Marines, and all the sarcasm

[v_make]

Intentionally or not, the devs seem quite controversial on all the marine stuff, in terms of values and outlook. Surely you have noticed the description of marines of the in-game wiki 'A marine is a simple creature. Feed it and tell it what to do and...' since TC, and all the process of turning passengers into slaves/trading slaves on the black market, and training them back into marines is not quite a comfortable process. There are also hints like deliberately distinguishing between marines and mercenaries which has no difference in-game, to reflect the fact that marines are just state-hired mercenaries. All of these are trying to depict a group of people, mindless, obedient, in lack of morality, who are hired/kidnapped by the evil player for some suspicious activities

There seems to be some sarcasm on all the war and military stuff, for soldiers of the invasion side are basically the same thing as marines in-game, not knowing what or why they are fighting for, losing their lives for nothing and so. Most of the marines died because the player is in the mood of collecting Xenon ship models for no particular reasons other than retaliation, an achievement, or a sense of achievement. Basically the nature of human war history from country leaders' perspective, at least the majority part of.

I may be overthinking, but given that this is a German game, it's quite understandable to have some deep reflection on the nature of an invasion. I myself am not in support of any invasion, but I respect the fact wars and competitions facilitated science development on large scales in the perspective of history. Without life hanging on a string, people just don't work as hard in a peaceful world. Make no mistake, this is not a compliment of war or invasion in any sense. It's just I feel the devs may be just a little too critical on all the war stuff.

[Hwitvlf]

I myself am not in support of any invasion, but I respect the fact wars and competitions facilitated science development on large scales in the perspective of history. Without life hanging on a string, people just don't work as hard in a peaceful world. Make no mistake, this is not a compliment of war or invasion in any sense. It's just I feel the devs may be just a little too critical on all the war stuff.

I don't think war drives development, need drives development. War just makes staying alive a need, but as such, you tend to only see advances in ways to stay alive. All other industry is stunted. And we shouldn't confuse 'development' with quality of life. War destroys quality of life so who cares if it generates some scientific advances.

The view you're stating is generally the theory behind Capitalism. I'm an American of English descent so I come from a long line of capitalistic cultures. Competition does bring advances, but there's also a 'dark underbelly' to the system. The motive in a competition is to win. Winning doesn't always require improving and making scientific advances. You can also win a competition by cheating and lying. This is why you see athletes on steroids and using unfair devices. This is why you see tons of fake product reviews on store sites like Amazon- sellers leave bad reviews for their competition and glowing reviews for their own products.

To drive advances, integrity and ethics are needed more than competition. Competition gives you a need, but integrity decides how you fulfill that need.

As far as X3's portrayal of war specifically, I never thought it was especially sarcastic. The whole 'marines are simple creatures' cliche predates X3. In general, people who are strong and don't question authority are chosen for the hardest parts of warfare. Look at the poem ''Charge of the Light Brigade" written in the 1800s:
"Theirs not to question,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred."

[v_make]

You made your point very clear and I really appreciate your perspective on

1. need drives development, not competition (like warfare), as competition does not always bring advance without integrity

I would say it depends on the definition of development, as 'quality of life' is not the full picture. Scientific advance is not about good or bad for people's life quality, it has nothing to do with being morally right or wrong, it's how people use it that defines it. In fact, technology and research are often constrained by and limited to moral righteousness. Competition without integrity may bring about cases of misuse, but advancement nonetheless. The steroid is a moral degenerate, but it's still advancement in medicine and biology. And war as the most intense competition of human history, at the lowest boundary of integrity, brings about advancements at the highest speed. Rockets, jet engines, nuclear fission, radar, sonar, material science, etc. No one wants war because it lowers the quality of life, but neither should one misjudge its place in history.

2. people who are strong and don't question authority are chosen for the hardest parts of warfare

As a Chinese (of Chinese descent obviously) I find myself with a quite mixed feeling about authority. But one thing I want to point out, an authority exists because people generally expect there to be one. Rather than an authority turning normal people into slaves as depicted in the game, or people who don't question authority being chosen by an authority, it makes much more sense that people who don't question authority choose ACTIVELY to fight for authority. The mixed feeling part is that I personally think of such a process as a tragedy.

