History BlueAndOrangeMorality / LiveActionTv

* Sometimes discussed in ''{{Series/Supernatural}}''. Because of [[TheHunter the nature of their work]], Sam and Dean occasionally run into Pagan gods and monsters who see nothing wrong in killing and eating people in order to survive. Also, there are more than a few moments where it's abundantly clear that Castiel is operating from a very different moral framework to the Winchesters, which is arguably the biggest source of tension between himself and Dean throughout the series.

* [[RobotGirl Cameron]] of ''Series/TheSarahConnorChronicles'' has a very simple morality system that revolves around protecting John Connor. If it protects him, she'll usually do it, unless he overrides her (most of the time). If it threatens John Connor, however, she ''destroys'' it without hesitation, and ''regardless'' of whether John or anyone else objects. That's pretty much the beginning and the end of her concept of morality.
** Worth noting is early in the first season, Cameron guns down a FBI informant in front of Sarah for warning the FBI about the Connors, and Sarah slaps her in response, telling her never to do that again. Cameron's response is to stare at her in absolute but emotionless confusion; after all, Cameron just did ''everything'' right by her programming, but Sarah's telling her she did the wrong thing.
** Another example of this occurs later, when Cameron uses a man on the run from the mob to get information on who the Turk prototype computer was sold to. She promises to help the man, but the moment she has the information, she simply walks away and lets the mob hitmen kill him. For a ''human'' character, this would be an act of cruelty that -- depending on the character -- could catapult them over the MoralEventHorizon, but for Cameron, the audience ''knows'' that her morality system is extremely alien compared to a human's, and thus the result isn't as severe; the audience is just reminded that Cameron is still a machine assassin and still coldly and brutally logical about her mission.
*** Present-day John and Sarah invented the 'stop Skynet' mission, so they're able to define how that mission operates, including setting limits on killing people who might interfere with that mission. (This is compared to the 'protect John' mission, which they cannot interfere with...Cameron will do anything to protect him, period, regardless of what he wants.) However, John never ordered her to not put people in danger or to help them escape danger, just to not ''kill'' them.
** At one point, when John is surprised that a Terminator isn't cruel for cruelty's sake, Cameron points out to him that terminators aren't cruel. This applies to both Cameron herself and "evil" terminators in general, who, while utterly ruthless, don't inflict pain just for the sake of inflicting pain. While they are willing to torture humans (not usually for interrogation, but for other purposes, like hurting someone's loved ones to draw them out of hiding), the moment they determine that this will not achieve their goals they stop and utilize other tactics.

** [[Nanomachines The Nanites]] have a moral code that seems to run on [[ObstructiveBureaucract Obstructive Bureaucracy]]. They refuse to repair a ship or even go to the bathroom without a work order, but happily [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy a planet]] when Mike asks them to [[ExactWords "take care of [a] little problem"]].

* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' series and novels, Cats have this compared to humans, which is played for laughs. To humans, Cat comes off as incredibly vain, shallow, easily-distracted, horny, impulsive and silly. To another Cat, he would be quite normal. Although the episode ''Waiting for God'' shows that the Cat people have a morality of their own. Because they regard Lister as their god, they consider it virtuous to be slobby like him, and so would regard Cat as immoral because he is cool. In other words, cool = bad and slobby = good in their morality.
** In the series episode "Rimmerworld", a world populated entirely by clones and {{Opposite Sex Clone}}s of Rimmer ends up a fascistic society built around hypocrisy, manipulation, boot-licking, backstabbing, double-dealing, two-facedness and otherwise {{Jerkass}} mindsets. Lister, Cat and Kryten are promptly sentenced to death for not only being "hideously deformed", but for being brave, compassionate, loyal, honorable and charismatic, which are all high crimes on Rimmerworld.

