Found a Lawful Good use for Familicide [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Mechalich

2023-07-31, 12:49 AM

The preservation of threatened native taxon and the ecosystems they inhabit is a Good thing, flat out.

That's highly debatable within the context of D&D morality.

Invasive species primarily threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services. The latter is a human-centric issue; if Homo sapiens go extinct, the ecosystems will eventually sort themselves out. As for biodiversity, while this is valuable to maintaining ecosystem functionality, that circles back to services. If you wish to assert that preservation of biodiversity is 'good' in a D&D sense you are simultaneously asserting an intrinsic value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(ethics)) to the diversity - that having the same amount of life be comprised of many species as opposed to all being the same species is 'good.'

It is certainly philosophically plausible to assert this, and several schools of thought do. Whether or not is makes sense in D&D is debatable, because those worlds function in a fundamentally different manner than the real world. Notably, we have examples of 'invasive' entities in D&D -notably Formians, which from an ecological perspective simple are an invasive ant species, being described as fundamentally lawful neutral. As such, casting xenociding an invasive species would, in D&D, probably be a chaotic neutral action.

Peelee

2023-07-31, 06:52 AM

That's highly debatable within the context of D&D morality.

Invasive species primarily threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services. The latter is a human-centric issue; if Homo sapiens go extinct, the ecosystems will eventually sort themselves out. As for biodiversity, while this is valuable to maintaining ecosystem functionality, that circles back to services. If you wish to assert that preservation of biodiversity is 'good' in a D&D sense you are simultaneously asserting an intrinsic value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(ethics)) to the diversity - that having the same amount of life be comprised of many species as opposed to all being the same species is 'good.'

It is certainly philosophically plausible to assert this, and several schools of thought do. Whether or not is makes sense in D&D is debatable, because those worlds function in a fundamentally different manner than the real world. Notably, we have examples of 'invasive' entities in D&D -notably Formians, which from an ecological perspective simple are an invasive ant species, being described as fundamentally lawful neutral. As such, casting xenociding an invasive species would, in D&D, probably be a chaotic neutral action.

Also, IIRC Druids are mandated to be Neutral on at least one axos, and environmentalism is their whole thing.

RabidEel

2023-07-31, 06:59 AM

whoops, didn't mean to start a whole ethical debate, sorry mods

uh... I've found a not-Evil use for Familicide?

(anyway, snake mites are definitely Fiendish, as anyone reptile owner who has tried to get rid of them can attest)

Fyraltari

2023-07-31, 08:28 AM

https://s2.qwant.com/thumbr/0x380/6/0/199c06b444b0cd666233c6aedb696a349aeb2dd68304ab93a7 a6adbe6b4bb1/Z_comme_Zorglub_Spirou_et_Fantasio_tome_15.jpg?u=h ttps%3A%2F%2Fmedia.senscritique.com%2Fmedia%2F0000 16344161%2Fsource_big%2FZ_comme_Zorglub_Spirou_et_ Fantasio_tome_15.jpg&q=0&b=1&p=0&a=0

ZhonLord

2023-07-31, 08:31 AM

In D&D terms, there's a different kind of invasive species to consider: Evil Outsiders.

The core problem with Familicide is the scope. As an Epic spell, its reach is functionally the entire Material Plane. So if you use it on a material-native invasive species, you'll destabilize the original ecosystem which it came from in addition to the desired effects. But outsiders encroach upon the Material Plane, and thus inherently have a small population compared to anything native, and even if they have family back home, the planar limitation of the spell spares those who decided to not encroach.

Any given clan of evil outsiders establishing a nest/colony in the Prime Material Plane is going to have all clan members be related/connected. If they're pulling an "enslave/kill everyone nearby and expand our territory by force", then there's no debate about whether they need to be stopped or they're simply misunderstood.

So by using Familicide on something that has a limited Material population and is clearly performing Evil acts, you:

1) minimize all unwanted collateral damage, and also prevent it from harming the native plane the creatures came from.

2) do NOT harm unrelated outsider clans who are minding their own business and/or trying to do good, as each outsider clan is effectively its own separate gene pool.

Tzardok

2023-07-31, 08:35 AM

How do we know that Familicide doesn't cross planar borders?

ZhonLord

2023-07-31, 08:41 AM

How do we know that Familicide doesn't cross planar borders?
I don't have easy access to a list, so I could very well be wrong, but as far as I recall there aren't any epic spells that cross planes as part of the range-of-effect descriptor.

Tzardok

2023-07-31, 08:53 AM

Sure, but if you want to, you can make it so. No idea what the ad hoc modifier would be, but it's possible.

Beni-Kujaku

2023-07-31, 10:20 AM

The "sharing a bloodline" for each iteration of Familicide has always been nebulous, but the closest I find plausible is "every living siblings, parent, grandparents and further elders up, then every siblings and children from the top down (in both cases skipping dead people but still using them as links, so if my father is dead but my grandfather isn't, then my grandpa will die and my cousin will too, but if both my father and grandpa are dead, then my cousin is no longer considered sharing a bloodline with me), then do the same for each person affected. All people affected by the first or second iteration die."

Any other interpretation might either miss a brother, or kill every living being on the planet, as everyone is a cousin, however far removed.

In that case, the problem is that the bug you're targetting probably has all its ancestors dead (as bugs usually only live for a few day/week/months after they lay eggs). So at most, all the brothers of the targetted bug die, and all their children. Considering lanternflies lay up to 50 eggs (and in the unlikely scenario that they all survive to give birth themselves), you can kill 50 lanternflies, their mates, their mate's siblings, and all their unborn youngs. In total, at the absolute most 5,000 lanternflies and 250,000 eggs. In a more realistic scenario (only 5 of each siblinghood survives to adulthood), that's 50 lanternflies and 2,500 eggs. It may be satisfying, but I can't help but think that a fireball would do a better job than this epic spell.

