Quote Originally Posted by theNater View Post
Replacing a government with a more centralized and structured government isn't chaotic just because a government has been overthrown...
...Lawfulness isn't inherently about legal systems. It's inherently about a desire for structure and organization.
Yes, but given that local legal systems and governments are a form of structure and organisation, how does violating them not count as chaotic? If you build some other legal system or government in their place, yes, that is a Lawful act, but this doesn't make tearing down the old system not-a-chaotic-way-of-doing-things.

Besides, if we're saying 'laws and governments aren't Law, structure and organisation is', then lies of omission are still Chaotic, because organisations and planning depend on the flow of information. Building alliances requires other people can depend on your word, that there is consistency between what you say and what you do. If Tarquin betrays someone by lying to them, by omission or otherwise, he is increasing the net amount of Chaos in the world by at least some degree. If he then takes advantage of that betrayal to increase regional stability in indirect ways, then that is a Lawful act, but it's distinct from, and does not erase, the earlier Chaotic methods.


To go back to my earlier analogy with respect to the G/E axis, if we accept the premise that Tarquin is Lawful, we can conclude that a person who kills, say, six innocent people, torturing one of them to death purely for amusement, but saves another nine from starvation because there's more food to go around, works out as being Good-aligned. I have serious difficulties with swallowing that conclusion.