h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is good, I really liked it.

Did you know that in D&D version 3, they now have a whole paragraph on every alignment? They also have nicknames for all of them:
Lawful good:Crusader Neutral Good:Benefactor Chaotic good:Rebel
Lawful Neutral:Judge Neutral:Undecided (not sure about that one) Chaotic Neutral:Free Spirit Lawful Evil: Dominator Neutral Evil: Malefactor Chaotic Evil: Destroyer
Not sure I agree with all the names, but, anyway...


Other alignment systems... not sure, but in Neverwinter Nights, a computer game, alignment starts with points on a scale of 1-100 on each axis, and its arranged on a 3*3 grid. You can "plot" your alignment on the grid, and if you do evil acts, you get points towrd evil and away from good, and the other way around. They don't go into chaotic and lawful as much, those being less "defined" alignments. The only time in the game that I remember you can get points on that axis is if you steal from the government building (in the expansion) and when you are acting as the judges for 2 spirits(also in the expansion) I'm sure there is more, though.

It's a good article!

There are 2 neutrals (and I don't just mean along the 2 axes). You sort of discovered that for yourself when trying to define the alignment. There is the passive neutral (of animals and some characters) and the active neutral (the one of striving to maintain a balance which you were mostly defining).

Come to think of it, I would define the balanced neutral as actual true neutral, and the passive neutral as no alignment at all, but rather as existence and behavior based upon instincts. Something that cannot, or at least hardly can, think, cannot really be given an alignment that means anything. The golems and D&D should not be given an alignment also, since besides not thinking, they solely carry out commands, and you shouldn't judge their alignment on what they are told to do. There needs to be a tenth alignment, or you could call "true neutral" "balanced" and add plain neutral as a tenth. With that, the rarest alignment would instead be balanced and neutral might actually be quite common. Might.