In D&D terms, there's a different kind of invasive species to consider: Evil Outsiders.

Outsiders do not have bloodlines. Also, it's really hard to make them into Undead. Also, it doesn't matter if they have the Evil subtype. All black dragons did too, that doesn't make what is essentially a genocide okay. Also, evil Outsiders are not known to stay in the Material Plane for long, they only planeshift, do their job, then come back in hells to sleep. Not only a spell that kills every evil Outsider on the Material Plane would only kill a few of them, a new batch would be there by 10 AM the next day.

Tzardok

2023-07-31, 10:34 AM

Any other interpretation might either miss a brother, or kill every living being on the planet, as everyone is a cousin, however far removed.

Only in worlds where natural selection holds instead of divine creation, which OOTS' is explicitely not.

Outsiders do not have bloodlines. Also, it's really hard to make them into Undead. Also, it doesn't matter if they have the Evil subtype.

Depends on the outsider I'd say. For example, Glasya is Asmodeus' daugther, I'd expect them to share a bloodline. But I wouldn't expect them to be related to anything else.

All black dragons did too, that doesn't make what is essentially a genocide okay.

You mean, they were evil too. They don't have the Evil subtype.

Also, evil Outsiders are not known to stay in the Material Plane for long, they only planeshift, do their job, then come back in hells to sleep. Not only a spell that kills every evil Outsider on the Material Plane would only kill a few of them, a new batch would be there by 10 AM the next day.

Depends. Demon invasion is a classic trope, as is the devil walking the world to secretly spread corruption.

Also one should mention that at least devils and demons have this thing where they reform on their homeplane after a few decades or centuries if they die elsewhere.

Peelee

2023-07-31, 10:46 AM

The "sharing a bloodline" for each iteration of Familicide has always been nebulous

Has it been?
I really thought that last comic would end this debate, but it seems like there's still a lot of confusion. So here goes:

Step 1: Kill everyone with the original target's blood. This is a simple yes/no effect: Is a creature (the secondary target) related by blood to the original target at all, in any way? If yes, kill it. If no, move on. Number of generations or percentage of blood or direction doesn't matter.

Step 2: Kill everyone who shares blood with any of the people killed in Step 1. Think of it as killing everyone descended from (or siblings to) any and all still-living ancestors of each secondary target. So if Penelope had a grandfather on one side and a great-grandmother on the other side who were still alive, every person who could trace their blood back to either of those people would be dead, because Penelope's daughter carries both of their bloods. If a person can only trace their blood through (say) Penelope's already-dead great-great-great-grandfather, then they're safe. Thus cousins and second-cousins and the like are all dead, but more distant genetic relations are not. It is possible for some cousins to survive if all older generations were already dead, yes, but Vaarsuvius wasn't really likely to take the time to make that distinction while sobbing on a dungeon hallway floor.

Now for some anticipated FAQs:

That's not exactly what Vaarsvuius said when the spell was cast, though.
First, Vaarsvuius is prone to poetic word choice and had no particular reason to include various exceptions or inclusions while in the middle of punishing the dragon. Second, as the author, I also had an interest in not necessarily giving away the twist that the Draketooths would be killed two years ahead of time (leading me to choose words that maybe implied one thing while allowing for another). In other words, don't try to parse the language too precisely.

Wouldn't that spell kill everyone of the original target's species?
In our world? Maybe. The OOTS world is not ours, though. It was created fully populated, even with black dragons. So there could be 100 original black dragons who (as V noted) breed slowly over the relatively-short span of time the current world has been in existence, leading to one-quarter of them being wiped out. If it had been cast on a human first, it may well have taken half or more of the population with it, depending on how many Original Humans there had been and how much interbreeding had occurred. Good thing that's not what happened, right?

But if it worked like that, it would have [insert obscure effect proven with math]!
Yeah, well, it didn't. Why? I don't know. But it didn't. I guess that makes me a crappy writer because I didn't think of whatever implication you just thought of, but there it is. I'm not a biologist or a mathematician. If it makes you feel better, just assume that all the laws of heredity and genetics work differently because It's Magic™.

I hope this will end the endless debates. It's really quite simple, and if you're getting to a point where it seems utterly complicated or recursive or whatever, you're probably thinking about it more than I did.

Oh, guys, you should know by now that David Argall has a long history of deciding I'm wrong and than badgering everyone about it with passive sentence construction until they give up arguing with him.

So, just to be clear:

1.) The people created at the moment of the planet's creation were all unrelated to each other, or perhaps only related in small groups—a family of 5 or 10 might have been created, but with no relation to all the other families being simultaneously created. Why? Because.

2.) There is no reason to think that just because the comic shows something that it is statistically likely, or that the number of panels I draw of something is intended to be a statement about the frequency of such a thing. I do not draw the comic based on statistics or demographics, I draw it based on what looks good.

3.) Yes, the proof that not all humans have the blood of that specific black dragon is the fact that they didn't all die. Things aren't errors just because they don't support your preferred assumptions. It just means your assumptions are wrong.

4.) Explicitly, I am going to say that no black dragon, ever, in the history of the world, ever mated with any human being until Girard's grandparents. Some black dragons mated with other species, and some other colors of dragon mated with humans. But black dragons and humans? One time only in the history of OOTS-world. That's canon now. Done.

It's now impossible for any humans to have died other than the Draketooths and the families they intermingled with in the last 5 generations. And since Step 2 of the spell requires a LIVING link to keep the chain going, humans that have no living ancestors with those people are safe.

So, yeah. The spell works exactly as I explained, it's just the world that works differently than assumed. Which is exactly what I said the first time I explained how it worked.

ZhonLord

2023-07-31, 11:05 AM

Depends. Demon invasion is a classic trope, as is the devil walking the world to secretly spread corruption.

Also one should mention that at least devils and demons have this thing where they reform on their homeplane after a few decades or centuries if they die elsewhere.

