What slavery is illegal to the Terrans not the Drengin. There will still be a black market where they capture and sell slaves, but this is illegal to Terrans. The Drengin on the other hand don't mind slaves. The Terrams don't exterminate vermin to make room for the chosen race anymore. They fight for resources, and to protect allies. They fight to make allies now days. These are closer to modern Terran ethics. Unless we are playing that Islam took over the Human race. More probable it is the U.n. with something more like their ideals depending what government or civics you have. Unless they get a change of heart mega event. Human rights are good unless it gets in the way of the United nations. The Krynn has more of an ideal to make way for the chosen faction. Enslaving good for economic growth, but not good for tourism or diplomacy. Even modern international stance until our current administration depended on who was our allies. I kinda think what is really evil depends more on perspective or alliances more than anything.

Each side has many shades of grey in it.

These shades give each empire and side a special quality.

Along with this look at how it works in the real world. Many shades of grey broken into two groups.

Just look at the way we made sides for each war.

Well... very few wars have "Good guys" and "Bad guys"; most have two parties which are responsible for both good and evil, so it's nt fair to label them as either. There are some exceptions though.

About human ethics, what happened to the Xendars? Whats going to happen to the Dregin when its payback time?

You would think they are going to get wiped out. Maybe the Humans might be able to strike a deal. If it goes down to humans fighting with genocide their will always be activists and reservations, besides each side may be able to stalemate each other like the Koreans. Their is a few wild cards that hasn't been played. or a combination of both.

1. Now that the terror stars has been destroyed the Thalans may look on the Drengins, and decide that the Humans make better allies. Then turn on the Drengins. Just because the Humans don't like the Thalans wouldn't stop the Thalans from doing what they think is right.

2. The Yor hatred for organics could surface causing them to turn on the Drengin empire.

3. And then we have ny idea for Galactic civilizations 3 that was the Krynn may decide to declare a holy war on the Drengin.

These are a few ideas on how to nutralize the Drengin threat.

The Drengin wiped them out:

"Before the Xendar could tell the humans the Drengin's involvement, Drengin agents unleashed a long prepared neural toxin into the air of the Xendar home world killing every Xendar on the planet. The Xendar are now all but wiped out and not an issue at this stage. Those that exist in the galaxy blame the humans." 

Total annihilation. Based both on the last words of the DL campaign ("To humans in the galaxy -- we shall return. We will return as crusaders to save the galaxy from Drengin tyranny and evil.") and what the Thalan said about the future they're coming from ("In that future, humans have destroyed most of the life in the galaxy and so damaged the fabric of space that the universe itself is beginning to collapse upon itself.").

 And I used to blame the humans for what happened to the Xendars. Damn drengin propaganda machine.

You remember correctly! Miriam's fundy religious circular reasoning based diplomacy talk is exactly what I was referring to as 'her annoying prattle.'  Yes, I played the Gaia faction as well - my fav.  I loved getting a high planet rating and planting xeno fungus everywhere, annoying all the other factions... 

I like an alignment system.  Good and evil are very real, but the problem is in defining which is which.  I have my own definition, but it is at odds with other people's definition.  For instance, in Gal Civ II, the Drath were aligned with "good."  How can a people that manipulates others into fighting each other, and enjoys war profiteering possibly be good?  Profiting by suborning the free will of another is pretty freaking evil.  No wonder the Altarians booted them off the planet!  There is nothing wrong with "Good" and "Evil," but you have to get the definitions right!

I wonder do you realise how contradictive this whole thing is to itself?

My question is where the Russians evil until 1989, or were the Germans evil before 1945. Or would some of you consider the Americans evil.

Hope whatever it ends up being is a robust system.

I will maximise the generalisation, and just vaguely indicate that if nothing stands out in a sea of grey, you will not see anything worthwhile in there.

There has to be something, just to create a point of reference. And that "something" could easily represent what must be considered extreme.

Or said out openly/without beating around the bush:

Allow for some extremes. Or it gets dull/boring very fast.

Precisely. All "good/evil" based on viewer's point of view, and I doubt our beloved plushies (Drengin) consider themselves evil.

Yet I admit, I don't really know how to replace this system, with "trustworthy/not trustworthy" scale?

I think Good Vs. Evil as implemented in GalCiv 2 is cool because its obviously not meant to be taken very seriously. It`s more of a Cliché of the ol Good and Evil as portrayed in popular culture. I find this fits in with GalCiv light hearted and humorous style. 

It could be even more humorous should "evil" nations consider themselves good and their good opponents as evil. So each race would have their own perspective of good/evil bias. Just imagine - "evil "crusaders" from Altarian republic are trying to invade our recently occupied worlds". Or something like that - Stardock writers are far better suited for short funny stories than I am.

Not just humorous, but it hits the nail directly on the head when talking about good or evil often being a matter of perspective. We have bounced this idea around in many of the threads here, maybe even during the GC1 and/or GC2 pre-release periods.

Admiral Willy, when you ask "My question is were the Russians evil until 1989, or were the Germans evil before 1945. Or would some of you consider the Americans evil.", do you realize how clearly you are pointing out how important perspective is? Think about this:

1) You have made the question in terms of stereotypes. While the collective picture many non German people of the time had were that the Nazis (hence all Germans) were evil, we know that was not true of all Germans. Nor was it entirely true of all Nazis. The same was, and still is, true of Russians. There are the many and varied stereotypes held by those in most other countries and there is the varied diversity between individual Russians. The stereotypes are easy to grab onto because they are so superficial, and can be comforting because of their superficiality. And "Americans" (actually limited to the USA) can be viewed stereotypically by other peoples, while we who reside in the USA see first hand how varied we are from each other. The same is true of Italians, as I learned when I was stationed in Italy for 15 months, and by extension, I consider true for any large grouping of people anyone can propose. I see this clearly because it is based on my own experience, not the collective experience of millions of others.

2) Understanding a collection of beings is much more difficult in reality than it is in a game. A game has to be based on the use of stereotypes when inventing different kinds of beings in order to underlay the conflicts that make the game work. To try to make those collections of beings as diverse as real life over complicates the code required to exhibit the varying behavior such diversity requires. Some effort can be done to show it, and the GalCiv series certainly does within the limits imposed in creating a game.

In any case, I have a learned difficulty in ascribing stereotypes to collections of real people, which is, I hope, what you were pointing out.

That was exactly my point about idealogies.

Maybe that happens because in later years people became more and more diffused around the world, thus blurring those differences between themselves.

Aliens are not humans though, what model applies to humans is not necessarily valid for otherworldly beings.

But I believe this is a bit of a over-thinking here. In GalCiv, Good vs Evil is depicted in its stereotypical expression so any kind of attempt at rationalizing its implementation in the game is mostly moot.  

Basically: Evil = Tyranny, treachery and Nihilism    Good = Respect, compassion, honesty   ( And whatever other cliché trait i forgot )

Well I remember debating that the Soviets and Cubans are not savages with people.

Oh, but tyranny can be "good."  The very best government!  (If you agree with what the gov't is doing...) is a dictatorship.