Empire not intended to be the galactic "bad guys?"

DukeIronHand

D
Gunnet said:
It's a bit redundant to post this after Michael Brookes stepped in. But I've always assumed that ED's setting was supposed to be more realistic than something which would have obvious good guys and bad guys. I recall there being an earlier interview where David Braben described the Empire as space Rome too.

Everybody knows that we Imperials are really the good guys though :D
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Well yea I get the "shades of grey" in all systems as someone here described it but thought that the Imperial system was a bit of a darker shade. And I guess my point was that is, apparently, not intended by FD but inferred by myself reading here - both from fans of the other two empires and the way some Imperial fans represent themselves here. Or so it seems in my gamestyle bias.

Anyway as a fan of Roman history perhaps I'll take a closer look to mix things up in my play. Now only if Denton Patreus didn't look like a pimp in his game pic I'd be all set.
 
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JetsonRING

JetsonRING
"Empire" is not always associated with evil. There have been benevolent empires as well as tyrannical democracies. Your own perception of what is "good" or "evil" will guide your thinking about the major powers for instance, many players believe that the in-game slavery is "evil" when in fact, in Elite Dangerous, "slavery" is associated with saving the lives of those people floating around in escape-pods and they are apparently satisfied if not happy to be made slaves to repay the cost of their "rescue" since the alternative is floating around in space until the escape-pod's power supply runs out and they die a cold, distant, lonely frozen death between the stars. o7
 

Martian Successor

Martian Successor
Enexemander said:
Imperial Success- be born from the correct womb. If you're born from the incorrect womb, go be a slave.

Federation Success- Climb the corporate ladder (with all the pitfalls that entails).

On balance, yeah, the Imps are pretty backwards and evil.
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Actually "be born from the correct womb" applies to both. In the Federation it means being born into wealth. Climbing the corporate ladder is a lie they sell to the poor and less well off so they can clamp down on the "Off with those rich dudes heads" style uprisings.

I would liken life in the Empire to a fish swimming inside of a tube that goes around in a complete circle - you have the notion of always going forward but in reality you are not progressing at all and are merely going in a circle. You know you are not 'free' to do whatever you want but at least you think you are always moving forward. However the feeling of going forward is an illusion.

Life in the Federation is like a bird in a really big cage. You have wings you can spread and learn to fly and you have the notion of freedom but in reality you are in a cage and there is only so far you are allowed to go. You think you are free but this freedom is in fact an illusion.
 
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Stealthie

Banned
Stealthie
Funny thing is, Star Trek has shown us that "The Federation" are the galactic carebears and Star Wars has shown us that "The Empire" are evil.

I grew up thinking Star Trek was a bit cheesy and I was always more of a Blake's 7 fan so, for me, "The Federation" have always been just as dodgy as any Empire.
 

Ziljan

Ziljan
DukeIronHand said:
... after reading the interview my impression now was that it was not intended or the game plan and that ED's Empire is supposed to be a clone of the Roman Republic/Empire to give the game more flavor and nuance?

Or am I reading too much into the interview?
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Why would being "Roman" make them not the bad guys? Rome was a state powered by subjugation and enslavement of neighbouring states, filled with corrupt institutions, political assassinations, brutality as entertainment, depraved hedonism, and all the other vices that plague super powers.

In other words, all of humanity are the "bad guys" once they gain too much power. No better and no worse than the Feds or Alliance, or even Kumo space.
 

sb413197

S
Yep. Empire is the Roman Empire, with all its faults. Federation is a dark and dystopian version of the US. Alliance is....thargoid? Not sure what the alliance is supposed to be honestly, maybe the United Nations or something? Seems too disparate to be the EU.
 

Iori

Iori
No good or bad guys, whether you like one style of society or another, depends on your political and philosophical leanings.

The empire are the only good guys though, everything else is hypocrisy and filth
 
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Apos

Apos
sb413197 said:
Yep. Empire is the Roman Empire, with all its faults. Federation is a dark and dystopian version of the US. Alliance is....thargoid? Not sure what the alliance is supposed to be honestly, maybe the United Nations or something? Seems too disparate to be the EU.
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The EU is too top down to be the Alliance, however it is the same core principle, only in a more representative execution instead of a directorate one.
 

jojon

J
Well, it's an unwritten, but unbendable, rule in all games that have an assortment of factions to choose from, that they are all nasty in at least a couple of ways -- especially in cases where the choice is binary and obligatory, isn't it? :7
(EDIT: Stormcloak or Empire? -To hell with you both. :p)
 
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Perseus

Perseus
DukeIronHand said:
I didn't say the Federation were the "good guys" but I did have the impression the Empire were the "bad guys."
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It's not your fault.
Federal education is very sub standard and the Federal authorities do like their plebs to think in binary terms, if at all. The Feds take the idea of freedom very seriously - especially freedom from deep thinking for their yolked masses.
I truly pity the poor in Federal space; they are just free floating social debris from the Galaxies most aggressive, callous and restrictive culture.
 