Outsiders do not have bloodlines.... Evil Outsiders are not known to stay in the Material Plane for long, they only planeshift, do their job, then come back in hells to sleep. Not only a spell that kills every evil Outsider on the Material Plane would only kill a few of them, a new batch would be there by 10 AM the next day.

Fair enough, for both your points. How about extraplaner aberrations then? A colony of plane-hopped mind flayers enslaving one person after another. A beholder clan warping reality to match their home plane. Such groups are here to stay, tightly knit, and unlikely to "cross-pollinate" with other such groups elsewhere in the plane. Its unlikely to get a situation where you accidentally kill Sunny if you go after a colony who's actively attacking people.

Tzardok

2023-07-31, 11:16 AM

Fair enough, for both your points. How about extraplaner aberrations then? A colony of plane-hopped mind flayers enslaving one person after another.

Good question. Mind flayers reproduce by implanting their tadpoles into humanoid bodies which are mutated into more mind flayers. Does a mind flayer share a bloodline with the "donor"?

A beholder clan warping reality to match their home plane.

Sounds like 5e non-sense.

Beni-Kujaku

2023-07-31, 11:43 AM

Has it been?

I didn't know about that, but that's basically what I described (since the Giant said that tracing the bloodline to a dead GGGF doesn't count), so good enough.

I tried to calculate how many humans would die from a Familicide in our world, considering dead bloodlines cut the chain:
For a regular human (2 children per generation, 4 generations alive, Familicide cast on an infant for maximum Evil), the single children would have 12 couples of great-grandparents and great-granduncles (4 couples of great-grandparents, each GGP having one sibling with a family of their own), which means you would kill 96 children with the first iteration (8 GGchildren per couple), who have in total 360 couples of great-grandparents and great-granduncles (remember most of those overlap, so it's not 96*12), and a grand total of 5664 humans killed by this single spell. Now, imagine what happens when one of these people is a dragon who mates dozens of times with people from any other race...

The alternative (tracing even through all dead people in the history of the world) would absolutely kill off the species. Even in OotSworld. The world is at least 2000 years old (since Sabine dated a demon 2000 years ago), which means about 60 human generations. This means literally every human in existence is related by blood (2^60~a billion billions). Not even to mention the second iteration. I understand Haerta might have developed her spell in a younger world, but V is smart enough to not cast such a spell if it could destroy his species as well (which would definitely be a possibility considering the second iteration). Then again, they were drunk with power at the time and didn't consider black dragons mating with other species, so they might still have.

RatElemental

2023-08-01, 12:38 AM

Even genociding demons could be considered not a good act. For one, you'll catch a bunch of tieflings in the crossfire, and then a bunch of humans too, same issue with the half dragons. Second, yes, Fiends can be good. There's a canon succubus who turned over a new leaf and became a paladin.

WanderingMist

2023-08-01, 05:08 AM

Invasive species cause ecological nightmares. Rabbits and foxes in Australia, cats on the Atlantic islands, then on the Pacific islands. Killer bees and murder hornets. Formosan termites.

The list is long and sad.

Species are only invasive when brought out of their natural environment. As this spell would probably also hit those species where they're supposed to be, it definitely can't be Good.

Bohandas

2023-08-01, 10:18 AM

It's not about them being inconvenient to you, but rather that they're an invasive species that threatens already endangered native populations. Animal culls aren't nice but they can be necessary.

Still seems more Lawful Neutral. Doubly so since LN's one of allowed the druid alignments

Ionathus

2023-08-01, 10:30 AM

Species are only invasive when brought out of their natural environment. As this spell would probably also hit those species where they're supposed to be, it definitely can't be Good.

Depends on how long they've been an invasive species, since it only targets creatures through their last living relative and bugs don't, y'know, live that long.

Interestingly enough, they run into a similar Familicide-against-bugs dynamic in an interesting series of SCP stories called "End of Death" while trying to deal with a worldwide bug infestation.

In this series of stories, all living creatures with a brain have lost the ability to die (but can still reproduce), and one of their most immediate priorities is dealing with the bugs, because bugs that don't die but can still reproduce would very obviously become a major problem very quickly. So they employ supernatural pesticides to basically retcon the extra bugs out of existence, and it works by targeting the bug's parents and chewing its way up the family tree for X generations and rendering them all sterile, retroactively erasing any children they might have had from existence.

gbaji

2023-08-01, 04:52 PM

Depends on how long they've been an invasive species, since it only targets creatures through their last living relative and bugs don't, y'know, live that long.

We'd have to assume a modified version of the Familicide spell though. Based on the description by Rich linked earlier, the first step affects *all* living creatures who share any bloodline with the target. There is no cut off based on which ancestors are still alive or not. If you are related, you die. This only fails to wipe out the entire population of black dragons due to the OoTSverse actually being the result of direct divine creation of whole species at a time, rather than via some natural evolutionary process (they don't have time to try that out, afterall). So only black dragons who have interbred with eachother would be related, which, combined with the long lifespans of dragons, and low birth rate, allows for this spell only wiping out 1/4th of the black dragon population.

It's the Second Effect which is restricted by "live ancestors in common" restrictions. Any of those affected by the first round of "direct bloodline" are just dead. But of that 1/4th of black dragons, anyone else who shares their blood is also going to die. So if a black dragon mated with a human, all decendents of that mating will die, but not cousins/siblings/whatever of that human and their decendents (unless said cousin/siblings/whatever is actually still alive at the time the spell is cast).

So if you cast this on pretty much any species on Earth, it would actually wipe out that entire species, and arguably any sub/side/otherwise-related species as well. Depending on how far back "shared blood" goes, it could/should technically wipe out all animal life on the planet. And if we go even further back in our semi-single celled organisms first latch on to eachother and create something bigger (eucharotes?) period, then we're wiping out pretty much "all life" period. So... Hmm...

