The Chaos - Order Meta-battle for CN

[Hymenbreach]

Probably not the first person to think of this, but think of it I did.

It has become clear that there is a larger battle for the souls of citizens of this war torn planetoid. One one hand we have those forces or Order who want laws to be followed, respect to be shown, etc. On the other hand we have the forces of Chaos, who are all about personal freedom, showing no respect, etc.

When the NPO was in charge it can be said that the pendulum had been swung too far to the Order side of the equation and people felt stifled. Now that we have a free for all, I believe we've gone to far to the chaotic side of things.

Will we ever reach a median state, where people have enough sense of personal freedom while respecting traditins and laws or will we always have this conflict?

Note, Chaos and Order (for want of better terms) have nothing to do with good and evil. There are both on each side.

[Banksy]

Good to see that you start the debate off with such a neutral premise

There is never really a 'median.' The situation you describe is based off of our perception of the state of Bob. It's who we see as being in control. Control is derived from warfare, you must win dominance through means of force. When you win a war, you exert your control (or rather, people perceive that you control) over Bob until the next war. Regardless of whoever became the strongest in the interim, the victor in the last major conflict is still perceived to be in control. For example, in Karma, the hegemony was the statistically weaker side for much of 2009 (although that did not become apparent until the war actually started) and yet they still dominated the political scene.

It would therefore be difficult for the median that you describe to come about.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Banksy

[Vilien]

Order is overrated.

[Aeternos Astramora]

If there was ever a balance between Order and Chaos, war would ensue to see which one would dominate.

[Tautology]

[quote name='Hymenbreach' date='16 May 2010 - 11:38 AM' timestamp='1274006268' post='2299688']
...
It has become clear that there is a larger battle for the souls of citizens of this war torn planetoid.
...[/quote]
I don't see this at all. The souls of which citizens?

I see a small handful of people acting either according to the institutionalist (order) or the libertarian (freedom) viewpoint while the majority owe their loyalty much more to their alliance, its allies, and their friends than they do to any vague philosophy. I'd go further and guess that even most regular OWF readers/contributors (a relatively small part of the whole) have much higher CN priorities than capturing or saving the souls of Planet Bob.

Still, it's always good sport to watch evangelists trying to evangelize each other.

[Cortath]

Pacificans have never fought for souls. Only for babies.

[Sandwich Controversy]

the happy medium will only be achieved upon the reinstatement of the sectumsempra accords

[Alfred von Tirpitz]

To be lawful implies that there are laws. To behavior. Out here, there are just a handful of laws as laid down by the creator of this realm. In that sense, all that inhabit this realm are orderly. For chaotic behavior would result in smiting of the disorderly.

Now within this framework of being orderly, there might be a few that deem themselves to be bucking the trend or sticking it to the man. Or are deemed to be doing that by others. And then there are those that deem themselves to be the keepers of sanity and reducers of entropy. Or are deemed to be so by others.

For the person holding the biggest stick, it is in their best interests that the verse be orderly in their own proximity. However it is also in their best interests that the verse be in a state of chaos, increasingly so, the further away one gets from the stick wielder. Or at the very least, there be a perception of said order and chaos.

Sometimes, control is mistaken for order. A strong alliance or a bloc might exert control over the verse, it however does not create an orderly situation. All it does is project force and control. Its power is a deterrent, it is a means to keep the hounds at bay. That is all it is. By being swift in retribution for actions it has declared to be unacceptable, it is effective in safeguarding its own interests. It is not maintaining order, it is merely crushing opposition.

For those opposed to the powerful entity, it is not order. It is merely oppression. To them order would mean being able to chart their own course without being hampered by a hegemonic entity. To them that would be a true test of an orderly society. Of course, for these people, the way to get to a point where they can go about their business unhampered and unmolested, they have to be able to project an equal if not greater force than the current hegemony. The way to do that would be to organize.

So if for the sake of argument, we take the actions of the hegemony to be promoting order, we also then must take the actions of the underdogs to be promoting order. If one organizes to overcome one's adversary, one is not being chaotic, one is being orderly. So then, order is countered by order. Not by Chaos.

There is an inherent wariness among the denizens of this verse regarding chaos. Chaos would not be beneficial to anyone. There would be no protection, no method and indeed no reason to do anything. There would be nothing but a lot of none around. The primal goo as it were. It existed once, but the world quickly found a way to create order, and it shall forever be omnipresent.



Note: in the above, the references to hegemony and similar are not references to "The Hegemony" of Karma War fame, it is just a concept.

[Ashoka the Great]

Order? Chaos? Does it really matter? The world will keep turning, and the Legion will drift to whichever side is losing.

[Alfred von Tirpitz]

That too, Zog, is order. It is a pattern.

[Bob Janova]

The simple answer is 'no', because some people like more order than others, and at any median point, some people will be complaining about feeling restricted, and some will be complaining about people not following the rules. Even now when we're pretty far towards the 'chaotic' end, you had people complaining when they got called out for raiding alliances, and you also had people complaining that nobody really stopped the first people.

[Roadtest]

I kinda like this chaos thing. Keeps it interesting

[AnCapistan]

What laws?

