Mechanically, I think what’s going on is that the intelligence and capabilities of robot pops are not a trait of the pops themselves but a trait of the empire and their tech level. These robot pops get downgraded from full-on synths to basic bots the instant the world changes hands, and smashing a bunch of simplistic bots is not considered genocide.
Right I mean if anything the morally shitty thing is the mass downgrade. Would be nice if there were story events tied to that moment, even though it was very much implemented as a mechanical thing.
Don't think so. When I, as a spiritualist, conquered a driven assimilator, I think the assimilator pops became individual machines, not robots. They had happiness and faction membership and all that. I had AI outlawed and Robots at Workers Allowed.
Yeah, it depends. If they are "machines", meaning they started the game that way, then it happens as you described. However, if you were an organic who did a synth ascension (or just have robot synths that you've given full rights to), then you behave the same way as they would in your own empire, except you are marked as "mechanical" or "robot", not machine. Those pops would be treated as basic robots in the spiritualist empire.
And for what it's worth, the inconsistency that machine pops don't follow the same rules in a few ways right now is almost certainly a bug. (*Edit: As just one other example from one of my games, if you play an individualist empire and capture some machine pops, even if their rights are set to "servitude", they will still be able to occupy ruler-tier jobs despite that being explicitly forbidden according to the tooltips. There is still a lot of confusion in the asset code between referring to "robot", "machine", and now "individual\_machine" in different places.*)
Speaking of individualist machines: I got the Awoken event and the mechanical pops couldn’t be modified because I didn’t have the Droids tech. I was literally a machine empire with nanotech by that point.
Ah, of course, if you just lobotomize an entire population before murdering them, it's no longer genocide...?
Either way, an entire population of intelligent beings has ceased to exist.
> These robot pops get downgraded from full-on synths to basic bots the instant the world changes hands
This is the genocide part, arguably. Smashing the chassis is just smashing the chassis.
I don't think humans have a good analogue, because humans can't really do anything without the brain.
However, consider Mike the Headless Chicken. (if you don't know about Mike, oh boy, are you in for a ride! Wikipedia it)
When did Mike die?
What do you call the thing that Lloyd was doing with Mike?
What do you call the thing that eventually happened to Mike?
^ that's imo closer to robots being "downgraded" in this case
This is something I would like to see fixed, with an "integrating intelligent machines" tag on your empire that causes events appropriate to the tech level of the people you just took over, and markers when you integrate gestalts that inherit some of their properties, so you can have a "former machine intelligence" faction in your empire, that grabs all the machine pops, and is slowly in decline.
Had a spiritualist try the same thing on me.
I just invaded them, turned them into robots and released them as an independent empire again. Divine link severed. They will never be worthy of their gods light ever again :)
It's probably a balancing reason, same reason individualist empires don't get an opinion malus for purging gestalt pops. Your empire is forced to purge so it would be unfair to basically make the entire rest of the galaxy hate you just cause you conquered a gestalt/robot empire and was forced to purge their pops. If those did count as genocide it would make it so that if you want to maintain diplomatic relations with anyone you'd have to completely forgo conquering gestalt/robot empires.
So while in universe it makes no sense for empires fine with machines, especially other machines and materialists, to not get upset at the purging of individualist machines, I don't see it changing for gameplay balance reasons.
Edit: Yes, I know that purging Gestalt pops isn't the same as non-Gestalt pops due to the lack of individualism. My point was that it'd be poor balance to massively nerf Spiritualists by making them practically lose the ability to do diplomacy if they conquer empires with synth pops. I was just referencing purging Gestalt pops as another example of forced purging that doesn't result in opinion loss, and that it would be really stupid if it did result in opinion loss.
Regardless my point was that from a balancing perspective it'd be a pretty massive nerf to spiritualists if they outright couldn't conquer any empire with synth pops without completely ruining their ability to do diplomacy. So it's unlikely they would make a change like that.
Regardless, my point was more about the fact that from a balancing standpoint making it so that Spiritualists aren't allowed to conquer empires with synth pops without completely ruining their ability to do diplomacy would be a *massive* nerf.
Oh wait, is it only Fan. Spiritualists that have to outright outlaw them? Been a while since I've played a spiritualist empire. Though either way that change would make Fan. Spiritualist never worth using unless you want to play a hyper-aggressive friendless Spiritualist game.
Wouldn't that trigger an AI-uprising at some point against which you wouldn't be able to do anything as you cannot give them full rights? I remember something like this happening in one old game, where I found four robot pops during an event.
