Space Oppressors

[Primal Conundrum]

Not wanting to conquer and only fighting when provoked is fine- it's the fact that they'll just wipe out a civilization if they ARE provoked. Massive war that economically cripples them? That's one thing. You're basically describing an ethnic cleansing on an interplanetary scale, which I don't think ANY other civilization would stand for.

As far as it being an assassination attempt on a crown prince, then depending on alliances and loyalty divisions I could see that being the spark that set off an intergalactic version of world war one, but there would be supporters on both sides and it's wouldn't just be "yeah they got wiped out". Any prolonged battle on that scale would be economically devastating for all parties involved- also, I'll remind you that with assassination attempts against politically important figures, especially ones part of one of the larger powers in the region, those have historically been far more likely to be a lone agent / splinter group, or else the work of someone who fancies themselves a "freedom fighter" of some sort and are from the same nationality / region as their target.

If this was used as the catalyst for an all-out intergalactic war, then that's fine. As a reason for why a civilization was wiped out? Still not a sufficient explanation. The only way that the galactic community would just stand aside and let them wipe out a civilization that had been on par with the rest of them was if they were doing something that was a clear and immediate threat to ALL of the other galactic civilizations, not just a threat to the governing body of one of them.

[Sheikarah]

I see what you're saying...MUST FIX! Ummm...This is a lot harder than I originally thought it would be...Wait! I think I have the explanation! Maybe...Anyway, the civilization in question had attempted to invade and conquer a lot of the more powerful empires as well as some weaker ones before the assassination and was severely weakened by the time the Yuan-ti started the war. Let's also say they weren't completely wiped out but came very close through stealthy Yuan-ti operations that no one else in the war was aware of.

[HollywoodMole]

You really didn't need to change it, but if your happy with it then it's fine. The thing is, how would we know that the surrounding aliens would have the same logic as humans?

[Sheikarah]

This is true. What I was basically trying to get across about the Yuan-ti is that they are very powerful but don't really act much and other races actually fear them.

[Primal Conundrum]

Why do they need to effectively wipe them out? I'm just not clear on why that apparently NEEDS to happen. It's not necessary to do all that to illustrate the power of the race, it just generally feels like overkill.

If you want to establish them as being an elite fighting force when they DO go into combat, then go the route of the attempted assassination (likely a successful assassination if it was going to spark so much violence) triggering an space version of a world war. Factions on both sides, and the Yuan-ti, though perhaps not as large in number as some of the other races, generally hit like a scalpel in whatever battles they took part in- they would go in and with surgical precision eliminate their targets, take the strategic locations, and with the finesse of a surgeon carving out a tumor, they would neatly slice out any trace of opposing military activity.

Another thing to recall is that it's almost never the people who want war, it's the ones in power- and they need to get the propaganda machines up and running to make the people have any desire to go out and kill. Knowing that, if the Yuan-ti went after their enemy's ability to disseminate propaganda, they could cause them to lose the support of their population, meaning no new soldiers joining by choice, and a soldier that's been drafted won't fight as well. Effectively, turning their own population against them.

There's no need to destroy that which you can turn to your advantage. Wiping out a civilization is a needless use of energy when you can use one half of that civilization to help wipe out the half that's actually causing problems.

[Sheikarah]

That...Is actually one of the smartest tactics I have ever heard of in my life. Okay, the Yuan-ti did that ^ in the war.

[Primal Conundrum]

Oh, if you guys would like, I could write some lore on the Humans. Dunno if you already had plans for them, but I have some ideas.

[HollywoodMole]

I have a basic idea, but your's could be interesting, do tell.

[Primal Conundrum]

See, now it's not just the Yuan-ti being intergalactic dickwads, there was a legitimate military campaign that they fought in alongside other groups. They don't look like titanic assholes, and the only ones more afraid of their military than their enemies are the ones who fought alongside them as their allies and saw how effective they were. All the reputation, none of the logic loopholes, and none of the amoral genocide! Everyone wins!

Except for the warmongers who used to be in power on the other side. I imagine they lost pretty hard.

This could work well though, it would provide the large military conflict that I need for my own character's background.

[HollywoodMole]

I don't really understand what you just said... like either it was worded weirdly or it didn't have enough depth for me to understand.

[Primal Conundrum]

Basically, I'm thinking that the Humans, while not necessarily the most technologically advanced race, have proven to be really good at exploring and adapting, and as such can be found in pretty much every corner of known space. Although one of the relatively newer races on the galactic scene, they've spread at a prodigious rate.