So yeah. Let's assume a slightly modified spell that just does the second effect (for sanity's sake if nothing else). But then we're just killing a few thousand bugs at most maybe. Really short lifespans and massive birth rates are kind of a bug "thing".

Precure

2023-08-03, 01:57 PM

We need to find a way to stop it from jumping into non bug species though.

Lord Torath

2023-08-03, 03:47 PM

So if you cast this on pretty much any species on Earth, it would actually wipe out that entire species, and arguably any sub/side/otherwise-related species as well. Depending on how far back "shared blood" goes, it could/should technically wipe out all animal life on the planet. And if we go even further back in our semi-single celled organisms first latch on to eachother and create something bigger (eucharotes?) period, then we're wiping out pretty much "all life" period. So... Hmm....I think the "shared blood" is key to avoiding global extinction. How far back did creatures first evolve blood? I'm relatively certain that no single-celled animals have it, so lines that evolved from different microbes will be insulated from each other - pending cross breeding, of course.

What definition of "blood" do we use? We as humans love these hard-and-fast demarcations, but Nature is not so fond of them, so there are probably many slightly different definitions (there might not be - I haven't looked into it). Maybe a bunch of different types of 'not-quite-blood' which will stop the spell hard.

Blue Dragon

2023-08-04, 07:58 AM

It's not about them being inconvenient to you, but rather that they're an invasive species that threatens already endangered native populations. Animal culls aren't nice but they can be necessary.

That would be the giant African snail, a huge problem in Brazil. Sign me up for a Familicide spell any time if it's to finish those (no way I am compromising my soul, though).

Laurentio III

2023-08-04, 08:16 AM

* All your family is struck by lighting bolts and dies but you *
You : «Well... seems I was adopted for real, then.»

gbaji

2023-08-07, 08:18 PM

I think the "shared blood" is key to avoiding global extinction. How far back did creatures first evolve blood? I'm relatively certain that no single-celled animals have it, so lines that evolved from different microbes will be insulated from each other - pending cross breeding, of course.

What definition of "blood" do we use? We as humans love these hard-and-fast demarcations, but Nature is not so fond of them, so there are probably many slightly different definitions (there might not be - I haven't looked into it). Maybe a bunch of different types of 'not-quite-blood' which will stop the spell hard.

Huh. That's a good point. I was thinking more in terms of DNA and tracking things backwards to all things related to them (and then fowards to all related to them, and so on). But yeah, if we're actually talking about blood.... Um... I'm not sure how narrow or broad a definition to use here (also not close to an expert on that). There are certainly living things that don't have what we would call "blood" at all. And some that only do if we're really stretching our definition a bit.

But assuming at least enough of a definition that whatever creature we're casting it on has "blood" in the first place, then if we assume an Earth like environment, and we're applying the first step of the process as described by Rich, then this should absolutely wipe out every member of the species we target. Unless we assume two identical animals were created via random parallel (but otherwise not related and not bridgeable via our definition of "blood") evolution, then this should kill every instance of this animal on the planet. They should all be "related" in this way and meet the first steps requirements.

And, of course, this does not address the issue of whether such an act could ever be considered Lawful Good, though.

Aquillion

2023-08-07, 09:05 PM

Yes, eliminating invasive species is beneficial, but that's not the same as being Good. ""Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings." (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#goodVsEvil) How does getting rid of an invasive species further those principles? It's definitely not altruism, since there's a clear personal benefit to the OP for eliminating this pest. It's not concern for the dignity of sentient beings, since neither trees aren't sentient. And it's not respect for life, since it involves wide-scale slaughter.
It's no different from how a Lawful Good Paladin is still able to fight and Lawful Good kingdoms can still go to war. It's acceptable to kill under certain circumstances, especially when you're doing so to save more lives.

Also, invasive species don't just threaten trees. When the ecosystem is disrupted, that affects farmers too - having all those trees dying is how you have fertile farmland turn into a dustbowl, which leads to starvation. In general, people who survive on sustenance farming live where it is currently possible to support a lot of people thorough farming; and invasive species or other rapid changes to the environment or climate can therefore cause mass suffering and death to sentient beings, even if it just begins on the level of insects and plants.

tanonev

2023-08-07, 10:45 PM

Yes, eliminating invasive species is beneficial, but that's not the same as being Good. ""Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings." (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#goodVsEvil) How does getting rid of an invasive species further those principles? It's definitely not altruism, since there's a clear personal benefit to the OP for eliminating this pest. It's not concern for the dignity of sentient beings, since neither trees aren't sentient. And it's not respect for life, since it involves wide-scale slaughter.

Note that vermin have an INT of 0, which is a reasonable definition for "non-sentient beings" in D&D. Eliminating a non-sentient species for the sake of reducing the suffering of other sentient species qualifies as Good. Having unintended ecological consequences might make the action unwise, but that is not the same as making it not Good.

For real-world analogies: The eradication of smallpox is unambiguously Good. The eradication of mosquitoes would pretty clearly also be Good, as it's generally accepted that mosquitoes are not a necessary part of any ecosystem and simply serve to spread disease and therefore suffering amongst other creatures (in particular, creatures more capable of feeling pain and suffering).

brian 333

2023-08-07, 11:24 PM

Huh. That's a good point. I was thinking more in terms of DNA and tracking things backwards to all things related to them (and then fowards to all related to them, and so on). But yeah, if we're actually talking about blood.... Um... I'm not sure how narrow or broad a definition to use here (also not close to an expert on that). There are certainly living things that don't have what we would call "blood" at all. And some that only do if we're really stretching our definition a bit.

But assuming at least enough of a definition that whatever creature we're casting it on has "blood" in the first place, then if we assume an Earth like environment, and we're applying the first step of the process as described by Rich, then this should absolutely wipe out every member of the species we target. Unless we assume two identical animals were created via random parallel (but otherwise not related and not bridgeable via our definition of "blood") evolution, then this should kill every instance of this animal on the planet. They should all be "related" in this way and meet the first steps requirements.

