2,164 replies to this topic

[AceRay]

WWII was pretty morally unambiguous for the most part, at least compared to pretty much any other war. Nazis were clearly the bad guys considering they were committing genocide and the Allied were quite clearly the good guys for stopping it and wanting to free people, not sure you can really argue that unless you're a Nazi yourself. WWI by comparison was far more ambiguous, you could argue that Germany were more or less capitalizing on the assassination by trying to take new land after being f*cked over by British and France a few times when it came to amassing armies, like that thing in Morocco. Really the Serbs started it when they assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Germany could be seen as simply backing up her ally Austria Hungary. Sure, you can get into the whys and the origins of Nazi Germany and argue that the Treaty of Versailles was the beginning of it all, but that doesn't excuse Nazi Germany or make the actual war any less good vs bad.

 

Not too sure about Cold War though.

[Osric]

WWII was pretty morally unambiguous for the most part, at least compared to pretty much any other war. Nazis were clearly the bad guys considering they were committing genocide and the Allied were quite clearly the good guys for stopping it and wanting to free people, not sure you can really argue that unless you're a Nazi yourself. WWI by comparison was far more ambiguous, you could argue that Germany were more or less capitalizing on the assassination by trying to take new land after being f*cked over by British and France a few times when it came to amassing armies, like that thing in Morocco. Really the Serbs started it when they assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Germany could be seen as simply backing up her ally Austria Hungary. Sure, you can get into the whys and the origins of Nazi Germany and argue that the Treaty of Versailles was the beginning of it all, but that doesn't excuse Nazi Germany or make the actual war any less good vs bad.

 

Not too sure about Cold War though.

I agree that the Nazis were terrible, and WWII was morally unambiguous, what I am saying is that World War I was morally ambiguous compared to World War II.

[AceRay]

 

WWII was pretty morally unambiguous for the most part, at least compared to pretty much any other war. Nazis were clearly the bad guys considering they were committing genocide and the Allied were quite clearly the good guys for stopping it and wanting to free people, not sure you can really argue that unless you're a Nazi yourself. WWI by comparison was far more ambiguous, you could argue that Germany were more or less capitalizing on the assassination by trying to take new land after being f*cked over by British and France a few times when it came to amassing armies, like that thing in Morocco. Really the Serbs started it when they assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Germany could be seen as simply backing up her ally Austria Hungary. Sure, you can get into the whys and the origins of Nazi Germany and argue that the Treaty of Versailles was the beginning of it all, but that doesn't excuse Nazi Germany or make the actual war any less good vs bad.

 

Not too sure about Cold War though.

I agree that the Nazis were terrible, and WWII was morally unambiguous, what I am saying is that World War I was morally ambiguous compared to World War II.

 

Yeah, that's what I said. I agree with you here.

[Osric]

 

 

WWII was pretty morally unambiguous for the most part, at least compared to pretty much any other war. Nazis were clearly the bad guys considering they were committing genocide and the Allied were quite clearly the good guys for stopping it and wanting to free people, not sure you can really argue that unless you're a Nazi yourself. WWI by comparison was far more ambiguous, you could argue that Germany were more or less capitalizing on the assassination by trying to take new land after being f*cked over by British and France a few times when it came to amassing armies, like that thing in Morocco. Really the Serbs started it when they assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Germany could be seen as simply backing up her ally Austria Hungary. Sure, you can get into the whys and the origins of Nazi Germany and argue that the Treaty of Versailles was the beginning of it all, but that doesn't excuse Nazi Germany or make the actual war any less good vs bad.

 

Not too sure about Cold War though.

I agree that the Nazis were terrible, and WWII was morally unambiguous, what I am saying is that World War I was morally ambiguous compared to World War II.

 

Yeah, that's what I said. I agree with you here.

 

Oh, ok

[Mokrie Dela]

IIRC isnt "The Eagle has Landed" following the Nazis as protagonists?

That's what you don't see - a story where the Nazis are the "good" guys - sure the holocaust is in no way good, but think about it - the foot troops, were they bad people? No, they just followed a regime like everyone else.

