Why was Arthas wrong?

[Adamas102]

/snip

Alright, this is pointless. You're essentially arguing for the most extreme solution despite people putting forth alternatives to mitigate the slaughter. You're also now trying to argue that killing everyone would be preferable to sequestering people into small groups where a recently turned zombie might kill one or two before being put down.

And then one of them turns suddenly and likely kills one or two innocents before it is put down? Very safe, much good procedure, this one.

It's absolutely ludicrous. To the point where one almost has to wonder if you're just trolling. The simple fact that you keep saying "there was no way of knowing who was infected" is the EXACT REASON why you DON'T kill them all.

You keep saying "there wasn't enough time" but there clearly was enough time to do SOMETHING. Rampaging through a city, going house by house, and killing thousands with swords, spears, and hammers isn't something that takes mere minutes. If you have the time to kill a thousand people using melee weapons, then you absolutely 100% have the time to evacuate, quarantine, and monitor at least a few hundred.

Saying "it's the only option" is flat out wrong. Even if you don't like the other options, they still exist. Saying "better to die this way than that" isn't a choice you can make for other people ESPECIALLY when you can't say for sure they're going to die anyway. "It's an act of mercy" is an excuse used by monsters to commit heinous acts.

[Ielenia]

Alright, this is pointless. You're essentially arguing for the most extreme solution despite people putting forth alternatives to mitigate the slaughter.

And those alternatives would only make things worse, because they depend on time, manpower and resources they do not have.

You're also now trying to argue that killing everyone would be preferable to sequestering people into small groups where a recently turned zombie might kill one or two before being put down.

Except it's unlikely to be "one turned zombie". This assumes that those infected are the minority of the population, but that isn't the case considering the base for almost all of the food they eat that isn't fruit or vegetable is based on grains.

It's absolutely ludicrous. To the point where one almost has to wonder if you're just trolling. The simple fact that you keep saying "there was no way of knowing who was infected" is the EXACT REASON why you DON'T kill them all.

Except it is considering the infected would turn into zombies and kill the few that weren't contaminated, especially since they turn rather fast.

You keep saying "there wasn't enough time" but there clearly was enough time to do SOMETHING.

And something was done.

Rampaging through a city, going house by house, and killing thousands with swords, spears, and hammers isn't something that takes mere minutes.

But it's much, much faster than coming up with an entire logistics for quarantine, building individual quarantine zones, and THEN moving people into quarantine.

If you have the time to kill a thousand people using melee weapons, then you absolutely 100% have the time to evacuate, quarantine, and monitor at least a few hundred.

No, you really don't.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

City would die anyways from plague. What else could be done? Probably nothing.

[huth]

You keep saying "there wasn't enough time" but there clearly was enough time to do SOMETHING. Rampaging through a city, going house by house, and killing thousands with swords, spears, and hammers isn't something that takes mere minutes. If you have the time to kill a thousand people using melee weapons, then you absolutely 100% have the time to evacuate, quarantine, and monitor at least a few hundred.

It doesn't even take extra time since you're already going through every house looking for them anyway. Only difference being that you don't kill those who haven't turned so far. If one of them turns while you're soldiers are taking them somewhere? Chop, done, and the zombie isn't even going to be able to do much. We can also be fairly certain that, as a major city, it's going to have a jail which is in fact built to prevent people from getting out.

- - - Updated - - -

Except it is considering the infected would turn into zombies and kill the few that weren't contaminated, especially since they turn rather fast.

Because of gameplay. If the town actually turned at the rate shown, Arthas would simply have gotten overrun by a wave of thousands of zombies anyway, rendering the whole discussion moot because there was nothing he could have done.

[Kantoro]

You're right, when things go bad just murder everything involved. Long line at the drive thru, kill everyone, drop your ice cream, kill everyone, someone sneezes at you, kill them.

[shoc]

Arthas was wrong because the Zombies connected to the Plague of Undeath could still have their minds and wills liberated if the connection to the Lich King was shattered.

All of those people that he purged, could have been saved. They would live lives as Forsaken, yeah, but they would be Human in mind and soul. Whether they could have peacefully existed after the war, is beyond the point.

[Adamas102]

And those alternatives would only make things worse, because they depend on time, manpower and resources they do not have..

Alright, let's play with some numbers here.