Martin Schou

Martin Schou
Michael Brookes said:
Neither and all of them are bad guys - especially the Alliance :)

Michael
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In what way are the Alliance bad guys?

Seriously - seemingly every time you bring up the Alliance, you suggest that they're horrible, but there's absolutely nothing available to us as players, that suggests this is the case. You've even made it clear that the Alliance didn't give the Thargoids a cure for the virus humanity gave them, so the notion that they're Thargoid sympathisers is out the window as well.

All you're really doing whenever you post things like this, is fanning the flames of "hatred" based on things that you've already retconned away, while simultaneously alienating players who choose to support the Alliance - and you're doing it without even a pretence of evidence. It honestly feels as if you are carrying a 20 year old grudge against whomever decided that there should be a 3rd superpower called the Alliance.

Imagine for a moment that George R. R. Martin had gone to Twitter when season 3 of Game of Thrones started and said "I wouldn't worry too much about what Talisa Stark will name her child" or a later comment along the lines of "Jon Snow knows nothing, especially when it comes to his Imperial heritage".

You're an executive producer and writer for the game, yet your behaviour on the forums, whenever it comes to the Alliance, is that of an online troll who loves to spoil things, and it's quite frankly shameful behaviour for a professional author. If/when the Alliance are revealed to be evil masterminds, instead of it being a shocking revelation like Luke's relationship with Darth Vader, it will be about as surprising as Gandalf's return in The Two Towers, because it was revealed in the trailer.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Stealthie said:
Funny thing is, Star Trek has shown us that "The Federation" are the galactic carebears and Star Wars has shown us that "The Empire" are evil.

I grew up thinking Star Trek was a bit cheesy and I was always more of a Blake's 7 fan so, for me, "The Federation" have always been just as dodgy as any Empire.
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You should watch Deep Space 9, if you haven't. Takes a peek under that utopian veneer Star Trek's Federation tries to sell.

sb413197 said:
Federation is a dark and dystopian version of the US.
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I've lived in the US all my life and I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.
 

ITZC0ATL

ITZC0ATL
Empire vs Federation are fundamentally opposed, much like many political groups or institutions in real life. In the Empire, things like narcotics and slavery are legal and regulated, to mitigate the negative effects. In the Federation, narcotics and slavery are illegal, but is instead controlled by criminals.

It's not quite a liberal vs conservative debate but you can definitely draw parallels to a lot of today's debates, as to whether countries should legalise and regulate 'bad' activities or make them illegal and fight the crime they produce instead. In real life, I say regulate and tax as much as you can, so in Elite I found the Empire more closely matched that ethos.

And to build on another point made in this thread, both sides do indeed require you to be 'born in the right womb'. Doesn't matter whether you're born in North Korea, the US, or Switzerland. The rich and powerful keep it in their family as much as possible.
 
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Jason Lightning

Jason Lightning
Martin Schou said:
In what way are the Alliance bad guys?

Seriously - seemingly every time you bring up the Alliance, you suggest that they're horrible, but there's absolutely nothing available to us as players, that suggests this is the case. You've even made it clear that the Alliance didn't give the Thargoids a cure for the virus humanity gave them, so the notion that they're Thargoid sympathisers is out the window as well.

All you're really doing whenever you post things like this, is fanning the flames of "hatred" based on things that you've already retconned away, while simultaneously alienating players who choose to support the Alliance - and you're doing it without even a pretence of evidence. It honestly feels as if you are carrying a 20 year old grudge against whomever decided that there should be a 3rd superpower called the Alliance.

Imagine for a moment that George R. R. Martin had gone to Twitter when season 3 of Game of Thrones started and said "I wouldn't worry too much about what Talisa Stark will name her child" or a later comment along the lines of "Jon Snow knows nothing, especially when it comes to his Imperial heritage".

You're an executive producer and writer for the game, yet your behaviour on the forums, whenever it comes to the Alliance, is that of an online troll who loves to spoil things, and it's quite frankly shameful behaviour for a professional author. If/when the Alliance are revealed to be evil masterminds, instead of it being a shocking revelation like Luke's relationship with Darth Vader, it will be about as surprising as Gandalf's return in The Two Towers, because it was revealed in the trailer.
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Remember that time the Alliance started a civil war with intent to cause devastating casualties on a planet that wouldn't join their group, all to soften them up so they would be convinced that joining the Alliance was necessary? That was in a book a while back from 'And Here The Wheel'. It failed because of some surprising heroics from a young officer, but make no mistake what the Alliance was after. They have an unchecked military and intelligence arm and if the newer book is anything to go by, a rather sinister agenda that doesn't benefit the populace at wide.
 
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