Nightmen

[spolice88]

Okay. I know there are some fans of them and some people (like me) who hate everything that they stand for. However, given the situation and how clearly powerful the Nightmen really are,


Would you become a Nightman??


Would really you be able to take another innocent human life?

[Logan]

Nope.

I'm kind of against murder. :)

I would, however, kill an innocent for a Klondike Bar.

[Pewter Picaroon]

Not by choice. I wouldn't even want to become a Nightman. Though, maybe my thoughts would be different if I lived in a future world while under an alien attack. Killing someone wouldn't be my beef, but I just wouldn't want to be one.

[Colonel Young]

That is a good question. Their ability and the respect they demand is very appealing, but to murder someone is to steep a price to pay for admittance. It’s like saying your life is worth more than the person you have just murdered, and that is not our place to judge. As intriguing as the Nightmen are, and as alluring as they may seem I couldn’t sacrifice someone else’s life for such a hollow reason.

[Logan]

*summons the soul of Biff*

What's the matter, Colonel? Are you...... CHICKEN?

*bye bye Biff*

I love me some Back to the Future. :)

[spolice88]

well said colonel.

[spolice88]

*summons the soul of Biff*

What's the matter, Colonel? Are you...... CHICKEN?

*bye bye Biff*

I love me some Back to the Future. :)



ha ha. i think you have to be more of a man to resist the kind of power the Nightmen offer and to have enough of a conscious to not want to take another person's life to better your own. To not think that you have the right to play God. what about you logan. would you be one?

[spolice88]

*summons the soul of Biff*

What's the matter, Colonel? Are you...... CHICKEN?

*bye bye Biff*

I love me some Back to the Future. :)



ha ha. i think you have to be more of a man to resist the kind of power the Nightmen offer and to have enough of a conscious to not want to take another person's life to better your own. To not think that you have the right to play God. what about you logan. would you be one?

[Logan]

No, not that I know of. As a short answer, no, I couldn't kill a man just to be qualified as "awesome".

[spolice88]

good to know :)

[Colonel Young]

*summons the soul of Biff*

What's the matter, Colonel? Are you...... CHICKEN?

*bye bye Biff*

I love me some Back to the Future. :)

I much prefer to summon Lord Helmet...

What's a matter Colonel Sanders? CHICKEN?!

Ahhhh the wonders of Ludicrous speed.

[Pewter Picaroon]

May the Schwarts be with you

[spolice88]

oh for petes sake.

[Logan]

I'm a Mog. Half-man, half-dog. I'm my own best friend!

[spolice88]

hmm....i just thought of something. I wonder who the very first Nightman was? Do you think Thoor started it? Maybe he was a Nightman under another, different command first, then warped the system to what he thought was neccesary to become one when he got older?

[Logan]

Interesting thought. Maybe the Nightmen were almost a noble unit at one point until Thoor perverted them? That'd be interesting.

But from everything Lee has said, for whatever reason I doubt that we'll see a History of Eden book anytime soon. Shucks. :( I like the idea though.

[spolice88]

at this point i would just be satisfied with a book three!!

and thats exactly what I am saying!! it is completely possible that the nightmen were noble and a corner stone for eden, but thoor has corrupt it.

then again i could be wrong and the nightmen have always been and have always been evil.

[Betsy]

If had to take out someone like Osama bin Laden, yes, I would become a nightman.

[Logan]

Agreed, Betsy, but I think (I could be wrong of course) that the victim was typically "innocent". Meaning, not a convicted serial killer. Otherwise, I'd be all for the Nightmen!:D

[Pariah Deviant]

If had to take out someone like Osama bin Laden, yes, I would become a nightman.

NO AVATAR FOR YOU!

[Betsy]

Bite me.......

[spolice88]

i mean just in general. knowing the stakes and knwoing the cost, would you? keeping in mind though while they certainly seem to lack a specific humane feature, they do hold a lot of power.

[Scout07]

Interesting topic, but again, I'm not sure you would ever know until you were confronted with it. I think in general, we would all like to believe that we would be above killing an innocent human to advance our own goals, but in all reality, I think it would be difficult to turn it down.

Look at it this way. As you can tell, the Eden officers have no real power in Novosibirsk. Thoor makes sure that each unit has a strong contingent of Nightmen there, to make sure that the unit completes its mission to his satisfaction. Now, as an Eden soldier moving up the ranks, you see that even if you eventually get assigned your own unit, the Nighmen under your command are really going to be calling the shots. So, if given the opportunity, do you really say no to becoming one of them?