Trying to keep things simple, lets say Arthas and his men killed 12,500 civilians during their purge (half the population that was noted in the RPG, the other half Mal'Ganis collected into his army). It might take a team of 5 men 5 minutes to get to and enter a home and find and murder a family of 5 then set their house on fire. VERY rough estimate but I think it's pretty generous. This isn't something they were trained for, and there was likely a lot of hesitation early on (according to lore there were also at least a few desertions). So that team could kill 60 people in an hour if they're super efficient about it. If the whole thing took two hours, then Arthas would have needed a force of about 520 soldiers. If he had fewer soldiers then he had more time to kill that many people.

If instead you split those soldiers in two sets of groups, one for evacuation and extermination of undead within the city and one for sequestering and managing people outside the city, that leaves 260 soldiers for the latter job (not factoring in the Silver Hand paladins that would have stayed for simplicity's sake). A team of 4 soldiers can watch over a group of at least 25 people, having them sit in the grass in 5x5 configuration, ready to cut down any that turn. So that's 1,625 people that could be quarantined and watched over at a time outside the city.

As the group outside the walls grows, and the situation within the walls becomes less tenable, more of the evacuation and extermination group shifts to quarantine and manage outside the city. Given two hours (or more), it would certainly be possible to evacuate at least a couple thousand civilians.

It's not perfect, it doesn't ensure everyone's survival. It's dark, it's grim, there would certainly be some panic (something that happened during the purge anyway) but IT'S A PLAN. One that doesn't involve widespread slaughter of innocent civilians. Even if only a fraction of those evacuated and quarantined survive, that's still potentially hundreds of people. If your response to making an effort to only save a few hundred is "nah, too much work, better to kill them all instead" that's just laughably evil.

[Ielenia]

It doesn't even take extra time since you're already going through every house looking for them anyway. Only difference being that you don't kill those who haven't turned so far. If one of them turns while you're soldiers are taking them somewhere? Chop, done, and the zombie isn't even going to be able to do much. We can also be fairly certain that, as a major city, it's going to have a jail which is in fact built to prevent people from getting out.

Except time would be lost doing logistics and preparing everything to hold everyone. And the jail would not be anywhere near as big to house half of the city's population.

- - - Updated - - -

Alright, let's play with some numbers here.

Now take all your numbers and think on this:

• Time used analyzing the situation.
• Time used coming up with logistics and devising a strategy.
• Time used up to gather the manpower and resources.
• Time used up to prepare a location to house an ENTIRE CITY's worth of people.
• Time used up to escort small parts of the city at a time.

versus:

• Time used up to head in and mercifully kill everyone.

[Adamas102]

It doesn't even take extra time since you're already going through every house looking for them anyway. Only difference being that you don't kill those who haven't turned so far. If one of them turns while you're soldiers are taking them somewhere? Chop, done, and the zombie isn't even going to be able to do much. We can also be fairly certain that, as a major city, it's going to have a jail which is in fact built to prevent people from getting out.

True, though while taking and fortifying a portion of the city itself to quarantine and manage, I prefer the idea of having more space to monitor groups of civilians.

[huth]

Now take all your numbers and think on this:

• Time used analyzing the situation.
• Time used coming up with logistics and devising a strategy.
• Time used up to gather the manpower and resources.
• Time used up to prepare a location to house an ENTIRE CITY's worth of people.
• Time used up to escort small parts of the city at a time.

versus:

• Time used analyzing the situation.
• Time used coming up with logistics and devising a strategy.
• Time used up to gather the manpower and resources.
• Time used up to head in and mercifully kill everyone.

Your list is incomplete. Added some corrections. The difference isn't quite as big as you make it out to be.

[sam86]

He wasn't.

this /10 char
seriously who even thinks otherwise? I mean irl not in-game with not full info about the situation like Uther & Jaina

[Adamas102]

Now take all your numbers and think on this:

• Time used analyzing the situation.
• Time used coming up with logistics and devising a strategy.
• Time used up to gather the manpower and resources.
• Time used up to prepare a location to house an ENTIRE CITY's worth of people.
• Time used up to escort small parts of the city at a time.

versus:

• Time used up to head in and mercifully kill everyone.

Considered. Doesn't make a difference. I, like any good, well adjusted person, would still make the effort. In my scenario you still have your full force, including Uther, a competent commander in his own right, and Jaina, a powerful mage. It didn't take me all that long to look up data like the population size, make some calculations, and type out a response. Issuing orders in the field wouldn't take that long. You actually have more resources and manpower in my scenario (because people don't desert you), and you have the same amount of time. You don't really need to prepare a location for my plan, you just use the open space outside the walls (in both games there is open space between the forest and walls of the city, as is the case with most cities of that size where the surrounding woods are cleared). People don't have to be personally escorted, you can use the inside-the-walls group to set up check point teams and incursion teams. They make their way into the city and funnel people out.

