I'm pretty sure Russians are the usual enemy in modern shooters because, as America, there are 2 countries that could feasibly pose a threat AND aren't our biggest ally (Russia and China). To have America go against a nation in NATO, or NATO itself, could provide some interesting commentary, but let's be realistic, the US is far too buddy buddy with Western Europe for that to happen in anything resembling a modern shooter. Maybe a future one though.
What Ethnic Group Will Replace Nazis?
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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once again Yahtzee reiterating how games keep their subject matter narrow, thus denying them a chance to tell more stories. Something I quite agree with.
America has actually given up torture, stop living under 2000-2008. I guess they may still use sleep deprivation/solitary confinement, but there was never actual violence (other than abuse, such as Abu Ghraib) and they stopped water boarding years ago. They would probably send Cheney/whoever else was involved with that to the UN, but just like Nixon in the 70s, prosecuting right now would hurt the nations psyche so we are gonna sweep it under the rug. Just like every other nation does with all the dirt they possibly can.Altered Nova said:
That was one of the things that bothered me the most about Star Trek: Voyager.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
What say we throw history to the wind; "Vikings V.S Mongols"?
Best idea I've seen. Especially if you pick what would be a really unlikely country in the present, like Iceland, or Australia. That way, people from those countries are less likely to be offended by being cast as the villain; the premise is pleasantly silly and it isn't derived from any historical ill will (unlike yellow peril or anti-red sentiments).Casual Shinji said:
Of course, another method would be to simply to make the protagonist Geronimo. Then you could kill genocidal American troops without upsetting anyone.
Hmmm, well, the Mongols are a good point, the Vikings less so. The raiding and conquests of The Vikings were annoying, and a big deal, but they didn't cause as much damage as the Mongols, and weren't quite as mindlessly destructive. Plus they did a lot of fairly positive things which is one of the reasons we see them presented in what can actually be considered a positive light, they are almost as famous as explorers as they are as warriors and raiders. What's more they were also pretty good diplomats within their own sphere. You might laugh to consider that but if you say look up "The Peace Of Frothi" it was a fairly epic occurance where various divisive factions were brought together (albiet under a bootheel to an extent) and held together for a pretty bloody long time. While the subject of a lot of academic debate, The Peace Of Frothi, or the stories surrounding it, have been the foundation of a lot of diplomacy treaties, etc... when you go back far enough.
The whole multi-ethnic thing has been used so often to the point of it being a stock villain. Various cults, empowerment groups, etc.. are generally presented negatively and as having an evil agenda, and having a multi-ethnic group of happy people, being happy and content is oddly enough a sign of something malevolent going on. In a TV cop show before there is any indication of something being wrong, if you see happy people organized under any banner or based on the teachings of some guy presenting himself as the next Martin Luthor King Jr. or whatever, it's kind of a foregone conclusion who the bad guy is going to be by the time the credits roll.
That said, as far as the group most likely to be demonized like the Nazis, that will likely either be Americans or The Chinese depending on how things turn out. We might not want to accept it, but that major east/west war is pretty much inevitable, and whoever wins is likely to cast the loser in the role of the new Nazis as far as pop culture and such goes from that time on.
As far as the rest goes, half the problem today leading to these divides is that you see people being entirely dismissive of the other side on major issues like torture. The "all or nothing" attitude on both sides is what is causing so much of the world to go to crap.