So a story that follows a young german soldier could, in theory, show the nazis as "good"

How many english films/books follow a german soldier in WWI? Or a Russian in the cold war (i tried this with Nikolay's Nightmare but that wasnt popular haha)

[Omnia sunt Communia]

Don't get me wrong, I hate fascism with a passion. What I don't understand is that if the Allies went to war with Germany to fight fascism, why were they actively supporting fascism during the Spanish Civil War? If they were going into war to prevent genocide, why were they committing genocide in their own colonies and their own concentration camps (don't forget that the British invented concentration camps!)?

 

I don't think it is as cut and dry as "Allies = Good", "Nazis = Bad". WWII wasn't a ideological war, it wasn't about "fascism vs freedom" or even "fascism vs bourgeois demoracy". It wasn't many years later that the Allies were installing fascist dictators in Chile, plus they never did anything about the dictatorship of Franco Franscisco in Spain (whom they helped bring to power). He was able to rule Spain with an Iron Fist until his death in 1970.

 

I consider WWII an imperlialist war, plain and simple.

[AceRay]

Don't get me wrong, I hate fascism with a passion. What I don't understand is that if the Allies went to war with Germany to fight fascism, why were they actively supporting fascism during the Spanish Civil War? If they were going into war to prevent genocide, why were they committing genocide in their own colonies and their own concentration camps (don't forget that the British invented concentration camps!)?

 

I don't think it is as cut and dry as "Allies = Good", "Nazis = Bad". WWII wasn't a ideological war, it wasn't about "fascism vs freedom" or even "fascism vs bourgeois demoracy". It wasn't many years later that the Allies were installing fascist dictators in Chile, plus they never did anything about the dictatorship of Franco Franscisco in Spain (whom they helped bring to power). He was able to rule Spain with an Iron Fist until his death in 1970.

 

I consider WWII an imperlialist war, plain and simple.

Well, you're looking far broader than just WWII. If you look at it purely from 1939 -1945, then its pretty clear that the Nazis had to be stopped. Its been a while since I looked up my WW2 history, but wasn't it Hitler and Mussolini who supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War? Spain was more or less neutral for the whole period of history. And didn't the British also give administrative control back to her colonies in the later few years?

A better term might be grey and black to describe the Allies and Nazis respectively. I'd say WW1 was far more of an imperialist war than 2.

While not everyone in Nazi Germany were bad and many people were just following orders, as Mokrie points out, the fact is that the administrators were intent on being evil and were doing some pretty bad things, and as a whole the country was pretty nutty and power hungry. The war between Nazi Germany and Socialist Russia would be a pretty grey example, maybe even evil committed on both sides far greater than the British side.

[Omnia sunt Communia]

We cannot simply view World War II as an isolated event though. There were many factors that lead to and effected the decision to go to war. While I believe that a good majority of the soldiers fighting on the frontline were doing so out of some sense of moral duty (and rightly so), I believe that those in power at the time had alternative agenda that reached beyond simply stopping the Nazis because they were evil.

 

Persecution of the Jews in Germany began well before 1939 but the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe sat on their hands until Germany invaded Poland. I believe that the UK and France fought in WWII to protect their empires which were being threatened by the advancement of Germany, Italy and later Japan (who were the main targets of the Americans).

 

During the Spanish Civil War Britain in-directly supported the Nationalists (led by Franco Fransisco) although they had officially signed up to a Non-Intervention Pact along with France, Italy and the USSR. They refused to send arms to the Republicans and allowed the Nationalists to set up an air base on Gilbraltar (a UK colony) and let the Germans fly through their airspace during the airlift of the Army of Africa to Seville to assist the Nationalist forces.

 

Meanwhile the United States prevented several companies from trading with the Nationalists. While they also banned arms exports to Spain, they failed to ban exports to Germany and Italy who were at the time supplying the Nationalists with weapons. Ford, Studebaker and General Motors all supplied trucks to the Nationalists. After the war was over, José Maria Doussinague, who was at the time undersecretary at the Spanish Foreign Ministry said, "without American petroleum and American trucks, and American credit, we could never have won the Civil War."

