Hi people!
Of course, I am acutely aware that alignment discussions are sort of unsolvable and don't necessarily have an objectively right or wrong answer...
But I wanted to ask: if you look at real-world historical person Wernher von Braun, what kind of alignment would you assign to him?
(Or other rules things to mimic him?)
(I ask this because I want to play an alchemist who is a bit the obsessed scientist type, not necessary a blueprint of Wernher von Braun, strong parts House MD and doctor Frankenstein as well, but a bit of Wernher as well)
Hi people!
Of course, I am acutely aware that alignment discussions are sort of unsolvable and don't necessarily have an objectively right or wrong answer...
But I wanted to ask: if you look at real-world historical person Wernher von Braun, what kind of alignment would you assign to him?
(Or other rules things to mimic him?)(I ask this because I want to play an alchemist who is a bit the obsessed scientist type, not necessary a blueprint of Wernher von Braun, strong parts House MD and doctor Frankenstein as well, but a bit of Wernher as well)
I would say that he was true neutral, more concerned with advancing his scientific knowledge and discovery than any sort of politics or moralistic dogmas. He was a member of the Nazi party, yes, but only because it gave him continued access to research materials (and kept him out of jail). He was far more concerned with advancing the science of propulsion than with what the Nazi High Command was doing with it. There is no sense of malevolence or vitriol from his interviews, just a strong (almost monomaniacal) focus on his research.
That he allowed his work to be used by the Nazis is horrible, and a good person would likely have either tried to flee the country or sabotage their efforts. An evil person likely would have been more politically active, taking test subjects from the camps or actively following the V-1 and V-2 bombing runs, so they could enjoy the destruction. He did neither.
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Sounds reasonable - I've even heard that "monomaniacal" is actually best attributed to Chaotic Neutral, and that is a great alignment for a mad scientist (like mine), though Neutral Neutral does sound more apropos for Von Braun (even as an obscure and apolitical appendage, he wouldn't have made it at all as a Nazi were he visibly Chaotic).
I agree with N as the leading candidate, but I think an argument can be made for LN...
Thanks, all!
I guess neutral would be appropriate, yes... the analogy with Nethys is actually very good.
:) And I already knew that great song by Tom Lehrer, thanks Arbane!
Contributor
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"Once rockets are up, who cares vhere zey come down? Dot's not my department, says Wernher von Braun."
And I was so hoping someone would. :)
I remember listening to that on vinyl. My mother has fine taste in records. :)
He was dedicated to winning the war for Germany.
That's called "patriotism," and it's not a sign of evil, unless you want to suggest that every GI who volunteered after Pearl Harbor was also evil.
He was possessed with the drive of taking Robert Goddard's designs and weaponising them.
Was that his drive, or his assignment? From his early (pre-war) work, I think it's pretty clear that his actual "drive" was space exploration,.... but when there's a war on, it's hard to justify spending billions to go to the moon. (See previous point.)
He also had the self-interest when the war entered to make sure he was captured by the Americans, rather than the Russians.
Again, what's evil about this?
He volountarily joined both the Nazi Party, the SS, for the purposes of self-advancement, and frequently had pictures of himself taken with Himmler while wearing the SS uniform.
Not clear. The biographies strongly suggest that joining the various organizations was a political requirement.
Technically speaking, everyone who joined the Nazi party did so voluntarily. (The alternative, of course, was volunteering to lose your job.) This was well-known. The SS was a more elite unit, but most biographers accept his explanation:
In spring 1940, one SS-Standartenfuehrer (SS-colonel) Mueller from Greifswald, a bigger town in the vicinity of Peenemuende, looked me up in my office ... and told me, that Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler had sent him with the order to urge me to join the SS. I told him I was so busy with my rocket work that I had no time to spare for any political activity. He then told me, that ... the SS would cost me no time at all. I would be awarded the rank of a[n] "Untersturmfuehrer" (lieutenant) and it were [sic] a very definite desire of Himmler that I attend his invitation to join.I asked Mueller to give me some time for reflection. He agreed.
Realizing that the matter was of highly political significance for the relation between the SS and the Army, I called immediately on my military superior ..., Dr. Dornberger. He informed me that the SS had for a long time been trying to get their "finger in the pie" of the rocket work. I asked him what to do. He replied on the spot that if I wanted to continue our mutual work, I had no alternative but to join.
In my book. Neutral Evil to Lawful Evil.
I disagree. True Neutral. Not interested enough in politics to be Lawful, and no evidence whatsoever of an interest in "evil" behavior like killing innocents.
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Not clear. The biographies strongly suggest that joining the various organizations was a political requirement.
It was essentially a life requirement. Almost any advancement or extracurricular activities were subsumed by involvement with the Nazi party or some branch of it. It's a basic precept of how totalitarian regimes operate to control all aspects of society. That's why you ended up having all those clubs that fully endorsed, and were endorsed by the Nazi party.
LazarX raises good points, but "I did what I had to do," in terms of expediency of getting through life with more than an entry-level position seems neutral.
Braun did a lot of things that served his convenience which subsequently resulted in a lot of people suffering pain, misery and death. I suppose the lynch-pin of determining his 'allignment' is whether one believes it was all with the attitude of "This is the way things ought to be," or "I'm just trying to get through life with as many holes as I started with."
Not clear. The biographies strongly suggest that joining the various organizations was a political requirement.It was essentially a life requirement. Almost any advancement or extracurricular activities were subsumed by involvement with the Nazi party or some branch of it.
While this is true for the Nazi party in general, it wasn't true for a lot of the related groups. That's one of the reason that the International Military Tribunal opted not to indict the Nazi party itself for war crimes, but did choose to indict several specific organizations as being illegal per se.
One of those organizations was the SS. (The others were, IIRC, the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Security Service (SD), the Secret State Police (Gestapo), the Stormtroopers (SA), and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.)
So being a member of the SS would, legally speaking, make von Braun a war criminal. (And liable to prosecution as such.) However, it's very unlikely in practical terms that a top scientist in a high-profile job such as his would be permitted to stay without joining an organization such as the SS. So from a moral if not a legal perspective, there's nothing reprehensible about joining.
Hence: neutral.
Neutral Evil. His "apolitical dedication to science" became apparent only after being a nazi became a bad thing for him.
He did evil things for an evil regime, in an evil way and to evil ends.
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Neutral Evil. His "apolitical dedication to science" became apparent only after being a nazi became a bad thing for him.
He did evil things for an evil regime, in an evil way and to evil ends.
Eh, that sounds more Lawful Evil. "Anything to stay on top."
Neutral Evil is typified by "Murder everything everywhere at every time".
True Neutral