Defenders: Far From Perfect (But At Least Theyre Trying)
Written by Oliver Marlowe - Feb 13 2012
Alright, some folks might know me as a former invader, former-ish Defender (not actively defending but still one at heart), current fixture in Osiris, and general all-around reasonable dude.
Some of you might know me as the boogeyman. Its okay, these things happen, and I dont hold it against you.
HEM posted an interesting article which claims to debunk defenderism; a lofty goal, but certainly not one I havent seen attempted before (or even attempted myself). I wont summarize the article at length (I assume you can read… if not… you wont know what Im saying…), but it suggests on the tired old line that Defenders are not as morally upright as they claim, and that they fail to uphold their own high standards of morality.
This is the truth.
It shouldnt be a shocking truth, though; everybody fails to meet their own lofty standards from time to time. Human beings are imperfect (last I checked), overzealous, far too convinced of their own righteousness, and willing to skirt the truth in order to win.
Please note that I said human beings, and not Defenders. Its not as though the Defenders have a monopoly on fallibility. Moderators in the game have a rather extensive system of review if somebody believes the moderators have done wrong. Governments have checks and balances, societies have laws… you get the picture. We cannot assume that someone will be perfect all the time.
It gets a lot easier, mind you, to stay within the realm of your personal moral standards when they arent precisely stringent. If the main argument against Defenders is that they set very high moral standards for themselves and fail… what exactly does that say about Invaders?
Im not saying that Defenders arent preachy and moralistic; hell, even I wish Unibot would shut up sometimes (and I used to be in the UDL)… but theyre attempting to be moral, and contrary to the popular invader belief, they really do actually care about the regions theyre trying, in the best way they know how, to protect.
Some of them just want to win, sure, and Im not a fan of any of them, but the vast majority of them, when they do something ridiculously, foolishly flawed, are doing it because they think its the best thing they can do under the circumstances. They are attempting to do what they believe is right, even when the conception of justice they are guided by is sometimes flawed. How many Invaders can claim that they are doing what they think is morally right? Morality rarely, if ever, even enters the question.
In Monkey Island, years and years ago, there was a raid, and the raid was bad enough that one of the natives feared for the safety of his region. He feared so much that he created I think roughly twenty puppets ([nation]Mousebumples[/nation] can correct me as to the numbers), and joined them all into the World Assembly near update time to restore the native delegate to power. He was subsequently ejected and banned from the World Assembly for life (as is correct, under the rules). If the control over the WFE and Flag, the control over Embassies, and the control over Residency is so very meaningless, why on earth would a rational person do such a thing?
When I invaded and attempted to grief Land of the Muse, roughly a year ago now, natives were deleted for posting personal information about the real life identity of Heras Savaer on the regional message board, and for posting hateful messages there. Ironically enough, this was what eventually broke my spirit for raiding. I kept asking myself why they would do something like that over some lines of computer code.
The reason is that the natives, when they are present, actually do care. And while the Defenders may not be perfect paragons of morality, when they attempt to defend those natives, they are doing it in no small part because they care.
What do the invaders care about? What morality guides invaders? Id honestly love to know, because I cant find much evidence of it myself. So whatever I failed to learn as an invader, please teach me, so I can learn.