Interesting thread to read, in terms of the discussion about morality, honour and righteousness.
A few thoughts-
Honour codes are specific to the standards of a given society. It is entirely possible for them to be centred on integrity, courage, respect* and other values we consider positive, while not just permitting - but sometimes actually encouraging - acts of brutality within certain parameters.
I asterisked ‘respect’ above, because of course the hierarchies that apply in honour-based societies usually are the determinant of who is benefiting from the positive dividends, and who is on the receiving end of punishment, subjugation or extermination (in extreme cases).
The Taliban definitely adhere to notions of honour, nominally, but we understand that means something different for a man than it does a woman or a girl, in terms of outcomes and expectations of how they will be treated.
While the Yan are lower on the hierarchy than the Hemicyons, I suppose we have to reflect on the fact that there are slaves and there are slaves. A slave in Greece or Rome had prospects, including manumission, that were radically different than a chattel slave picking cotton in the United States, or a castrated slave under a caliphate. And can we distinguish between a slave and some form of indentured servant?
I’m mindful also that the realities of Pannithor versus our own world should change our calculations. In a world where there are innumerable hostile races that will literally devour humans, I think taking a very contemporary 2025 viewpoint on what is a morally correct position, or an acceptable stance for a human to have, misses the point that in Pannithor it would be a pretty good deal to live under the Basileans or the Xirkaali, and there is not much ambiguity around that. And to observe these societies are authoritarian, and ruthless, is not really any kind of moral “gotcha” given that the lore puts them in a wartime situation which is without precedent in our own history (Humans not being the apex predators in Pannithor, basically…).
Tying into the above, I want to also make the point that it’s a very modern idea to frame the notion of expansionist, aggressive waging of war as being inherently immoral. This is a quite late 20th century perspective. In both Christianity and Islam, for centuries there has been a recognition that there are conditions where being the aggressor is not just ‘ok’ but is morally mandated. The “Just War” doctrine that comes from Christianity has underpinned every major human-rights related international intervention in the past 50 years. Arguably, a bigger scandal than the times the international community has got interventionist military actions wrong have been the times we stood by and did not act (Rwanda genocide etc).
I think a challenge is that a lot of contemporary people just have quite a beige, banal understanding of morality, where “niceness” equates to being good. And any use of force which is not strictly defensive probably puts someone over in a zone of being “bad”.
People get quite confused about the limits of moral relativism as a theory too (Often they don’t seem to recognise any). While I expect a first year undergraduate to be a bit of an edgelord and argue that all morality is subjective, I worry about someone who, years later, is still confused about whether there are certain objective truths about morality that we can and should recognise… We might hope that we can agree that sexually abusing children is universally evil, for example, and indeed I would argue that while modern human rights law has gone a bit awry in application, in certain areas, it is not a million miles off in attempting to assert that there should be absolute prohibition on torture…
My own view is that, in the world of Pannithor, actions that societies like Xirkaali or Basilea take, to preserve the lives of their societies against extermination, probably should be considered as more moral the the position of a Ratkin society looking at putting everyone in the cookpot, Nightstalkers looking at feeding off pain and fear, Twilight Kin looking to bring on a magical apocalypse, Abyssals attempting to create hell on earth or whatever.. The first year philosophy arguments about moral relativism don’t pass the smell test in this context, I think.
Where I’m going with all of this is that the Xirkaali design, and lore reasons we’ve been given for the invasion, are quite compatible with their being an honour-based military society who are motivated by the belief that they are engaged in a morally-justified crusade to prevent another magical apocalypse.
If we want to talk about a faction concept that we could probably all get behind and support as closer to our notion of what is objectively moral… Let’s have an abolitionist faction dedicated to ending slavery on Pannithor. I suppose Northern Alliance might be the closest?
Since they’ve said they are going to develop the narrative and expand on the larger map, there is definitely scope for something more on the ‘good’ spectrum coming.