Doing evil against the KOW
David Dunham points out that Malia plagues and tapping are major sins
according to great religions in Glorantha. I thought that was my point!
The argument that doing bad things against an enemy will make you just like
them was used in World War II, but the similarity between the modern Western
world and nazi Germany does not exactly leap to the eye. Th argument that the
Cold War would turn the West into an analogue of the Soviet system was a
commonplace (used frex in Blish's Okie future history) but it seems to have
been equally inaccurate.
My point is that tapping, for example, is forbidden to varying degrees by
Malkioni sects, on the basis of "things you love." Given the nature of the KOW,
can't you imagine a "dispensation" of some sort for use against them?
As for plagues, there seems to be no extant Gloranthan example of biological
warfare between humans (eleves and humans clearly do engage in biological
warfare of a sort against each other, or at the least ecological warfare).
Societies can do awful things if they fear annihilation. But that does not
mean that such things become commonplace. Gas warfare, common in WW I, was
not used in War II and has only been seen in a few places since 1918 (Iran-
being the most prominent). The use of a-bombs in 1945 did not lead to their
use afterwards, but rather to a half-century without them being used.
I want the moral tests imposed by fighting the KOW to be a bit more complex
than "if you do this you are just like them." Jim Chapin
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