Strangelove said:
[...]the shoot/don't shoot example is more an issue of personal morality. Whether someone is willing to attack someone they like or not is more an individual decision.
There is a strong tendency for people to paint an entire group based on the actions of one member of a group, especially if their only personal interaction is that one person. In some cases, people even base their entire opinion of a group on one person that they met for a minute (and I think everyone can think of an example of where this is demonstrated either in the real world or in-game or both). This is why the concept of accepted professionalism comes into play, especially if a group is conscious of their image. Professionalism provides a sense of consistency and honesty of behavior for interactions with a group, regardless of who you are working alongside within that group.
I don't know if Wes could confirm or refute this or not, but I would guess that reliability and the ability of field commanders to know within reason what the soldiers under their command or tied to their unit(s) will do is very, very important. It's the reason there is training for militaries to begin with. You need to know whether someone's going to mow down indiscriminately or play honorably and whether they will follow orders or go their own way despite orders.
3) The term enemy is ambiguously defined specifically because its left to the discretion of unit commanders. They know well that infamy will limit their future potential to serve and kill, so should know to show discretion. One could also argue that tactics like this don't seem as abhorrent in the SARP universe as you think, as indicated by the actions of the Yamataians against the NMX and Freespacers, and NMX against everyone else.
Except that it
is abhorred. You've probably noticed, but the YSA and NMX are not exactly the most liked, in-game. NMX are the villains of the piece, so of course they're
supposed to do things like that. Yamatai is not
intentionally trying to set out to be bad guys, but they (rather, their leaders) tend to put the safety of their nation above all, including ethical wartime behavior such as the genocide (which we have all agreed could have been handled better). So, no, I wouldn't think that using them as examples "that tactics like this don't seem as abhorrent in the SARP universe as you think" is a good reason to make such a claim. Those actions
are abhorent and will not reflect well on either the cult or the Freespacers as a whole.
As a religion it provides a set of suggested rules of conduct. It does not, however, provide a totalitarian ruleset for every situation. Dilemmas like those proposed have no clear cut and absolute answer. Some things are just left to individual judgement.
There are few religions besides the parody ones that have "suggested" rules of conduct. But that is beside the point.
The point is that, actually, there should be a clear-cut and absolute answer for such actions because, as noted above, military leaders that these cultists work for
need to know that these soldiers that they have hired
will perform as ordered on the field. If the cultists kill previous employers when hired against them sometimes but not others, then they are unreliable and therefore unusable for whoever doesn't have the time or resources to dig out the reliable cultists from among the unreliable. And, if your soldier can be swayed because they used to fight for the other side...then anyone with sense would transfer that soldier to another field or, better still, remove him or her from the fight altogether. It's bad strategy unless you're beyond desperate to take on fighters from an unreliable source, even if their religion is based around the fight.
In the end, religion may be a popular source for reasons to fight for, but religions themselves rarely include ways on how to wage a war. That is why the Art of Never Again is probably the only thing close to a religious text that includes a straight-up military training manual for physical warfare! : ) Best-case, this would be a good group for independent action, not front-line duty or important missions, unless measured and proven on a case-by-base basis before each assignment.
(If anyone knows of a recognized religion that does directly teach warfare, let me know...I haven't heard of one. I've heard of some teaching why to fight, but not how.)
