157 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Name one politician that isn't considered an assh*le by anyone.

Good King Wenceslas.

[Dean_the_Young]

AdmiralCheez wrote...

So how many beers does it take to get to the center of a Dean thread?

(I'm laughing really hard at this right now, because as insane as it is, it actually makes sense.)

Better question, Cheez:

How many beers does it take for Dead to write a Dean thread?

[AdmiralCheez]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Better question, Cheez:

How many beers does it take for Dead to write a Dean thread?

No one will ever know.  A magician never reveals his secrets, right, Dean?

[TheBlackBaron]

Oddly enough, the Turian Hierarchy seems to be a better implementation of the ideas behind the Terran Federation of Starship Troopers fame than the Federation itself was.

Modifié par TheBlackBaron, 08 octobre 2011 - 10:10 .

[Dean_the_Young]

lovgreno wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

BatmanPWNS wrote...

So................. what do you gonna do about it?

Military coup of the Council, of course.

Meanwhile I join the Geths galactic socialist revolution. This leads to a cold war and arms race. Said stockpiles of doomsday weapons can then be used to beat the reapers. How is that for a plan? Well okay there is of course a risk that we destroy eachother before the reapers even get here but no plan is perfect.

I do believe we just saved the galaxy.

Cheers.

[Dean_the_Young]

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Better question, Cheez:

How many beers does it take for Dead to write a Dean thread?

No one will ever know.  A magician never reveals his secrets, right, Dean?

It's against my religion, even.

[mango smoothie]

mango smoothie wrote...

      Throughout history it's not specifically military that goes in and saves the day it's certain people. Some examples Paul Revere he was not military, but he help start the American Revolution. Charlie Wilson a politician single handly brought down the Soviet Union using politics. So it's not military it's certain people, some turn out to be military people, but not all. In fact most of the time when military takes complete control and deals with the problem themselves it turns the goverment into a dictatorship/police state.    

Also another person to add who was a politician that change things dramatically was James K. Polk who manage to claim most of the southwest, gained the Oregan territory from the british, and annexed Texas. He gained all those territories for the Union and he was a Politician not a military man.

[Fenris_13]

Chewin3 wrote...
This is in fact one disappointment in ME for me. Just as you said in your post, every race seem to have come down to the concluson that them one with the bigger gun gets the prize. And pretty much every galactic conflict we've heared about has been concluded with the aid of fire arms. Sometimes It feels like developers doesn't want it to get to complicated so they put just something overly primitive way for people to understand the importance on the matter, like all out war, good vs. evil, evil must be stopped b/c they are evil.

That's why I respect more games like The Witcher with it's political views.

I don't think people actually do that, or either has that as their goal.

[Chewin]

Fenris_13 wrote...
I don't think people actually do that, or either has that as their goal.

[Fenris_13]

Chewin3 wrote...

Fenris_13 wrote...
I don't think people actually do that, or either has that as their goal.

*snip*

We'll his the worst of them:P

[Dean_the_Young]

mango smoothie wrote...

mango smoothie wrote...

      Throughout history it's not specifically military that goes in and saves the day it's certain people. Some examples Paul Revere he was not military, but he help start the American Revolution. Charlie Wilson a politician single handly brought down the Soviet Union using politics. So it's not military it's certain people, some turn out to be military people, but not all. In fact most of the time when military takes complete control and deals with the problem themselves it turns the goverment into a dictatorship/police state.    

Also another person to add who was a politician that change things dramatically was James K. Polk who manage to claim most of the southwest, gained the Oregan territory from the british, and annexed Texas. He gained all those territories for the Union and he was a Politician not a military man.

I think you missed a (admittedly subtle) point:

This thread isn't about how politics/military work in real life, but how they are depicted in Mass Effect.

In reality, military-governments have been a dime a dozen, and successful ones nearly an oxymoron. Fascism, for all its faults, also never made good on its claims for 'decisive' or 'strong' governance: the bureacracy and politics could be just as stifiling. There have been good military officers who made good politicians (and vice versa), but the idea that military leaders are always better and civilian politicians always bad is  laughable fallacy that doesn't stand to history...

but does in Mass Effect, where politicians are **** and the entire galaxy fixes itself in short order when Commander Shepard isn't held back by the buracracy and politics (which are often the biggest obstacle to saving the day).

[mauro2222]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Chewin3 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
History is clear. To solve galactic problems, it isn't 'politics' that have succeded. 'Politics' is the problem. You want something solved, ask a good soldier.

This is in fact one disappointment in ME for me. Just as you said in your post, every race seem to have come down to the concluson that them one with the bigger gun gets the prize. And pretty much every galactic conflict we've heared about has been concluded with the aid of fire arms. Sometimes It feels like developers doesn't want it to get to complicated so they put just something overly primitive way for people to understand the importance on the matter, like all out war, good vs. evil, evil must be stopped b/c they are evil.

That's why I respect more games like The Witcher with it's political views.

