I know what you mean, but on the other hand, even though the author states this for the Gravital, the Qu are referred to in the text as "monsters". Not necessarily saying you're wrong, just thought I should point that out.
I'd swear I remembered the narrator advising against vilifying the Qu. I do remember the narrator stating that their god complex arose out of good intentions so there's that I guess.
Mostly about the Gravital, the book says this about the Qu
“With this ability to control the material world, they assumed a religious, self-imposed mission to “remake the universe as they saw fit.” Powerful as gods, Qu saw themselves as the divine harbingers of the future.
This dogma was rooted in what had been a benevolent attempt to protect the race from its own power. However, blind, unquestioning obedience had made monsters of the Qu.”
I dont find this argument particulalry compelling. Good intentions or no, the Qu did irreperable damage to the human species and countless others, inflicitng millions of years of tourture through the human offshoots by even just existing. I dont care if they thought that they were helping, ask the Colonials what they thought of their help. We all know what the road to hell is paved with, and they Qu skipped gleefully down that road until the Astreamorphs put them in their place.
I mean, philosophically the queue might look at humanity the same way we look at animals we test on does that make us evil not necessarily, but the queue was needlessly cruel, and you can tell that they were evil because they turned species into forms of entertainment and other species as literal flash drives to keep their history. They are evil if not apathetic towards lifeforms
The Qu are obviously horrible in terms of what they actually did and the effects they had on humanity, but I always saw it as an outside view of something like selective breeding (which, y'know, is what they did). The Hedonists, for example, are pets with horrible mutations that disallow them from living life as their human ancestors did. Pugs on earth are pets with horrible mutations that disallow them from living life as their wolf ancestors did.
They're evil from our viewpoint of them inflicting these things on humans. It's meant to be a mirror, at least the way I see it. And given how advanced the Qu are, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the rationale of "Well, humans aren't on our level of consciousness, so is it *really* that immoral?"
Everyone here's saying that they're not truly evil, that they "had good intentions" or are like a "child killing ants fir fun". Misguided, but not malicious. I disagree.
Need I remind you what they did to the colonials? They intentionally left their consciousness in tact so they could suffer for having tried to resist them. I'd call that pretty darn evil, certainly not like a child killing ants or anything like that.
It’s no worse than what humans do now. Imagine being a fish suffocating to death on the deck of a ship, buried under a mountain of your own brethren who are also suffocating to death. We cause that to happen every day, countless times a day, and we’re okay with it because fish are so different from us that having empathy for them just does not come naturally to us.
That's not really the same as the colonial situation. As horrible as the meat industry can be, we don't intentionally make animals suffer as much as possible. The Qu had absolutely no practical need to make the colonials sentient.
To be perfectly fair, I’ve never read All Tomorrows so I don’t know. But is there anywhere in the books that fully describes the Qu’s psychology/behavior and lays it out that they are doing all of this out of pure cruelty?
Not comparable imo, that's an unfortunate side effect of humans gathering a good resource. The Qu intentionally made the Colonials suffer tremendously for having the audacity to resist them. If humans tortured any cattle that gave them grief before killing it, you would likely label them as evil.
From their perspective, I imagine they’d see it as similar to muzzling a violent dog. It’s keeping them from being dangerous, and yeah it’s a punishment for attacking them at the same time.
Not justifying it, but that’s the logic as I see it
Agree. The Qu at least allowed their subjects to live, sometimes miserable existences, but live. Gravitals considered all organic life unworthy of the privilege of life.
I came here to say the Combine too. However I wouldn't call them badically the Qu even though they have some similar technology and habits.
While the Qu are religious zealots with a god complex, the Combine are far less human. They're cruel not in a malicious sense, but in a cold, emotionless sense, and I think that makes them scarier than most other evil factions.
Certainly not number one, not even close, No. 1 goes to AM from I have no mouth and I must scream.