*** The Fourth Doctor is about as extreme as it gets due to the BizarreAlienPsychology of that incarnation - he sees no problem with manipulating or bullying his friends for the greater good or even, occasionally, for fun, but finds the whole concept of exercising authority over others to be at best objectionable. Sometimes, if it looks like he's led allies to fend off a monster to the point where his allies can gain official power, he will stab them in the back to keep this from happening. The first thing he will offer any villain in a dispute is compromise and diplomacy, no matter how repugnant its ideas - of course, if the villain has no intention to change or betrays him, he will not feel any guilt about killing them.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
** [[{{Precursors}} The Ancients]] ''might'' be this trope after their ascension. Whenever we see living Ancients on ''this'' plane of existence, they are generally depicted as normal humans who were simply interested in science a lot, not the gigantic {{Jerkass}}es they are as ascended beings (see more on NeglectfulPrecursors).
** In "Learning Curve", SG-1 encounters a technologically-advanced planet where the human civilization implants nanites into certain children at infancy that records all information they learn. When they come of age, these nanites are removed and distributed to the rest of the population, transferring their knowledge while reducing the children to a largely infantile state. SG-1 is horrified to discover that the children are essentially "having their brains sucked out" but the other civilization seems to have no issue with this.

* A sideplot in ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS02E03TheGeometryOfShadows Geometry of Shadows]]" revolves around Ivanova trying to understand Drazi politics before the conflict between Purple and Green [[CycleOfRevenge spirals out of control]]. [[spoiler:Aside from colors, Purple and Green are wholly abstract concepts with no defining characteristics like ideology or regional identity.]] Drazi foreign policy is quite understandable by humans, though.
** The Vorlons and Shadows initially appear to be GoodIsNotNice and AlwaysChaoticEvil, respectively. But really they're Lawful Blue and Chaotic Orange, essentially using the younger races as arguments in a million years-old philosophy debate on the nature of OrderVersusChaos.

* ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' and ''Series/TheMunsters'' live this trope, particularly the Addamses.
** A little more elaboration: the Addamses possess a clear taste for the grotesque and the macabre, and a distaste for the opposite. Their house is a sentient haunted house, they wear dark clothing, the children [[AmusingInjuries routinely torture each other for fun]], and find monstrously hideous creatures to be adorable. On the flip-side, they react to cute and cheery things like songbirds, kittens and flowers to the point of ''physical revulsion''. That said, they [[DarkIsNotEvil aren't really "evil"]], and in fact they're rather courteous ([[CreepyAwesome in a twisted sorta way]]) to outsiders, although they ''do'' consider ''us'' to be the strange ones.
*** Played for (ironic) horror in the sequel to TheMovie, ''[[Film/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]'' [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin (the title says it all, doesn't it?)]], when Gomez and Morticia's infant son contracts a disease that turns him from a pale-skinned, mustachioed mutant into a stereotypically cute, fully human baby with a healthy complexion and curly blond hair. Granny tells the parents that the condition might be incurable.
-->'''Granny:''' He could stay this way for years, perhaps forever...He could become a lawyer...An orthodontist...President.
--> ''[Gomez screams in anguish.]''
** Series/TheMunsters, meanwhile, possessed a similar mentality. However, there was a key difference: the Addams Family were humans who acted like monsters, whereas the Munsters, as their name suggests, were [[OurMonstersAreDifferent clearly inhuman]], but acted like normal people. It made for an interesting contrast.
* The Head Six and Head Baltar entities of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''. Ron Moore says that their kind are the inspiration for stories of angels ''and'' stories of demons. It's not hard to believe.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}''
** Witness the huge discussion on the [[Headscratchers/{{Angel}} Headscratchers page]] over what Jasmine's hypothetical "alignment" was. Sure, she brings total peace and happiness to the world, but she eats people (but usually no more than one or two a day, far fewer than would be killed by wars and crimes her presence would prevent), and people have no choice but to love and adore her. Can any human definition of "good" or "evil" really describe her? (That was rhetorical, by the way)
** Present in an early episode, "[[Recap/AngelS01E07BachelorParty Bachelor Party]]", with a family of Ano-Movic. Ano-Movic demons are a very peaceful race -- formerly a violent race of nomadic demons, they blended into Western Society and gave up their more gruesome traditions. On the flip side, not all of their old customs have been abandoned -- the family seen in the episode are shown discussing the wedding plans just as easily as they discuss the ritualistic eating of the former spouse's brains. While this sounds gruesome, to the Ano-Movics, it is a gesture of love -- their belief is that by eating the brains of the old spouse of their wedded-to-be prior to the wedding, the new spouse will incorporate all of the love and affection from the previous relationship into their new marriage.
** Illyria demonstrates this to a large extent, and due to [[HumanityIsInfectious being in a human body]] she, partly against her will, starts to feel human emotions and assimilate human values. When Wesley betrays her she's perturbed at the fact that it bothers her, as "betrayal was a neutral word in my day. As unjudged a word as water or breeze". She spends quite a lot of time trying to figure out why mortals act as they do. She describes her world view quite well to Angel:
-->"I didn't give you a chance. That you learn when you become a King. You learn to destroy everything that isn't utterly yours. All that matters is victory. That's how your reign persists. You are a slave to an insane construct. You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane, empty but for the force of his gale. But you; trapped in the web of the Wolf, the Ram, the Hart. So much power here! And you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your own ambition."
* The Observers from ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' get a little of this, being brains in pans who have evolved beyond the need for physical bodies (even if their brains still need to be carried around by their former bodies). Though in truth it seems more like they're just jerks who pretend like they have their own moral code to justify being jerks. Brain Guy himself explains why he serves as a medic rather than a combatant during a battle as follows.
-->"My species is a race of pacifists, we only believe in killing out of personal spite."
** The Bots also have this. Thanks to Joel programming them with "occasional ribbing," it makes them believe it is okay for them to destroy Mike\Joel's prized possessions, but when someone messes with ''their'' things it's SeriousBusiness.
* The [[Recap/FarscapeS02E17TheUglyTruth Plokavians]] in ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. Because they all have a perfectly PhotographicMemory, they consider subjectivity and personal colouring of experiences to be alien concepts; so, when each of Moya's crew [[RashomonStyle gives a slightly different testimony]] of the destruction of a Plokavian merchant ship by [[LivingShip Talyn]], the judges accuse them of lying. Eventually, Crichton manages to placate them (for a time) by claiming that they were lying in defence of each other, a concept that the judges are more familiar with.

