The Capellans are not evil

[Youngblood]

Just going to take a moment to enjoy the conflation of "BattleTech" and "realistic". :D

This moment of irony and sarcasm was brought to you by Youngblood, HodgePodge, and the terrible, destructive depths that the human concept of perfection can take individuals to.

[Wolflord]

Duchess Amanda Hasek was brought to justice and required to answer for her crimes against the Greater Humanity. Evil?

Not evil, but they may have accidentally done the Davions a favour in the long run.

[Taurevanime]

So I haven't followed this thread since about 2011, and I am amazed to see it resurface. But I have to ask one thing.

Am I the only one that sees Xin Sheng as a forced cultural reform or revolution of the realm and it's people?

Mind you I do not own the latest book on the Capellans so I do not know how much cultural identity people are allowed to maintain. But at least what it looks like from all other sources it seems like a forced cultural movement. And they are something I generally regard as evil. (Please note the word I in that sentence. Since 'evil' is such a subjective thing.)

[Wolflord]

So I haven't followed this thread since about 2011, and I am amazed to see it resurface. But I have to ask one thing.

Am I the only one that sees Xin Sheng as a forced cultural reform or revolution of the realm and it's people?

Mind you I do not own the latest book on the Capellans so I do not know how much cultural identity people are allowed to maintain. But at least what it looks like from all other sources it seems like a forced cultural movement. And they are something I generally regard as evil. (Please note the word I in that sentence. Since 'evil' is such a subjective thing.)

 I'm going to guess that it was more of a rebranding exercise than forced cultural adaptation. Too many people too far apart for anything like the historical examples of forced culture to work IMHO.

[HodgePodge]

I tend to interpret the Xin Sheng movement as Sun Tzu cleverly identifying a sufficently general thread, a commonality of general identity for the ethnically and culturally diverse peoples of the Capellan Confederation. A "theme" that the populations of the Confederation's worlds could rally behind, and that could be legitimized through the CCAF's renewed prowess, initially demonstrated in the reclaimation of the worlds of the Chaos March. It was supposed to teach the people of a state that had historically been seen, and was indeed seen by its own people, as weaker than its neighbors, that the Confederation need not bend the knee to anyone. Put another way, it is one thing for a once weak person to become strong. It is yet another, to make that person proud.

Meh, my two cents, at any rate.

[Coldwyn]

I tend to interpret the Xin Sheng movement as Sun Tzu cleverly identifying a sufficently general thread, a commonality of general identity for the ethnically and culturally diverse peoples of the Capellan Confederation. A "theme" that the populations of the Confederation's worlds could rally behind, and that could be legitimized through the CCAF's renewed prowess, initially demonstrated in the reclaimation of the worlds of the Chaos March. It was supposed to teach the people of a state that had historically been seen, and was indeed seen by its own people, as weaker than its neighbors, that the Confederation need not bend the knee to anyone. Put another way, it is one thing for a once weak person to become strong. It is yet another, to make that person proud.

Meh, my two cents, at any rate.

Nicely put. The pride-part is the most relevant.

[MadCapellan]

Am I the only one that sees Xin Sheng as a forced cultural reform or revolution of the realm and it's people?

It wasn't.  Xin Sheng was really two things - a call for Capellan pride, and a refocusing of national resources towards the restoration of the Confederation.

You must remember that at the time the Xin Sheng campaign was launched, the Capellan Confederation had been reduced solely to the Capella and Sian Commonalities.  Sian Commonality has always had a majority Chinese population.  Ergo, it was a populace most likely to associate their Capellan heritage with Chinese derived culture.

Handbook House Liao indicates the increased focus on displaying the trappings of Chinese culture, architecture, and style were a fad taken on by the public largely in Sian Commonality, and largely ignored elsewhere.  There's no evidence of the kind of enforced cultural adjustments seen in the Draconis Combine in any published source, to my knowledge.

[3rdCrucisLancers]

Put another way, it is one thing for a once weak person to become strong. It is yet another, to make that person proud.

And then from there, about a micrometer to becoming profoundly, intensely irritating.

[Wolflord]

And then from there, about a micrometer to becoming profoundly, intensely irritating.

You would prefer you opposition to roll over and wave their legs in the air whenever you jump in system Quineg?

[Nerroth]

If the Capellans are not supposed to be evil, at least one MechWarrior from Warrior House Ijori failed to get the memo...

(Thanks to MadCap for catching this one.)

[Wolflord]

If the Capellans are not supposed to be evil, at least one MechWarrior from Warrior House Ijori failed to get the memo...

(Thanks to MadCap for catching this one.)

ROFL well spotted!   [cheers]

[Coldwyn]

If the Capellans are not supposed to be evil, at least one MechWarrior from Warrior House Ijori failed to get the memo...

(Thanks to MadCap for catching this one.)

It is a Raven, after all, the Mech of evelish evildom!

[HodgePodge]

And then from there, about a micrometer to becoming profoundly, intensely irritating.

True, although in the interest of equity, having choked on clouds of FedCom smug for decades, being a sore winner should probably be expected. ;D

[HikageMaru]

If the Capellans are not supposed to be evil, at least one MechWarrior from Warrior House Ijori failed to get the memo...