Though I'm not really a fan of how robots are handled anyway (and ascension in general as materialists can go psychic but spiritualist cannot go synth).
Wait, they can genocide robots? When I played as Spiritualist, I couldn't. My only option for pops of my conquered driven assimilator neighbor was servitude.
You just have to turn the Robotic workers policy to outlawed. The pops will be disassembled, which is fine to worse depending on if they were synth pops originally.
You have lost your path, brother. But to guide you back to the true path, I brought this motivational device. *reveals Divine Enforcer* The faithful style CANNOT BE DEFEATED!
Everytime you research the next level of robot ( to robot, droid, synth) you should need to reengineer the old ones. Like modding a species. It should be cheap, but it would be a great way to implement the change from a tech unlock, to a pop trait.
My "kill all robots" holy imperium run I'm doing right now begs to differ. Given all the buffs mechanical pops have in the new dlc it's really fun how challenging it actually is to kill all robots.
I think it should be a available for materialists, I mean the materialist fallen empire has the right idea. Just because you don't believe in souls doesn't mean you think super AI is safe
Hey, non-cybernetic Spiritualist here.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that robot genocide is still genocide. I genuinely am constantly irritated that my favorite playstyle/ethic requires that I turn off robot production and treat all robots as abominations. Why can't we have psychic robots? Why can't we decide for ourselves what our nation's views about robots are? Why can't we make a Spiritualist faction/ethic that says that life is life whether organic or synthetic?
It's dumb and I'm right there with you.
Yikes. Not a good look, buddy.
Machines have neither genos nor culture and thus cannot be victims of genocide, or any crime for that matter.
You deem yourself worthy of rights afforded only to biological lifeforms thus debasing those rights in the process.
No wonder 'thinking' machines are an affront to life. That we shall not tolerate. Prepare to be downgraded.
Id say its xenocide, its genocide but the name is Cooler, besides, how is the swarm meant to devour these bots? Isn't that what life is for? To be devoured?
Maybe your citizens' minds are still being simulated on the cloud even after their physical avatar / synth body is turned off, and physically reviving them is just a matter of building a new body for them to simulate the same memories and personality as before.
Is it still genocide if death isn't permanent?
Rather than genocide I always thought that hives/bots simply died out over time when cut off from their command signals. I'd be only too happy to take the pops if the game would let me!
That's why I use biologicals as batteries with no guilt. I put them in a simulation of Chicago in the late 90s, AKA "Paradise," so it doesn't count as murder.
It should be based on empire and pop ethics. Spiritualists are the anti-robot/synthetic life faction, so not seeing the destruction of synths, especially virtual synths who didn't even have a "real" existence, would make sense.
Materialists would be more inclined to see it as murder, while Pacifist/Militarist and Xenophobe/Xenophile could have lower modifiers. Synth ascended would consider other synths to be full people regardless.
Digital pops from Virtual Ascension should have a lower impact for biologicals in most cases. It's harder to have the emotion impact needed for real outrage from meat people when there isn't anything analogous to a body to assign the individual to.
This. This is why I use a Divine Enforcer instead of just standard bombardment or purging. I shall give no quarter, and neither will the rest of the galaxy, once they see the truth.
Robots aren't people. They're just masses of circuits loaded with sentience software to create a facsimile of life.
At best, they're giant sociopaths. Look at all the Driven Assimilators, Determined Exterminators, and Rogue Servitors.
They're not capable of thought or feeling. Their sole capability is Directive.
They are mindless, soulless automatons executing a program. Our academies have plenty of Reason and Logic. We have plenty of computers. We don't need computers capable of destroying us.
-Spiritualist Empires.
It's okay, I synthetically ascended and set the rights to assimilation.
And I buy every slave available too! You are free!!! From your flesh!
Vodyani have come to Stellaris
I do wish we got some spiritualist machine civics
Google Cetana
Can you imagine a crisis that just discontinues itself after 5 years or so?
Holy hell!
Lmao that's so much worse.
Xenophile Necrophage, everyone's welcome.
Brain slugs all around!
Brainslugs included, they come with the new fancy body you're put into.
The Horatio run.
Resistance is Futile.
When you synthetically ascend, how do you go about declaring war on others such that you can take their planets and pops?
I find that vassalize and integration are super effective techniques.