And, of course, this does not address the issue of whether such an act could ever be considered Lawful Good, though.

Do stick figures have DNA?

This is not rhetorical or intended to be witty, it is a serious question. We assume the creatures in the comic have genetic properties at a level of detail never shown in comic.

Sharing blood may be superficially similar to our own genetic code, but vastly different. For example, familicide killed one quarter of black dragon-kind and kin, implying that 3/4 did not share blood with ABD or anyone still alive and related to someone who did share her blood.

Obviously, something other than DNA determines the relationship for the purposes of this spell.

Now, what is 'related by blood?' Parents are related to their children and vice versa. Siblings are related by sharing their parents' blood, and cousins by sharing their grandparents' blood, and so on.

How about adoptees? In certain times and in certain cultures adoptees are said to be of the blood of their adoptive parent(s), while in others adoptees are little more than chattel. I guess being of the former culture would be a disadvantage if Familicide was going through the family!

And I think that is the key: shared blood is a cultural concept rather than a genetic one. Otherwise, the spell would flow along matriarchal lines and stop at every male, because a child inherits zero 'blood' from his or her father. All of the fluids and cellular structures which become the child, save for an odd chromosomal string, are from the mother. If cellular cytoplasm is the closest thing to blood an organism has before cellular specialization begins, then males are susceptible to the spell, but their offspring would not be. This is not seen in comic.

Neither is the obliteration of all life. Obviously, the scientific hypothesis fails to explain what is observed. Something else is at work.

That something else was possibly explained by the author. I suppose the quotation could be provided by the world's strangest grain masquerading as a fruit.

Quizatzhaderac

2023-08-08, 10:33 AM

The eradication of mosquitoes would pretty clearly also be Good, as it's generally accepted that mosquitoes are not a necessary part of any ecosystem and simply serve to spread disease and therefore suffering amongst other creatures (in particular, creatures more capable of feeling pain and suffering).Nitpick:

Certain species of mosquitoes, there are only a few that bite humans/spread disease. The constructive role mosquitoes play (pollinating plants) would be servered just fine without the bloodsucking mosquitoes.

Do stick figures have DNA?The question of "do they have DNA?" is different from "Do they have genes?", Which is different from "does familicide work by checking genes?"

My guess would be that some kind of objective magical connection exists between family members on top of whatever mechanism does the genetics in universe.

gbaji

2023-08-08, 10:54 AM

Do stick figures have DNA?

This is not rhetorical or intended to be witty, it is a serious question. We assume the creatures in the comic have genetic properties at a level of detail never shown in comic.

Yes. But the hypothetical raised in the OP was about using this spell on Earth, where the living beings do have DNA.

Sharing blood may be superficially similar to our own genetic code, but vastly different. For example, familicide killed one quarter of black dragon-kind and kin, implying that 3/4 did not share blood with ABD or anyone still alive and related to someone who did share her blood.

Yes. Because all creatures (including dragons) were created within the last thousand years or so ago by the gods, as a complete set of individual (and therefore not related by blood or otherwise) creatures, so among a species that is long lived and slow breeding (like dragons), not all of them have interbred sufficiently to have all of them affected. Even then, 1/4 of them were considered so by the spell.

On Earth, with actual evolution (which the gods of Stickverse haven't been able to try yet due to the snarl), this is not the case. All members of a species would by necessity be related and thus all would die. And that's the minimum if we assume that "related by blood" is limited to a species. With evolution, all living things are technically related if we go far enough back in time. We humans share about 50% (or more) of our DNA with all plants and animals on Earth.

And I think that is the key: shared blood is a cultural concept rather than a genetic one. Otherwise, the spell would flow along matriarchal lines and stop at every male, because a child inherits zero 'blood' from his or her father. All of the fluids and cellular structures which become the child, save for an odd chromosomal string, are from the mother. If cellular cytoplasm is the closest thing to blood an organism has before cellular specialization begins, then males are susceptible to the spell, but their offspring would not be. This is not seen in comic.

I think someone quoted Rich talking about this earlier. It does appear to follow the same genetic relationships we would use on Earth. It was specifically because of the fact that entire species were created by the gods that it didn't kill 100% of the black dragon population. At least that was my understanding.

I think you are also thinking entirely of the second step of the spell and not the first. The first step is *everything* that is related by blood to the target is killed. So follow that persons ancestry back in time "to the beginning", then trace every decendent from everyone in that list and they all die. Period. The second step of the spell kills everything related to anything in the first list *if* there is a living relation connecting them. Penelope dies even though she's not blood related to any black dragon at all, because she is blood related to a child she bore, who is related to a descendent of one of the ancestors shared in common with the black dragon that V hit with the Familicide spell.

That second step stops at "living relatives" though. Rick also stated at one point that if Tarquin and Penelope had had a child, then that child would also have died, and Tarquin would have died (blood related to the child of he and Penelope), and Nale and Elan would also have died (blood related to Tarquin, but not to Penelope). Additionally, Elan and Nales mother would have died as well (related to them, even though not related at all to Tarquin, or his child by Penelope, nor directly to Penelope, much less the child she shared with one of the Draketooth clan).

At least, that was my understanding of the second step of the spell. There's no indication at all that this only carries over through maternal lines though.

Aquillion

2023-08-08, 12:42 PM

That second step stops at "living relatives" though. Rick also stated at one point that if Tarquin and Penelope had had a child, then that child would also have died, and Tarquin would have died (blood related to the child of he and Penelope), and Nale and Elan would also have died (blood related to Tarquin, but not to Penelope). Additionally, Elan and Nales mother would have died as well (related to them, even though not related at all to Tarquin, or his child by Penelope, nor directly to Penelope, much less the child she shared with one of the Draketooth clan).I don't think it would have reached Nale and Elan.

