Holy nation best nation

[Lor]

I honestly believe these guys might be the "good guys" of Kenshi, at least compared to the Shek Kingdom and the United Cities.

HN is by far the most stable faction, and best for Kenshi in the long run. They take care of their own people better than any other faction, and their leadership seem have a vested interest in taking care of and protecting their own. Comparatively the UC treat their people like playthings for their sadistic lords to torture and kill as they please, they don't give a damn about their own people. And the Shek kingdom, although they aren't bigoted, they're utterly self-destructive and they are one step away from a suicidal last stand because of their warrior culture - terrible for long term stability.

Even though the HN are bigoted, they seem to tolerate Hivers and Shek as long as they are accompanied by male humans, and from a lore standpoint they have every reason to be hostile toward the skeletons. Their territory is by far the safest in game because of their regular Paladin patrols, they keep the fogmen contained to the west, and defend against the cannibals in the north.

Even though they're religious fundamentalists and terribly misogynistic, i'd say it's a fair trade-off considering their hyper-religiosity is probably the reason their country is so stable and safe, they haven't slowly declined into decadence and degeneracy like the UC have. And I doubt women have it much better in the UC, since overall the poor in the UC are still treated arguably worse than women are treated in the Holy Nation.

[mid endian]

Holy nation are good for one thing far as I'm concerned. Training lock-picking, stealth, and assassination. It requires for my character to be a slave of course, so there's that.

I like showing my thanks to the holy nation by knocking out each of the guards from behind one by one before strolling outside to Freedom. Hopefully taking a few outcasts and other slaves with me to join my ranks.

[Bedelguese]

Yes rampant xenophobia, misogyny, religious fanaticism, and warmongering, child slavery, slavery in general, while also being technophobes. Truly the good guys of Kenshi.

They only tolerate non-humans as slaves.

If we're going by morals Shek Kingdom is the best of the worst for the big three. While they were originally suicidal due to their religion they are in the middle of reform from their new queen. They are also honest and loyal to their allies. While the Shek Kingdom dislike outsiders they are not above accepting non-shek into their population if they're proven.

The Holy Nation is only the most stable due to killing anyone that is different. The Phoenix himself may as well be a child in a man's body due to his isolated upbringing

[GIJoe597]

I think good has many meanings. I understand what Naylor is suggesting, much like the Alliance is a pervasive entity in Firefly, but they do maintain order. Where the Alliance is not around, it is lawless.

I suppose the Holy Nation, could eventually impose order on the entire moon. One wonders, if that happened, if there were no constant struggle to survive, how long before the common people starting advocating for change?

People who live in chaos will welcome anyone who can restore order, even at the expense of some individual freedom. However, once the moon is pacified would the Holy Nation look as good or as convenient?


Just realized, this reminds of Into The Badlands TV Show.

[Lor]

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

Yes rampant xenophobia, misogyny, religious fanaticism, and warmongering, child slavery, slavery in general, while also being technophobes. Truly the good guys of Kenshi.

They only tolerate non-humans as slaves.

Sure the HN has slaves, difference being their entire economy and society doesn't depend on it. Slavery is a punishment in the Holy nation, it isn't a necessity for their whole faction to continue existing like the united cities.

Religious fanaticism isn't necessarily a terrible trait either in a post-apocalyptic, rough world like Kenshi, if anything it's one of their benefits as its a unifying factor in their territory and is a good guard against degenerate behaviour which always accompanies the downfall of empires.

Compared to the Shek and the UC, they are definitely the "good guys"

[Lor]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

I think good has many meanings. I understand what Naylor is suggesting, much like the Alliance is a pervasive entity in Firefly, but they do maintain order. Where the Alliance is not around, it is lawless.

I suppose the Holy Nation, could eventually impose order on the entire moon. One wonders, if that happened, if there were no constant struggle to survive, how long before the common people starting advocating for change?

People who live in chaos will welcome anyone who can restore order, even at the expense of some individual freedom. However, once the moon is pacified would the Holy Nation look as good or as convenient?


Just realized, this reminds of Into The Badlands TV Show.

Thats a good point. I think it's easy to pacify their current population because they've been born and raised in their heavily religious society. If they expanded into other areas of Kenshi I doubt the locals would be as passive.

I still believe they're the "best" faction on the continent, I can guarantee you if I was somehow thrust into that world, i'll be pulling out a copy of "The Holy Flame" and heading straight for them.

[Bedelguese]

Originally posted by Naylor:

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

Yes rampant xenophobia, misogyny, religious fanaticism, and warmongering, child slavery, slavery in general, while also being technophobes. Truly the good guys of Kenshi.

They only tolerate non-humans as slaves.

Sure the HN has slaves, difference being their entire economy and society doesn't depend on it. Slavery is a punishment in the Holy nation, it isn't a necessity for their whole faction to continue existing like the united cities.

Religious fanaticism isn't necessarily a terrible trait either in a post-apocalyptic, rough world like Kenshi, if anything it's one of their benefits as its a unifying factor in their territory and is a good guard against degenerate behaviour which always accompanies the downfall of empires.