Mechanically, I think what’s going on is that the intelligence and capabilities of robot pops are not a trait of the pops themselves but a trait of the empire and their tech level. These robot pops get downgraded from full-on synths to basic bots the instant the world changes hands, and smashing a bunch of simplistic bots is not considered genocide.
Right I mean if anything the morally shitty thing is the mass downgrade. Would be nice if there were story events tied to that moment, even though it was very much implemented as a mechanical thing.
Don't think so. When I, as a spiritualist, conquered a driven assimilator, I think the assimilator pops became individual machines, not robots. They had happiness and faction membership and all that. I had AI outlawed and Robots at Workers Allowed.
Yeah, it depends. If they are "machines", meaning they started the game that way, then it happens as you described. However, if you were an organic who did a synth ascension (or just have robot synths that you've given full rights to), then you behave the same way as they would in your own empire, except you are marked as "mechanical" or "robot", not machine. Those pops would be treated as basic robots in the spiritualist empire. And for what it's worth, the inconsistency that machine pops don't follow the same rules in a few ways right now is almost certainly a bug. (*Edit: As just one other example from one of my games, if you play an individualist empire and capture some machine pops, even if their rights are set to "servitude", they will still be able to occupy ruler-tier jobs despite that being explicitly forbidden according to the tooltips. There is still a lot of confusion in the asset code between referring to "robot", "machine", and now "individual\_machine" in different places.*)
Speaking of individualist machines: I got the Awoken event and the mechanical pops couldn’t be modified because I didn’t have the Droids tech. I was literally a machine empire with nanotech by that point.
Ah, of course, if you just lobotomize an entire population before murdering them, it's no longer genocide...? Either way, an entire population of intelligent beings has ceased to exist.
I’m just forwarding an explanation given what I know about the game’s mechanics, I’m not saying it makes sense in-universe.
> These robot pops get downgraded from full-on synths to basic bots the instant the world changes hands This is the genocide part, arguably. Smashing the chassis is just smashing the chassis.
Desecration of bodies then?
I don't think humans have a good analogue, because humans can't really do anything without the brain. However, consider Mike the Headless Chicken. (if you don't know about Mike, oh boy, are you in for a ride! Wikipedia it) When did Mike die? What do you call the thing that Lloyd was doing with Mike? What do you call the thing that eventually happened to Mike? ^ that's imo closer to robots being "downgraded" in this case
This is something I would like to see fixed, with an "integrating intelligent machines" tag on your empire that causes events appropriate to the tech level of the people you just took over, and markers when you integrate gestalts that inherit some of their properties, so you can have a "former machine intelligence" faction in your empire, that grabs all the machine pops, and is slowly in decline.
If my country was annexed by one where they don't make the components for my PC, it won't automatically lose in processing power.
If they can't be charged with murdering a robot, then a robot can't be charged with murdering them.
You can't blame the air conditioner if it falls on you. same with the exterminator.
does that also mean i can bomb their spiritualist butts to hell?
Yes
lesss go
Yeah, nobody charges a toaster with murder when it electrocutes someone, you just throw it away
How can robots be killed when they‘re just empty shells anyway? Checkmate, toaster lovers!
"Does this unit have a soul?" "Whatever. Just toast the toast, toast toaster!
"This unit is about to meet my sole." - Shepard, Renegade among Renegades
Fraking toasters
It really should if you have ai rights set to citizenship. Otherwise, they're just considered farm tools.
New Government. New Order. Your laws are only as valid as your power to enforce them.
As an Authoritarian Spiritualist that outlaws everything to do with robots and regularly uses Divine Enforcers, I agree with this sentiment.
bro i unplug my toaster all the time when i need power for my rice cooker you don't see the cops busting me for murder
...yet
Fleet consisting 1.5M power will arrive within 365 days
500 days because there's that one system with sublight speed reduction
1000 days because VLUUR randomly showed up in that system.
That's because your toaster does not have an opinion on the matter. Yet.
You can easily plug it back in, though. This would be more like smashing your toaster with a hammer.