(AM killed all of humanity except five people to torture them for all eternity, so he never forgets how much he hates humanity)
A few others up there are probably Ridley from Metroid, Big Jack Horner (obviously), Sauron, Claude Frollo, and the Joker
Honestly if the Legendarium is represented I’d argue Morgoth is worse
Tolkien did claim Sauron was unto total evil as humanely possible but Morgoth did his stuff and more
I’d also argue DC’s Darkseid is mad underrated in these discussions
For the most part, what they did to humanity was not done out of malice, but scientific experimentation and curiosity. Except for the colonials. They hated those poor sons o bitches.
No? Qu did horrible stuff for questionable reasons. They are, from our perspective, absolutely evil, but less speculative-evolution-centric fiction has such 3 things as "cartoonishly evil", "literal manifistation of evil" and "irredeemable bastard that makes even the evil itself feel digusted"
Any random Sauron-like figure is easily more evil - and, depending on how edgy the writing of random self-published book got, likely did things 10 times worse than Qu ever could
Likewise, there is probably 10 billion no-name fanfics/novels/manga/manhwa that feature characters that are just normal-ass dudes doing stuff that horrible that you start to feel the need to jail said fiction's author
The most evil fictional being is my OC i just made up called "Evil MC Villainous". Describing things he had done would violate every rule of this site, put me on many governmental lists and enrage all gods from all pantheons ensuring eternal suffering for me.
Well, "evil," like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. To some folks, the Qu might not be evil at all and consider their actions justified.
Others, like me, don't think "evil" is even real. People use that word to describe any number of things that are against whatever morality they subscribe to. Racists believe that other races are evil, just because of their race, for example.
I think the Covenant from Halo (or at least the ruling species that serve as the "Prophets") are more evil than the Qu. They're both religious zealots beating down on humanity essentially out of jealousy, but while the Qu is using extremely cruel methods to knock humanity down a few thousand genetic pegs, the Prophets are knowingly killing most life in the universe just for the chance that they'll get to ascend to the "Great Journey." Sure they planned to use the Ark in Halo 3, but in Halo 2 they hadn't even confirmed where the Ark was yet and they STILL sent Tartarus to fire the rings. That's true religious madness.
The Qu are evil dudes, but it can be argued that they're extremely cruel eco-terrorists, kneecapping humanity before they could match the Qu's scale of destructive capability. Hypocritical methods, but still arguably for protective purposes. So I think while they're very evil, particularly in their methods, there are other fictional races who cause far more destruction with far less reasoning. I picked the Covenant since they are religious zealots like the Qu, but races like The Combine or Daleks would fit just as well. The Qu go after lifeforms that are nearly as advanced as them, while the Covenant/Combine/Daleks go after ALL life. (Especially The Combine since they're a multiversal empire.)
Don't mind all these mouth breathers, the Qu are definitely evil.
That being said.
The combine from half life are worse.
And the flood are even worse than them.
I don't think the Qu are evil in the conventional sense. I don't believe that they even comprehended the fact that we are sentient creatures. The Qu are so highly advanced that we look like ants to them, and the same way that we wouldn't say that using an insecticide is evil.
they were brainwashed by their own arrogance for nearly a billion years, calling them evil is kinda a stretch since they haven’t been taught to know better for millions of years
The Qu committed some horrific atrocities but calling the Qu as a species evil is missing the point of All Tommorows
I know what you mean, but on the other hand, even though the author states this for the Gravital, the Qu are referred to in the text as "monsters". Not necessarily saying you're wrong, just thought I should point that out.
I'd swear I remembered the narrator advising against vilifying the Qu. I do remember the narrator stating that their god complex arose out of good intentions so there's that I guess.
I think that was about the Gravital.
Mostly about the Gravital, the book says this about the Qu “With this ability to control the material world, they assumed a religious, self-imposed mission to “remake the universe as they saw fit.” Powerful as gods, Qu saw themselves as the divine harbingers of the future. This dogma was rooted in what had been a benevolent attempt to protect the race from its own power. However, blind, unquestioning obedience had made monsters of the Qu.”
I dont find this argument particulalry compelling. Good intentions or no, the Qu did irreperable damage to the human species and countless others, inflicitng millions of years of tourture through the human offshoots by even just existing. I dont care if they thought that they were helping, ask the Colonials what they thought of their help. We all know what the road to hell is paved with, and they Qu skipped gleefully down that road until the Astreamorphs put them in their place.