 

The United States and Britain were afraid of worker's power taking hold in Spain, which is what happened for a brief period in the anarchist controlled terroritories. But the bourgeois powers fought to undermine the gains of the revolution and reinstate themselves as the only legitimate power. The same formula has been played out again and again over the course of history. That is why they installed General Pincohet in Chile, and that is why funded the Contras in Nicaragua.

 

I'm not trying to say that the Nazis are the good guys, or "just misunderstood", I'm just saying that in a war between imperialist powers there is never a good guy. Both sides had their own reasons for going to way and all of them had the reason they told to their populations. Bourgeois governments fight in the interests of capitalism and will continue to do so until they are overthrown by the people themselves.

 

[/rant]

[BrownBear]

WWII was pretty morally unambiguous for the most part, at least compared to pretty much any other war. Nazis were clearly the bad guys considering they were committing genocide and the Allied were quite clearly the good guys for stopping it and wanting to free people, not sure you can really argue that unless you're a Nazi yourself. WWI by comparison was far more ambiguous, you could argue that Germany were more or less capitalizing on the assassination by trying to take new land after being f*cked over by British and France a few times when it came to amassing armies, like that thing in Morocco. Really the Serbs started it when they assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Germany could be seen as simply backing up her ally Austria Hungary. Sure, you can get into the whys and the origins of Nazi Germany and argue that the Treaty of Versailles was the beginning of it all, but that doesn't excuse Nazi Germany or make the actual war any less good vs bad.

 

Not too sure about Cold War though.

War is never as simple as good and bad, many allied nations never had hang ups about genocide previous to the war and their actions in the war lean towards this. Of course, the actions of the Nazi party was on a completely different scale, but Russias treatment of  civilians (2 million women raped), the bombing of several cities (Dresden, Hiroshima etc.) and general treatment of POWs shows that there were no good guys in that horrific war.

[MacAshford]

Gonna be uploading the first episode of my big project week, getting pretty far into it now

[Ziggy455]

World War I has never been overlooked in public fiction. Contrary to popular belief, there's plenty of work centralised around it. However, it's very overshadowed by World War II. Moral ambiguity doesn't mean anything because there's plenty of fiction that focuses on it. There's more to story-telling than the proverbial fight of good and evil. Sometimes, moral ambiguity is a big key of fiction. 

[BrownBear]

World War I has never been overlooked in public fiction. Contrary to popular belief, there's plenty of work centralised around it. However, it's very overshadowed by World War II. Moral ambiguity doesn't mean anything because there's plenty of fiction that focuses on it. There's more to story-telling than the proverbial fight of good and evil. Sometimes, moral ambiguity is a big key of fiction. 

I think WW2 just has a more heroic image, there was paratroopers going deep behind enemy lines and SAS squads blowing up bridge etc.

Whereas WW1 was just an industrial slaughter, people sitting in festering trenches waiting to die. WW1 really was one of the worst in history; it was essentially a group of old men send millions of young men into huge muddy fields and testing new weapons and tactics on them.

[Ziggy455]

 

World War I has never been overlooked in public fiction. Contrary to popular belief, there's plenty of work centralised around it. However, it's very overshadowed by World War II. Moral ambiguity doesn't mean anything because there's plenty of fiction that focuses on it. There's more to story-telling than the proverbial fight of good and evil. Sometimes, moral ambiguity is a big key of fiction. 

I think WW2 just has a more heroic image, there was paratroopers going deep behind enemy lines and SAS squads blowing up bridge etc.

Whereas WW1 was just an industrial slaughter, people sitting in festering trenches waiting to die. WW1 really was one of the worst in history; it was essentially a group of old men send millions of young men into huge muddy fields and testing new weapons and tactics on them.

 

 

That I can agree with. There's so many heroic renditions of the fall of Berlin, to the destruction and eradication of the Nazis through Poland and France. However, there was a lot of death behind the heroic visage of WWII. I can agree about War World I though. Half the time the soldiers never died from direct contact. It was normally from horrific living conditions all the way to the toxic gas that made the poor soldiers puke up blood. WWI was not a war of action, but of eventual, slow degradation with no possible good outcome thanks to the millions of deaths. WWI was not a necessity like WWII. And even then, that necessity wasn't needed to an extent.