Anyway, the question isn't "Was Arthas efficient", it's "Was Arthas wrong".

[Stardrift]

It's a railroad hostage situation. Do I pull the lever, turning the train to run over one hostage? Or do I leave it, allowing the train to run over five?

Most people I know tend to say pull the lever to save the five. I find only the most hard core contrarians are aware of this fact, and will likely choose to allow the five to die to save the one person. "B-but it'd be unfair for that one person! What if they were a doctor??"

People tend to say all lives are equal. But to value one person's career over another's is to say exactly the opposite, no? Hypocrisy just reeks from this side of the argument

These are the usual people who'll leave the shopping cart in the middle of the lot without thinking or caring if it'll likely blow and hit someone's vehicle. Poor decision makers all around, it's no wonder people like Uther buttrage and quit to make brash and stupid choices.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Arthas was wrong because the Zombies connected to the Plague of Undeath could still have their minds and wills liberated if the connection to the Lich King was shattered.

All of those people that he purged, could have been saved. They would live lives as Forsaken, yeah, but they would be Human in mind and soul. Whether they could have peacefully existed after the war, is beyond the point.

The grain undead didn't have will they were dead dead unlinking them just leaves them as walking corpses with no aim.

[Eapoe]

Of course he was wrong. What’s the better option: kill the entire city, or have its people quarantine and protect them from those that transform.
Arthas knew the grain was infected. Did he know who ate it? No, hence the quarantine.

If we have an outbreak of a new deadly virus, do we wipe out the entire population of a village, town, or city to stop it? If we did then this world would look a whole lot different than it does now with things like Ebola, bubonic plague, and Spanish flu, to name some of the illnesses that we’ve encountered.

[shoc]

Okay, here is maybe a better reasoned argument for why Arthas' purging of Stratholme is considered evil. The very Culling of Stratholme story is a reference to a section about Character Alignment Changes in the 1989 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. They give the example of the Paladin burning the village to prevent a disease from spreading, how it is a seriously evil act that immediately changes the character's alignment to lawful or chaotic evil, and never again be a Paladin.

During the course of play, keep notes on the actions of the player characters. At the end of each session, read through those notes, paying attention to any unusual behavior. Note which alignment seems most appropriate to each character's actions.
If, over the course of several playing sessions, a character's actions consistently fit an alignment different from the character's chosen alignment, an alignment change is probably in order. If small actions are taking a character outside his alignment, the change should be gradual--maybe even temporary. Severe actions could require an immediate and permanent alignment change.
In the meantime, the paladin could recognize his danger and amend his ways, preventing the change and preserving his paladinhood. If the paladin burns the village to prevent the disease from spreading, he commits a seriously evil act.
In this case, the DM is justified in instituting an immediate alignment change to lawful evil or even chaotic evil. The character eventually might be able to change back to lawful good alignment, but he will never again be a paladin.

[Mysterymask]

Alright, let's play with some numbers here.

Trying to keep things simple, lets say Arthas and his men killed 12,500 civilians during their purge (half the population that was noted in the RPG, the other half Mal'Ganis collected into his army). It might take a team of 5 men 5 minutes to get to and enter a home and find and murder a family of 5 then set their house on fire. VERY rough estimate but I think it's pretty generous. This isn't something they were trained for, and there was likely a lot of hesitation early on (according to lore there were also at least a few desertions). So that team could kill 60 people in an hour if they're super efficient about it. If the whole thing took two hours, then Arthas would have needed a force of about 520 soldiers. If he had fewer soldiers then he had more time to kill that many people.

If instead you split those soldiers in two sets of groups, one for evacuation and extermination of undead within the city and one for sequestering and managing people outside the city, that leaves 260 soldiers for the latter job (not factoring in the Silver Hand paladins that would have stayed for simplicity's sake). A team of 4 soldiers can watch over a group of at least 25 people, having them sit in the grass in 5x5 configuration, ready to cut down any that turn. So that's 1,625 people that could be quarantined and watched over at a time outside the city.

As the group outside the walls grows, and the situation within the walls becomes less tenable, more of the evacuation and extermination group shifts to quarantine and manage outside the city. Given two hours (or more), it would certainly be possible to evacuate at least a couple thousand civilians.