Compared to the Shek and the UC, they are definitely the "good guys"

Slavery is slavery, slavery due to poverty is no different then slavery due to being different.

Religious fanaticism is bad, it has stunted their progress as a country. Even Griffin, a former Paladin admits that the Phoenix has been horrible for the country. Any kind of medicine that isn't basic bandages is outlawed. It's horrible place to be

[MadArtillery]

I figure the Shek are easily the good guys, atleast under Stone Golem. She really reigned them in and they are honest and nongenocidal. They are totally racist but not the HAHA MURDER type of crazy holy nation is nor the wanton murder just for funzies of the United Cities. The Western Hive are also super chill and adorably silly, yet to find anything bad about them aside from rather dishonest merchants but what merchantile society doesn't have it's bad eggs.

The Holy Nation is doomed, why you might ask? Their xenophobia has them under attack from all sides, who isn't at war with them and for good reason? They are lucky the United Cities views them as an asset to keep the Shek busy and away from their main territories and just want to keep the Holy Nation aggression contained otherwise they'd just be sandwiched and dead by now. That restraint is the only reason they are still around but given their city and noble burning tendancies they could easily earn themselves their own pyre and restraint is not a feature of the Holy Nation so they'll push the United Cities too far eventually. When you are only capable of making enemies you'll eventually make too many.

[Bedelguese]

I mean, Shek Retainers don't seem to have it that bad, they own shops and houses. Just because they don't want to be Retainers and want to be warriors doesn't mean civilian life is bad to anyone not in that mindset.

[Lor]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

I figure the Shek are easily the good guys, atleast under Stone Golem. She really reigned them in and they are honest and nongenocidal. They are totally racist but not the HAHA MURDER type of crazy holy nation is nor the wanton murder just for funzies of the United Cities. The Western Hive are also super chill and adorably silly, yet to find anything bad about them aside from rather dishonest merchants but what merchantile society doesn't have it's bad eggs.

The Holy Nation is doomed, why you might ask? Their xenophobia has them under attack from all sides, who isn't at war with them and for good reason? They are lucky the United Cities views them as an asset to keep the Shek busy and away from their main territories and just want to keep the Holy Nation aggression contained otherwise they'd just be sandwiched and dead by now. That restraint is the only reason they are still around but given their city and noble burning tendancies they could easily earn themselves their own pyre and restraint is not a feature of the Holy Nation so they'll push the United Cities too far eventually. When you are only capable of making enemies you'll eventually make too many.

I don't agree that they are doomed to be destroyed by the factions around them, the Holy nation are the entire reason the Shek Kingdom was nearly destroyed before stone golem saved them from an omnicidal last stand, and the Holy Nation managed to sack the UC city of Bast and the surrounding region. Nothing seems to suggest that they were at risk of being destroyed on two fronts, in fact it's quite the opposite, despite fighting on two fronts they are doing remarkably well. I also think you're overestimating the strength of the UC, the UC is already a war torn, unstable region, with rebel bands operating openly in it's territory. They're run by objectively awful leaders, that totally lack common sense, and they seem to be constantly on the verge of civil war. The Holy nation isn't perfect, but it's easily the strongest out of the three factions.

[Bedelguese]

The Holy Nation isn't fighting on two fronts at the moment, the Border Zone sees to that. By all standards the Holy Nation should be getting it's butt handed to it, Samurai patrols defeat Paladin patrols almost every time.

[mid endian]

If only luring a leviathan to the holy nation towns was possible....

[Lor]

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

The Holy Nation isn't fighting on two fronts at the moment, the Border Zone sees to that. By all standards the Holy Nation should be getting it's butt handed to it, Samurai patrols defeat Paladin patrols almost every time.

Eh thats true, I suppose theres a big difference between the strategic view of the factions, and what actually happens on the ground. I still think if things came to a head, the HN would arise the victor, the UC seems too unstable and easily fractured to put up any real resistance against the Holy nation in an all out war, but I guess the game doesn't really accommodate for that.

[~ Fabulous ~]

I am not so sure about that, they got powerful enemy, the anti slaver ain't seems like much but if they were to go all out on both UC and HN both of them will be destroyed, shek on the other hand have no such enemy.

[SmallGespenst]

there are no good guys in Kenshi, the HN only tolerates other races as slaves (the reason you can get away with travelling with hivers and shek is that they assume they're slaves) and slavery is used as a abhorrently cruel means of execution.
they're also the nastiest major faction in terms of their means of warfare, just look at Bast; a town razed by the HN, it's head noble burned alive and everyone left over carted off to Rebirth with their only crime being not believing in their sham god.
they're only sexist faction in the game, they have the worst equipment because of their rejection of technology (three people have equipment that isn't salvaged garbage / rusted junk.) and the only reason they've prospered as well as they have is because they hold the foodbowl of the region.

[SmallGespenst]

also their mistreatment of women and "servants" is so bad that they're will to brave the fogmen to get away, it's entirely possible that the dead hives would have died out without the steady steam of escaped servants to eat.
also given the overrun military base on the border of the fog islands it's pretty clear that the HN are not winning that fight.