As V described it, it only goes one step away from blood relations (anyone who shares the dragon's bloodline, and anyone directly related to those people.) Tarquin is already one step away (killed in the sole second pass), so it won't go further along his bloodline, and Elan and Nale wouldn't be directly related to this hypothetical baby. There's no indication that it iterates endlessly, basically.

InvisibleBison

2023-08-08, 02:52 PM

Note that vermin have an INT of 0, which is a reasonable definition for "non-sentient beings" in D&D. Eliminating a non-sentient species for the sake of reducing the suffering of other sentient species qualifies as Good. Having unintended ecological consequences might make the action unwise, but that is not the same as making it not Good.

An action has to check all the boxes in order to qualify as Good, not just one of them (otherwise any action that someone benefited from would be Good). And while it may indeed constitute concern for the dignity of sentient beings, mass slaughter of vermin is absolutely incompatible with respect for life, and thus cannot be Good.

For real-world analogies:

Alignment doesn't exist in the real world, so I'm not sure how sound these analogies can be.

The eradication of smallpox is unambiguously Good. The eradication of mosquitoes would pretty clearly also be Good, as it's generally accepted that mosquitoes are not a necessary part of any ecosystem and simply serve to spread disease and therefore suffering amongst other creatures (in particular, creatures more capable of feeling pain and suffering).

Smallpox is a virus, and viruses are not a form of life, so eliminating them doesn't involve a lack of respect for life and can be Good. But I would argue that exterminating mosquitoes can only be Neutral, because it also involves mass slaughter.

Psyren

2023-08-08, 03:45 PM

The whole point of Familicide is that the caster can't possibly know the full ramifications when they use it. You know, kinda like fireballing a pickpocket in a crowded market. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0843.html) Knowingly casting it can't be a Good act; at best it may end up being neutral, and even then that would likely rely on every single victim having been irredeemably evil and about to inflict imminent, irrevocable harm sufficient to warrant their immediate death. That outcome is so vanishingly unlikely that a character who wants to stay good should just avoid it entirely.

Precure

2023-08-08, 03:46 PM

Familicide killed everyone that descended from ABD's ancestors, then also killed the living relatives of these people. So, it's based on descent.

137beth

2023-08-08, 03:58 PM

Depending on their generational cycle, it may not kill enough to he all that noticeable.

The Giant says (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?234374-Familicide-Mega-Thread/page36&p=12856280#post12856280)

Wouldn't that spell kill everyone of the original target's species?
In our world? Maybe. The OOTS world is not ours, though. It was created fully populated, even with black dragons. So there could be 100 original black dragons who (as V noted) breed slowly over the relatively-short span of time the current world has been in existence, leading to one-quarter of them being wiped out. If it had been cast on a human first, it may well have taken half or more of the population with it, depending on how many Original Humans there had been and how much interbreeding had occurred. Good thing that's not what happened, right?
Given that many insects have much shorter generational cycles than humans and breed in much higher numbers (if their generational cycles are similar to real-world insects, which I acknowledge might not be the case), it's entirely plausible that the first step of a familicide would kill all members of the initial target's species, and a large portion of any species that could breed with them.

However, Thor says evolution is not currently in effect (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1142.html), so it might have limited propagation to other species of insects. So I think the real unknown terms determining how big an effect it has is how many different species of insects the OOTSverse has, and how many of them can interbreed.

gbaji

2023-08-08, 04:00 PM

I don't think it would have reached Nale and Elan.

As V described it, it only goes one step away from blood relations (anyone who shares the dragon's bloodline, and anyone directly related to those people.) Tarquin is already one step away (killed in the sole second pass), so it won't go further along his bloodline, and Elan and Nale wouldn't be directly related to this hypothetical baby. There's no indication that it iterates endlessly, basically.

Ah. Ok. Re-reading it, you are correct. If Tarquin and Penelope had a child of their own, that child would have died, but it would not spread to Tarquin's other children (the "half sibling" connection only works though Penelope in this case). For some reason, I thought I'd read a thread previously where this had been discussed and that it would travel "zigzag" fasion though living relatives.

I'm not sure how much difference that would make if such an effect were somehow to be used on Earth and not Stickverse though, given that step 1 would basically wipe out the entire species (at a minimum, depending on how we interpret genetic inheritance) anyway.

Eh. It's an "odd" spell anyway (even in Stickverse). If the intent is to actually remove anyone who may be close enough related to care about the target, I'd think step1 would be unnecessary, and step 2 should be modified to "zigzag" as I thought. Who do you think is more likely to come seeking revenge for you killing a relative? Someone who's great great great great (etc) grandparent is also their great great great (etc) grandparent (but have otherwise probably never interacted with each other), Or your half sibling's other half sibling? Put another way: Let's imagine that Tarquin and Penelope did have a child, and the child died because of being a half sibling to Orrin and Penelope's child. Don't you suppose Elan (if not Nale) would care about this and want to find out who did it? Heck. The spell would leave Tarquin fully alive to seek vengence on whomever just killed his wife and child (and only he has the right to do that sort of thing).

Seems to me like step2 actually increases the likelihood of folks seeking vengence due to the way it works. But hey. It's not called "Friendicide", is it? It was written to both explain how V's use of the spell wiped out the Draketooth's *and* to tie Penelope's mysterious death in there as well. So, as a story telling device, it works "just as intended". Best maybe not to think too much further on that.

Quizatzhaderac

2023-08-08, 05:54 PM

Smallpox is a virus, and viruses are not a form of life, so eliminating them doesn't involve a lack of respect for life and can be Good. But I would argue that exterminating mosquitoes can only be Neutral, because it also involves mass slaughter.You're cherry picking your definition of life and while refusing to let others do so.

Unless you're an evil AI you value different life forms differently, so sacrificing an invasive species to protect many other kinds of life matches with any sane definition of valuing life.

gbaji

2023-08-08, 07:06 PM

I think we can bottom line the alignment aspect of this by just saying that any act to kill something just because it's related to something else that you have a beef with is not, under any circumstances, Lawful Good.