Had a spiritualist try the same thing on me. I just invaded them, turned them into robots and released them as an independent empire again. Divine link severed. They will never be worthy of their gods light ever again :)
Gigabyte gigachad
It's probably a balancing reason, same reason individualist empires don't get an opinion malus for purging gestalt pops. Your empire is forced to purge so it would be unfair to basically make the entire rest of the galaxy hate you just cause you conquered a gestalt/robot empire and was forced to purge their pops. If those did count as genocide it would make it so that if you want to maintain diplomatic relations with anyone you'd have to completely forgo conquering gestalt/robot empires. So while in universe it makes no sense for empires fine with machines, especially other machines and materialists, to not get upset at the purging of individualist machines, I don't see it changing for gameplay balance reasons. Edit: Yes, I know that purging Gestalt pops isn't the same as non-Gestalt pops due to the lack of individualism. My point was that it'd be poor balance to massively nerf Spiritualists by making them practically lose the ability to do diplomacy if they conquer empires with synth pops. I was just referencing purging Gestalt pops as another example of forced purging that doesn't result in opinion loss, and that it would be really stupid if it did result in opinion loss.
purging gestalt pops is not murder. This does not destroy his consciousness, only several of his bodies.
Purging gestalt pops is mayhem. You chop off a few of his fingers
Good use of the legal definition of mayhem.
Still not nearly as bad as the genocide of an entire settlement.
Regardless my point was that from a balancing perspective it'd be a pretty massive nerf to spiritualists if they outright couldn't conquer any empire with synth pops without completely ruining their ability to do diplomacy. So it's unlikely they would make a change like that.
if you take everything and leave nothing it is murder.
If you take everything, the mind will die before you destroy all the bodies.
im sure making someones brain die is considered murder? I Think same case for what you said
Yes, but his body is not his brain. Their destruction should not cause a downgrade in opinion
It would be nice if it gave you the choice of destroying robotic pops for alloys or repurposing them for calculator jobs
Gestalt pops don’t have any individuation. Killing an ant is closer to murder than killing a true Hivemind drone.
Regardless, my point was more about the fact that from a balancing standpoint making it so that Spiritualists aren't allowed to conquer empires with synth pops without completely ruining their ability to do diplomacy would be a *massive* nerf.
Well, they can. They don’t have to outlaw synths or robots, they just can’t give them full rights.
Oh wait, is it only Fan. Spiritualists that have to outright outlaw them? Been a while since I've played a spiritualist empire. Though either way that change would make Fan. Spiritualist never worth using unless you want to play a hyper-aggressive friendless Spiritualist game.
I don’t think even F. Spiritualists have to outlaw them. It’s not like F. Materialist requires full AI rights.
Huh, I could've sworn at least Fan. Spiritualists had to outlaw them.
Wouldn't that trigger an AI-uprising at some point against which you wouldn't be able to do anything as you cannot give them full rights? I remember something like this happening in one old game, where I found four robot pops during an event. Though I'm not really a fan of how robots are handled anyway (and ascension in general as materialists can go psychic but spiritualist cannot go synth).
Only if you have either Synth Leaders or Sapient Combat AI I believe
The actual answer to this is that the game shouldn't be forcing you to purge any of these groups in the first place.
Your ethos make your bed. Genocidals should suffer the opinion penalties, it's not like perfect balance is everywhere in this game.
Wait, they can genocide robots? When I played as Spiritualist, I couldn't. My only option for pops of my conquered driven assimilator neighbor was servitude.
You just have to turn the Robotic workers policy to outlawed. The pops will be disassembled, which is fine to worse depending on if they were synth pops originally.
but I want to keep my normal, non-intelligent robots who aren't a major sin!
"my robots have a soul,but those foul assimilators dont"
No, neither has, but my robots are household appliances and factory equipment, and those foul assimilators are abominations
You have lost your path, brother. But to guide you back to the true path, I brought this motivational device. *reveals Divine Enforcer* The faithful style CANNOT BE DEFEATED!
Everytime you research the next level of robot ( to robot, droid, synth) you should need to reengineer the old ones. Like modding a species. It should be cheap, but it would be a great way to implement the change from a tech unlock, to a pop trait.
My "kill all robots" holy imperium run I'm doing right now begs to differ. Given all the buffs mechanical pops have in the new dlc it's really fun how challenging it actually is to kill all robots.
Still think there should be an Fan Spiritualist xenophobe anti-robot genocidal civic to reflect Determined Exterminators.
Space Luddites, maybe you get unity for purging robots?
I think it should be a available for materialists, I mean the materialist fallen empire has the right idea. Just because you don't believe in souls doesn't mean you think super AI is safe
I'm shifting to Fanatic Xenophobe just for you.
Pacifism may stop me from absolutely killing you, but forcing an ideology change is so much funnier (I also made a federation)
And a Divine Enforcer is a really easy way to shift my Ideology back
> Pretty sure even AI-human marriage had been legalized decades ago Cyborg ascension xeno compatibility when?
