The conclusion of the series had a mysterious supertech-thingie that could detect bad people (maybe 4% of the population) and painlessly kill them. Everybody else, free of these bad people, would be able to produce utopia.
[ETA: At current world population, that would be a mere 308 million people. A small price to pay for utopia!]
Counterpoint: "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Fountainhead, by (of course), Ayn Rand. More recently, Neal Asher took Rand's relatively cerebral bloodlust and produced a work that is almost nothing but a purely pornographic splatterfest in The Departure.
by Jerry Pournelle, one of the John Christian Falkenberg mercenary stories--perhaps The Mercenary. Put me off the chararcter permanently. Unfortunately, I was too young to realize the problem was the author, not the character.
I don't know, I don't feel I can forgive Falkenberg for being persuaded into massacre on the word of an economist. Even less these days, as I imagine people like Paul Manafort using economic arguments as cover instead of sincerely believing them.
It is the aliens' solution to Earth's ecological situation. We aren't consulted. We don't get to stop it.
Michael Moorcock's hero Corum cut a deal with the terribly powerful Lost Gods, according to a wiki (I dimly remember the book), to destroy the more evil gods in his universe, the Lords of Chaos. But they decided to wipe out the Lords of Law also. Oh, well.
The Lords of Order could be dicks too if unconstrained, IIRC.
But evil Gods do prove something of a moral quandary: if you lock them up instead of killing them, then you have Sealed Evil in a Can, and you know some idiot is eventually going to let them out.
Hmm. Any fictional accounts of an Ancient Locked Away Evil that had undergone a change of heart during Its imprisonment and was no longer Evil when released?
The Expanse novel where OPA offshoots decide to hurl meteors at the Earth, which I recall really put you off that one, even though it was not exactly positioned as a heroic act.
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Ender's Game?
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Yes. (The Mercenary)
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The conclusion of the series had a mysterious supertech-thingie that could detect bad people (maybe 4% of the population) and painlessly kill them. Everybody else, free of these bad people, would be able to produce utopia.
[ETA: At current world population, that would be a mere 308 million people. A small price to pay for utopia!]
Counterpoint: "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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(Anonymous) - 2019-02-12 22:43 (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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I can think of two off-hand
I'm sure there are plenty more.
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SPOILERS
(Anonymous) 2019-02-10 12:06 am (UTC)(link)It is the aliens' solution to Earth's ecological situation. We aren't consulted. We don't get to stop it.
Michael Moorcock's hero Corum cut a deal with the terribly powerful Lost Gods, according to a wiki (I dimly remember the book), to destroy the more evil gods in his universe, the Lords of Chaos. But they decided to wipe out the Lords of Law also. Oh, well.
Robert Carnegie
Re: SPOILERS
But evil Gods do prove something of a moral quandary: if you lock them up instead of killing them, then you have Sealed Evil in a Can, and you know some idiot is eventually going to let them out.
Hmm. Any fictional accounts of an Ancient Locked Away Evil that had undergone a change of heart during Its imprisonment and was no longer Evil when released?
Re: Sealed Evil
Re: Sealed Evil
Re: Sealed Evil
Re: SPOILERS
Re: SPOILERS
Re: SPOILERS
Prison and reformation?
(Anonymous) - 2019-02-11 21:35 (UTC) - ExpandI keep forgetting to put my name in here.
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