Nice poem btw, of the very same style of launch screen quotes but opposite in opinion.

[BrigandPhantos77]

Marines and all that sarcasm eh....

Hope this is well received.

Full Metal Jacket Boot Camp Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja0QaqUdn2c

Five foot nine, I didn't know they stacked *&^% that high.

[fireanddream]

As a fellow comrade, I know exactly how I feel about authority, which is **** 'em.

When I think about it, there are many similarities between our lives and the lives of the in-game marines. Their names don't matter as much as their skills. They get ordered to do whatever we the empire figurehead want. Together we accumulate enough profits and power to the point when they will no longer be exploited by other organizations, as long as they continue to display productivity and obedience.

I have been reading a book called One Summer by Bill Bryson who in the book called the "roaring twenties" (as in, 1920s) in the USA an "age of loathing". About a hundred years ago we really had accomplished physicians, airplane pilots and teachers defending eugenics and racial segregation with fierce passion. The majority of people really just found no fault in going into white-only nightclubs to have black musicians perform for them. Me being the village idiot, I really believe that a hundred years from now our trust in authority will be found curious in the same way.

[v_make]

The original intention was to interpret a seemingly extreme view on marines of the game, and the lack of consequences of the rather magnificent war background of the game.

On the first part, the more we discuss, the more I think, I find the sarcasm more accurate and reasonable on its ground. The famous 'society = slavery with extra steps' theory (very Marxism if I may say) from Rick and Morty impressed me, and I guess can be used here to partly explain the nature of all these slavery, authority, and the seemingly important meaning of personal life and death, etc. From the perspective of history, it really does not matter if a nameless one was once a mechanic, an engineer, a hacker, or a mercenary. One died and that's all. History will note the incident together with a vague number of casualties, some specific general who was in command, and some fanatic politician behind all of these. On the other hand, the so-called perspective of history is just the way we saw our ancestors, and we generally do exactly as above.

On the second part, I realized that I came to all of these thoughts because of the lack of end game goals, mixed with strange powerlessness in changing the universe. Very much like a common folk's entire life. After spending years of learning (for me it's exactly mechanics, engineering, and computer science as I just noticed) only to find myself at the same place as a marine, it caught me right there. I may have just performed some kind of comedy.

Starship boarding sounds quite fun as a career though

[BrigandPhantos77]

The original intention was to interpret a seemingly extreme view on marines of the game, and the lack of consequences of the rather magnificent war background of the game.

On the first part, the more we discuss, the more I think, I find the sarcasm more accurate and reasonable on its ground. The famous 'society = slavery with extra steps' theory (very Marxism if I may say) from Rick and Morty impressed me, and I guess can be used here to partly explain the nature of all these slavery, authority, and the seemingly important meaning of personal life and death, etc. From the perspective of history, it really does not matter if a nameless one was once a mechanic, an engineer, a hacker, or a mercenary. One died and that's all. History will note the incident together with a vague number of casualties, some specific general who was in command, and some fanatic politician behind all of these. On the other hand, the so-called perspective of history is just the way we saw our ancestors, and we generally do exactly as above.

On the second part, I realized that I came to all of these thoughts because of the lack of end game goals, mixed with strange powerlessness in changing the universe. Very much like a common folk's entire life. After spending years of learning (for me it's exactly mechanics, engineering, and computer science as I just noticed) only to find myself at the same place as a marine, it caught me right there. I may have just performed some kind of comedy.

Starship boarding sounds quite fun as a career though

Watch the newest Matrix movie. The plot/story is mostly non existent "empty", but the final conversation between Neo/Trinity and Neil Patrick Harris character kinda sums things up nicely with the way things are. It's an honest perspective to go with your statement. And probably the most plausible one. "Only my opinion of course."