Star lancer?

Sarty said:
So both sides during WWII were bad?


Yes, really if you want to lump it as generically all Allied powers versus all Axis powers...Stalin was no better (and in many ways was actually worse) than Hitler. This is fairly standard accepted facts of history, it should come as no surprise to any of you. Soviet Russia played the part of big bad evil empire fairly well for several decades, far longer and with far great influence than any of the recent players (i.e. Iraq, Iran, North Korea etc.).
 
You mean the Soviet Union, the nation that allowed the Germans to train their forces illegaly on their ground and made a pact to invade and divide Poland? Or that killed millions of people on concentration camps?
 
I only played Free Lancer.
I'm a little out of the loop, so what IS StarLancer about?
 
BarFly said:
there were no good guys in the last 100 years!

hans.solo.lg.jpg


"Boy, I'm so glad you're here to tell us these things."
 
Quarto said:
Wow, so Japan is a part of the Western civilisation now? :p

Yeah, don't people typically refer to Japan as a pretty "Westernized" nation? The concepts of the Global South and Westernized Cultures kind of go beyond technical hemisphere lines. I'm picturing a spread from one of my old poli sci textbooks that had a complex line demarking Australia as a societal "North/Western" country and China as a "South" nation.
 
BarFly said:
(...) Hey what do you think when people in Germany or France say about the Polish: " They are all, but honest"
This is stupid, we all know!

Are Polisch jokes really still en vogue? I thought they died along with the Manta-jokes. :)
And during my stay in France I always had the impression that France and Polish had some traditional friendship though I didn't investigate in that. My point: I never heard a French make a Polish joke.

BTW, what are the jokes today in Germany? Maybe I am too old and therefor out of touch but I've got the impression it's still the blondes jokes which I think is kind of sad. Remember the scottish-jokes about their stinginess (Geiz?) - you could always switch that with "Schwaben". Those were the days of innocent happiness.

BarFly said:
@Mekt-Hakkikt
okay lets say - the poltical correctness is missing. And besides, the Cold War is over for quite a while.
For lots of Europeans it is always astonishing how the Americans (Correct: US- Citizens) are thinking they would lead us also in Future :).
But this would turn out into a political discussion, we do NOT do here.
I just wrote what I didn't like at this game.
And believe me, also German Game Magazines did not like this plot.

Well, I do not think that anybody thinks that Starlancer has a great plot, as I said it's full of bad clichés. But on the other hand, since they do it so blatantly, after an initial moment of "Oh my God what is this?" I laughed my ass off: French fleet? Of course immediately destroyed (I was surprised that they still had French fighters and squadrons which were not even bad). Klaus Steiner, the German? Of course, blonde and blue eyed. The evil Russian General? Fat, ugly, with an evil laughter, takes of course no prisoners. Enemy squadron's prime accomplishments? Shooting down medical ships.

And I have to say, I like it when our world of today is transfered into space and you can still see rests of today's nations. The problem is with such a concept is that then you'll always have to divide the countries into two (or more) sides.
But I think it's better not to make the sides "all good" and "all evil" (as Starlancer does) but rather make them just with different goals in mind or even "all evil" (meaning no one has a justified cause but they all want to claim the same thing).

And of course US-American movie and game makers rather like making products in which they're the heroes, whether present day or in the future. I still ask: why shouldn't they? Stop watching American movies and you won't see it again. But then you'll get sick that the Germans are always the main characters.
And not to forget that there are enough US-American movies in which the US are crushed (mostly post-apocalypse movies) or which show their country quite ambiguous.

BarFly said:
OT:
When have you been at Stuttgart the last time?

I am there almost every year to sleep over night when visiting relatives but the last time I was there for pure enjoyment was in February 2005 I think.
 
ChrisReid said:
Yeah, don't people typically refer to Japan as a pretty "Westernized" nation? The concepts of the Global South and Westernized Cultures kind of go beyond technical hemisphere lines. I'm picturing a spread from one of my old poli sci textbooks that had a complex line demarking Australia as a societal "North/Western" country and China as a "South" nation.

Yeah, apparently I don't live in either the Western or Eastern civilization, but in some pocked universe called Latin America (which geographically is located on the West). The good part is that in the event of a nuclear war no one will care to bomb here.
 
