Picture is inappropriate: State Sec

I've just seen the State Sec picture, and it's not accurate to the trope. The picture in question is a Waffen-SS recruitment poster. While the SS themselves are generally a good example of State Sec, the Waffen-SS (literally fighting-SS) were the military branch of the SS, which fought on the front line and did no actual police work, secret or otherwise.

Anyone got an idea for a more appropriate picture?

Isn't this being a bit nit-picky? Yes, we know the Waffen-SS was the fighting arm of a statesec, but the SS is the ur-example. Unless one can find a better poster for the SS (that remains approiate), we should leave the current example up for now.

edited 25th Feb '11 10:28:22 AM by Gatomon41

No, the OP has a good point. Waffen-SS units were functionally just like regular army units in most respect, with no particular State Sec duties beyond the broad sense that they were specifically loyal to the Nazi Party, as opposed to Germany per se.

That said, I'm not sure we'll be able to find a good image for the regular SS. There are tons of such poster images for the Waffen-SS, because they were also a multi-national and multi-ethnic organization which recruited extensively in occupied territories (e.g., Norway◊.)

edited 26th Feb '11 8:45:36 AM by suedenim

In that case, why not just crop the Waffen-SS part out of the image?

IMO, that's worse on a number of levels. It's just a JAFAAC image of an SS guy, and I dislike on general principle cropping original images to make them look like something they're not.

Is it possible to represent this trope with a picture? Looking at the examples, Public Security Section 9 from Ghost In The Shell or S.H.I.E.L.D. from Marvel Comics would be a more appropriate picture, but I can't think of anything that makes them exempt from just a bunch of faces and a caption either.

I was thinking the Nightwatch from Babylon5 would be a good example, particularly as they had creepy In-Universe posters hanging all over the place, but I can't locate an image of them anywhere.

So we don't use the easilly recongizable SS (note the symbols on the poster), but use a group who don't fully realize the trope. Yes, Nightwatch is still a good example of State Sec, but not instantly recongziable. It dosn't communicate as well as the current poster.

But if we are to change the poster, I would recommend either the Titians or A-laws from Gundam metaseries (probably plenty of screencaps or icons), Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D., or the Black Hand of Command and Conquer. They emptiomize the trope fully, have a large selection of visual images ready, and have a iconic look.

Surely a Big Brother Is Watching You type image should be easy enough to find?

<goes hunting>

Like this◊?

edited 8th Mar '11 6:17:08 AM by pagad

Well, State Sec isn't necessary only a secrect police. We're talking about a government organization with policing, military, adminstrative, research powers. The main thing is that is that State Sec is a organization of vast and widespread power.

Bump

I'm not sure that we can adequately pic this.

How is the Waffen-SS not appropriate? Isn't one of the points of State Sec that, in addition to being the Secret Police, they also have paramilitary forces to supplement the regular army, and/or keep it in line? Put up the regular SS and all you've got is a picture of the Secret Police. Put up the Waffen-SS (or one of its other divisions) and you've captured just how widespread it is.

And SHIELD would not be a good example. Depending on the Writer they may be loyal to the UN, the US, whoever. Doesn't really capture the essence of the trope.

As currently written the trope seems to include the Waffen-SS. In fact it seems to have been written around the Waffen-SS, citing the SS in general as a good example and the Waffen-SS specifically as an inspiration for fictional examples.

I find the way trope is currently written to be a bit... unclear. This is what I'm thinking:

At first the SS seems like a prime example of this. Symbolically, the Waffen-SS fit right in: the military arm of a State Sec-type organisation. My scanty research says they took an oath of loyalty directly to Hitler, who expressly didn't want them integrated with the regular army. But command over them was passed to Army High Command. Real Life examples are often (suboptimal) like this: messy and refusing to stay in neat boxes.

I get the feeling that the SS have taken on the trope in fiction — that's there's a mythology that makes the SS logo a good image to sell the trope; my sense it that it is highly recognisable. In fiction the SS are mysterious, diverse, privileged hard core that petty bad guys fear as well as the good guys. So I hope we keep the image or some other image with the logo.

What could be even better would be a set of sinister logos showing the various branches of a State Sec organisation, if it was immediately clear that we had spies, death squads, army units, research, etc... I couldn't turn up anything for the Schutzstaffel.

(BTW straight image searches on "state sec" provide... not the right kind of images!)

edited 17th May '11 2:08:35 AM by Camacan

Oooh, a diagram you said? There's a magnificent one I found earlier of the SS branches. Let me look it up again...

Aha, found it. What do you think? Too technical?

As it is right now, it wouldn't resize well...now, we could take that and make something from it that could work, though.

I think if we're going to do a composite, rather than the different sections within the SS it would make more sense to use the insignia from a number of different groups. Surely we can find four or six examples.

This one◊ from Wikipedia is probably better, as it focuses entirely on the branches within the State Sec.

The right insignias can probably be pulled from here if wanted.◊

edited 5th Jul '11 8:51:40 PM by Crowley

Let's not concentrate on the SS. Use the basic lightning-bolt double-S as one of the items in the collage, but not for all of them.

Following up on an earlier idea for avoiding the SS altogether while capturing the idea of octopus-like diversity, I had a go at a logo org chart:

edited 6th Jul '11 9:03:46 AM by Camacan

Interesting...I like it.

Thread bump.

So — what do folks think? Does the org chart work? Is it a solution to the OP's problem?

edited 10th Jul '11 10:57:25 PM by Camacan

I like the org chart.

It works well enough for me.