On that subject my opinion has waffled back and forth a number of times, but to keep it simple it comes down to how naive you are. Without going into all of the socio-political, legal, and other issues which tend to dominate such discussions, I'll just say that if you've never wanted to hurt someone like that your very lucky, and probably very sheltered. With no offense to anyone, but with some of the psychopaths out there I do not think life in prison or a quick and painless death balances the scales of justice. If you've got some sadistic, murdering child rapist or whatever, just throwing him in prison for life isn't really making him pay for his crimes. What's more if you;ve ever been raped (whether you remember the experience, or blotted it out due to the trauma, like happened with me... I was like six) you'd know that it's a difficult thing to really balance. It's not so much "an eye for an eye" as the need to create relevent punishments (which by their nature are supposed to go beyond simple balance to discourage the action). Rape is in it's own catagory to the point where I feel that the only way to really punish a rapist is to have them be raped themselves since it really is a unique "experience" as far as such things go. In this case you pretty much have to figure out what the guy (or girl) would find most horrible as far as sexual violation and then force them to endure it. That's torture, and "irredeemable" to most people on the other side of the arguement, but I'm quick to point out that you can only hold that position with any degree of validity if you haven't been there. There are certain things like rape that cannot be balanced within the confines of humanitarianism. Revenge aside, simple justice (Justice and Revenge ARE differant) means that for some crimes and behaviors humane treatment cannot balance those scales, never mind acting as a deterrant. Some guy who gets to live his life out in prison reading books in the library or something arguably "got away with it" if his crime was to say toture, rape, murder, and eat 13 people. Even the death penelty is letting that guy off easy. If YOU had a stake in the case, were a suviving victim, or had a loved one who was a victim, you probably wouldn't think that was justice. It's easy to argue against something when it's just an idea, and it doesn't touch you personally. Not to mention argueing against things that you don't want to see done to you, makes sense, until you wind up in a situation where you see the need. I think the old "the mice all vote to bell the cat" thing applies, except in this case the mice actually need the cat to be what it is, even if they don't realize it.
The whole multi-ethnic thing has been used so often to the point of it being a stock villain. Various cults, empowerment groups, etc.. are generally presented negatively and as having an evil agenda, and having a multi-ethnic group of happy people, being happy and content is oddly enough a sign of something malevolent going on. In a TV cop show before there is any indication of something being wrong, if you see happy people organized under any banner or based on the teachings of some guy presenting himself as the next Martin Luthor King Jr. or whatever, it's kind of a foregone conclusion who the bad guy is going to be by the time the credits roll.
That said, as far as the group most likely to be demonized like the Nazis, that will likely either be Americans or The Chinese depending on how things turn out. We might not want to accept it, but that major east/west war is pretty much inevitable, and whoever wins is likely to cast the loser in the role of the new Nazis as far as pop culture and such goes from that time on.
As far as the rest goes, half the problem today leading to these divides is that you see people being entirely dismissive of the other side on major issues like torture. The "all or nothing" attitude on both sides is what is causing so much of the world to go to crap.
On that subject my opinion has waffled back and forth a number of times, but to keep it simple it comes down to how naive you are. Without going into all of the socio-political, legal, and other issues which tend to dominate such discussions, I'll just say that if you've never wanted to hurt someone like that your very lucky, and probably very sheltered. With no offense to anyone, but with some of the psychopaths out there I do not think life in prison or a quick and painless death balances the scales of justice. If you've got some sadistic, murdering child rapist or whatever, just throwing him in prison for life isn't really making him pay for his crimes. What's more if you;ve ever been raped (whether you remember the experience, or blotted it out due to the trauma, like happened with me... I was like six) you'd know that it's a difficult thing to really balance. It's not so much "an eye for an eye" as the need to create relevent punishments (which by their nature are supposed to go beyond simple balance to discourage the action). Rape is in it's own catagory to the point where I feel that the only way to really punish a rapist is to have them be raped themselves since it really is a unique "experience" as far as such things go. In this case you pretty much have to figure out what the guy (or girl) would find most horrible as far as sexual violation and then force them to endure it. That's torture, and "irredeemable" to most people on the other side of the arguement, but I'm quick to point out that you can only hold that position with any degree of validity if you haven't been there. There are certain things like rape that cannot be balanced within the confines of humanitarianism. Revenge aside, simple justice (Justice and Revenge ARE differant) means that for some crimes and behaviors humane treatment cannot balance those scales, never mind acting as a deterrant. Some guy who gets to live his life out in prison reading books in the library or something arguably "got away with it" if his crime was to say toture, rape, murder, and eat 13 people. Even the death penelty is letting that guy off easy. If YOU had a stake in the case, were a suviving victim, or had a loved one who was a victim, you probably wouldn't think that was justice. It's easy to argue against something when it's just an idea, and it doesn't touch you personally. Not to mention argueing against things that you don't want to see done to you, makes sense, until you wind up in a situation where you see the need. I think the old "the mice all vote to bell the cat" thing applies, except in this case the mice actually need the cat to be what it is, even if they don't realize it.