BarFly said:
I do have Hungarian Roots and about 20 Cousins (My Grandparents, 2 Uncles and 2 Aunts were also living there) are still living there. And the first time I was in Hungary, was 1963!
Well, this, I'll admit, is quite a surprise - may I ask how old you are? It's not very often we get people around here that were anywhere in 1963 ;).

And NO! Russians are not the Bad ones. Hey what do you think when people in Germany or France say about the Polish: " They are all, but honest"
This is stupid, we all know!
Three points -

First up, I'm really curious as to how this meshes together with your subsequent claim that there were no good guys in the last 100 years. You seem to be saying that the Russians were bad... but we're not allowed to say they're bad?

Secondly, as I explained in a subsequent post (which you may not have noticed, because it seems I posted it at almost the same time as you posted yours), when I say "Russians", I mean the Russian government, not all Russians. It's a verbal shortcut that a lot of people take in relation to just about any country - it's simply a waste of time to always specify that you're talking about a government when everybody knows what you mean anyway.

Finally, it's also worth pointing out that national stereotypes are based on truth. Political correctness forces us these days to pretend that it's the individual that counts, but nothing could be further from the truth, because individuals are the product of their society, and by extension, of the government and the national education system. So, all this being considered, yes, there's a lot of negative things to be said about the Russians, too. And no, I don't feel the least bit offended when I hear people telling Polish jokes - if there's one thing we've learned over the past fifty years, it's to laugh at ourselves. To be honest, I'd be hugely surprised if I met a German who has a lower opinion of ourselves than we do.
 
Quarto said:
Political correctness forces us these days to pretend that it's the individual that counts, but nothing could be further from the truth, because individuals are the product of their society, and by extension, of the government and the national education system.

I don't think Political Correctness does that. The whole idea that someone's behavior can be credited, or blamed, to society is a very PC one.
 
Shouldn't ask too much of someone who has only been here for a short while....may have undesired results
 
On the subject of "No good guys"... Good vs. Evil is bullshit. Most people who do something you would consider "Evil" wouldn't consider it such. For instance... I am a US citizen. I eat pork chops and look at porn. I like muscle cars and grain alcohol.

In the Arab world, I am one evil sumbitch.
However, in the US, I'm just another guy.
Evil is a relative term.

What does this mean? Do I believe Hitler was GOOD? You're not listening. I believe Hitler believed he was doing the right thing. I believe Stalin believed he was doing the right thing when he killed off political opposition. The people they did these things to didn't appreciate it, and THEY considered it evil, but said people did not.
Personally, I think killing anyone for personal gain(or anything other than self defense, and even then it is to be avoided if possible) is wrong to do. Doesn't mean all countries don't have examples of said attrocities that would be considered "evil"...
-Germany's slaughter of those of semetic descent.
-The US extermination of native peoples.
-Rome's ill treatment of... well, anyone not Roman.
There are examples of things that people consider evil everywhere. Doesn't mean they are... or that "evil" even makes any sense as a concept, in general. From either side of the pole, be it those crazy suicide-bombing arabs, or those capatalist, pig-eating, sex-crazed americans... the other side is considered evil.

The very concept of someone calling something "evil" pisses me off.
 
-The US extermination of native peoples.

American indians have managed the best PR campaign ever.

It's amazing how people don't learn that they started it. American aggression towards the 'native' peoples was a response to the fact that those natives enjoyed massacring white settlers.

Also, moral relatvism is bullshit. If I directly cause the deaths of millions of people, it's evil no matter how right I believe I am.
(Unless it's self-defense of some kind, I guess.)
 
Delance said:
I don't think Political Correctness does that. The whole idea that someone's behavior can be credited, or blamed, to society is a very PC one.
Political correctness is a bunch of different things. One minute, they'll be telling you that it's wrong to generalise about all members of a given nation sharing some behavioural attribute... and then the next, they'll be telling you that you can't blame a criminal for his actions because it's society that forced him do it.

And the difference between the latter, and what I had said earlier is that political correctness talks about blaming or crediting a person's behaviour to society - while I merely state the fairly obvious fact that a person's behaviour is a product of his upbringing (...and therefore, of his society). Merely stating this fact doesn't change that any person is still responsible for his own actions, though.
 
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