[Lore Discussion] Commanders' Genders and the use of "He".

The honest answer is that it wasn't.
I made a short post about it and it exploded.
I felt the need to challenge the reasons people offered for it being the way it was.

If the female viewpoints in the story are just "token females", then the writer can't write, and shouldn't ever be paid to write.

The commander's don't need to look at all feminine - and in fact, that's approaching the level of objectivity that video games are so criticised for.

It's not about, nor should it be about, shoehorning gender equality into a video game, but about developing female perspectives in the story, yet would still add value to the story in and of themselves.

Planetary Annihilation has a very real opportunity to present female characters in ways that are not stereotypical, sexist or objectifying.

The question which naturally remains would be Is a lack of representation discriminatory?

On token black people, seriously? The majority of the world's movie industry comes from the USA, a country with a 12.6% African American population. It is demographically unrealistic to say that 12.6% of "every(wo)man characters", (which American movies often depict) should not be of that demographic. Hollywood made an effort to include more African American actors in their casting. That was a good thing.


Might be asked how much of that token black philosophy is related to the general discrimination towards ethnic minorities in Germany.

For some reason... this paragraph conjured up the image of a ... well endowed commander shooting nanolathe from their... chest region.

I feel that one thing this thread has developed is, the lore has a good basis, but development is poor

Athena, Enyo, Agasaya, Anahita, Anath, Adraste ,Ankt, Anouke, Ashtart, Badb, Bellona, Eshara, Inanna, Korrawi, Menhit, Minerva, Morrigan, Nanaja, Neith, Sakhmet, Zroya, all Goddesses of Warfare.

There is one faction that believes in obliterating everything in the pursuit of dominance, the Roman faction. Then there's the anti-biological faction, the religious faction, which believes in converting all to their religion, and technological superiority faction.

The lore however does make reference to 2 factions making direct contact with biologicals - anti-creators and religious. The lore does not establish that there are no biologicals in the universe, only that these machines area relic belonging to one race, and that hey still exist a universe which is populated by other biologicals.

Faction 3, the one who believes in biological extermination, would not necessarily be misogynistic in nature, if the biologics that birthed it were misogynistic, nor would they necessarily be asexual if their creators were asexual. In fact, seeing as they oppose their creators so much, as to wipe out all biological life, they may even copy aspects of that biological life, such as gender, so as to be more opposite to the asexual beings that created them.

It's actually more likely, given their mindset, that they would not identify with asexuality, a rather common concept in nature, and instead mimic sexuality, which is relatively uncommon. (Of the 3 domains, it is only Eukaryota where sexual reproduction is common, then only in the animal kingdom. In insects sex-gender roles are often reversed with females being dominant, it's only birds and mammals where sex is assigned by right of birth, fish, amphibians and reptiles all have a tendency to have sex changing capabilities)

They would also be most aware of biological sexes, and presumably studies of gender, irrespective of whether the progenitors were asexual or not. Then there is the religious faction, and it should be noted that the religions where female goddesses do not exist are in the firm minority, many religions have a concept of a mother goddess, mother earth, etc. They are also willing to convert biologicals to their religion, and so would also be aware of gender differences.

I'm honestly curious as to what anyone would see in it that makes for a good foundation.

A setting somewhat realistic as a possible future, but far enough removed that it need not be our future.

And within that setting, a vast range of questions can be asked about a rather large selection of subject matter.

So far this qualifies as very good science fiction.

Further upon that, the characters are sufficiently alien that they aren't identifiable as human, but not so incomprehensible that they can't have human qualities associated with them.


No. What we have right now is loosely similar to the Culture Novels by Iain M Banks. And a lot of people much more attuned than I believe that is good scifi.




Much more importantly than all that, we have a 185 post, 10 page, 36 hour old discussion on the importance of gender roles in society, and whether biased viewpoints qualify as discriminatory. All based on a lack of the letter 's'

Plus a call to reexamine a world view.

I'm not that much of a literary buff, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that as much as ideas presented, that clarifies as very good science fiction indeed.

I totally agree with you there, wich is why I am afraid of just chainging half the pronouns from male to female.

If we do not include female looking commanders then why even bother with identifying some of them as female? Also female looking does not mean to create a sex symbol or to objectify womenhood in general.

Yes. I agree with you.

Yes, wich is why I want to see it done right and with thought and not as some rushed decision based on hype. I think we can all think of an example of a female character wich is created so badly it makes you wonder if whoever came up with her even know what a women looks like.

I think the answer to that question is depending on the circumstance of the situation in wich it is asked.

You seem to have missed my point there totally. I am not saying that you should not include anyone. I am saying that you should do so in a realistic fashion and not just throw someone in a setting because of some statistics and the color of their skin, or regarding to this discussion their gender.

You know writing stuff like that will only derail discussions, so please, if you want to ask about general discrimination towards ethnic minorities in Germany create a thread about general discrimination towards ethnic minorities in Germany in the OffTopic section.

And there you go objectifying females? We're talking about characters, not physical embodiment.

I believe the question is why this is being discussed at all. If it was "done right" and "with thought", there would have been balanced representation in the lore from the beginning.

