"Good guys" committing perfidy (fake surrender) and it's treated as a clever heroic ploy instead of a war crime or something morally dubious

[u/AporiaParadox]

1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Anakin pretends to surrender to the enemy multiple times during the Clone Wars. And no, it's not used to indicate that Anakin is falling to the Dark Side, other characters like Obi-Wan do it too.
2. The Iliad. The Trojan Horse was a real dick move, a fake surrender compounded by a fake peace offering, followed by a massacre. I get that it was a different time, but still, most modern adaptations just treat it as a cool thing. One thing I'll give Nolan's The Odyssey credit for is that Odysseus recognizes that what his "clever plot" was wrong.

Perfidy is a serious war crime, because morality aside, in exchange for one victory, you're dooming all of your allies who might want to legitimately surrender in the future because now the enemy is just going to execute them, not to mention that now the enemy won't surrender to you and will just fight harder.

[u/CAustin3]

The Geneva convention isn't what makes it immoral; it just codifies it in a way that a community of nations can recognize it and maybe enforce it.

Perdify is awful because it punishes mercy and makes it risky. In a conflict where it's commonly used, executing prisoners and/or civilians and/or surrendering/downed enemies becomes the practical and winning move instead of senseless cruelty, because those surrendering soldiers or women or children or terrified civilians have a real, demonstrated chance of turning out to be ambushers just waiting for you to let your guard down so they can stab you in the back.

You see this frequently in real-life conflicts. Small insurgent/resistance groups, as well as certain nations, who aren't willing to follow the "rules of war" (whether they're mentioned in the Geneva conventions or otherwise) lead to horrific conflicts where atrocities and crimes against humanity are common on both sides, because hesitation to be brutal becomes a losing move.

Even in sci fi or fantasy, things like "don't shoot the messenger/diplomat" (otherwise being willing to try to communicate/negotiate becomes a losing move), "don't attack medics" (otherwise helping the harmless wounded becomes a losing move), "don't use child soldiers" (otherwise mercy for children becomes a losing move), "don't use human shields" (otherwise mercy for civilians/noncombatants becomes a losing move" are things any "good guys" should be holding themselves to, and that includes "don't fake surrender" (otherwise acceptance of surrender/mercy for defeated forces becomes a losing move).

[u/Aickavon → u/CAustin3]

In star wars the republic learned this very early as they had a garrison fort in the midst of a civilian occupied city.

The mandalorians were not pleased and proceeded to bomb the whole city.

The republic garrisons got a lot more picky with their locations from then on.

[u/flightofthepingu → u/Aickavon]

Do the Mandalorians even have a word for "civilian"?

[u/TheLord-Commander → u/flightofthepingu]

Depends on the era of Mandalorians and who the Mandalore is. They can go from pretty war hungry and war crime prone, to pretty chill allies who love a good fight.

[u/Aickavon → u/flightofthepingu]

During the Mandalore war it was explained by a literal mandalorian that they would have left the civilian population alone but the tactics of the republic were so cowardly that they would rather make a Turtle Bay level incident than be blue balled by future city based fortresses

[u/BunNGunLee → u/Aickavon]

Basically an instance of "Okay, you want to put your garrison there? Then you get to live with the consequences."

Not touching on the IRL implications of that same argument, just noting that in the Mandalorian's case here, that's definitely the kind of point they'd make. They're a culture that prizes conflict as a cornerstone of civilization building, and hiding behind a civilian target would be shameful in the highest order.

Rather than letting it get out that hiding the garrison among non-combatants would make the Mandalorians just give up on hitting it.

[u/CustodianCloset → u/BunNGunLee]

Not touching on the IRL implications of that same argument, just noting that in the Mandalorian's case here, that's definitely the kind of point they'd make.

In all fairness, we literally have those same rules. You aren't supposed to put military infrastructure inside civilian infrastructure. Nearby is fine, but not combined. Doing so is a violation of international humanitarian law due to unnecessary risk to non-combatants.

I am not defending Russia, but as an example, there was a recent Russian shelling (or maybe a drone strike? I forgot the specifics) of a military ammo warehouse in Ukraine. Civilians died as a result. General consensus was Ukraine fucked up.

[u/BunNGunLee → u/CustodianCloset]

I was more just trying to avoid derailing the point by bringing up the IRL issues, not that I don’t recognize this comes up surprisingly often despite being incredibly unethical for a military.

[u/NeedToVentCom → u/flightofthepingu]

Yes, but they don't have a word for war crime or war criminal, funnily enough. The closest they have to the concept is "demagol" which is derived from Mandalorian scientist that performed experiments on children to make the force sensitive.

[u/Blitz_Prime → u/Aickavon]

If anything the Republic learned the wrong lessons from the Mandalorians, seeing as they start to use similar tactics a few years later and then even more so when they went full Empire.

[u/PumpkinBrain → u/CAustin3]

Yeah, at the start of Episode 8, the Good Guys send a “messenger” to “negotiate” who then attacks and disables the ship’s defenses to open the way for a bombing run.

Do you think the Bad Guys are going to be willing to negotiate again?

[u/Blint_Briglio → u/PumpkinBrain]

well, the bad guys in the "negotiation" say there will be no surrender and no mercy so it's not like there was gonna be much negotiating in the future. Also, to his credit, he also does straight-up call the rebels war criminals, so he can't say he didn't see it coming

[u/Archonate_of_Archona → u/CAustin3]

"Small insurgent/resistance groups, as well as certain nations, who aren't willing to follow the "rules of war" (whether they're mentioned in the Geneva conventions or otherwise) lead to horrific conflicts where atrocities and crimes against humanity are common on both sides, because hesitation to be brutal becomes a losing move."

And then when the civilians they represent or pretend to represent (depending on case) inevitably get killed because of THEIR perfidy, they loudly play the victim card

[u/Numerous1 → u/CAustin3]

And I joke of my favorites “don’t fuck around with surrender or distress calls in space. Space is too fucking scary. If you fake one of those your own people will fuck you up” 

[u/impressivebutsucks → u/CAustin3]

This.

[u/-paperbrain- → u/CAustin3]

Sure, but more broadly, isn't attacking people with deadly weapons sort of the worst precedent to set?

I mean, once you're killing people, most of the rest feels like window dressing. In an earth historical context where we recognize such a thing as a "just" war and we rely on other countries in the current fragile wirld order, having such a thing as war crimes and thinking of precedent makes sense. Otside of our cultural and practical order, when you're fighting for instance, the Sith, whi slaughter children and planets left and right, I'm not sure jow much setting a bad precedent applies.

[u/Blitz_Prime → u/-paperbrain-]

If you’re going to be just as bad if not worse than your enemies just because “They did it first”, no one is going to want either of you to win. Look at the Vietnam War and how the South Civilians were just as much of a threat to the government as the North was.