Mandarins

I

Iceyl86

Spaceman
A few things about them... first do you guys think the Kilrathi would have honored thier bargain w/ the Mandarins once the war ended? Or just killed them?

Second... I didnt really get Jazz's reasoning... I mean he said he was pissed because his family was on Goddard and the colony got blasted because when the TC was supposed to be defending it... they went off chasing a Kilrathi ship. But I dont remember that, what I remember is the Tiger's Claw immediatly rushing to the aid of the colony once they lost contact with it...

And finally, how come they dont have a place in the WC Ship database on the main site? The pirate factions do! I mean they had the Ayers Rock space station, and thier ships were somewhat different in terms of Armaments from the Confederation ones...
 
Nah the Kilrathi would've let them live. No need to kill an easy source of slave labour ;)

Jazz's reasoning and memory was slighty skewed from the loss of family members to the Kat's. It's quite possible that grief pushed him over the edge.
 
Depends on the circunstances. The possible kilrathi victory at the end of WC3 was an act of extermination. I believe that the Kats simply slaughtered every human they found at that point.

If the Kats had won at an earlier point, then I guess they could have become slaves of some kind.

But the Kats would never, ever respect them. The mandarin had no honor.
 
So what it was a treaty the cats had no intention of honoring? Didnt the Mandarins think of that at any point!?
 
Iceyl86 said:
So what it was a treaty the cats had no intention of honoring? Didnt the Mandarins think of that at any point!?
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A lot of them are people that have gone mad with power and grief, among other things. A good example is the traitor in Wing Commander Academy Episode 1. While it is never stated he is a Mandarin, he IS a traitor. The Kilrathi warrior says something like "I've never met a spy before, face to face. How does your honour allow you to betray your own kind?".
The traitor explains he was a cadet at the academy till he was washed during a psych evaluation. This psych thing obviously picked up and he went mad.

Shortly after the Kilrathi breaks the deal and watches him get sucked out the airlock claiming "a man without honour has no reason to live".
What am I getting at? The Kilrathi would have slaughtered them all as brutally as possible.
 
People can get fixated on their beliefs or goals to the point where they do not even consider (or even perceive for that matter) any evidence that might otherwise lead them to re-examine the situation and their subsequent actions. As humans, we often get so caught up in the battle to be "right" that we neglect the battle to be wise and circumspect.

Sadly, it happens all of the time. How many people go around with variations of the thoughts, "I am invincible," or "I can not fail?"

With a situation like the Mandarins, if someone had approached them with the idea that the Kats might turn on them, they would have a long list of defenses and justifications stating why such a thing would be impossible.

It would be interesting to have the beliefs and proselyting methods of the Mandarins fleshed out in a way that is psychosocially coherent. If I had the time, I might even try to do it. However, I think if you look around in history, you will find many individuals and groups who fell in to the same trap (I'm not trying to start a political discussion, but look at the way Saddam is responding to his trial right now... it's to the point of seeming delusional).
 
The Mandarins, they are group of people who lost the plot. The Kilrathi would not see them as allies, but as beings with no honor. Something like the episode from the animated series 'red and blue'.
I think they believe to one extend that the Kilrathi could co-exist within reason, but they think this over
 
Second... I didnt really get Jazz's reasoning... I mean he said he was pissed because his family was on Goddard and the colony got blasted because when the TC was supposed to be defending it... they went off chasing a Kilrathi ship. But I dont remember that, what I remember is the Tiger's Claw immediatly rushing to the aid of the colony once they lost contact with it...
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Take note, those in the current movie thread who are looking for an example of weak story: Jazz was just crazy.

Seriously, though, Jazz wasn't a Mandarin for the same reason the society existed (to defeat the Kilrathi from within) -- he just hated the Confederation for 'letting' his brother die at Goddard. Prince Thrakhath took advantage of this, rewarding him (he brags about recieving a Kilrathi medal) and using him against his shipmates.

And finally, how come they dont have a place in the WC Ship database on the main site? The pirate factions do! I mean they had the Ayers Rock space station, and thier ships were somewhat different in terms of Armaments from the Confederation ones...
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That's certainly something to add to Ships2, if and when it ever gets finished.

Depends on the circunstances. The possible kilrathi victory at the end of WC3 was an act of extermination. I believe that the Kats simply slaughtered every human they found at that point.

If the Kats had won at an earlier point, then I guess they could have become slaves of some kind.
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That's correct, up until the very end of the war the Kilrathi were fighting to *enslave* humanity. In 2668, during the Earth Defense Campaign, Thrakhath declared that it would be a war of total eradication, completely annihilating the human race.

The Kilrathi have always been a race of slavers -- we see human slaves on Ghorah Khar in Freedom Flight, human and Varni slaves throughout Action Stations, talk of Locanda as a source of slaves in Wing Commander 3, human slaves on Kilrahi in Fleet Action and then the complete enslavement of the Deneb Sector in the losing endgame of The Secret Missions.
 
And all the races in Academy. But once they served their use, there was evidence to suggest they too would be exterminated.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
That's correct, up until the very end of the war the Kilrathi were fighting to *enslave* humanity. In 2668, during the Earth Defense Campaign, Thrakhath declared that it would be a war of total eradication, completely annihilating the human race.
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Though the events in Locanda, as well as some of the stuff in the KSaga calendar did imply that the Kilrathi had human slaves even after the declaration of total eradication - perhaps the total eradication thing was cancelled after they lost the battle of Earth?