I like how the groups most people target in this forum are either: 1) groups they happen to dislike, often for petty reasons, or 2) groups that couldn't or wouldn't go to the trouble of being the next Nazis. Or both.
I liked that alternate history Romans idea, though. As well as the idea of disenfranchised Western European countries like Greece going fascist. It's a lot closer to how the Nazis came into power, and it can lead to some terrible results.
PMCs, on the other hand, are just plain ludicrous. Ever try to run a war, even a small one? It's freakin' expensive. In fact, I'd much rather have PMC comflicts than those between nation state militaries. A PMC works under a budget. A sovereign nation can pull as much funding and resources from the population as they want. That's why wars only historically became bloody when armies came under the command of kings and stuff. Otherwise it was too expensive.
I liked that alternate history Romans idea, though. As well as the idea of disenfranchised Western European countries like Greece going fascist. It's a lot closer to how the Nazis came into power, and it can lead to some terrible results.
PMCs, on the other hand, are just plain ludicrous. Ever try to run a war, even a small one? It's freakin' expensive. In fact, I'd much rather have PMC comflicts than those between nation state militaries. A PMC works under a budget. A sovereign nation can pull as much funding and resources from the population as they want. That's why wars only historically became bloody when armies came under the command of kings and stuff. Otherwise it was too expensive.
The thing is...I'd just as much love to fight the Mongols as I would love to PLAY as the Mongols. Any gameplay from that time period would be pretty awesome, no matter which side I'm on.
Shit, now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind playing as a faction trying to PREVENT the US from invading another country needlessly (like we're absolutely doing right now).
Shit, now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind playing as a faction trying to PREVENT the US from invading another country needlessly (like we're absolutely doing right now).
Thing is, Nazis were actually Nazis. It's a lot harder to demonize a group in today's world unless they actually start going genocidal, like the Nazis, because everywhere has internet now. The people would be able to look into the actual facts of the case from multiple view points.Therumancer said:
I also disagree about the idea of a East/West war. I see the fall of the communist party in China as far, far more likely. The only way we see an East/West war is if the West steps in to help the uprising, but that is unlikely. Russia might not actually like China, but they hate the idea of interfering in other countries. That's why they abstained from the vote on Libya and part of why they fought the UN so much on Syria.
And what country are we needlessly invading right now? Afghanistan was invaded after 9/11 as it was the home base of the group that attacked us and run by a group the US considered a terrorist organization. Since then, the US has rebuilt roads that were destroyed by the Russians in the 80s and built schools for girls. Yes, there has been collateral damage to an extent that I am not entirely comfortable with, but Afghanistan is hardly an example.chadachada123 said:
If you mean Iraq, well, hate to break it to you, but the war in Iraq was officially over months ago, and effectively over for almost a year.
I would also like to point out that both of these situations were occupations, not the invasions themselves. So for your statement to actually work, you would have had to make it on 2003 as we were gearing up for the invasion. I actually do agree with your statement in this context.
That image isn't graphic at al, it is just a line of textrhizhim said:
Edit: Well this is bollocks; I can't delete my own posts in attempts to escape moderator wrath.
I like the idea of fighting mongols
they invented germ warfare if anymore excuse is needed
(they flung plague ridden corpses over town walls)
they invented germ warfare if anymore excuse is needed
(they flung plague ridden corpses over town walls)
Well, yes and no. This is where the issue of media control comes in, and arguements about whether the media is left or right wing dominated. In general the left wing dominates with a peace at any price message/agenda so finding anything that promotes a group in a nazi-like light is very difficult, and when it IS found you'll see a lot of damage control being done to paint it as something else, or the media simply not covering it. You'll find plenty of stuff pretty easily about say Muslim rights and decrying bigotry against them despite the war, but while it's out there you'll have a much harder time finding anything covering things like the stoning of women, or various anti-US/Jewist rants when they can't be easily pinned on a fringe.Sean951 said:
Likewise spin enters into it, with say the current media mostly tending to promote the US as the bad guys for the sake of promotin git's own agenda and derailing war and the demonization of enemies. If say a unit of marines engage a group of insurgets in Iraq or Afghanistan and a stray bullet flies into a building and hits a baby, your likely to see articles like "Muslims protest US Marine shooting baby" rather then an accurate coverage of how the baby was shot, and you might not even have any kind of comments from the marines in question as generally speaking the military doesn't get involved with the media on such matters, so silence is going to be spun into acknowlegement and turned into a Muslim-sympathy anti-war piece.
