have been given the privileged intellectual potential for contemplating the vastness of the universe. a shame if you choose not to make use of it

 

[Quinzal]

you have been given the privileged intellectual potential for contemplating the vastness of the universe. a shame if you choose not to make use of it

So now you're calling me stupid? Okay, two can play at that game.

The universe is a vast place with endless possibilities. While we haven't found any life or sapience outside of Earth and humanity yet, there are countless theorized ways that it could develop, be it silicate, mechanical, whatever.

Do you really think that, with the countless ways life and society could develop on other worlds...

normative science, especially jurisprudence

some of them would even issue their own declaration of human rights. but none of them matter because objective truth stays the way it is no matter how you look at it

btw.: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights (a milestone in the cultural development of the humanity, against all odds and counter-measures of the despotic ruling class in fear of losing power)

...they would develop the same human laws?

That's just being closed minded.

 

[methegrate]

normative science, especially jurisprudence

Normative science means one of two things: It can mean the study of how we test ideas, meaning fields such as logic and ethical studies. Or it can mean a process of scientific inquiry which presupposes a preferred outcome. For example, studying a drug treatment with the presupposed outcome that curing the patient is the best result.

Jurisprudence is a system of laws, not a science. Systems of laws vary widely between jurisdictions, even within the same country sometimes.

Neither of these fields establish objective morality. Normative science has nothing to do with morality, and jurisprudence is (at most) how a society expresses its moral preferences.

as i have already pointed out and even showed with the help of real-life examples, the dichotomy of the ethics currently present in stellaris is not applicable on the dichotomy of the objective good and the objective evil. the other way around though it, in fact, is. ingame actions can be objectively judged as evil or good (or neutral) even within the given system of governmental ethics

Dichotomies are divisions between two opposite things. Stellaris has 8+ ethics, not a dichotomy. That's kind of the entire point. The game doesn't present in-game actions as good or evil. They are, at most, presented as "materialistic" or "xenophobic." It's up to you, as the player, to decide if these actions meet your society's standards of morality.

But it really is fine if you'd prefer that the game have an objective measure for this. Personally I wouldn't like that, but there's no problem in wanting different things.

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

Dichotomies are divisions between two opposite things. Stellaris has 8+ ethics, not a dichotomy.

objectively wrong; stellaris haa got 4 dichotomies as ethics that are otherwise not interconnected

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Paradox wants to add religions and cults at some point. That's probably the closest you'll get to alignments since they'll undoubtedly add off-brand Jedi and Sith religious orders.

 

[The Bored Chairman]

I mean, there is a level of this already in the game, in the Factions, of all places.

If you have a Xenophobic faction, you can roll an Isolationist faction (if the pops involved are Xenos or your empire is more Pacifist-leaning), whereas if you're more Militant/Authoritarian, you get the Supremacy faction.

While I don't think we should have a morality system, per se, I do believe we should expand and add more political factions in this manner.

For instance, the AI archetypes "Democratic Crusaders" and "Evangelizing Zealots" already exist, why not extrapolate that into factions? A Spiritualist faction who wants you to declare Liberation Wars, especially on Materialist empires or Rival a Machine Empire. An Egalitarian Faction that supports conquering Authoritarian empires, in order to free slaves.

And maybe some new ones? Xenophile Militant faction that encourages having Defensive Pacts and diplomatically Vassalizing other empires, but disapproves of conquest wars. An Authoritarian Pacifist faction that values Diplomatic Weight and keeping galactic peace?

 

[Empire of Terra Nova]

I mean, there is a level of this already in the game, in the Factions, of all places.

If you have a Xenophobic faction, you can roll an Isolationist faction (if the pops involved are Xenos or your empire is more Pacifist-leaning), whereas if you're more Militant/Authoritarian, you get the Supremacy faction.

While I don't think we should have a morality system, per se, I do believe we should expand and add more political factions in this manner.

For instance, the AI archetypes "Democratic Crusaders" and "Evangelizing Zealots" already exist, why not extrapolate that into factions? A Spiritualist faction who wants you to declare Liberation Wars, especially on Materialist empires or Rival a Machine Empire. An Egalitarian Faction that supports conquering Authoritarian empires, in order to free slaves.

And maybe some new ones? Xenophile Militant faction that encourages having Defensive Pacts and diplomatically Vassalizing other empires, but disapproves of conquest wars. An Authoritarian Pacifist faction that values Diplomatic Weight and keeping galactic peace?

it would be awesome if the faction leaders would be able to make those demands as an ultimatum, like "declare liberation war on neighbouring empire/rival or the whole faction will strike" or "either release those systems you recently conquered as vassals or the planets where we've got a majority will declare independence"

especially factions of governing ethics would be able to turn one of their demands into an ultimatum

 

[methegrate]

objectively

I don't think that word means what you think it means.