Agreed
I mean, philosophically the queue might look at humanity the same way we look at animals we test on does that make us evil not necessarily, but the queue was needlessly cruel, and you can tell that they were evil because they turned species into forms of entertainment and other species as literal flash drives to keep their history. They are evil if not apathetic towards lifeforms
The Qu are obviously horrible in terms of what they actually did and the effects they had on humanity, but I always saw it as an outside view of something like selective breeding (which, y'know, is what they did). The Hedonists, for example, are pets with horrible mutations that disallow them from living life as their human ancestors did. Pugs on earth are pets with horrible mutations that disallow them from living life as their wolf ancestors did. They're evil from our viewpoint of them inflicting these things on humans. It's meant to be a mirror, at least the way I see it. And given how advanced the Qu are, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the rationale of "Well, humans aren't on our level of consciousness, so is it *really* that immoral?"
Everyone here's saying that they're not truly evil, that they "had good intentions" or are like a "child killing ants fir fun". Misguided, but not malicious. I disagree. Need I remind you what they did to the colonials? They intentionally left their consciousness in tact so they could suffer for having tried to resist them. I'd call that pretty darn evil, certainly not like a child killing ants or anything like that.
It’s no worse than what humans do now. Imagine being a fish suffocating to death on the deck of a ship, buried under a mountain of your own brethren who are also suffocating to death. We cause that to happen every day, countless times a day, and we’re okay with it because fish are so different from us that having empathy for them just does not come naturally to us.
Yeah, I thought that was one of the main messages of the book.
That's not really the same as the colonial situation. As horrible as the meat industry can be, we don't intentionally make animals suffer as much as possible. The Qu had absolutely no practical need to make the colonials sentient.
To be perfectly fair, I’ve never read All Tomorrows so I don’t know. But is there anywhere in the books that fully describes the Qu’s psychology/behavior and lays it out that they are doing all of this out of pure cruelty?
Didn’t even read it 🤦
Can’t help it if it pops up on my homepage and the discussion seems interesting lol
Not comparable imo, that's an unfortunate side effect of humans gathering a good resource. The Qu intentionally made the Colonials suffer tremendously for having the audacity to resist them. If humans tortured any cattle that gave them grief before killing it, you would likely label them as evil.
Take a look at the acts of cruelty humans have inflicted on *other humans* for having the audacity to resist them.
Yes, and I would consider that evil. Just like I consider the Qus actions evil.
From their perspective, I imagine they’d see it as similar to muzzling a violent dog. It’s keeping them from being dangerous, and yeah it’s a punishment for attacking them at the same time. Not justifying it, but that’s the logic as I see it
It's more like humans creating pugs...
It’s not like that at all
Well, the colonials are at least useful somehow.
Pugs aren't setient
They absolutely are lol
Have you ever seen a pug worried about his Future/death? They are animals, they aré driven by instict
You're mistaking sentient with sophont/sapient.
Ops..
Honestly I’d argue the Gravitals are worse then the Qu, let alone invoking all of fiction
Agree. The Qu at least allowed their subjects to live, sometimes miserable existences, but live. Gravitals considered all organic life unworthy of the privilege of life.
The qu are as evil as a child killing ants for fun, wrong but not evil
Yeah, and in their eyes their killing of the ants is good because they're invasive.
Wasn’t their reasoning more religious?
Yeah. I just meant it in the sense that they saw their genetic mutilation as a good thing.
I think Combine is worst. They are basically Qu but in Mutliversal scale
I came here to say the Combine too. However I wouldn't call them badically the Qu even though they have some similar technology and habits. While the Qu are religious zealots with a god complex, the Combine are far less human. They're cruel not in a malicious sense, but in a cold, emotionless sense, and I think that makes them scarier than most other evil factions.
