This is a response to Gesakaarin's post, which I must admit I was somewhat hoping to, eh, provoke, although not in the pejorative sense. There are a few issues on which I must disagree with you, and so, to them.
First, I think you are wrong when you accuse the pre-Heth State of having tendencies towards totalitarianism. The impression I received from pre-Heth PF, and even some post-Heth material, was that the State, as a whole, didn't really bother with trying to implement total control of every citizen. Rather, the State simply made the rules which you had to abide by if you wanted to participate in society - if you desired, you could dissent all you wanted, but good luck getting a job if you made yourself more annoying to whatever Mega you served in than it considered you to be worth. This is why I don't think the Caldari even have a concept of a rights-based morality as the Gallente do - it's not whether you have the right to speak freely, you can say anything you want - the question is of the social and economic consequences of a statement or action.
There's no question that CCP has since moved the State towards totalitarianism. And the State was certainly always authoritarian. But originally, the State didn't seem to care if you grumbled in your beer with another employee about your nasty manager, as long as you worked hard and didn't make a fuss unnecessarily.
But I do think that the association with Nazism is more than coincidental or natural. TonyG, whether with the company or not, whether the author of most PF or not, did write the defining book on the current leadership and society of the State. It's very obvious that Heth is a Hitler clone, from the fomenting fake unrest to provide reasons for invasion to the persecution of ethnic immigrants. This from the same nation that, earlier, used its own navy to violently destroy a racist attack on Intaki immigrants. It wasn't that Heth fit previous PF, Heth didn't fit a lot of previous PF, but that PF was ignored or twisted so that we could be saddled with the character for the next five years or so. And, to date, you are one of the very few Caldari RPers I've met who is even willing to associate their character with the leader of the State. Many, perhaps even most, Caldari RPers were very disgruntled by the change. I remember quite a few who read TEA, muttered an obscenity, and essentially quit RPing.
Now, I both agree and disagree about subtlety in the fiction. Yes, to a certain extent, a writer has to rely on her readers to understand what's going on in any particular piece. On the other hand, if most of your readers are drawing the wrong conclusion, it's not appropriate to say "Hey! That's not what I meant! How come you didn't cross-link to my other article, use that to direct you to the in-depth history of the third aforementioned faction, and then use the secret decoder ring mentioned in the history to decode the fourth paragraph of the first article which reveals that the good guy is actually a villain??!?"
I use hyperbole, but a good writer knows that if your audience isn't getting the picture, it's far more likely to be the fault of the writer than of the audience. And it's not exactly like CCP is starved for material. Our current democracies, even our best ones, have many dark facets and evil bits to explore. But, in Eve, for the most part they haven't been. They could have been, but the closest we've come in most of the PF is probably in The Burning Life, where one of the main characters manages to get into a drug problem.
When I criticize CCP for how they have handled the portrayal of the Federation, it's primarily based on the above criticism. It's not that I think they need to make every other faction into a democratic, rights-based society. It's that I think the Federation is unrealistic as pictured - and I don't think that "subtlety!" is a good answer. Many of the problems of our modern democracies aren't subtle at all. How would the Federation handle a population which doesn't want to be educated? What about the balance of social services vs economic freedoms? Are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer in the Fed? What's the crime situation like? How do they handle ethnic or religious immigrant conclaves that turn out radicalized or insular citizens? Are those isolated groups isolated because of radical beliefs, or because they are treated badly? Do they suffer from home-grown terrorism? Do they have religious groups trying to use democratically created laws to enforce religious customs? And so on. All of these things could be very realistic and thought-provoking problems, but we don't get them, because the Federation is a "utopia", and almost all problems come from the outside.
To your point about western players, I think that Vikarion has not been Gallentean in mindset. It has definitely annoyed other characters when Vikarion makes statements like "if I have to kill every Federation citizen to protect the State, I will". But Vikarion doesn't even get why such a statement is even controversial, because to him, loyalty to his corporation and nation is a given. I say this to try to illustrate that I understand your point about players, to a certain extent. On the other hand, you can only go so far in creating a fictional culture before the majority of people start having trouble relating to it.
At any rate, it's been enjoyable, and I do agree with many of your points. Fly safe.
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Topic: CCP are biased against whoever is losing (Read 10574 times)