MRDIBBLE, I ask because I wonder why you won’t try to negotiate. The Brigadier has valuable skills and possiby unique talents; he has been the been the most valuable member of the community; he has saved your life personally; and he’s been behaving himself with the women in the community. Why not at least offer him a settlement, whereby he is paid to surrender his claim on Anne and her daughter and his contributions continue?
If he’ll accept a paymment of resources, will you support that?
If he says, “Anne and I can’t both stay here, and I’ve invested a lot of work in this community so I’d rather not leave. Give her a week’s rations and directions to the nearest other settlement, and I’ll surrender my claim.”
In a mature society, with ample resources, under no existential threat, with rule of law & state monopoly on violence as part of a broadly accepted social contract etc etc., it’s uncontroversial that both slavery and extra-judicial killing would be undesirable; and that sadistic megalomaniacs should go to hospital or to prison rather be “euthanized”.
So this is not really a question of ideals, it’s realpolitik, and the answer in real life would depend on all the details of interpersonal relationships and politics and logisitics, far more detail than you could reasonably specify in a hypothetical.
But in any event, you’re asking us to prioritize mutually incompatible ideals, so I’ll give it a shot from what we know:
The Brigadier appears to be a slick & charismatic sadistic megalomaniac who already wields a dangerous amount of power. I see this as an immense threat to the stability and welfare of our society, almost as much as rampaging zombies. Appeasement will not work. I’m still going to err on the side of killing him (if I can get away with it) unless I’m very sure that there’s some other way to safely eliminate the threat that he presents.
If I’m in a dubious position politically, obviously the lack of rampaging zombies makes the option of simply leaving along with whoever else chooses to go, provided that can include the wife and daughter without violence, more viable as an alternative.
I am not willing to call the Brigadier sick in his treatment of Anne. Sick implies that his evil attitudes and actions are not his fault.
I also don’t see him as a megalomaniac, though. He’s not tried to set himself as king of the Town, unless his plan is part of a subtle plan to trick the mayor into doing something rash so the people overthrow himand put the Brigadier in his place (and in that case, you don’t want to play into his hands, but that hasn’t been proven).
The Brigadier’s disproportionate power is potentially dangerous, too. But it’s not UNEARNED power. He doesn’t have extra influence because he’s barricaded the well so htat only he can get access to water; that wuld be bogarding a shareable resource. He has such power because he’s genuinely more talented and more knowledgeable than everybody else. Hs knwledge may be transferable to otehrs (and he may well be doing that, since he bossed the construction teams), but his talent isn’t.
I know I said I’d kill the Brigadier because of the moral danger he represents. But as I think on it that’s too hasty,and not for moral reasons. If he’s been loyally serving the town (admittedly from rational self-interest as much as anythng else) then it seems prodigal to kill out out of him (depriving the town of his services) or exile him (doing the same thing but also making it possible for an enemy to take advantage of his resources).
So whoever suggested negotiation upthread was right. Tell the Brigadier that Anne will not be forced to become his slave. If he will accept a divorce settlement (extra rations, etc), so that Anne & co. can stay in town, do that (and I will assist Anne in paying him off). If he won’t accept that, say that the town so values his contributions that we won’t lose him over her unless we simply must, so we’ll give her party supplies and directions to another settlement. If he accepts that, Anne has to leave If he doesn’t, we let him leave, and my most loyal archer puts an arrow in his back.
Then, whether we’ve ever had an eelection before,w e have one now. I’m not sure I et to be mayor after this.
I know you’re having eye trouble - I said sLick & charismatic!
I think this is simply a judgment call that in reality we’d make based on far more detailed information about the risk involved: about the Brigadier’s personality, about how strong our position is politically. The risk in any kind of delay is that it gives him time to act when he sees that we won’t just accede to his wishes. Is this the first time his will has been challenged? It’s hard to judge what he might do - the description you’ve given of a guy who has behaved like a saint and then suddenly shown such profoundly antisocial traits (and the evident lack of insight to understand what a problem this is) is kind of unrealistic, imo.
When you come to me and say, “Unless you become complicit in a horrific crime, I’m going to risk the lives of everyone you love, and next time we see you I might use my skills against you,” killing you is self-defense, not evil. Sure, maybe it’s different when there’s an effective police force. But there ain’t in this scenario.
So yeah. I’m talking with some friendly elders, and getting my most trusted soldiers together (and if I have none that I trust with this job, I have no business being mayor). We’re visiting his house that night. He’s either committing on the spot to leaving his ex-wife and ex-daughter alone, or he’s taking said arrow to the head. And any move we see from him toward enforcing what he sees as his rights will put him in the Kill list.
If he’s a treacherous sonofabitch in my experience, I’m not giving him that second chance.
Oh, it’s all about the timing. You’re right that you can’t delay. The OP says it’s midnight when he makes his declaration and he wants an answer by dawn; I think you have towork with that.
Thank you for the correction on the slick think. On the charismatic thing–there’s two kinds of charisma. There’s the Captain America kind, which you get from being both extremely competent and loyal to your troops; and there’s the Hitler kind, which you get from talking a good game. The thing is, the Cap kind can come in evil incarnations too. If the Brigadier has the Cap variety, which seems likely, you’re gonna have a hard time getting his troops to kill him.