The allure of power tends to change everybody. Maybe not as drastically as commiting murder, maybe so. As I stated above, personally I would like to think that I would be above that, but I can honestly say that it would be a major struggle to turn it down. I just hope to God I am never put in that situation, so I never have to find out.

[spolice88]

nicely put scout. i never really thought about it in terms of resisting the temptation to further your goals. i think that just knowing what we do now about the nightmen, mainly the murder rule, i would have a hard time getting past it.

regardless if thoor is calling the shots (and pretending that i dont detest the man) i still wouldnt want to go down that slippery slope. while thoor may have control now, its only a matter of time before he crumbles and falls and while there may be other nightmen to step up at take his place, without thoor it would only be a matter of time before the nightmen fizzled out. i personally think that the reason a lot of the nightmen have remained nightmen is out of fear for thoor. cut off the head of a snake and the body is left writhing until it eventrually dies.

[Scout07]

When and if Thoor were to crumble, it would create a power vacuum at the top of the order. While you would see some in-fighting as everyone tried to carve out their own piece of power, someone would come along and fill the vacuum eventually. I think this would add to the attraction, because, in all honesty, who doesn't want to be at the top?

I better quit talking about this now, because I'm finding it very scary how easily I'm able to slip into that mentality. ;)

[spolice88]

potential nightman!!!! hahahahaha.

i do see what you mean though and that would just create much more panic and mayhem. again, leaving the snake writhing without a head.

[greenfire710]

Something about the Russian mentality that needs a strong leader. Its like a revitalized KGB or ALPHA's. I am only half thru Outlaw Trigger so I am not sure yet what game Thoor is playing, what keeps his men in line.

[spolice88]

keep reading. it gets sticky and maniacal and quite genius if i may say so. you will quickly find why i and some others do not like thoor. AT ALL.

[Colonel Young]

I'll save him a little time, Thoor kicked a puppy. Thats right he kicked a puppy. Oh and he isn't very eco friendly, he only drives an E85 vehicle and not full on electric car. Thoor is Global Warming.

[Logan]

Thoor is a Global Jerk.

[Scout07]

Thoor is my "Hero".

Get it? You see what I did there......with the new title......and......aww, never mind.

[spolice88]

that was cute. i liked that one.

and in a way you could say he kicked a puppy. though i think the whole car thing is a bit off. though i could easily picture him behind the wheel of a hummer.


and he is a Universal jerk. he is the absolute worst kind of person.

[spolice88]

if you could even call him a person i mean.

[Logan]

I think of Thoor more like M. Bison from Street Fighter. Evil and capable of lighting himself on fire and corkscrewing his body through the air.


Oh, man, Lee, you've got to have Thoor do that one day! And have Becan do a flash kick!!

[spolice88]

somehow i dont think that would quite fit the 'idea' of thoor. though creative.


i want to see becan go at it with thoor. THAT would be a fight worth seeing...or rather, reading....yeah.

[KrytMagnum]

The Murder Rule, Thoor, and the Nightmen seem to draw a few parallels with our own history, which in a way is also the books history.

When Hitler founded the SS, and began to train his elite force, each member was given a German Shepard puppy. This dog was the SS officers daily companion and responsibility, and as the Officer grew so did the dog. As a final order, upon graduation form SS school into the ranks of Hitler's elite Secret Service the Officer was given a Luger, his new sidearm, and his first order as a full officer. This order was simply to shot his dog in the head, as proof of his unending loyalty.

The idea of taking a life, in any capacity in order to further yourself seems hard to swallow, and ruthless, and surely both in the historical example I have provided, and the Murder Rule from the book are a very obvious examples of an evil. However when you find yourself ingrained into a society where these options are a reality how can you truly expect to know what your answer would be?

Also there is the idea of "innocences" and what that means, there could be a larger organism in action here. Who is to say those that are killed are truly innocent? Maybe they are picked targets by the council. Maybe they each have a sin or the potential to do great harm, so they are chosen to be removed.

Could you go back in time and kill Hitler as a child to avoid the horrors he would go on to commit? This is the same sort of question, and one that most people will have to stop and think about in order to answer. Say you intervene on the behalf of a broken down car at the roadside, and give assistance to the driver, helping him get his car started, allowing him to go back to work, where he kills 13 co-workers in a premeditated act he would not have been able to commit if you had just driven by. What is your responsibility in that event?

The Murder Rule also may simply be another way of looking at the concept of the: Greater Good. Is it better to kill one and save millions, or save one and allow millions to die? Again these are concepts that a normal person doesn't have to face.

