How come Gaia never punished the Garou for the War of Rage?

[Shakanaka]

Does she play favorites?

[heinrich]

I am very strongly NOT interested in fiction that depicts the self-justifications of genocidal armies as somehow legitimate or true.

I see.
But when has the garou population ever been an army?
I have only once read of a coordinated attack against the Nagah, in a campaign-like effort. And, honestly, I think the author just wanted to draw from the imagery surrounding the St. Patrick legend about the banishment of snakes from Ireland.

Also, 1st Edition tribes books don't go into detail on the Fera to much, and the Fera aren't really that developed there. Revised Edition has a more diverse outlook on the Fera and how garou should act when encountering them.

[Gryffon15]

Looking at things from a Watsonian angle, a lot of people over the years have pointed out that logistically the Garou couldn’t have been the sole perpetrators of the War of Rage, which I person refer to as the ‘Wars of Rage’ because I think the canonical term is a bit of a misnomer as compared to what probably actually happened. But then again this is head canon so, grain of salt.

The Garou have certainly screwed thongs up massively and they rightfully have their hands dirty, but it would be a mistake to consider them solely responsible. I say this not to let them off for anything, their actions were easily condemnable, but not to let anyone else off the hook.

The Garou can roam predominantly within the northern hemisphere and the largest concentrations of tribes reflect that with their presence in Eurasia and North America. Even occasionally delving further afield, we can assume that Garou didn’t go where they didn’t have both varieties of their kinfolk for extended periods.

So Garou slaughtering Ananasi, Ajaba, Apis, Bastet, Grondr, Gurahl, Mokole, Nagah, Ratkin, & the other list breeds; across North & Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa makes a lot of sense. Conflicts over territory, feeding rights, ideology, superiority, human kinfolk; etc. However the Garou aren’t everywhere and if the claims that once there were changing breeds for every variety of creature are true then the Garou can’t be justly held accountable for every extinction.

Odds are that the Ajaba, Bastet, Rokea, and Ananasi all did no little amount of work themselves; with the other breeds probably helping directly or indirectly. We know from the Ananasi’s own words that they participated in the destruction of the Insect Breeds during their early conflicts with the Weaver. In South America and (Sub-)Saharan Africa it was likely a combination of Ajaba and Bastet. The Bastet themselves along with some help from the other Hengeyokai could likely have handled East and South-East Asia. There doesn’t seem to be many changing breeds native to Australia other then the Were-Thyrasines, so there’s that (although I can also see some Ananasi, Camazotz, and Ratkin doing well there). The Rokea are the only aquatic breed, except for certain Nagah and Mokolé. I think that one explains itself honestly. I doubt the Corax or Camazotz actively killed off their fellow avian breeds, but I wouldn’t be surprised either if they helped facilitate things through alliances with breeds like the Garou and Bastet.

Anyway, I suppose my ultimate point is that the World of Darkness we have exists as a consequence of earlier people’s actions, much like our own world.

The Garou should be held accountable to that but in all fairness it’s unreasonable to claim that they were the sole perpetrators.

[MyWifeIsScary]

The Garou are bad
The Bastet are bad
The Rokea are bad
The Ratkin are bad
The Grondr are bad
The Guhral are bad (maybe not as-bad)
The Corax, whilst not aggressive, are temptable mercenaries.
The mokole mostly kept out of it
The Apis were probably pretty reasonable, which was why they got wiped the hardest.

The thing with the Garou is that they were the most successful. They outnumbered everyone but the Ratkin but the rat crinos isn't even half the size. If the Bastet were all lions, maybe we'd be playing Werecat: The apocalypse and they'd be the criminals of the war of rage.

[Gryffon15]

Well it’s all bad, many commentators point out that a killing on such scale would likely feed the Wyrm to well past a point of event horizon, what those breeds that advocate mass slaughter of humans argue is that - if it doesn’t lead to the Apocalypse - it permanently halts man-made artificial damage and puts the changing breeds on good footing to begin rolling back the clock.

As far as the general question of Gaia’s Punishment though, I still lean towards the notion that the lion’s share of the punishment, if not its entirety, is simply the consequences of the Garou (and other Changing Breed’s actions). What more could Gaia honestly do? The consequences of the slaughter of the Apis, Grondr, Canazotz, and other lost breeds is obvious and depending on the ST/writer the Apocalypse has been guaranteed ever since those tragedies.

[Konigheim Horror]

To me, it always felt like the one genocide W:tA won't fully reject outright is of humans, by Fera. Humans killing humans? Bad. But something like the Red Talons or Ratkin... maybe they have a point. At least that's how it felt like when I read it.

[Erinys]

I was under the impression that, regardless of the IOC justifications of the Genosides (aren't the justifications within the mentioned Tribebooks just that?), the OOC Lore agrees that Garou killing so many of the other Fera was bad. Both moraly and in a practical sense.

It's pretty textual that the races slaughtered by the Garou had an irreplaceable role in the Gaian spiritual ecosystem, I think. Without the Apis, the Garou numbers are a tiny fraction of what they were. Without the Grondr, there's no way to reclaim the ground lost to the Wyrm.

I agree with both of these. I'm arguing against changing the story to make the Fera the bad guys who deserved to be killed, because of what that would unintentionally say about genocide in general. Were they flawed and capable of bad things? Yes, of course. Should they be rewritten to be BSD-levels of awful, to the degree necessary to actually justify killing them all down to the last infant and egg? No, because they canonically don't serve the Wyrm. And genocide isn't even justifiable against BSD-born infants.

And I'm arguing against the suggestion that the Garou could totally have replaced the Gurahl, Grondr, Apis, Ratkin, Camazotz, Mokole, etc. if they had wanted to, or that Gaia intended the Wars of Rage to happen, because it just doesn't make sense with the results in-setting.