Sphynx said:
However, I think if you look around in history, you will find many individuals and groups who fell in to the same trap (I'm not trying to start a political discussion, but look at the way Saddam is responding to his trial right now... it's to the point of seeming delusional).
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This definitely is not the place for it - but if you start a thread in the off-topic forum, I'll be happy to explain to you why Saddam Hussein's approach to his trial not only isn't delusional, but is also the only sensible thing he can do in his current situation.
 
I agree that the "he went crazy" idea is a bit of a cop-out. Even people who are criminally psychotic do things for a reason, and plenty of people who are not psychotic do terrible and twisted things.

In some ways, it is as if the Mandarins were trying to save humanity from itself, and the only way they saw of saving them was to insure their defeat before the Kilrathi declared a war of extinction. As LOAF pointed out quite well, Jazz didn't really buy in to their philosophy. For him, it was more a case of what Karl Jung would call "shadow." He percieved that his need were unmet, and rather than being able to see things for how they are, the darker, accusatory part of his psyche fed his desire for revenge.

When bad things happened to people he loved, he was unable to resolve the ambiguity in his mind between the Kilrathi's brutality and the failure of Confed to interdict, and ended up "blaming the victims," so to speak, or humanity as a whole and the Tiger's Claw crew in particular. Rigid, polarized thinking is common in people who have gone through something traumatic, such as losing family members through violence. So, with his thinking in total shades of black and white, Confed's inability to stop the disaster made them "bad." So, he found himself in a psychological bind: the Kilrathi are evil, and Confed is "evil," so what's left? Looking out for himself and punishing those he felt most responsible are the meaning he adopted to maladptively resolve the cognitive disparity he was struggling with.

So, while Jazz did not really support the Kilrathi, but was willing to ally with them to punish those he thought needed punishment, and in so doing he warped and destroyed himself.

Terry Warner (in his book "Bonds that Make us Free") describes the sort of warped, self-deceived thinking that occurs in such situations. You may want to check it out for an interesting read.

Quarto:

You make a good point about Saddam, and like I said, it "appears" delusional, but is not. I think I see your reasoning. The only way to protect himself is to deny the validity of the new body. So, you are right. Even though people think he is acting "crazy," it's only crazy like a fox. There is method in what people tend to view as madness.
 
For all Thrakhath's blister and for all the show of killing slaves on Kilrah, wiping out all the human slaves in an Empire that's using them help fuel its war machine probably wasn't a reasonable course of action.

The bioweapons used in Wing Commander III, though, would seem to support the idea that the war is now being fought to wipe out humanity rather than to enslave it.
 
I had the impression that a good majority of the Mandarin Society's members were of the impression that the Confederation was going to lose the war...thus by helping the Kilrathi...they were ensuring their own survival (at least in their minds).
 
Aplha 1-1 said:
Nah the Kilrathi would've let them live. No need to kill an easy source of slave labour ;)

Jazz's reasoning and memory was slighty skewed from the loss of family members to the Kat's. It's quite possible that grief pushed him over the edge.
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That's one thing I never got. Why would Jazz join the Mandarins, yet the Kilrathis killed his brother in Goddard. Wouldn't Jazz have the sense of bloodlust against the Kilrathis?
 
Ptarmigan said:
That's one thing I never got. Why would Jazz join the Mandarins, yet the Kilrathis killed his brother in Goddard. Wouldn't Jazz have the sense of bloodlust against the Kilrathis?
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He wanted to get the humans back first who failed him. Manipulate our worst enemy to do some serious damage against us. Then I guess he'd have turned on the kilrathi or continued on his crazy act of working with them.
 
DyNaMiX said:
He wanted to get the humans back first who failed him. Manipulate our worst enemy to do some serious damage against us. Then I guess he'd have turned on the kilrathi or continued on his crazy act of working with them.
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Jazz is just an odd man. Never ceases to amaze me. He had the galls to ruin Colonel Blair's career and life.
 
Regarding the mandarins I believe the Kilrathi would not have honored their deal with them. On one hand they are traitors without honor. On the other hand we know that the Kilrathi even betrayed honorful humans when attacking earth after the peace treaty was signed. So any surviving Mandarin would probably be killed or enslaved or form some other kind of entertainment for the Kilrathi (prey for hunting,...)...
 
Ptarmigan said:
Jazz is just an odd man. Never ceases to amaze me. He had the galls to ruin Colonel Blair's career and life.
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Yeah, its kinda sad though... I mean when he flew on my wing in Super Wing Commander... I never had a better wing man, in all the games, he was the one I liked flying w/ the most, y? BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING! He was fast and aggressive, theres no one else idve rather flow w/!
 
cff said:
Regarding the mandarins I believe the Kilrathi would not have honored their deal with them. On one hand they are traitors without honor. On the other hand we know that the Kilrathi even betrayed honorful humans when attacking earth after the peace treaty was signed. So any surviving Mandarin would probably be killed or enslaved or form some other kind of entertainment for the Kilrathi (prey for hunting,...)...
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That brings up an interesting point. I haven't read the novels that tell the story about the battle of earth. So why did the Kilrathi lie and betray us? That seems very cowardice.
 
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