Will X-COM Enemy Within have themes about transhumanism?

[Erttheking]

The more and more I look at X-COM Enemy Within, it looks like we're going to be covering the topic of transhumanism. There was a little bit of this in the main game with Dr. Chen being worried about if Humans were ready for the massive change that psi powers would come with and if they went to far with the technology they were acquiring, they would end up creating things like Floaters.

Enemy Within seems to be taking this even further. In addition to psi troopers we will also have the ability to give soldiers cybernetic augmentations and splice their very DNA. Cybernetic implants include things like cutting all of the soldiers organic limbs off to give them cybernitc replacements, which I guess has something to do with them piloting the new mech, and putting implants in their very brain. On the plus side, the brain implant is supposed to make them very resistant to psi attacks. On the DNA side, apparently you can do crazy things like making it so that they can jump to the top of buildings or turn invisible. There's just one problem. A source that I sadly cannot find revealed a very troubling piece of news. Augmenting your soldiers with these goodies can...go wrong. It didn't specify. That creeped me out a little. What put the final nail in the coffin about Enemy Within being about transhumanism was this. You know how the main game had that Arthur C. Clark quote? Enemy Within has this.

Those who play with the devil?s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword.
? Buckminster Fuller

....Yeah. I have to say I'm actually pretty interested to see where this'll go. Dues Ex Human Revolution did a pretty good job of showing how the morals of transhumanism can make for a very interesting story and Enemy Within could take it even further. The most interesting part about this IMHO is that Humanity is developing technology that would normally take decades or even centuries in months. Sure its in the name of survival, but I have to ask the same question as Dr. Chen. What do we do with the technology when the war is over? Something to think about.

Anyway, what do you think?

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I don't really think they will go too far into the topic but it would indeed be interesting. Either way I can't wait it's gonna be great.

 

[Jandau]

One thing I liked about Enemy Unknown was how it implied that using Psi powers seemed to be mentally destabilizing your soldiers. It was subtle and the game didn't make a huge fuss over it, but it was there. I was kinda expecting for this to be expanded on in the sequel, and it seems that might be the case. The title, Enemy Within might be hinting at something to that effect, that there will be a new threat and that it'll come as a price for the rapid increase in power that the human race was forced into in order to fight off the invaders...

 

[Bertylicious]

I've always thought that transhumanism gets a bad rap. I mean you may as well argue that industrialisation is some kind of great satan that has only made life worse, that we'd all be better off fucking our own daughters, tilling a stony field with our bare hands for some thug in a castle and dying in our forties.

I reckon the furthest any theme of transhumanism will be handled in XCom will be a line or two of dialouge from Dr. Chen when you build the facility, nothing more.

 

[OneCatch]

One thing I liked about Enemy Unknown was how it implied that using Psi powers seemed to be mentally destabilizing your soldiers. It was subtle and the game didn't make a huge fuss over it, but it was there. I was kinda expecting for this to be expanded on in the sequel, and it seems that might be the case. The title, Enemy Within might be hinting at something to that effect, that there will be a new threat and that it'll come as a price for the rapid increase in power that the human race was forced into in order to fight off the invaders...

Yeah, the evil laugh that Psionic soldiers gave when using offensive powers was certainly ominous.

On one campaign, I had one really powerful psionic who got into the nasty habit of panicking (even though on paper he had high will and so on) and attacking my team. He killed two team members and injured 3 more - but was indispensable because of his abilities so I pretty much had to keep taking him along.
Was probably just a series of flukes, but it made that campaign feel quite spooky - I got a little paranoid that it was all some kind of hidden trait, and he'd end up siding with the aliens and killing my whole squad on the final mission or something. He didn't, but still!

Hopefully Enemy Within will continue the line of thought. It was an effective narrative in EU.

 

[Zhukov]

Well... to the extent that the game has any themes at all.

Despite ample quibbles, I very much enjoy the game, but an example of thematic depth it most definitely is not. Hell, it's not an example of thematic... anything. And that's fine, I don't mean it as a criticism, I was there for the gameplay, not for a profound insight into the fundamentals of humanity or whatever.

I imagine XCOM's "exploration into themes of transhumanism" will amount to the Dr Chen guy saying, "I understand the necessity for these measures, when all is said and done our survival must come before all else, but... have we gone too far?", when you cyber-ize your first soldier.

...

On one campaign, I had one really powerful psionic who got into the nasty habit of panicking (even though on paper he had high will and so on) and attacking my team. He killed two team members and injured 3 more - but was indispensable because of his abilities so I pretty much had to keep taking him along.
Was probably just a series of flukes, but it made that campaign feel quite spooky - I got a little paranoid that it was all some kind of hidden trait, and he'd end up siding with the aliens and killing my whole squad on the final mission or something. He didn't, but still!