Personally I would consider following the rule, and joining the Nightmen, and I will tell you why. EPIC outlines a world destroyed by war, in its final hours where either all will be lost, or won. As a solider in that situation I would opt to be the most ruthless, effective, and effiecent killer I could be. At that point I am not fighting to get my world back, and go back to my normal life, I am fighting monsters, so that those that follow me may have a better life. I would become that monster, to better battle those monsters set before me.

Total War. Become your enemy. Win.

[Scout07]

Kryt, I am not going to quote your post, cause it's just too dang long. But you raise some very valid points. To kill a monster, you often times must become a monster. (Serenity, anyone?)

However, as a Nightman, you would be expected to follow orders without, thought, without hesitation, and without dissent. After all, this is just part of being a "good" soldier, correct?

Could you blindly follow someone else's orders, even when you started to question whether or not it was truly the best way to combat the monster? I know I would have a problem with that aspect of it.

[spolice88]

i have a problem with the whole, kill one save millions idea. that works if the person they are klling was someone that if they died would benefit pretty much everyone, but come on! the nightmen are klling off people that to them are "nobodies". granted yes, thoor handpicked each one but to him they were still nobodies.

the problem with blindly following orders is that you lose your sense of right and wrong and your free will. think to the movie "a few good men". they lost their sense of right and wrong and followed orders, and they ended up recieving the ultimate punishment for them. i think the "to kill a monster you must become one" is taking it a step too far....now to kill a monster one must THINK like one is more agreeable. but then, we are talking about the nightmen here. kill first, ask questions never.

[Scout07]

the problem with blindly following orders is that you lose your sense of right and wrong and your free will. think to the movie "a few good men". they lost their sense of right and wrong and followed orders, and they ended up recieving the ultimate punishment for them. i think the "to kill a monster you must become one" is taking it a step too far....now to kill a monster one must THINK like one is more agreeable. but then, we are talking about the nightmen here. kill first, ask questions never.

I think that's the whole point of the murder rule though, isn't it? So that you lose that part of yourself that distinguishes between right and wrong.

As for becoming the monster, once you allow yourself to start thinking like one, you have already begun the transformation, at least as far as I'm concerned. I agree with this part, to fight, for lack of a better term, 'evil', you often have to do things that many others would not.

Do you have to become exactly like what you fight against? No, not necessarily. But once you begin thinking like them to beat them, you are already carrying a little bit of that taint around with you.

[KrytMagnum]

Just to continue to make my argument, let's consider the Atomic bombs dropped over Japan. They did many things, ushering in the nuclear age, ending World War 2, and starting the Cold War. Not all of these things are good, and not all of the uses of the technology are good either, nor is there really any good argument that the lose of life was acceptable.

However it had been theorized that had the Pacific Theatre continued on its path Japan wouldn't have surrendered with anything short of a full fledged assault on the islands. An Assault which would have seen many many more die. It has also been theorized that it would have taken efforts just shy of genocide to break Japan's warrior spirit. Now those are theories but they are theories that led to a decision in which a war was ended.

Snipers specialize in long distance killing. The Often are given targets they never know much more than a description and name of. They take a shot and eliminate whatever they are aiming for. This is true in both the military and the police force. Is it right to consider them monsters? Did the bank robber have family, kids to feed, a dog he loved? Was the leader of <insert country here> really they dictator, or just his pawn? Was he a body-double? How innocent is anybody? For that matter what about the enemy in the books? What is their story? Why are they fighting us? Did we break some truce? Are we on their land? Are they just the pawn of some larger organization?

A warrior forges him/herself in the heat of battle and training becoming an extension of his weapons, and learning how to kill as quickly as possible. That sounds like a monster in and of itself. Discipline is important as well, following orders when they are given no matter what, the reality is they guy at the top knows a bit more than the guy at the bottom, that is why they are on top. Thoor's motives in choosing victims may be based on outside intelligence, in 99 percent of those cases. Why do we hate him? He picked a target we knew, a target we cared about. Not only that he picked that target, specifically to force Remy into becoming a Nightman himself.

Thoor is like any other, on the top guy, he makes decisions based on a greater wealth of info than the common foot solider, and if they are the right decisions someone above him gets the credit, and if they are wrong he get's all the blame. His end motives may in fact(and i agree with you all) be evil, or he may just be trying to breed a certain type of solider, one that will not stop, will not tire, will not think. Humanity is his real victim, and to truly win you have to strip humanity from your thoughts. EG: Fat Man, and Little Boy.

Anyway, I still think if I was in a situation I would accept the orders, and lose that bit more. However I would also wonder about everyone I killed, man, woman, or alien. Is it right to kill the wolf that stalks your sheep? After all, the wolf is just hunting to eat.