Jump to content

A re-occuring event


Recommended Posts

Almost every time I play through a Geneforge game, unless I'm playing for a certain faction from the outset, I'll do what feels right in a given moment. Usually that sort of thing skews rebel; nuance like "biological weapons should be carefully controlled but you need to treat creatures in your care well" isn't something that exists in this world, at least not among the most powerful, so any talk of treating creations well, or letting apparently harmless creations be free, get shoved under "rebel."

 

Thing is I virtually always hate the rebels, at least as a political power. Shapers aren't better by much, but they don't terrorize civilians quite as often.

 

So because of my peculiar (in this world at least) moral bent, I end up rejected, or at least severely mistrusted, by the side whose practices I most prefer because they believe I'm too ideologically close to the side whose practices I most detest. This is utterly frustrating but it feels very real to me. It's a quality of these games I really like.

 

I actually don't like that in G1 and G5 you're given decent faction options: what's the fun in evaluating the political climate if there are some obvious good guys? Admittedly I haven't yet finished G5 (tried a few times, usually got stuck as I was entering Dera reaches) so maybe Astoria is secretly much worse than I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunatelly the game plays in a way that is best if you don't give any opinions at least until you need the favour of a particular faction. And most notable there isn't any middle term really which is why one of the tips/hints given in every geneforge game is choose well what you say because word will get around. But yes. I agree i remember consistently having this exact problem on g3 until i just skipped any opinion for when i needed a faction's favour. In geneforge 5 i think they all trust you the same. The hard part is getting them to accept you joining which depends on your reputation.

 

 

Also *THIS MIGHT BE A MINOR SPOILER* but since you believe that Astoria is your to go faction, you will need slightly pro rebel reputation to join her as she has mostly the same opinion as you do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought the way the series went from having a broader spectrum of factions with a moderate one in the middle to being polarized between two really flawed extremes and then came full circle in the final game giving you back a variety of options was a good thing. Astoria is a little bit of an easy way out, much like the awakened, but being the final game in the series having at least one happy ending where stuff works out well is good. And it's realistic, the internal tensions within the shapers and the rebels were bound to fragment them eventually, it'd be harder to accept if all the rebels just continued to go along with the Drakons mad scheming like they did in G4, or if all the Shapers were hardliners like Alwan. Something had to give at some point.

 

Plus I still ended up going full rebel on one playthrough just because I so utterly loathed Rawal and wanted to kill that smug <insert string of expletives>. Taygen is equally despicable, Alwan nearly so. Even Astoria still has an arrogance to her that is a little demeaning. I agree with her views and she's kinder than the others but still full of herself in that typical shaper way that's gotten increasingly grating every time I replay the series. Sorta like how in G2 I ended up gravitating towards the Barzites just because they were the only ones that didn't treat me like some errand boy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So because of my peculiar (in this world at least) moral bent, I end up rejected, or at least severely mistrusted, by the side whose practices I most prefer because they believe I'm too ideologically close to the side whose practices I most detest. This is utterly frustrating but it feels very real to me.

 

This may be what it was like for US citizens living during the 'McCarthy era' in the early cold war. You either go full retard and salute your flag 5 times a day while facing mecca I mean Washington or you admit that maybe a little bit of balance is important and get branded a traitor commie and shipped off.

 

Sometimes there is no leeway to make the 'right' choice and sometimes you are simply left to make the 'best' choice from what remains.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This may be what it was like for US citizens living during the 'McCarthy era' in the early cold war. You either go full retard and salute your flag 5 times a day while facing mecca I mean Washington or you admit that maybe a little bit of balance is important and get branded a traitor commie and shipped off.

 

It wasn't like that, not even close. As an example, Time Magazine ran a famous cover story on "Demagogue McCarthy" in 1951 with no repercussions; the Socialist Workers Party (our main Trotskyite party) sailed thorugh the 50's intact. There's no equivalence to what would happen to, say, a person in the Islamic State who printed an article on "Demagog al-Baghdadi" or tried to start a Shiite or anti-Islamic organization there.