[Mokrie Dela]

So let me talk motivation a little.

Recently I've lost motivation to write. It feels like, no matter what I write, it's sh*t. I'm saying what I want to, painting the scene how I want, but it just feels.... well, crap. Perhaps it's because I look back with rose tinted glasses on COL and JIF, and feel they're hard acts to follow, or perhaps, as Ziggs said, and much like my entire left leg, that muscle's wasted away to nothing.

I'm considering putting Fallout on hiatus and working on something else, something different (AC, or my western story), but I'm reluctant to do that, even temporarily, as it's almost like giving up.

I feel semi-confident in my ability to critique others works, I see some things doing that, and try to take what I've learned from people critiquing my works, but when it comes to editing my own story, I just can't do it....

[Vercetti42]

Same here Mokrie. My urge to write has gone recently, sure there are spells where I haven't written anything but this is a period where I don't feel like writing anything. I don't know what to do, I have no interest whatsoever in writing at the moment.

 

There simply just isn't motivation. Usually I try to form thoughts in my head about stories but I just don't get them. I don't know if it's because I'm much more into Music and movies lately but if I had the motivation, I'd have probably posted in BUYS by now but I just don't feel like it.

 

At the moment, I hate to say it but writing seems like a boring task for me. I don't think I'm depressed since I am not sad or anything but I just can't write at the moment.

[Mokrie Dela]

Well i feel like writing, but when i try it feels like i'm writing crap. I look at what I've got and think "this is crap."
I've proof read and edited the f*ck out of it, so I think my brain has just lost whatever was there to begin with. I tried so hard to make is great, I think I've just made it tripe. I look at it and think "I've worked so hard, and it's still crap, whats the point in bothering?"

[Osric]

I'm gonna make my next post in BUYS tonight, and I've finally figured out how to do a Build Up Your Army 2. Rather than do a fictional World War III like the original or a World War I-themed idea to tie in with the WWI centennial, I decided to take a more direct and intriguing historical approach: The Cold War.

 

The Cold War was a very long and intriguing era of military history, and there's a lot of interesting weapons, vehicles, ships, and aircraft to be seen on all sides. It'd be somewhat turn-based, starting in the 1950's, then progressing to the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, and possibly the 90's, 2000's, and 2010's. Build Up Your Army 2 would be intertwined, and as the game progresses and nations go their different ways and develop different doctrines (think skills from BUYS, but on a faction level), the outcome can diverge from history. So, it is theoretically possible that with a skilled player playing as the Soviet Union can keep the Cold War going after 1991.

 

As the eras progress, so do the weapons and vehicles list. At the beginning of the game in the 50's, you'll mostly see weapons used during World War II, the Korean War, and the Suez Crisis. Then in the 60's comes Vietnam-era weapons like the M16 rifle,  the Patton Tank, and the Iroquois Helicopter, the 70's and 80's sees a lot of European NATO weaponry and weapons seen in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan like the AK-74, Stinger Missile Launcher, MiG-29,  and T80 Tank. If the game goes into the 90's and 2000's, you may see UAV's, Predator drones, and other advancements available for purchase.

 

The two definite playable armies at the launch of the game would be the United States and Soviet Union.

 

Other possible playable armies at the beginning could include the United Kingdom, France, Maoist China, and the two Koreas.

 

Later on if more people are interested, you could see the inclusion of West Germany and East Germany, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Japan, Vietnam, Israel, and the Arab nations.

 

Guerilla groups like the Viet Cong, PLO, Mujahedeen, and Contras may possibly be included later on, if I am sure they do not cause offense. These groups are extremely controversial, but played major roles in the Cold War politics and tactics.

[Mokrie Dela]

I'd be careful about having multiple community "games". As said before, this is not a busy section, so such undertakings will be sporadic with posts at best. I'm sure to begin with they'll be busy but look at every other attempt - they have all fizzled out, because people do get bored. People do move on.

I for one have the following choice: My "writing time" - shall i spend that in this topic, playing this game, or work on my own story? I think i will chose the latter 8/10 times tbh.