* The Observers from ''Series/{{Fringe}}''. It's almost certain that they have ''some'' system of logic and morality guiding their decisions, but since they basically exist outside of time and their perspective on events is almost as impossible to understand as their writing, working out what's going on in their pale and hairless heads is...well, something nobody human has managed to do with complete accuracy yet.
** It has been shown that they feel morally obligated to "repair" the timeline when they inadvertently prevent a foreseen event from occurring. Although it remains to be seen whether that's a ''moral'' obligation or if they're just doing their job.
** Their driving motivations so far appear to be ensuring that events happen as they were meant to happen, and "important" people are kept safe.
** That's the Observer science team. The ones known in season 5 as the Invaders are primarily concerned with preserving their own VichyEarth.
* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Sheldon Cooper has a mindset that cannot be easily understood by other people. Usually people around him consider him as mean and selfish, but when Penny ran out of money and asked him for help, Sheldon took out his savings and wanted to lend her much more than she would have thought about. An interpretation is that Sheldon is not really selfish, but he has a different standard of "good" behavior. Alternatively, this may be because he did not actually care about the money. As he said, it was money he wasn't using and did not expect to use anytime soon.
** Sheldon has a "this is fact" and "this is not fact" mindset. Usually, the way he sees things, "it is a fact" that he is intellectually superior, therefore deserving of more praise and acknowledgement. Similarly, upon seeing Penny in financial hardship, he recognized the fact that he had more money than he needed, whereas Penny needed more money than she had, and therefore the right thing to do was lend her money.
** The show seems to implicitly recognize that Sheldon is not just a crazy person, and that there is some alien logic behind his actions. It gets a rather appropriate LampshadeHanging by Leonard in a chapter of the fifth season:
-->'''Sheldon''': You are my best friend Leonard. Why don't you ever take my side?\\
'''Leonard''': Because I never understand your side!
** It's been shown that his friends have learned, at least to some degree, how to phrase things so he will understand. For instance, Sheldon didn't understand why he should buy Leonard a birthday present until the others told Penny to tell him it was a "non-optional social convention." Once it was couched in those terms, Sheldon fully understood the necessity and had no problem with the idea.
* Sometimes discussed in ''{{Series/Supernatural}}''. Because of [[TheHunter the nature of their work]], Sam and Dean occasionally run into Pagan gods and monsters who see nothing wrong in killing and eating people in order to survive. Also, there are more than a few moments where it's abundantly clear that Castiel is operating from a very different moral framework to the Winchesters, which is arguably the biggest source of tension between himself and Dean throughout the series.