(Thanks to MadCap for catching this one.)

I don't get it.

[Coldwyn]

I don't get it.

Then I´m sorry to inform you that you´re not baddie enough to join this elite circle.

[3rdCrucisLancers]

I don't get it.

It says "baddie" on the side of one of the 'mechs.

Cf. the name on an actual "good guy" tank:

[HodgePodge]

It says "baddie" on the side of one of the 'mechs.

Cf. the name on an actual "good guy" tank:

To quote Paul Bettany: "I'm not sure I'd consider him a role model."

Incidentally, nice pic. A Matilda? Main gun seems too small to be a Churchill, though I'm no expert by any stretch.

[3rdCrucisLancers]

Incidentally, nice pic. A Matilda? Main gun seems too small to be a Churchill, though I'm no expert by any stretch.

Early Churchill, with the 2pdr main gun and the 3" CS howitzer in the hull.

[Aldous]

Early Churchill, with the 2pdr main gun and the 3" CS howitzer in the hull.

A tank whose chief advantage is that the Italian Armor was even worse.

[3rdCrucisLancers]

A tank whose chief advantage is that the Italian Armor was even worse.

I think you're thinking of another British tank. The Churchill didn't reach North Africa until late 1942, and was pretty solid at the time.

[Taurevanime]

Rommel didn't like it when he assumed one flank was safe from attack only to have Churchill tanks start coming up over the hills.

[3rdCrucisLancers]

Rommel didn't like it when he assumed one flank was safe from attack only to have Churchill tanks start coming up over the hills.

Common problem. The Churchills of 6 Guards Tank Brigade easily scaled terrain in the Suisse Normande that the Germans believed impassable in Operation BLUECOAT in '44 as well.

[Taurevanime]

There was one benefit to designing a tank to fight a trench war in Northern France. It was supposed to scale really wide trenches, steep hills and step inclines.

I would love to see a Churchill analogy for the FedSuns, but that's because I am an Anglophile so I want my faction of choice to use it of course :D

[HikageMaru]

It says "baddie" on the side of one of the 'mechs.

Y'all expect me to see that from my phone cybernetic implants?

[Lore]

So I haven't followed this thread since about 2011, and I am amazed to see it resurface. But I have to ask one thing.

Am I the only one that sees Xin Sheng as a forced cultural reform or revolution of the realm and it's people?

Mind you I do not own the latest book on the Capellans so I do not know how much cultural identity people are allowed to maintain. But at least what it looks like from all other sources it seems like a forced cultural movement. And they are something I generally regard as evil. (Please note the word I in that sentence. Since 'evil' is such a subjective thing.)

I think that's stretching things just a little.

Handbook: House Liao suggests that the "Xin Sheng" movement has been gaining greater impetus, and helping to further redefine the status of most of the branches of life in the Confederation in the eyes of Capellan society, as well as the fact that it's a directed effort by Sun-Tzu to bring the people greater rights.

[rebs]

You know, I've been thinking about this long and hard and I have come to the conclusion that the Capellan Confederation is not evil.  Well, torturing people and whatnot is evil per se (like the other Houses don't do it), and they've had insane Chancellors and whatnot, but overall I don't think they're evil.  Don't get me wrong, I'd rather live in Davion space, but I think the overall cultural expression of the Capellans (which, thinking about it, really isn't that much different from the Korean culture in which I was raised) is good.

Now House Kurita, they're evil.

I think that the people of each realm's planets and military are too often vilified, but it often stems from human nature and certain world views.  No desire to list into that rule 4 territory. 

As you pointed out, House Kurita is at times evil.  Just when you think they turned the righteousness corner, they do something evil to make sure everyone knows the score.  But their people and most of the military are not evil.  Evil is a shadow on the citizens by their lords.  If one choses to hate that, then that is their prerogative.  In turn, the Capellans are not evil.  Their leadership is suspect at certain times. 

House Liao is...   mostly good.   :)   Capellan people are unjustly accused.  House Kurita is partly good with a chance of Jinjiro every few generations.  Their warrior families and loyal citizens won't like it either after it happens.  House Marik is divided and hamstrung, but the Free Worlders are free.  Lyrans are glad not to be serfs, while House Steiner grieves that convention.  The Davions train spies so well that they befriend vulnerable people and help to give half their empire away in one massive crush of assaults and don't tell you that it'll become known in humiliating fashion.  People will argue that they wear white hats.  But the Fedsuns citizenry are free to join the military.   :)

[Mecha-Anchovy]

Am I the only one that sees Xin Sheng as a forced cultural reform or revolution of the realm and it's people?

I see it as a lot like the Germanisation of the Lyran Commonwealth back in the early 25th century. The sidebar in HB:HS (p. 116) uses all the same language as the description of the Xin Sheng movement: it was in addition to local cultures, not replacing it, it was embraced by the people as a shared national identity, it was partly a spontaneous response to a beloved leader who wore the trappings of that culture, and so on.

That doesn't mean it's not true that Xin Sheng, and for that matter the Germanisation of the Lyrans, meant marginalising people not of the correct culture or had a disturbing element of personality cult to it, because I think both those things are true and there's a lot of revisionist whitewashing about them, but I think it's important to note that Xin Sheng is not without precedent.