Launching another one now, i think, will just be too much. By all means, go for it, just do so with the knowledge that with a forum as quiet as this, it might not truly take off.

[arch stanton]

I'm about the write up my next piece for BUYS - just to let all you guys know.

[Osric]

See, I'm not going to post Build Up Your Army until well after Build Up Your Survivor is already waning, which won't be for some time. So, don't expect BUYA 2 for at least a few months or possibly even a year if BUYS is successful enough.

[Mokrie Dela]

Fair enough osric
Best of luck anyway

[Ziggy455]

It's not my writing content that I second guess, it is my ability to create characters that seem believable. I guess in some ways that's kind of second guessing myself as a writer but with enough reading and writing and ploughing ahead, I'm sure those kind of insecurities will filter out.

[Loch Dawg]

See, I'm not going to post Build Up Your Army until well after Build Up Your Survivor is already waning, which won't be for some time. So, don't expect BUYA 2 for at least a few months or possibly even a year if BUYS is successful enough.

Sorry man but I swear you've been posting in this section about BUY*'s for years now and I've never seen any of them really take-off. Take that energy and channel it towards something else.

[Mokrie Dela]

 

See, I'm not going to post Build Up Your Army until well after Build Up Your Survivor is already waning, which won't be for some time. So, don't expect BUYA 2 for at least a few months or possibly even a year if BUYS is successful enough.

Sorry man but I swear you've been posting in this section about BUY*'s for years now and I've never seen any of them really take-off. Take that energy and channel it towards something else.

 

There's wisdom in these words, but i do commend anyone trying to promote community writing projects. Sometimes contributing to the community is as rewarding as writing your own stuff, hence why I accepted the led-by position.

I have been writing something last couple of days. It's a loose GTA V fanfic. I might upload it soon if i feel it's a good idea. I think Fallout needs a hiatus. I'm editing and re-editing the crap out of it, and i just don't feel it's good enough. The in-Vault chapters feel too expositional, and tbh i suspect my decision to rewrite the prologue kind of crapped on those interested in it.

So for now i think I'm going to write something else. Fallout will continue, however, as I'm too in love with the characters to turn my back on it!

That and i've become obsessed with a song called The Real Me by The Who. f*ck. Me. Entwistle is a legend. That bassline's kicking my ass, but i WILL learn it.

[AceRay]

It's a loose GTA V fanfic.

Oh, so you're pandering to the Vtards so you can win Writer of the Year 2014 award now? You've sold out man!  

 

Heh.

 

Anyone else a Castlevania fan? If so, I definitely recommend picking up Aria of Sorrow on GBA, its second only to SotN in terms of Metroidvania style platforming, and probably up there in the top three of the series, I beat it today and loved it, bosses are very, very cool and the storyline is awesome and genuinely heart warming.

[arch stanton]

Congrats Morkie on your awards!

[Mokrie Dela]

Well congrats also to you coat for pleasant blurs' silver; the pizza delivery guy and ziggy for bronze!

And again ziggy for best writer silver and cost for bronze

Fantastic to see that all top 'medals' were by people who contribute and write as much as they do. Well done guys; winning only means anything to me knowing you we're the competition. Glad to be up there with you!

Iirc I think I also got second for best avatar...

[TYEEler]

I should have won best avatar and this whole forum knows it.

[Ziggy455]

I think it's amazing how I always win Silver and yet I never actually contribute any decent written work around the time of the awards. I win for apathy I guess and I believe Coat should have taken my place definitely for the poetry alone.

 

Writing-wise I'm going to spend my free time busting out Portland Chase and getting it done with a great and quick outcome and then I'm going to return to my regular purgatory of peace by maybe making a fresh start and thinking of a new short story for some competitions. Either that or maybe look for some magazines that are accepting some short stories. 

 

Also, Innocence and Loneliness will also resume after Portland Chase is done and dusted, ready for the bottom drawer. 

[Osric]

My internet has been down for a day and a half, so now I'm back.

 

I'm thinking of starting a long-term writing project, a fanfic of Vampire: The Masquerade (my favorite RPG).