What I have seen from Breedbooks, and from other sources summarizing attitudes, is that most of the tribes justify the War of Rage because the Fera "turned away from Gaia" or "fell to the Wyrm" or "didn't accept the Garou as their rulers". These are the same justifications the Amandu'o Simba had for genocide of the Ajaba. In Rage Across Australia, the Red Talons still congratulate themselves for killing all the Bunyip.

(granted, RA Australia isn't considered a good sourcebook). The Garou also repeated the slaughter in the Americas and Australia, and when they came to save the Amazon step 1. was attacking the Balam and stealing their Den-Realms. I have seen in books (unfortunately can't remember which) Garou characters stating unequivocally that the Gurahl, Mokole, and Grondr had to be wiped out because they all served the Wyrm.

Yeah, some individuals in some tribes admit that it was wrong. I always got the impression they were the minority in most tribes.

[Rock113]

Arguably, the Garou are fighting a war that they've already lost millennia ago. Maybe that's Gaia's punishment.

Maybe the War of Rage had claimed their failure,

Not the Fall of White Holwers

[kalinara]

It's pretty textual that the races slaughtered by the Garou had an irreplaceable role in the Gaian spiritual ecosystem, I think. Without the Apis, the Garou numbers are a tiny fraction of what they were. Without the Grondr, there's no way to reclaim the ground lost to the Wyrm.

Arguably, the Garou are fighting a war that they've already lost millennia ago. Maybe that's Gaia's punishment.

[Aleph]

I am very strongly NOT interested in fiction that depicts the self-justifications of genocidal armies as somehow legitimate or true.

I was under the impression that, regardless of the IOC justifications of the Genosides (aren't the justifications within the mentioned Tribebooks just that?), the OOC Lore agrees that Garou killing so many of the other Fera was bad. Both moraly and in a practical sense.

[Ambrosia]

There is an important part that might play into Gaia not punishing the Garou for the War Of Rage:

It would make all the shifter's beliefs about their creation, about their mission, and about their purpose an actual reality.
If you think about it, with the dozens of thousands of years that have passed, a lot of what the shifters believe and do is, quite literally, their religion.

As much as (aside of the last endtime end-scenario books that got retcon'd with the 20th lines and onward..) the western Vampires *believe* they are the offspring of Caine's sin, and *believe* they are punished by capital G God, the shifters actually only *believe* in what their origins and purpose are.
It's words and stories passed down between the generations and some spirits of their acenstors, but in the end, it is just as much of an opinion piece as anything else.

Gaia actually appearing in front of them after the War Of Rage and dealing out punishment would have broken that narrative. Instead, it's ambiguous. Maybe it's the decline of the birthrate, sure. Maybe it's the dire situation they are in.
Maybe it's just a natural consequence of their actions, and there is nothing special or higher-power behind it.

But either way, any *actual* validity behind the shifter's claims is actually left unproven. And that is, all things concerned, a good thing. It has the potential to make the past events even more tragic, and the current situation even more ironic.

[Erinys]

Sorry for the double-post.

Is there reference material to that?

What I have seen from Breedbooks, and from other sources summarizing attitudes, is that most of the tribes justify the War of Rage because the Fera "turned away from Gaia" or "fell to the Wyrm" or "didn't accept the Garou as their rulers". These are the same justifications the Amandu'o Simba had for genocide of the Ajaba. In Rage Across Australia, the Red Talons still congratulate themselves for killing all the Bunyip.

I am very strongly NOT interested in fiction that depicts the self-justifications of genocidal armies as somehow legitimate or true.

[Erinys]

Even in horror fiction, I'm not OK with a storyline that sets up genocide as "inevitable" in that way. Conflict was inevitable. Genocide was a choice the Garou and Simba made, just as genocides in the real world are choices. To depict it as anything else would disturb me. And I have no interest in the stories of Fera being evil that later generations of Garou tell to justify their actions. To me that looks far more like the winners writing history, given that every Changing-Breed canonically still mostly serves their creator(s). If all the Fera canonically were Wyrm-servants, it would make the Garou justifications look a lot more plausible.

[The Cat Came Back]

There is something to be said that the decline of Garou birthrate has to do with the War of Rage.

But not because of a divine punishment from Gaia.

Just becuase the Apis are all dead. That was the whole point of the Apis, to be matchmakers and builders, to guide humanity - and through them the changing breeds - to greatness.

'Course the Apis let it go to their heads and set themselves up as gods, at the same time the Garou simply took it for granted that they could maol-order mates from the Apis...

[Uniform Two Six]

I actually have always liked the idea that the decline in the Garou birthrate is a manifestation of Gaia's displeasure (this whole subject of why Gaia sat on the sidelines while the Garou wiped out whole swaths of the Fera is one that has come up frequently with the people I play with). Now, the more obvious and likely scenario is that with the humans multiplying and spreading Weaver influence (or taint if you prefer) all over the world and slowly ratcheting up the Gauntlet worldwide, is slowly choking off the spiritual energies that shapeshifters need to be conceived in the first place. It is mentioned here and there that the probability of a Garou-Kin pairing creating a new Garou wasn't always at the anemic 10% probability that it is in the modern times, so this hypothesis sounds pretty good, but some Fera (Ratkin come to mind) don't seem to be having quite the same troubles, so this is perhaps not necessarily the case. "Mom's not happy" is a theme that I think works pretty well to explain any such discrepancies. Two things can be true at the same time. Her displeasure at the Garou wiping out large swaths of the Fera might not be the cause of their decline, but withholding her powers of fertility might be contributing to why it is so severe.