The Qu are, in a way, just humans genesplicing animals, at least in their perceptions. It's a little different than, say, The Flood from Halo
Certainly not number one, not even close, No. 1 goes to AM from I have no mouth and I must scream. (AM killed all of humanity except five people to torture them for all eternity, so he never forgets how much he hates humanity) A few others up there are probably Ridley from Metroid, Big Jack Horner (obviously), Sauron, Claude Frollo, and the Joker
The Number 1 goes to me playing Stellaris, actually
heinous war crime simulator is probably my favorite game immediate edit: hades and hades 2 are actually my favorites, stellaris is 3rd probably
Honestly if the Legendarium is represented I’d argue Morgoth is worse Tolkien did claim Sauron was unto total evil as humanely possible but Morgoth did his stuff and more I’d also argue DC’s Darkseid is mad underrated in these discussions
Even Santa hates Darlseid
For the most part, what they did to humanity was not done out of malice, but scientific experimentation and curiosity. Except for the colonials. They hated those poor sons o bitches.
There’s evil but then there is A.M levels of evil
Sometimes just existing is the most painful thing...
No? Qu did horrible stuff for questionable reasons. They are, from our perspective, absolutely evil, but less speculative-evolution-centric fiction has such 3 things as "cartoonishly evil", "literal manifistation of evil" and "irredeemable bastard that makes even the evil itself feel digusted" Any random Sauron-like figure is easily more evil - and, depending on how edgy the writing of random self-published book got, likely did things 10 times worse than Qu ever could Likewise, there is probably 10 billion no-name fanfics/novels/manga/manhwa that feature characters that are just normal-ass dudes doing stuff that horrible that you start to feel the need to jail said fiction's author The most evil fictional being is my OC i just made up called "Evil MC Villainous". Describing things he had done would violate every rule of this site, put me on many governmental lists and enrage all gods from all pantheons ensuring eternal suffering for me.
1- Stelaris player 2- AM from i have no mouth and i must scream 3- you can debate here but number 1 and 2 are unchangeble for me. ( maybe joker )
To answer this question, I must ask: what is "evil"? No, I'm serious. What do you mean by that?
I didn’t really have anything specific. I guess I meant what each other person considers evil.
Well, "evil," like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. To some folks, the Qu might not be evil at all and consider their actions justified. Others, like me, don't think "evil" is even real. People use that word to describe any number of things that are against whatever morality they subscribe to. Racists believe that other races are evil, just because of their race, for example.
Nah fam AM from I have no mouth and i must Scream is far more evil.
Nah
I think the Covenant from Halo (or at least the ruling species that serve as the "Prophets") are more evil than the Qu. They're both religious zealots beating down on humanity essentially out of jealousy, but while the Qu is using extremely cruel methods to knock humanity down a few thousand genetic pegs, the Prophets are knowingly killing most life in the universe just for the chance that they'll get to ascend to the "Great Journey." Sure they planned to use the Ark in Halo 3, but in Halo 2 they hadn't even confirmed where the Ark was yet and they STILL sent Tartarus to fire the rings. That's true religious madness. The Qu are evil dudes, but it can be argued that they're extremely cruel eco-terrorists, kneecapping humanity before they could match the Qu's scale of destructive capability. Hypocritical methods, but still arguably for protective purposes. So I think while they're very evil, particularly in their methods, there are other fictional races who cause far more destruction with far less reasoning. I picked the Covenant since they are religious zealots like the Qu, but races like The Combine or Daleks would fit just as well. The Qu go after lifeforms that are nearly as advanced as them, while the Covenant/Combine/Daleks go after ALL life. (Especially The Combine since they're a multiversal empire.)
Don't mind all these mouth breathers, the Qu are definitely evil. That being said. The combine from half life are worse. And the flood are even worse than them.
I don't think the Qu are evil in the conventional sense. I don't believe that they even comprehended the fact that we are sentient creatures. The Qu are so highly advanced that we look like ants to them, and the same way that we wouldn't say that using an insecticide is evil.
they were brainwashed by their own arrogance for nearly a billion years, calling them evil is kinda a stretch since they haven’t been taught to know better for millions of years
Below the combine as the strongest but first if it’s evil
Just things that average Stellaris player would do