Which is the same with the Moral Intern.
No one is voting for them in Revoachol despite being a capitalist democracy.
Which reaches around to the point I was making that the game is set in a country that doesn't ever know 'real' democracy.
(I am an anticommunist in RL but also note it's used to dismiss any progressive social change)
You have to wonder if the skepticism of it is due to the home nation of the developers that any "real" democracy exists.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 3rd 2025 at 6:17:09 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Those are different situations, though. Revachol is technically under military occupation because of the Communist revolution, so it doesn't get to represent itself in the Moralintern's democratic system. Presumably at some point the intention is for this to change, although this goes back to the game's criticism of centrism: the promised "fixes" never come.
The fruits of democracy seem to be enjoyed by everyone else, however. Yes, Revachol sucks, but from what information we get about the rest of the world, it seems to be an isolated situation.
Whether the citizens of Revachol would join the rest of the world government if they were given freedom to choose is not established in the story. Obviously, said government has an interest in Revachol not reverting to Fascism or Communism. The Coalition warships are there for that precise purpose.
If this sounds awful, it is, but it's the least-bad situation... or at least that's how the Moralist point of view presents things. Indeed, that's the definition of Moralism: seeking the least awful solution to any given problem.
Even in a representative democracy, self-determination has limits. My neighborhood can't vote to secede from the United States or, I don't know, build a giant machine to flip the land over like a pancake.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 3rd 2025 at 10:15:10 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Not in Kedra. Or the Semenese Islands, judging by the EPIS dispute that's mentioned. Or the third-fourth countries where the likes of Krenel shoot civilian populace for fun and profit. I'm sure there's some more examples in-game.
There's the Moralintern world, and then there's the rest of it. One of Revachol's problems is that it doesn't appear to be either of these things now. But, speaking of Fascism - we don't actually know if the coalition would care if the Suzerainty was reestablished. Nobody appeared to have had a problem with the old Revachol before the Communists took over, though presumably had the Suzerainty continued to flourish it might have become a problem down the line.
By all accounts, the monarchy of Revachol was corrupt and dissolute to a truly astonishing degree. It would have fallen apart one way or another. Nobody is bringing that back.
Yes, the Ultraliberals are the ones currently shooting up undeveloped nations for fun and profit, but I find it hard to believe that the Communists would treat them any better. That's not exactly something they're known for historically.
I'm not trying to make excuses for the Moralintern. I'm saying that nobody has proposed a better solution, and that is after all the core dilemma here. If I have to pick a side, I'll pick the one that's not actively trying to make things worse.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 3rd 2025 at 12:17:30 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Moralism is also depicted sympathetically via Kim, who embodies the ideology despite no longer identifying with it like he did in his youth.
Kim thinks the institutions they have work. They're flawed, problematic, and harmful, but they're the best they've got, and they manage to work with it. And there are worse powers than the Moralintern.
It also gives the player leeway to pick the more politically insane responses, because Kim already fills the "politically grounded" niche. It let's you play off him.
I know it's been said a million times, but Kim really is the best NPC companion in any game that I've played. He's grounded enough to offset the player's insanity but has a rich inner world that you can explore if you choose to.
He's perfectly aware that Harry is unwell but is focused on completing the case first, and if that means putting up with some bullshit, he's willing to do it.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 3rd 2025 at 2:03:27 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, but you can hurt him if you try hard enough. It's heartbreaking to lose his trust for real.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Was it here or elsewhere where I commented that the complain that game treats communism nicer is kinda missing point of what the game says about communism. Like game doesn't shirk away from horrible massacres involved with trying to establish communism or the clinging to dead dream thing the certain someone dies, but it feels nicer to folks because it treats communism as a tragedy, because it treats end goals of communism as more noble than other ideologies in the game. So game doesn't say that communism is better ideology than the other one, it treats communism as tragic unattainable dream whose dreamers caused lot of bloodshed.
Even with my own opinions, its hard to say the game is too sympathetic when they make the main villain a communist of the absolute worst sort of ideological fanatic and Serial Killer.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I have to say that, by the end, seeing the shooter as the "bad guy" is kind of hard. It's not like they're some Palpatine-esque figure manipulating the world into war or anything. They're just as much a victim of the system that created this mess as anyone else.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I dunno, the Shooter is possibly one of the worst people in a game full of monsters.
But my interpretation is...
The guy is meant to be an Evil Counterpart to Harry. All of his droning on about communism and how he's The Only Sane Man and The Last True Scotsman is meant to cover up just what a complete and utter waste of space he is in the same way that Harry is. He kills dozens of people essentially just out of boredom and sexual jealousy. Sometimes he does it for money but other times because he feels like it. His politics are meant to distract him from his situation of living as a homeless man with an unlimited supply of guns. It's just while Harry can't get over his girlfriend leaving him, the Shooter can't get over the fact they lost the war.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 5th 2025 at 4:06:23 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I can see the Evil Counterpart angle but it's hard to say his politics are bells and whistles when he was there right in the middle of Operation Death Blow and earlier, presumably, when communards overthrew the Suzerain. Even if he fled and didn't participate in further fighting, I imagine that kind of thing leaves a mark on a person. It's just that decades of solitude and living in nigh-inhabitable conditions while the world just moves on and leaves him behind had twisted what communist beliefs he still had into general misanthropy.
I suppose I'm interpreting the fact that he has clung to the politics he believed in while completely divorcing himself from the people involved. He withdrew into ideology as a way to avoid coping with the rest of the world moving on even when said ideology is all about being part of a group.
Or TLDR, "It's hard to be a solitary communist."
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 5th 2025 at 6:23:32 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I feel sorry for the guy at the end, really. His ideology has failed, he has nobody left but himself, and his mind is being destroyed by the phasmid. He's just an Empty Shell, hardly even worth putting in jail.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 5th 2025 at 9:19:14 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It's all for the good of the investigation! I'm sure it's fine. I think you can also steal that one in particular?
Such stuff seems to be commonplace, at least as far as Revachol West officers are concerned. Heck, Kim can save you on day 1 with the hubcaps he confiscated off a drunk Coalition official.
Edited by FergardStratoavis on Jan 8th 2025 at 5:50:03 AM
I didn't try to steal it because the chance was too low, and I really needed to talk to that lady about cuckatoos. Especially that cool funeral cuckatoo.
But yeah, it doesn't bother Kim. He even calls RCM officers taking bribes or extorting people "recompense" and says they only do it to survive, because the RCM doesn't pay much.
I'm struggling to decide whether or not to give Cuno his speed though.

Yeah, the "99% of people voted for me" thing. Usually followed by "and 1% of voters went to the gulag".
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 3rd 2025 at 8:56:26 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"