* In ''Series/TeenWolf'', Derek was born a werewolf, raised in a family of werewolves, and always does things the werewolf way. Unfortunately, this doesn't always align with anyone else's ideas of good and evil.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest:'' Harold Finch, talking about The Machine and other artificial intelligences, observes that "our moral system will never be mirrored by theirs because of the very simple reason that ''they are not human''."

** The Ferengi have their own concept of right and wrong, which is closely related to what is profitable and what isn't. Their whole value system is related to profit and greed (which is seen as "the purest feeling"). Again, Starfleet people are shown to be unable to comprehend the Ferengi and their morality, feeling superior to them because Starfleet morality is all about being generous, peaceful and impartial. In turn, the Ferengi feel they're superior, because they consider slavery abhorrent (if only because slaves can't buy anything), and would never even consider it.

** The Ferengi have their own concept of right and wrong, which is closely related to what is profitable and what isn't. Their whole value system is related to profit and greed (which is seen as "the purest feeling"). Again, Starfleet people are shown to be unable to comprehend the Ferengi and their morality, feeling superior to them because Starfleet morality is all about being generous, peaceful and impartial.

* The Head Six and Head Baltar entities of ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]''. Ron Moore says that their kind are the inspiration for stories of angels ''and'' stories of demons. It's not hard to believe.

* 'Series/PersonOfInterest:'' Harold Finch, talking about The Machine and other artificial intelligences, observes that "our moral system will never be mirrored by theirs because of the very simple reason that ''they are not human''."

* In ''Series/TeenWolf'', Derek was born a werewolf, raised in a family of werewolves, and always does things the werewolf way. Unfortunately, this doesn't always align with anyone else's ideas of good and evil.

** This may be more LawfulStupid, since the whole reason they took the hospital in the first place was to comply with jurisdiction rules.

** The Judoon have a pretty strange concept of justice. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith And Jones"]], they don't hesitate to pronounce and carry out a death sentence on a man for breaking a vase over a soldier's head, even though the soldier was fully armored and completely unharmed, and when the hospital appears about to explode they depart without any effort to stop it. But when their leader takes an unusually long time verifying that Martha is human, he insists on giving her "compensation" in the form of a small pamphlet she probably can't even read, and [[spoiler:when the hospital doesn't blow up they send it back to Earth.]]

** Another example are the Sontarans. Their entire morality system is based around the glory of battle. They love war and will start one for any reason, and they see dying in battle as the most honorable possible death, thus they have no qualms about killing the enemy in battle. In fact, they will often joke and congratulate their enemies while they are doing well, including killing them all, and will greet people with such sweet nothings as "I hope one day to spill your intestines on the battlefield". But it is morally reprehensible to kill someone who isn't fit for battle while not at war with them; such killing is considered murder. This is really highlighted in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar" A Good Man Goes to War"]]: one of the biggest punishments for a Sontaran is to become a field medic, because not only are you not fighting, but you're actively stopping people from being able to die a glorious death in battle.

* Anton Chigurh from ''Film/NoCountryForOldMen''. He's an utterly merciless assassin, but he doesn't seem to show any particular malice towards Llewelyn or those who get in his way (SlasherSmile notwithstanding), and simply sees them as a quarry to be dealt with. It's helped by the fact that Llewelyn himself isn't exactly a [[AntiHero squeaky clean protagonist]].
** He also twice seems to leave his decision to kill up to fate by flipping a coin. First, with the gas station attendant he wants to kill, but doesn't after losing the coin flip, and at the end with [[spoiler: Carla Jean, who he doesn't particularly want to kill but does for the same reason.]] So he clearly has some kind of code.

* ''Series/DoctorWho''
** AntiVillain Morgaine in the story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield Battlefield]]" thinks nothing of slaughtering people who tick her off, but [[spoiler:insists on paying for a round of drinks that her son ordered in. She pays for them, by the way, by ''curing the barmaid's blindness''. She also won't fight in graveyards as to not dishonor the dead. She also held a ceremony honouring said dead -- dead people on a planet she cared nothing of. They died in battle = They deserve honour.]]