[Omniscient1]

I would disagree considering alliances like VE (who are anti-raid and pretty much moralist) worked during Karma to bring down NPO. Where do you put these alliances? I don't think Karma was realy a battle of Order vs. Chaos.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Omniscient1

[KainIIIC]

[quote name='Omniscient1' date='17 May 2010 - 06:17 PM' timestamp='1274138215' post='2301614']
I would disagree considering alliances like VE (who are anti-raid and pretty much moralist) worked during Karma to bring down NPO. Where do you put these alliances? I don't think Karma was realy a battle of Order vs. Chaos.
[/quote]

If this Chaos-Order dichotomy is what we're using, I'd say NPO and VE are both order-oriented; SF tends toward 'order', while C&G towards Chaos (Athens, FoB, links to PC & GOONS, even MK to an extent). Again, if this dichotomy were to be used, most of the world would tend toward order, except for that the main agents of Chaos currently have powerful friends to prevent them from getting rolled.

[eyriq]

Citadel was that balance. She is now dead, sadly.

edited in a comma. It was bugging me

Edited May 18, 2010 by eyriq

[ktarthan]

I take a bit of issue with the OP associating order with respect, and chaos with lack of respect. By more strict definitions of the word, that is more or less true - a chaotic individual does not care about the concept of respect - but within the context of this world, you have to look for quite a while before you find true "chaos".

Simply assembling under a specific AA shows order. A charter shows order. Government structure shows order. Any sort of inner/inter-alliance guidelines shows order. Simply put, an alliance can not operate under chaos, and alliances are what dictate the political climate of this world.

Chaos? That's what a rogue does. A true rogue. Not just a single nation with a vendetta against some alliance, but someone who goes balls-out against anyone they feel like, for whatever reason.

So what I am curious about is what you specifically mean here by "chaos". What are some specific instances of "chaos"?

[Lincongrad]

[quote name='Ashoka the Great' date='16 May 2010 - 01:27 PM' timestamp='1274041635' post='2300214']
Order? Chaos? Does it really matter? The world will keep turning, and the Legion will drift to whichever side is losing.
[/quote]

It's funny cause it's true.

[Bill Wallace]

[quote name='Omniscient1' date='17 May 2010 - 06:17 PM' timestamp='1274138215' post='2301614']
I would disagree considering alliances like VE (who are anti-raid and pretty much moralist) worked during Karma to bring down NPO. Where do you put these alliances? I don't think Karma was realy a battle of Order vs. Chaos.
[/quote]

I cringe every time I see someone place the "moralist" tag on VE. Yes, we have a policy that our members cannot raid and it is true that some within our ranks are vocal about their distaste for raiding. But then there's a lot of us, including myself, who could care less what other alliances do and feel it's not our place to interfere with the inter-workings and policies of other alliances.

Personally, I've always enjoyed watching others kick over trashcans and rattle cages for the sake of creating a little chaos.

[commander thrawn]

[quote name='Mr Damsky' date='17 May 2010 - 11:39 PM' timestamp='1274135928' post='2301560']
What laws?
[/quote]


There are certainly no moralistic laws. But there is common law (created by the past) and a general acceptance of the idea that "treaties should be followed" thus there are laws, created by nations and alliances and enforced when possible.

[Schad]

It really comes down to word versus deed. NPO et al might have espoused certain ordering principles, but the means by which they enforced them created instability...former allies were rolled, PZI sentences were handed down, hippies were punched. Conversely, while the current power sphere might be in word more chaotic, with the exception of two high-profile screw-ups -- the Ni! and FoA mass-raids -- things have been relatively stable and, dare I say, quiet. Post-Karma there has been only one war of any real significance, and it wasn't instigated by the supposed sowers of chaos.

And to piggyback Eyriq, I do think that the web as currently constituted misses not only Citadel, but the Frostbite sphere (though it remains intact to a larger extent than Citadel), as they served as counterbalances; with both spheres having ties to either side of the web, any excesses by one side had the potential to swing the balance against them, and there existed the potential for wars that didn't necessarily fall upon the neat ex-Heg vs. Supercomplaints lines.

[Ashoka the Great]

[quote name='Lincongrad' date='18 May 2010 - 04:33 PM' timestamp='1274214776' post='2302383']
It's funny cause it's true.[/quote]

I [u]am[/u] an ex-Legionnaire, after all.

[Mixoux]

There could never be a median, because it's not some two-sided 'Chaos camp' vs 'Order camp'. There's a ridiculously large spectrum between the two, and no single definition for either term in CN to decide which is considered which.

I suppose you could say that it can trend toward one certain side but that's about it. As of 2010, I guess you would say things are more towards Chaos than Order.

[Omniscient1]

[quote name='KainIIIC' date='18 May 2010 - 12:46 AM' timestamp='1274139955' post='2301656']
If this Chaos-Order dichotomy is what we're using, I'd say NPO and VE are both order-oriented; SF tends toward 'order', while C&G towards Chaos (Athens, FoB, links to PC & GOONS, even MK to an extent). Again, if this dichotomy were to be used, most of the world would tend toward order, except for that the main agents of Chaos currently have powerful friends to prevent them from getting rolled.
[/quote]

I am glad you agree with me

[ktarthan]

[quote name='Mixoux' date='19 May 2010 - 03:32 PM' timestamp='1274308314' post='2303782']
There could never be a median, because it's not some two-sided 'Chaos camp' vs 'Order camp'. There's a ridiculously large spectrum between the two, and no single definition for either term in CN to decide which is considered which.

I suppose you could say that it can trend toward one certain side but that's about it. As of 2010, I guess you would say things are more towards Chaos than Order.
[/quote]
Is this what trending towards chaos looks like here? Looks like we're going to have to try and trend harder.