And I'd follow up by saying that, most likely, if the act you are contemplating ends in "cide", what you are doing is also not Lawful Good (not by default anyway). Wiping out an entire species, or sub species, or whatever, for any reason, might be "necessary", and may certainly even be "for the greater good" (legitimately, and not ironically), but that still is never going to make that Lawful Good. And as a general guideline, any act taken "for the greater good" probably isn't Lawful Good either. The need for the rationalization alone kinda hints in that direction IMO.

Aquillion

2023-08-08, 08:45 PM

And I'd follow up by saying that, most likely, if the act you are contemplating ends in "cide", what you are doing is also not Lawful Good (not by default anyway). Wiping out an entire species, or sub species, or whatever, for any reason, might be "necessary", and may certainly even be "for the greater good" (legitimately, and not ironically), but that still is never going to make that Lawful Good. And as a general guideline, any act taken "for the greater good" probably isn't Lawful Good either. The need for the rationalization alone kinda hints in that direction IMO.
That's too sweeping, at least in the context proposed in this thread (where they're talking about potentially eg. wiping out types of non-sentient insects or bacteria or whatever to protect sentient beings.)

Remember, Good in D&D emphasizes a respect for sentient life. That implies that, yes, when you're faced with a clear choice that you can't avoid, you're supposed be willing to kill non-sentient things to save sentient things; because all life does have value, you can try to find ways around killing non-sentient things unnecessarily, but taking the position that non-sentient beings have the exact same value as sentient ones is, in D&D, a non-good position to take. In fact, Druids, the class most likely to take that position, are neutral - because defending the current state of nature above all else, even the needs of sentient beings, is a neutral act and not a good one.

Wiping out the ebola virus or the bacteria that cause leprosy would be a good act. And it's reasonable to justify why you have to do so - is your argument that someone who blindly says "LEPROSY BAD! I'm going to wipe out this bacteria without explaining why!" is a better person, somehow, than someone who takes their time and measures the options and then says "for the greater good, we're going to wipe out the bacteria that causes leprosy, which will save innumerable sentient beings from massive amounts of suffering."

I can understand the knee-jerk opposition to "for the greater good" arguments on the basis that people have presented them to do terrible things in the past, but the reason people misuse arguments of that form to justify doing terrible things is because they are, when the reasoning behind them is valid, strong arguments. The fact that an argument is misused doesn't inherently make the argument itself evil.

Large-scale questions around stuff like invasive species and harmful diseases or bacteria and potentially sweeping changes to our ecosystem and environment are actually very complex.

(Of course, D&D morality is... biased towards allowing killing, I think, since it has its roots in a wargame. And that might affect some of the above.)

137beth

2023-08-08, 09:52 PM

You're cherry picking your definition of life and while refusing to let others do so.

Unless you're an evil AI you value different life forms differently, so sacrificing an invasive species to protect many other kinds of life matches with any sane definition of valuing life.

What's an invasive species in the OOTSverse? Do they have the same negative effects on ecosystems that they do in the real world? Remember this is a world where evolution doesn't exist and humans literally die of old age on their birthdays (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?318170-So-what-about-Uncle-Myrtok/page2&p=16564021#post16564021), so real-world biology doesn't apply.

Even if you were able to successfully argue that our real-world understanding of "invasive species" applies to the OOTSverse, you also have to contend with the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, a familicide cast on an insect could possibly wipe out the entire species, including those residing in whatever region they are native to.

And of course, the discussion of a "Lawful Good use for Familicide" only makes sense in the OOTSverse, since
a)The real world has no magic.
b)The real world doesn't use D&D alignments, and
c)If you could somehow duplicate the effects of Familicide in the real world, then it would kill all life on earth in step one (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?234374-Familicide-Mega-Thread/page36&p=12856280#post12856280), without leaving anything for step two.

RatElemental

2023-08-08, 10:05 PM

Precure

2023-08-09, 01:38 AM

Pretty sure if you killed Tarquin that could arguably be called Regicide. And he's not the only tyrant in the world the word would apply to.

At least, it would be Homicide.

Quizatzhaderac

2023-08-09, 10:04 AM

What's an invasive species in the OOTSverse? Do they have the same negative effects on ecosystems that they do in the real world? The OP specified real world species and implied where they were.

..... you also have to contend with the fact that......In OOTS, as in the real world, the morality depends on caring what the implications are. One is behoven to determine what exactly the spell will do and to consider all of the consequences.

gbaji

2023-08-09, 06:23 PM

Valid points about Good alignment vis-a-vis sentient life. I still have some qualms about concluding that just because Good means caring about sentient life means not caring about non-sentient life. I would assume the default rule for "good" would be "don't kill". With "ok, here are the exceptions to that".

I can understand the knee-jerk opposition to "for the greater good" arguments on the basis that people have presented them to do terrible things in the past, but the reason people misuse arguments of that form to justify doing terrible things is because they are, when the reasoning behind them is valid, strong arguments. The fact that an argument is misused doesn't inherently make the argument itself evil.

Reasonable. I would maybe point out that all arguments where the reasoning behing them is "valid" are presumably also "strong arguments" anyway, so that's somewhat axiomatic. So what we're really maybe talking about is not "strong arguments" but "persuasive arguments", which kinda leads us right back to "and this why why it's misused so often".

The most persusive arguments are often the weakest and least logically valid (sound). Arguments for something "for the greater good" are often very specifically invalid and weak, but also persuasive.

Er... So yeah. There'd better be a really really good rationale for wiping out an entire species (even non-sentient) for it to also be "good". Diseases? Probably work fine. Some insects/pests? Probably need a heck of a lot more rationale than "I don't like them cause they harm <some other non-sentient life I like more>" before I'd label doing so "good".