I agree that it doesn't get much more basic than 'military characters = good and noble with rare exception, politicians = useless counterproductive sleazebags.'

I'd blame it on an American cultural romanticism of the military, and overall militarization of US culture, if Bioware weren't Canadian.

Indeed

[Dean_the_Young]

iOnlySignIn wrote...

Fascism is more than just a strong centralized government with an effective military that exerts extensive foreign influence. Otherwise most if not all successful states in the history of mankind would be considered Fascist, including for example the U.S. under Franklin Roosevelt, France under Louis XIV, China under Emperor Taizong. Evidently, none of these states were even remotely Fascist.

From Wikipedia:

"Fascism holds opposition and negation to class identity and many ideologies and political systems: it is anti-anarchist, anti-communist, anti-conservative, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois and anti-proletarian. It entails a distinctive type of anti-capitalism and is typically, with a few exceptions, anti-clerical. It rejects egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit and will."

Mass Effect promotes none of the above Fascist ideals. It actually has very little to do with Fascism at all. A lot of people bring up Fascism simply because they think the word sounds cool, without actually knowing what it means.

The successful 'good' groups in Mass Effect do share many of those ideals... in part because about the only good AND successful groups are militiaries, which have many of those attributes by default. Commander Shepard as a character archetype especially, paragon and renegade.

Mass Effect isn't a franchise which goes 'boo capitalism! yay fascism! boo everything else!', but half of that is because it isn't thinking about what it is saying. It is a series which goes 'yay' for the things a fascist ideology would generally go 'yay' for, and 'boo' for many of things a fascist ideology would be opposed to.

[RamirezWolfen]

My apologies, but I didn't exactly get the OP. What are you saying?

[Xilizhra]

This is pretty much why I tend to give the Council the benefit of the doubt; logically, all the good governance is happening where we aren't paying attention, because where it is good, Shepard is unnecessary.

However, for the raging anti-Council or pro-Cerberus types, this does seem fairly accurate.

[Quething]

Well, the Council is the source of your intel in ME1. Virmire most notably; it seems to have been their decision to send the STG out after Saren.

Xilizhra wrote...
logically, all the good governance is happening where we aren't paying attention, because where it is good, Shepard is unnecessary.

Interestingly, this is a widely-used rationalization by pro-Cerberus fans as well, in dismissal of their repeated history of catastrophic failures which Shepard is forced to go clean up.

Though once you start arguing from evidence rather than inference, the Council pulls ahead a little bit; they successfully prevented war between the turians and humanity, and organics living within Council space seem to be prosperous and safe on the whole. You might also argue their manipulation of the Alliance against the Hegemony as a fairly deft and competent move, though obviously not to humanity's particular benefit.

But yeah, Dean still makes a salient point, it's definitely a trend.

Modifié par Quething, 08 octobre 2011 - 10:55 .

[Dean_the_Young]

RamirezWolfen wrote...

My apologies, but I didn't exactly get the OP. What are you saying?

It's a parody/critique/commentary/satire of Bioware's attitude of 'yay military leadership, boo politicis/politicians/buracracy.'

[RamirezWolfen]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

RamirezWolfen wrote...

My apologies, but I didn't exactly get the OP. What are you saying?

It's a parody/critique/commentary/satire of Bioware's attitude of 'yay military leadership, boo politicis/politicians/buracracy.'

Cool. I've wondered why Bioware has it like that myself sometimes...

[Xilizhra]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

RamirezWolfen wrote...

My apologies, but I didn't exactly get the OP. What are you saying?

It's a parody/critique/commentary/satire of Bioware's attitude of 'yay military leadership, boo politicis/politicians/buracracy.'

I'm actually not quite sure about this. The only good military leaders we know of are Anderson, Hackett with some shadiness, and Kahoku. Mikhailovich is a bit of a tool, General Williams was a xenophobic bastard, TIM... needs no introduction, and we haven't really met any other military leaders.

[Labrev]

 This is awesome. Nothing intelligent to contribute from my end, but there's some kudos from me.


I like your stuff, Dean :happy: (that is, when it's short enough for me to bother reading it)

[Xilizhra]

Interestingly, this is a widely-used rationalization by pro-Cerberus fans as well, in dismissal of their repeated history of catastrophic failures which Shepard is forced to go clean up.

This is why I attack Cerberus for being evil rather than incompetent. If Cerberus was incompetent, they'd scare me less.

[Dean_the_Young]

Xilizhra wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

RamirezWolfen wrote...

My apologies, but I didn't exactly get the OP. What are you saying?

It's a parody/critique/commentary/satire of Bioware's attitude of 'yay military leadership, boo politicis/politicians/buracracy.'

I'm actually not quite sure about this. The only good military leaders we know of are Anderson, Hackett with some shadiness, and Kahoku. Mikhailovich is a bit of a tool, General Williams was a xenophobic bastard, TIM... needs no introduction, and we haven't really met any other military leaders.

I almost took you seriously until here, until I realized you weren't even trying to keep a straight face.