 

McCarthyism was mostly about getting Communists out of federal employment (his infamous committee was a subcommittee on Government Operations); for most citizens the greatest danger was prosecution under the Smith Act. Which you could avoid by not "advocating the violent overthrow of the United States Government"..."a little bit of balance" didn't enter into it and didn't get you "shipped off." The Shapers are a lot more despotic than the U.S. government in that or any era.

 

Grimm's original point I think analogizes more closely to Benjamin Franklin's in the First Continental Congress...he'd spent so many years in London, and was associated with an earlier effort to give Pennsylvania a royal governor, so that a few members did suspect him of being in British pay no matter what he was advocating then. But he was able to overcome that in time...as the PC usually is in most Geneforge games, except I believe in the first one, where if I remember the heavy canister use makes you a suspect character for the rest of your days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Friendly mod reminder: Geneforge debates about politics and philosophy are exciting. Please don't trample on people of particular religions, mental health situations, or anything else, in the course of your excitement. Please be friendly. Or this thread will be locked barred faster than you can say "Sucia Island."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like the french revolution is perhaps a decent metaphor given how messy it was and how the revolutionary government got so bloodthirsty. Except the royals got overthrown too quick. Most real world rebellions tend to be rather brief, though the current Syrian situation is a similar sort of stalemate to what GF has. Perhaps the Iranian revolution where the Sha's monarchy was replaced by an equally extreme and totalitarian theocracy is a good representative of the Shapers vs Drakons? The palestine-israel conflict where it's a long drawn out war between two sides with valid points but questionable methods? Really though I don't think there's any exact parallels to the real world but rather the Geneforge story draws on bits and pieces of multiple historical events, which is better storytelling anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like the french revolution is perhaps a decent metaphor given how messy it was and how the revolutionary government got so bloodthirsty. Except the royals got overthrown too quick. Most real world rebellions tend to be rather brief, though the current Syrian situation is a similar sort of stalemate to what GF has. Perhaps the Iranian revolution where the Sha's monarchy was replaced by an equally extreme and totalitarian theocracy is a good representative of the Shapers vs Drakons? The palestine-israel conflict where it's a long drawn out war between two sides with valid points but questionable methods? Really though I don't think there's any exact parallels to the real world but rather the Geneforge story draws on bits and pieces of multiple historical events, which is better storytelling anyways.

I think the syrian civil war provides the best example as the rebels too have various reasons to overthrow al assad and markedly various long term objectives and finally various degrees of ruthlessness. All in all the rebels form a loose aliance against the government. Then there are moderate rebels and extremist rebels etc. And al assad was totalitarian(although not nearly as much as his father quite like the shapers in g3, g4 and g5 arent nearly as bad as the ones that rulled in the times of sucia) however syria did have stability and relativelly good standarts of living not to mention really secular government(not sure how this equates to the shapers but point is like shapers, his rules had good and bad sides)

 

One marking difference between this world and that world is after the deposition of one leader there is a severe lack of will to depose another leader as happened in the drakon ending for g5. In reality for instance look at ukraine. They pretty much threw out yakunovich because they didnt like him. Poroshenko at the moment has a historically low aproval rating( worse than yakunovich at the height of the protests and i read somewhere that worse than assad but i do not know for sure) and there are no protests or uprisings. I think real people get more tired of war and instability much faster than in the games.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of the other interesting things is that the events of Geneforge happen in a vacuum, there's no larger international community meddling in their civil war, unlike pretty much every real world war ever. Only a couple Sholai diplomats who think everyone on Terrestira is crazy and don't want any part. No russia and united states backing different horses. Spiderweb's games, I notice are all like this, lots of internal fracturing and factions within two at most main groups, it's all mostly internal politics not wars between two sovereign nation-states (save for avernum after gaining independence, but it starts, technically as internal) with a host of other countries looking on and casting bets or being drawn in via a complex web of alliances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...