The thing is that the Internet isn't really something that nessicarly prevents wars and the kind of thing we saw with the Nazis by making information availible, but because it allows information to be controlled, and right now we have the control largely in the hands of people who seek to prevent war by basically whitewashing the bad guys and covering for them.
This issue is also incidently at the root of goverment efforts (some of which were riding in the NDAA), to limit the media's coverage of such incidents. While rife for abuse in the way it has so far been presented (and thankfully hasn't passed) there is a valid point to the simple fact that with all of the information technology availible right now, there is still no way you could tell if there was some guy out there as bad as Hitler and the Nazis, since even in the best case there wouldn't be enough people agreeing on it to paint a clear picture. Right now you see so much anti-war sentiment because it's comparitively hard to find anything else without looking into more fringe media. Today if World War II was brewing again you'd probably have half the people in the US insisting Hitler was a great guy and all of these stories about Jewish massacres were bunk, not because they loved the guy, but because the media covering it would want to prevent the war (and to be honest, there were isolationists during World War II with very similar sentiments, who wanted to keep the US out of it, but the goverment stepped on them).
Indeed, it's interesting to note that the alleged "Internet Kill Switch" was in part conceived for this reason, the goverment basically trying to get the right to shut down a lot of this information exchange if it ever had to compartmentalize, propagandize for it's defense, or lay down facts.
The Communist party in China is unlikely to fall because of it's own strongarm tactics, brain washing, and of course the simple fact that as pathetic as it is, China is the more prosperous than it's been in a very long time. What's more China's military build up is in part fueled by promises by the goverment to the people that China is going to invade and colonzie other nations for living space, and avenge the trivialization of their culture at the hands of the west, and "crimes" going back to the Opium wars and beyond. You see this stuff leaked from speeches behind "the Bamboo curtain" periodically, but it's given very little attention because it doesn't match how those generally guiding the media want things to be seen.
I don't say the war is inevitable for no reason. Either the US and it's allies throw the first punch for economic reasons, or not only will our nation(s) collapse under their own weight, but when the Chinese have gotten their military ready and can't delay it any more, they will start invading other nations with their new navy, and their various anti-missle/anti-satellite technologies (look up say China, Anti-Satellite, Lasers), and if the US and other big nations are in an economic shambles from promoting peace and letting that happen? Yeah, it's going to be nasty. It's all a matter of who throws the first punch.
I'd love to see China collapse the way the USSR did, but it's a differant kind of situation, and half the problem is that China isn't running on empty the way the USSR was.
Wheeler was, as the intro states, from "North America," and he was as stereotypically-American as they come. If you're suggesting that Yahtzee (a Brit) should be okay with a stereotypical American representing "the West" as a whole, you probably don't know much about Yahtzee, or Brits in general, or Europeans in general, or western culture in general for that matter.Yankeedoodles said:
I AM an American, and even I find the idea -- of a burger-munching stereotypical American kid with "tude" representing all of western culture -- upsetting.
Asian people.
The yellow skinned Chinese.
How about Filipinos?
We're a bunch of FLIP (F***ing Little Island People)
=3
The yellow skinned Chinese.
How about Filipinos?
We're a bunch of FLIP (F***ing Little Island People)
=3
The Chinese; many people in the west see China becoming top dog as a threat to their power base, just look at Africa; when a country got into bother it was usually a western power that bailed them out or a western company that invested, now it's Chinese money doing a lot of work.
I could see a US/China war where African resources have become a big deal and both sides are fighting over them. Makes more sense than the god awful US/Russia war in the Modern Warfare games.
Actually Asians were tried before with Homefront. This was actually a really interesting idea and I could see it working as long as they actually made a resistance war scenario and not just 'CoD with a different skin'
I could see a US/China war where African resources have become a big deal and both sides are fighting over them. Makes more sense than the god awful US/Russia war in the Modern Warfare games.
Actually Asians were tried before with Homefront. This was actually a really interesting idea and I could see it working as long as they actually made a resistance war scenario and not just 'CoD with a different skin'