** Another example are the Sontarans. Their entire morality system is based around the glory of battle. They love war and will start one for any reason, and they see dying in battle as the most honorable possible death, thus they have no qualms about killing the enemy in battle. In fact, they will often joke and congratulate their enemies while they are doing well, including killing them all, and will greet people with such sweet nothings as "I hope one day to spill your intestines on the battlefield". But it is morally reprehensible to kill someone who isn't fit for battle while not at war with them; such killing is considered murder. This is really highlighted in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar A Good Man Goes To War]]": one of the biggest punishments for a Sontaran is to become a field medic, because not only are you not fighting, but you're actively stopping people from being able to die a glorious death in battle.
** The Cybermen at least started out as having a morality which felt alien to humans, thanks to their emotionless logic. In ''The Tenth Planet'' they intend to destroy Earth. When one human character screams out that they are killing people, the Cyberman merely points out how illogical her outburst is, as people die all over the world constantly, and the human does not display any distress over that. The Cybermen were not even actively malicious in the story. Their survival simply meant that Earth had to be destroyed, so they set about to do that. They even offered the nearby humans that they could continue their existence as Cybermen, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable proposal to the Cybermen themselves.
** The Eternals in the story ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E5Enlightenment Enlightenment]]'': they think nothing of kidnapping human seafarers to crew the ships in their race, and aren't too bothered by their deaths- after all they're outside of time and technically don't die, but "Ephemerals" (beings inside of time) live such short lives. All that matters to them is winning the race and the eventual prize, the "Enlightenment" of the title. They're not even bothered about sabotaging each other's efforts- it's not against the rules, technically, just not terribly sporting.
** The Judoon have a pretty strange concept of justice. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E1SmithAndJones Smith And Jones]]," they don't hesitate to pronounce and carry out a death sentence on a man for breaking a vase over a soldier's head, even though the soldier was fully armored and completely unharmed, and when the hospital appears about to explode they depart without any effort to stop it. But when their leader takes an unusually long time verifying that Martha is human, he insists on giving her "compensation" in the form of a small pamphlet she probably can't even read, and [[spoiler:when the hospital doesn't blow up they send it back to Earth.]]
* [[{{Precursors}} The Ancients]] of ''Series/StargateSG1'' ''might'' be this trope after their ascension. Whenever we see living Ancients on ''this'' plane of existence, they are generally depicted as normal humans who were simply interested in science a lot, not the gigantic {{Jerkass}}es they are as ascended beings (see more on NeglectfulPrecursors).
** In "Learning Curve," SG-1 encounters a technologically-advanced planet where the human civilization implants nanites into certain children at infancy that records all information they learn. When they come of age, these nanites are removed and distributed to the rest of the population, transferring their knowledge while reducing the children to a largely infantile state. SG-1 is horrified to discover that the children are essentially "having their brains sucked out" but the other civilization seems to have no issue with this.

** [[StarfishAliens The Goa'uld]] are certainly this, as being taken as a host is repeatedly used as a source of horror, but for the Goa'uld it is an essential and natural part of their biology. After all, would you want to spend your entire life swimming back and forth in a pond lacking opposable thumbs and sex organs?
*** The existence of the Tok'Ra, who act more like a symbiont than a parasite for their host, would point to the Goa'uld as falling under irredeemable and not this trope. It's also strongly implied that they (or at least the ones at the top) are totally batshit crazy due to overuse of the sarcophagi.

* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Sheldon Cooper has a mindset that cannot be easily understood by other people. Usually people around him consider him as mean and selfish, but when Penny ran out of money and asked him for help, Sheldon took out his savings and wanted to lend her much more than she would have thought about. Chances are that Sheldon is not really selfish, but he has a different standard of "good" behavior.
** Sheldon has a "this is fact" and "this is not fact" mindset. Usually, the way he sees things, "it is a fact" that he is intellectually superior, therefore deserving of more praise and acknowledgement. Similarly, upon seeing Penny in financial hardship, he recognised the fact that he had more money than he needed, whereas Penny needed more money than she had, and therefore the right thing to do was lend her money.