Hmm... how to make this faction ambigious?

Okay, so in my sci-fi worldbuilding project, the Stellarum, there are various factions, and for the most part it's somewhere between Grey-and-Grey Morality and Black-and-Grey Morality, and is kind of a Crapsack World. All of the factions have good and bad individuals, and most of their conflicts stem from a mixture of Fantastic Racism, the influence of outside forces, miscommunication and the failings of imperfect creatures.

With the exception of the Myriad, a group made up of individuals from many species who all serve this one way of life, The Code, awaiting the day that the Valgirai return from a war that has stretched on for eons and reclaim the galaxy for themselves again, as it was before the war began.

The Myriad, as an organization, are set up as the good guys, and amidst various other factions who would be ambigious or Black and Grey normally, seem as saintly in comparison.

Here's the thing, their way of life is based on my own personal morality (which is mostly fitting with the world at large, such as not to be prejudiced against others, show kindness to others, violence should be a last resort etc.), and I'm not sure how to make them worse without feeling like I'm betraying my own morals. :/

Some notes on them:

• They're effectively a 'theocracy', with the Precursors they serve being a (mostly) okay bunch: the aforementioned Precursors are currently off fighting a war against a race of Eldritch Abominations elsewhere, but will eventually return to take the galaxy back (probably by force)
• They're led by an elite known as the Ward Bearers, who're a group of Badass Actual Pacifists with Morph Weapons: they take their view of 'violence as a last resort, and never murder' very seriously, to the point where if a Myriad homeworld is being invaded, they will literally just leave it be taken over rather than defend it for fear of accidentally killing anyone (taking the civilian population when they leave, of course: they're not cowards)
• They take the view that Ambition Is Evil and that obedience is a virtue. So much so, in fact, that obedience to The Code takes precedence even over the individual's life or that of their family or close friends.

edited 8th Dec '11 6:58:45 AM by Eventua

That's an admirable sentiment, but violence in self-defense is generally recognized as acceptable. It's also biologically sensible, since choosing flight exclusively over fight gets you extinct in a hurry.

So maybe that's your moral ambiguity. The Myriad learn to kill as a last resort, which upsets their whole paradigm and makes them feel guilty. Then you have people arguing that the group should carry the fight to the enemy, which further erodes their moral high ground. It's entirely possible for a schism to occur over the issue, which would weaken the movement strategically and morally.

OK, what you've basically got here is a fundamentalist cult, with the one redeeming feature that they might be right. I recommend paying attention to the trail of debris they leave in their wake - the non-Myriad loved ones left behind and isolated, the Myriad who've taken unnecessarily self-destructive actions for the greater good, and so on.

I suggest drawing on real-life cults, like the Church of Scientology, for a good idea of how their noble principles might end up going badly, badly wrong.

Sooo... essentially, leave them as they are, but explore the full ramifications? :/

See, this is what happens when you try to write a setting with White-and-Grey Morality where your idea of 'good' doesn't necessarily match up with everyone elses.

I seem to have basically created a setting with Grey-and-Grey Morality due to Values Dissonance. Intriguing.

The most important question to ask yourself when greying up a faction is 'How can people screw this up?'. As a good rule of thumb, if a faith requires most of its adherents to be saints, they probably won't be.