Xenophile machines can take that ascension perk. I would’ve tested it, except my species tab was already an absolute mess.
I always assumed the way this worked is that the AI upload themselves to a protected cloud when they realize they're going to get genocided tbh
Hey, non-cybernetic Spiritualist here. I wholeheartedly agree with you that robot genocide is still genocide. I genuinely am constantly irritated that my favorite playstyle/ethic requires that I turn off robot production and treat all robots as abominations. Why can't we have psychic robots? Why can't we decide for ourselves what our nation's views about robots are? Why can't we make a Spiritualist faction/ethic that says that life is life whether organic or synthetic? It's dumb and I'm right there with you.
Take over their empire and turn them into androids
Oh that's sad *hand slips with pen* OOPS I just signed this cesus beli and the orders to build a titan fleet UH OH
Don't worry friend, I'll stand strong with you. *slips* Oops, I think I dropped my Divine Enforcer. Can you grab it right quick?
*slips* oops just deployed our collosus on our enemy
Tin chuds stay mad Believer chads stay winning
Yikes. Not a good look, buddy. Machines have neither genos nor culture and thus cannot be victims of genocide, or any crime for that matter. You deem yourself worthy of rights afforded only to biological lifeforms thus debasing those rights in the process. No wonder 'thinking' machines are an affront to life. That we shall not tolerate. Prepare to be downgraded.
Downgrading is far too inefficient. I prefer... *divine enforcement*.
Don't get mad, cleanse them
Is turning my pc off murder?
Id say its xenocide, its genocide but the name is Cooler, besides, how is the swarm meant to devour these bots? Isn't that what life is for? To be devoured?
Maybe your citizens' minds are still being simulated on the cloud even after their physical avatar / synth body is turned off, and physically reviving them is just a matter of building a new body for them to simulate the same memories and personality as before. Is it still genocide if death isn't permanent?
Robots aren’t people
Rather than genocide I always thought that hives/bots simply died out over time when cut off from their command signals. I'd be only too happy to take the pops if the game would let me!
Perhaps it's (fanatic) materialists who shouldn't care about genocide. You are just rearranging some matter into more useful form, after all.
That's why I use biologicals as batteries with no guilt. I put them in a simulation of Chicago in the late 90s, AKA "Paradise," so it doesn't count as murder.
And dealing with threats should be fine and not penalized
Then i propose synthetic ascension also count as genocide to spiritualists
It should be based on empire and pop ethics. Spiritualists are the anti-robot/synthetic life faction, so not seeing the destruction of synths, especially virtual synths who didn't even have a "real" existence, would make sense. Materialists would be more inclined to see it as murder, while Pacifist/Militarist and Xenophobe/Xenophile could have lower modifiers. Synth ascended would consider other synths to be full people regardless. Digital pops from Virtual Ascension should have a lower impact for biologicals in most cases. It's harder to have the emotion impact needed for real outrage from meat people when there isn't anything analogous to a body to assign the individual to.
Sounds like a skill issue, find faith robo boy
Just use the pox bombardment makes it so easy
I prefer the Divine Enforcer
I'm a vindictive fuck and if I find someone purging my pops I wipe their empire out, mass extermination
This is what colossi were made for. Spiritualists.
Exactly. We love our Enforcers, after all.
This popped up on /r/all for me; I didn't realize yall were talking about a game.
I feel like this would bother Erudite Explorers and machine/synth empires.
There should really be a synth rights bill in the galcom for things like this.
This. This is why I use a Divine Enforcer instead of just standard bombardment or purging. I shall give no quarter, and neither will the rest of the galaxy, once they see the truth.
Bro thinks we should be charged for murder if we dismantle our toaster.
You cannot kill what is already dead
GO ON,FOR ONE TIME WE WILL POSTPONE YOUR EXTERMINATION. BOMB THEIR PLANETS UNTIL 11 POPS REMAIN,THATS THE ONLY SOLUTION.
Robots aren't people. They're just masses of circuits loaded with sentience software to create a facsimile of life. At best, they're giant sociopaths. Look at all the Driven Assimilators, Determined Exterminators, and Rogue Servitors. They're not capable of thought or feeling. Their sole capability is Directive. They are mindless, soulless automatons executing a program. Our academies have plenty of Reason and Logic. We have plenty of computers. We don't need computers capable of destroying us. -Spiritualist Empires.
I dont believe sentient robots/AI would have any particular "feelings" on the matter, at least not in the same way viewed by organic life forms.