But that's just me. And, in case you can't tell, examining and arguing silly things based on joking statements, clearly falls into things I'm totally up for. :smalltongue:

Lord Torath

2023-08-09, 08:56 PM

c)If you could somehow duplicate the effects of Familicide in the real world, then it would kill all life on earth in step one (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?234374-Familicide-Mega-Thread/page36&p=12856280#post12856280), without leaving anything for step two.No, you wouldn't. The mass of creatures that have blood is far outweighed by the mass of creatures that don't have blood.
No single-celled animal (that I've ever heard of - granted, I'm not a biologist) has blood. Plants don't have blood. Algae, fungi, bacteria, none of those have blood. The oceans are filled with creatures that don't have blood. There are probably insects (or arthropods) that don't have blood. All those forms of life would survive.

Any eggs that have been fertilized but not developed to the point that the embryo has developed blood would also survive.

The spell would likely eradicate all mammals, but many other species could survive. All because the spell focuses on shared blood, not shared DNA.

Precure

2023-08-09, 09:54 PM

Spell is based on descent, as in bloodline, not literal blood.

Lord Torath

2023-08-10, 12:39 PM

Spell is based on descent, as in bloodline, not literal blood.Got a citation for that? I just remember reading about shared blood.

RatElemental

2023-08-10, 01:48 PM

Got a citation for that? I just remember reading about shared blood.

I don't know about you but I don't literally share blood with either of my parents or any of my siblings or any other living thing for that matter. Aside from donating blood I suppose.

gbaji

2023-08-10, 03:33 PM

Yeah. I don't think the "blood" is supposed to be taken literaly, but as a "familial relation".

And if we were taking it literally, then the spell wouldn't work at all on insects anyway.

Precure

2023-08-11, 02:41 PM

Got a citation for that? I just remember reading about shared blood.

Shared blood as in shared bloodline.

The MunchKING

2023-08-12, 08:26 AM

At least, it would be Homicide.

I don't know... Is he a Homo?

By which of course, I mean "Are humans known as 'Homo Sapiens' in the Stickworld, where they have no connection to Latin, an evolutionary hierarchy in which there are other members of the Genus Homo to distinguish themselves from, or a world where they are the only thinking species? Or is it more likely that the Gods made them as 'Humans' and that is the only real name for their species in-universe?"

Precure

2023-08-12, 08:56 AM

Homo just means human in latin, it has nothing to do with evolution, and latin exist language in oots. Homicide is also a term (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0364.html).

brian 333

2023-08-12, 09:30 AM

Homo just means human in latin, it has nothing to do with evolution, and latin exist language in oots. Homicide is also a term (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0364.html).

[Pedantic Pretentiousness] Homo is actually Greek, not Latin, and its literal meaning is 'the same' or 'one unit'. You see this in 'homogenized' where milk and cream are mixed in such a way that the cream no longer separates, making the milk uniform from top to bottom. Homosapiens actually means, "the one group which thinks."

The use in scientific nomenclature for the hominid group originally was limited to humans and their direct ancestors, but as our understanding of genetics and intelligence increased in recent times, the inclusion of other thinking, (tool-using planners,) primates has become increasingly accepted. The idea is that humans and great apes are much more 'the same' than was previously understood. [/Pedantic Pretentiousness]

*Puts on hipster glasses*

As a side note: there was a ritual that was popular when I was young in which good friends would cut themselves and press the wounds together, thereby sharing blood and becoming blood brothers. It occurs to me that this ritual would make one vulnerable to a familicide cast upon the other's family.

Tzardok

2023-08-12, 10:06 AM

I hope that was a joke, because it's completely wrong. Homo is Latin for human. (http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:homo) The Greek word for 'same' or 'similiar' is όμοιος (homoios), which is usually rendered as 'homeo-' as a prefix, like in homeopathy. In words like homosexual or homogenous the 'e' simply fell away. Homo sapiens means "wise human".

Fyraltari

2023-08-12, 02:34 PM

As a side note: there was a ritual that was popular when I was young in which good friends would cut themselves and press the wounds together, thereby sharing blood and becoming blood brothers. It occurs to me that this ritual would make one vulnerable to a familicide cast upon the other's family.

And AIDS! (And a few other diseases.)

hroþila

2023-08-12, 02:57 PM

Was that ever actually popular, or was that just a trope, equivalent to today's alleged deadly tiktok challenges that no real person actually does?

Quizatzhaderac

2023-08-13, 05:00 PM

I don't think it was ever common, but it's absolutely a thing people have talked about doing since pre-history.

I don't know... Is he a Homo?I'm no imagining and alien species that says "no homo" whenever they does something particularly human.

The MunchKING

2023-08-14, 07:17 AM

I'm no imagining and alien species that says "no homo" whenever they does something particularly human.

It would have saved Spock a lot of words. :smallbiggrin:

KorvinStarmast

2023-08-24, 09:42 AM

Even genociding demons could be considered not a good act. For one, you'll catch a bunch of tieflings in the crossfire And how is that a problem? :smallconfused: :smallyuk:

What's an invasive species in the OOTSverse?

As conceived by Fenrir (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1232.html): goblins
As perceived by elves: humans
As viewed by certain fire trolls: dwarves

Remember this is a world where evolution doesn't exist
Which renders a lot of this thread moot. :smallsmile:

Homo sapiens means "wise human". Which excludes a great many of internet posters ... :smallyuk: (Wait, was it something I said?)

Was that ever actually popular, or was that just a trope, equivalent to today's alleged deadly tiktok challenges that no real person actually does? We did it as kids, my brother, my friends, and I. I think we got the idea from some of the westerns from the 60's and 50's. A couple of guys in my Boy Scout troop got in trouble with the scout master when they used their Boy Scout knives to cut their hands and shake during a camp out. He read us all the riot act, to say the least, once he confiscated their knives. (early 70's).

FWIW, there's a scene that uses this thing in the 1970's film The Outlaw Josey Wales where Josey and chief Ten Bears do that thing.