Hopefully Enemy Within will continue the line of thought. It was an effective narrative in EU.

I had a psionic assault soldier much like that.

She had crazy low will because she'd been critically wounded and revived 10+ times. Each time inflicts a permanent will penalty, and I don't think she was that high to begin with.

Luckily, her definition of "panic" was "gun down every alien in sight with unerring accuracy".

I eventually took to using the combat stims to steady her a bit.

I gave her the shaved head hair type and changed her nickname to 'Subject Zero'.

 

[IFS]

I've always thought that transhumanism gets a bad rap. I mean you may as well argue that industrialisation is some kind of great satan that has only made life worse, that we'd all be better off fucking our own daughters, tilling a stony field with our bare hands for some thug in a castle and dying in our forties.

I reckon the furthest any theme of transhumanism will be handled in XCom will be a line or two of dialouge from Dr. Chen when you build the facility, nothing more.

Certainly some of the concerns people have over transhumanism, such as its not God's will or against nature or something, is a bit silly (I don't remember the bible ever telling us to not transform ourselves into cyborgs with awesome robot arms ) but I feel like there are legitimate concerns that should be considered when discussing technology that could fundamentally change what it means to be human. In my opinion such technology would have to be handled and introduced carefully, to use your analogy the industrial revolution was a great advance but it also caused a lot of damage (child labor, pollution, varieties of inadequate regulation, etc) before systems like the law and the culture were able to adapt to the new technology (and you could argue that they still haven't completely). I am all for getting the technology to give me super-strong robot arms, but be careful and aware of what such a development could impact.

As for the game I agree the most we are likely to see will be a line or two from Dr. Shen, maybe one or two from someone else providing a counterpoint. That said it would be cool if there was some sort of gameplay feature that reflected such concerns or provided a reason to be cautious about overusing the new tech, I feel like it could unbalance the game otherwise though I hope that if they do the penalty won't be too prohibitive. Either way I am very much looking forward to giving my soldiers mutant superpowers and mech suits.

 

[bliebblob]

Yeah I got exactly the same vibe from the trailer, but I like how they (seem to) handle the subject: just put the option out there, apply the trademark X-com desperation, and then leave the decision of what or what not to use entirely up to you. Not counting the inevitable quick opinions from Chen and Vahlen anyway.

 

[OneCatch]

On one campaign, I had one really powerful psionic who got into the nasty habit of panicking (even though on paper he had high will and so on) and attacking my team. He killed two team members and injured 3 more - but was indispensable because of his abilities so I pretty much had to keep taking him along.
Was probably just a series of flukes, but it made that campaign feel quite spooky - I got a little paranoid that it was all some kind of hidden trait, and he'd end up siding with the aliens and killing my whole squad on the final mission or something. He didn't, but still!

Hopefully Enemy Within will continue the line of thought. It was an effective narrative in EU.

I had a psionic assault soldier much like that.

She had crazy low will because she'd been critically wounded and revived 10+ times. Each time inflicts a permanent will penalty, and I don't think she was that high to begin with.

Luckily, her definition of "panic" was "gun down every alien in sight with unerring accuracy".

I eventually took to using the combat stims to steady her a bit.

I gave her the shaved head hair type and changed her nickname to 'Subject Zero'.

Haha, that's epic.

With mine I ended up equipping them with the best equipment I had and sending them away from the rest of my team as quickly as practically possible (with maybe one supporting rookie or drone that I didn't care about a fair few squares behind him in full cover or obstruction at all times).
That way when he started to flip his shit, he ended up attacking something nasty rather than shooting a squadmate of 8 months in the arse.

You might think that such lone wolf tactics would spell his demise, but he managed to survive the entire campaign, Ironman Classic -even after such ridiculous feats as killing an entire Muton pack that spawned on top of him, beating down and then mindcontrolling an Ethereal with only a rookie for support, and killing the two spider-tank things on the last mission by himself. He wasn't even the Volunteer!

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

...when you cyber-ize your first soldier...

HA! When I read this line my screwy eyes were only half focused and I read it as "Cyber-Sized" akin to McDonald's Super Size. Then said stupid eyes focused properly and the joke ended when I saw the text as written. But the image in my head at the time was pretty priceless.

Doctor Chen with a cardboard hat asking if you'd like to Cyber-Size your new HEAVY for just a few credits more.

 

[DrOswald]

I am betting this will only be touched on lightly in the game itself, which is exactly how it should be. Lots of people say that X-Com: Enemy Unknown has no story or a bad story, but I think they miss the point. It has a minimal story that serves the game very well.