It's not perfect, it doesn't ensure everyone's survival. It's dark, it's grim, there would certainly be some panic (something that happened during the purge anyway) but IT'S A PLAN. One that doesn't involve widespread slaughter of innocent civilians. Even if only a fraction of those evacuated and quarantined survive, that's still potentially hundreds of people. If your response to making an effort to only save a few hundred is "nah, too much work, better to kill them all instead" that's just laughably evil.

The problem is having to come up with said plan...it took you however long to figure that out. Arthas didn't HAVE that time he had the following

-There is infected grain distributed throughout the city and has been there for a bit
-There is a Scary Dreadlord who can POSSIBLY accelerate the process. Arthas doesn't know for sure but isn't taking any chances
-Anyone non infected person can easily be raised by a scourge necromancer
-Every second spent NOT purging is a second the undead start rising

Was it evil and wrong..yes in a sense but in reality the alternative seemed worse.

Realisitcally the same outcome was going to happen either way though.

[Ielenia]

Considered. Doesn't make a difference.

You're wrong. You're dead, demonstrably wrong. Seems to me you never had to do any logistic for something unexpected. Just the time to come up with a workable logistic and decent strategy would have meant most people in Stratholme would be turned and many if not most who aren't infected would be dead because of the zombies.

I, like any good, well adjusted person, would still make the effort.

You, like any stubborn person, insisting on saving as many as possible would instead condemn everyone to a torturous death.

Issuing orders in the field wouldn't take that long.

Issuing orders is not the problem. The problem is coming up with what orders to make, i.e. work out a decent logistic system and strategy.

You actually have more resources and manpower in my scenario (because people don't desert you),

You don't, because they're still understaffed, and don't have the resources to come up with a quarantine zone that doesn't endanger the world outside Stratholme.

and you have the same amount of time.

Which ends up wasted coming up with logistics and extensively analyzing the situation.

You don't really need to prepare a location for my plan, you just use the open space outside the walls (in both games there is open space between the forest and walls of the city, as is the case with most cities of that size where the surrounding woods are cleared).

So the infection spreads outside the city.

People don't have to be personally escorted, you can use the inside-the-walls group to set up check point teams and incursion teams. They make their way into the city and funnel people out.

"You don't have to escort people, you just have to escort people."

Anyway, the question isn't "Was Arthas efficient", it's "Was Arthas wrong".

And the answer is: no, he was not wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

Your list is incomplete. Added some corrections. The difference isn't quite as big as you make it out to be.

Except that is not what happened, was it? You're making stuff up since Arthas did not waste time with logistics and didn't need to gather manpower or resources since what he wanted was already there.

[Arewn]

But how do we know you cant tell if they where infected, remember this is a world of magic, he just killed everyone without even bother to summon a mage to see if they could tell who was infected or not.

Where I live, covid vaccines are right now available to high risk individuals. Anyone can go and get one, they just have to declare they are high risk. No proof required.

Which seems insane, right? Why wouldn't they require proof? Have a doctor verify that they actually qualify, you might think.

But it's actually the opposite, having doctors verify every single person is what would be insane. It just isn't pragmatic. It would cause incredible delays in the delivery of the vaccines. Vaccines which are supposed to go out to most of the population eventually anyways.

It's the same thing in Stratholme. On the brink of a zombie uprising that threatens to collapse the entire kingdom, did Arthas really have the time and resources to check every citizen?

It's still terrible, of course. But it was a sensible course of action.

[huth]

Except that is not what happened, was it? You're making stuff up since Arthas did not waste time with logistics and didn't need to gather manpower or resources since what he wanted was already there.

The same is the case for both scenarios, though. Time investment isn't significantly changed. He'd also have more troops to handle all that stuff, since there'd be fewer deserters and Jaina and Uther would have stayed. Being less understaffed is still an improvement, contrary to your beliefs.

Since we're talking about a medieval style army, there'd also be a significant number of noncombatants to take care of various things.

It's the same thing in Stratholme. On the brink of a zombie uprising that threatens to collapse the entire kingdom, did Arthas really have the time and resources to check every citizen?

That's neither what Raven is proposing nor that far from what he already had to do anyway. Or do you think it is easy to comb through a large city to find every single inhabitant, especially when they may actively be hiding?

We're not talking about checking every individual. We're talking about seeing if there is a way to determine the difference.