Let’s add a little detail. The town has existed for four years, and you’re one of the founders. The Brigadier’s been three three years, and as the OP says he has basically saved the town from destruction. The mayor’s post is elected; this is your first time. The Brigadier has twice been asked to run for mayor, and you’re sure he could have won. Each time he said, “Nah. The mayor has to do too much boring shit. I’ll train the troops and design stuff and fight in a crisis, but I’m not interested in deciding who gets dtich digging duty and overseeing ration distribution.” Lastly, there is one large and hostile settlment within a week’s ride, but five smaller settlements with which your town is allied are all nearer.
You can’t just talk to the friendly elders. You have to talk to all of them.
No matter what, this has to be done quickly. You have to make and implement a decision by dawn. If there are, say, 5 elders total, and 2 are the the Brigadier’s buddies, then if they wake up tomorrow to find out that you’ve killed him for reasons they knew not of beforehand, you’re the one who will look like the villain.
And sure, you probably have some loyal soldiers. The OP says you were leavinga scavening party, which is wise though risky. But the Brigadier is the town hero, the one who trains and probably leads the fighters (if only by example); he’s sure to have more friends among them. If you kill him without some minimal due process, those fighters will turn against you, and you’ll shortly find yourself hanging from a gibbet for the sport of your own crows.
Yeah, no, he isn’t leaving according to his plan, he’s leaving according to mine. The one where he doesn’t get to keep any of his shit.
More the latter - what I’m saying is there’s no path to real pacifist me thriving as a leader, in the hellscape you’re describing - I’m OK with killing zombies but not other humans, so the first raiders that come…, So certainly the me in this scenario must be an alternate me.
If it’s real me, no, I’m not willing to murder him. Just exile or imprisonment (and I disagree that 400 is too small a community to afford to imprison 1)
It took an embarrassingly long time for me to realize the thread title had a typo. I was scanning the story, thinking: “Where the meme?”
If the goal is to prevent the Brigadier from beating his wife and daughter, then the only reliable way to do that is to kill him. He will be able to beat them if he stays in the colony, and he will be able to beat them if he leaves.
From a Utilitarian perspective, exiling the Brigadier could cause more harm and destruction than letting him stay - if he decides to wage war on the colony, or incite other settlements to become hostile to the colony, or so forth. And he has many loyal supporters within the colony who could become agitators or saboteurs/enemies themselves if he is banished.
Reluctantly, I would have to vote to let the Brigadier stay. The colony may need his assistance for future defense. And it would be easier to “police” his wife-beating behavior when he’s part of the colony than when he’s gone - again, the Brigadier is able to beat his wife and daughter whether you banish him or not, so you’re not helping their plight by banishing him.
Killing the Brigadier would not be right - he has not committed murder or some execution-worthy crime.
This is really a lesser of two (or three) evils situation.
If we have to gin up a story to justify killing him, it would be trivially simple to do so with the help of three elders of the community. Maybe I have to shoot myself in the arm, beat up Anne a little, and smash half the furniture in my living room, but before any of Brig’s friends find him dead in my living room, there will be a tableau that makes it clear he resumed his wife-beating ways, turned on me when I tried to stop him, and we did the only thing we could in self-defence. It’s not like CSI:Apocalypse is going to show up and start analyzing fibers to contradict me.
Not that I’m taking this out. I’ll give Anne all the tools she needs to defend herself, but I’m not killing someone without cause when we know it’s just a matter of time until she’ll have a justified kill in self-defense.
My point is that yo’d better get the buy in of ALL the elders. If you don’t, you’re trading a possible menace a few months away for a huge problem the day after tomorrow.
No, the “or else” was “the next time we meet, we won’t be friends. Y’all will be the thieves who stole my family.”
Fate may intervene, and the Brigadier may never meet anybody from the town again. However, his stated plan is to remain in the area, and he at least is anticipating that they will meet again and he will have opportunity to deal with the thieves who stole his family.
Claiming to own human beings is a crime in any jurisdiction I’m in charge of.
ETA: You seem to think I’m just against the man for some assault he committed in the past. Or the threat of what he might commit in future. No, it’s like I said before - slavers are hostis humani generis in-and-of-themselves. His existence is a crime.
The claim to own human beings didn’t.
My not giving a shit what a slaver thinks is his personal property, is where the right comes from. He thinks two humans are unquestionably his personal property, you want I should honour that? No? Then what’s the difference?
I suppose the real question here is whether we can afford to have humanitarian ideals during the ZA. The “correct” answer is probably no, if the person in question has skills that we really, really need.
That said, I wouldn’t wait to catch him in the act, nor to arrest him. That just opens up discussion about rights and wrongs of his ideas, and allows factions to be created as the community decides what to do with him once he’s arrested.
There would be an unfortunate gun-cleaning accident that, sadly, takes out the Brigadier. People will mourn the Brigadier’s finer qualities, and then move on.
The Brigadier is refusing to attempt to exercise that claim while a citizen of the town, or rather to use force to exercise it. He stated what he believed to be true and said, “I won’t fight here in my home against my comrades; I will leave and settle elsewhere, after which you will longer be my comrades and this will not be my home.”
His claims are odious. But he i ceding that it would be wrong of him to use force aginast his comrades.
If the Brigadier agrees to be bought off – that the town promises to pay him double rtions every week for the next six months, he will immediately cede all claims to owning Anne and her daughter, and continue to provide his valuable services to the town, will you agree to it?
They’re out of ammo. Have to be a knife-throwing accident, which is harder to sell.
Incidentally, if the scavenging party has just come across resources that could be used to make more bullets, and the Brigadier knows how to do so but has not yet taught anyone else (because there was no point without the resources), does your answer change?
Don’t give the CSI folks any ideas!