Of course, they kind of had to, ever since they blew up their homeworld. Now there's just a second asteroid belt in the Sol system.

One thing that the alien races quickly noticed about the humans is that they generally just seemed to be quicker to band together and draw swords than some of the other races- let's face it, humanity has a military history that runs VERY deep. Once humanity didn't have a homeworld to call their own anymore, they also didn't have the same territorial borders that they had fought over for thousands of years. As such, as new factions emerged, they were divided by ideas and principles and goals rather than by region, in most cases. This has resulted in everything from 'nations' of artists of various types, to other 'nations' of soldiers, hedonists, white supremacists, pretty much anything. The aliens, seeing this divisive nature (along with the human's readiness to violently defend their ideologies) wound up coming up with their own name for the humans. Though the pronunciation and exact words vary from species to species, translated into english the humans are frequently referred to as "The War Cults", or "Cultists" as an individual. It's become a blanket term to the point where even those humans not affiliated with such a faction are often referred to as Cultists.

Due to the rate at which the humans spread and made names for themselves, there is quite a lot of power in the collective hands of humanity. However, the divisions between factions have only deepened since Earth was destroyed ('Spacefall', as they generally refer to it) and so the odds of them ever banding together are effectively null. That's probably a good thing, since by now humans could be said to have the largest fleet in the galaxy, if not the most technologically advanced- the key phrase being that they COULD be said, because this fleet will never act as a single fleet.

[HollywoodMole]

I'm really not sure about my opinions on this... like, what I was going for in my initial plans was the same thing I said about fifteen times plus the word greedy....

[Sheikarah]

That sounds amazingly human, I love it!

[Primal Conundrum]

Hey if you don't want to use it, don't use it. Just tossing out an idea, you're the one making the RP so it's ultimately up to you.

[HollywoodMole]

Well, I pretty much had the same general idea except, The beginning story "Arc I suppose" would be different, Earth wouldn't be destroyed and almost every race got owned.

[Sheikarah]

Hmmm...I think that maybe a mixture of your ideas would be cool. For instance, Earth didn't get destroyed but humans don't own everybody.

[Primal Conundrum]

I just can't picture Humanity stepping out into space and kicking the shit out of everyone else. We're violent when we have something to stand up for, yes, but we also got to where we are by knowing how to pick our battles and by not rushing in to combat against potentially superior foes. Along with that, our media has been quite interested in the idea of advanced aliens for far, far too long for us to be widely comfortable with starting battles with aliens as one of the first things we do. I think most of humanity would try to approach the aliens peacefully.

I think a mix probably sounds good, as Sheik said.

[HollywoodMole]

... Seriously? The worlds governments can barely keep from destroying our own world, whether civilians would be dicks or not it wouldn't matter. The only reason I want that particular addition is because it adds a small more bit of criminal to the group if we have aliens on board.

[Primal Conundrum]

I don't think that having a mixed species crew in and of itself needs to be a stand-out thing. We risk destroying our own world because we're fighting each other, but honestly if we still had Earth and we encountered a potentially hostile alien race? Well, nothing makes humans put aside their arguments and band together like an outside threat.

Actually, another idea-

Could be that Humans were just starting to set up colonies on other planets in our solar system when the Yuan-ti war started, and unknown to us our system was more or less in the crossfire. An alien warship stopped in our system to do repairs, and they reacted with hostility when they found that there was curious life in this system. What they didn't expect was for the hugely outgunned Humans to end up working together to fight them, eventually taking the warship for themselves and killing the creatures that had "invaded" the Sol system. The technology from the alien craft catapulted human technology forward by a few generations in some fields (especially in regards to ftl travel) and so Humans set out into space, intent on heading off this threat before it could attack again.

They were a bit surprised when they found out that they had taken out a warship from the losing side of an intergalactic war, and in doing so earned the respect and allegiance of the side that wound up winning, along with the enmity of all those on the side that lost.

This sets up the humans as the fairly scrappy new kids on the block, that the other races don't really have a clear idea of yet. After all, they were just poking around with interplanetary flight until they took out a HIGHLY ADVANCED WARSHIP using highly outclassed ballistic weapons and chemical rockets, and that launched them forward into intergalactic flight and energy weapons.

[Sheikarah]

I agree with Primal. Humans are violent by nature but if they went a more diplomatic route while building up their military prowess they could gain control of a good sized chunk of space. There are a lot of world governments that have gone the route of peace because they realize the cost (Canada) or other reasons. If humanity was united, I think there would be enough smart people to realize trying to take over as soon as they got there would be a very bad idea.