The base game touches on several interesting points to do with this sort of thing but never gets too far into the actual discussion. It just sort of looms over the whole thing. In the game you rapidly develop more and more powerful weapons (which you gladly sell to anyone willing to give you money), permanently modify your soldiers to amplify natural psychic abilities, and use "aggressive" interrogation techniques to get information from prisoners of war (so aggressive, in fact, that after the interrogation is finished you have 1 more alien corpse to sell on the grey market.)

This is all more than a little disturbing if you stop to think about it, but at the time the need is so great that it all seems justified. After all, we didn't start this war. We are just doing what is necessary to defend ourselves. The only real acknowledgement of how far we have gone are a few lines from Dr. Shen about how we have a responsibility to our soldiers, or how maybe Dr. Vahlen enjoys her interrogation work just a little too much. The game doesn't even focus on Dr. Shen when he says these things.

And this is perfect. The story is not deep, but trying to shoehorn a deep story into this game would not help anything. It is far better to just bring subtle attention to these things and let the audience draw their own conclusions. The story of X-Com: Enemy Unknown gives the game some depth, establishes clear goals without clamping down on the open ended nature of the game, and very much improves the overall experience. All in all it is one of the most competently executed stories in a AAA video game in the last few years.

 

[Erttheking]

I've always thought that transhumanism gets a bad rap. I mean you may as well argue that industrialisation is some kind of great satan that has only made life worse, that we'd all be better off fucking our own daughters, tilling a stony field with our bare hands for some thug in a castle and dying in our forties.

I reckon the furthest any theme of transhumanism will be handled in XCom will be a line or two of dialouge from Dr. Chen when you build the facility, nothing more.

It's not that transhumanism is inherently bad, it's that Humans of the early 21st century just aren't ready for it yet. It'd be like when the Salarians uplifted the Krogan, like Mordin said "Like giving nuclear weapon to caveman". Like another poster said, the industrial revolution advanced our technology but brought a whole lot of crap with it, child labor, harsh working conditions, low wages, pollution, stuff like that. It took around a century for us to get it right, and even today there are still some people who abuse because they're selfish and short sighted. Transhumanism is an even bigger thing. Even if we ever get around to splicing our DNA down the line or using cybernetic replacement for limbs, there are gonna be moments where things go wrong and people get killed. People got killed when we tried to get to the moon, it happens. But the worse part about Enemy Within is that we're getting this technology decades, maybe even centuries earlier than we would have if we had developed it ourselves. That's possibly hundreds of years worth of cultural development that might have made us ready for this. It's flat out stated that something bad can happen to your soldiers when using the MELD, and that's just the start, what'll happen when the war is over and we start using this technology on a local level? Will there be cheap mass produced knock offs that come with negative side effects? Will people be forced to get their DNA spliced if they want to get any job worth a damn? Will people push more advanced and powerful augments despite how unstable they are?

And that's my main concern. Not that transhumanism is evil. That we're just not ready for it.

 

[daveman247]

I am betting this will only be touched on lightly in the game itself, which is exactly how it should be. Lots of people say that X-Com: Enemy Unknown has no story or a bad story, but I think they miss the point. It has a minimal story that serves the game very well.

Wouldn't it be cool if other human squads showed up with the weapons you just sold them which they will use to try and take you out XD

Alien sympathizers or something.

 

[Adamantium93]

I really hope it isn't but if it is than I hope they handle it properly. And by properly, I mean not like Deus Ex Human Revolution. If they simply bring up the question of "is it ok to modify ourselves with machines" than I am going to be very upset.

As Yahtzee once pointed out, we already incorporate technological modifications into our everyday lives. Many people wear spectacles or contacts, others wear watches, etc. And those are just mild examples. What about people with pacemakers?

Of course, if this is a question of acquiring technology before we've amassed the knowledge and experience necessary to wield it, that's a slightly more interesting can of worms that was hinted at in the first game. However, I would also point out that even advances we make on our own often arrive before we know how to handle them responsibly (see nuclear technology; any of the poisonous chemicals that we once thought were completely harmless, etc.).

X-COM for me was wonderful because of how simple it was: Aliens are invading, you must stop them. No sweeping themes about existence and technology, no real twists except for one slight implication in the last mission which I won't spoil here. Even then it wasn't a massive, perspective altering revelation but more of a teaser for possible sequels.

I'm afraid that if X-COM tries to be deep or meaningful, it will lose that ever elusive and fun quality of "No ambiguities, just a bunch of baddies and a world that needs saving."