But we're talking about the video game industry. So we know the circumstance.

A key character in American film is the idea of the everyperson character. It's usually a male. That's the whole concept behind the characters in American films, they are just "everyday people off the street." In more modern films, the characters have a right being there, not just because of statistics or colour of skin, but because that actor acted well at the auditions. There's a particularly famous example involving Samuel Lee Jackson, where his character ended up being lynched. That was in the original script, an african american ended up getting cast for the role.

Irrespectively of how robots should/should not have gender, and assuming that no female ever plays PA, 50% of the people that the male dominated target audience ever meet will be female, on average. 100% of the male dominated target audience will have female relatives, some of whom may still be involved in their lives. It is utterly unrealistic to say that female characters should not be in PA's lore, when we have male characters.

Fair point, but yes, I am very happy to discuss gastarbeiters. It is related to the idea of the token black guy, which you yourself brought into this discussion.

We are talking about female commanders in Planetary Annihilation and if (/ how) they are implemented. Re-Read OP if you disagree.

Where exactly and in what way am I objectifying females? Do you even understand what that word means? All I am saying is that if we were to implement a female character we should apply this female character to a female looking commander.

In my opinion simply taking one of the clearly male looking commanders and just call him a her would be a disservice to the cause. It would be like saying that yes we identify some commanders as female but we cant show that visually in the game because maybe that alianates some of our audience.

I would agree with you if i would have said that every female commander needed to have huge breasts and their whole purpose is to bring pleasure to the male commanders, that they do not have any personality beyond wanting to do it all the time. I did not say that tho. I didnt even imply it.

Stop throwing around concepts of wich you clearly have no understanding.

Its being discussed because someone made a thread. People join that thread because they think an issue worth discussing is to be found there. That is why we are discussing here, and in every other thread on this forum for that matter.

You asked: The question which naturally remains would be Is a lack of representation discriminatory?
It is nonsense to ask this question about the videogame industry. Females are represented inside the industry.
The point is that they are represented as masturbatory material for the male gamer in either building up their ego because they can save the damsel in distress or on a much more physical level, in that they have huge breasts and are always in the mood.

There is no lack of representation in the industry there is a lack of thoughtful implementation.

And that is a good thing, why did you bring it up?

Hence me wanting to implement a female commander by thinking about the issue, writing a new story, modelling a new commander and not just changing some pronouns.

I brought in the token black guy because I felt it somewhat was related to the issues in this thread and to convey my thoughts on the issue regardless of what cultural background the reader might have - hence me explaining the concept of the "Quten-Schwarzer", a concept with parallels to issues wich (might) emerge / emerged in including females in videogames and an issue I thought every reader might be at least somewhat familiar with.

I do not understand why you keep bringing up racism in Germany though, regardless of how big an issue that may be and regardless of how that connects to the "Quoten-Schwarzer" issue, a discussion about that issue has no value in this thread.

When writing a writer will use language that feels most natural to "him". In the context of this game I think very few female writers would automatically go to the use of "She" instead of "He", and even fewer male writers would automatically go to it.

I am aware of this particular conundrum. When writing rules for my card and board games I was trying to figure out how to address this, since I wanted all players to be able to relate to my games. The solution I chose was to simply say "Player" instead of he, or she, or he/she. However that use is more difficult in the case of a narrative. In a narrative identifying with the characters is the most important aspect, and referring to a commander as "It" does not create a strong association between the player and the character. Since the commanders are warriors "He" is the most natural pronoun to use.

You're saying that to be female, they have to appear female, not necessarily have the character written so it is the personal and intellectual properties of a female that are being described. That is pretty much the definition of objectification. The commander does not have to look female, because as has been constantly repeated in this thread, gender is not equal to sexual appearance.

In other words, according to your incredibly narrow definition of gender, a person who is female is not someone who identifies as female, but someone who appears female. And that is no longer the case.

We are talking about the lack of female characters in the lore. Re-read the OP if you disagree.

The commanders for the most part, look like they are robots of no determinant sex. So yes, "robot must look female to be female" is objectification. By that same argument, fa'afafine must be male, because they appear male. And it's wrong, because they identify themselves as a third gender. For the fa'afafine appearance is not everything.

So while not necessarily objectification, it certainly does not display a progressive understanding of gender definitions, which is that it is the gender with which a person identifies, not the gender with which the appear, that matters.

A very literal way of looking at it, and not the why question I was asking, but you're not wrong.

Correct. Yet I'm not asking that question about the industry. I'm asking that question about this game, which forms part of that industry. There is no representation in this game at all. And there is also a lack of thoughtful implementation. Whereas the game has a very real opportunity to present a thoughtful implementation of a female character.

That's the reason I was talking about a lack of the existence of the token black guy.

Because in the vast majority of cases, it's a character who dies, according to the original script. It's a casting person who casts an actor to play a certain character. Then the actor makes the character his own.

It is a coincidence that the character who ends up dying was played by an actor of a certain minority, and it's only a certain colour of lens depicting a certain world view that ends up seeing that as being "the black guy always dies". It takes a certain culture to see the world in a certain light, to live in a world where you are constantly finding discrimination where there is none.

The supporting character always dies, because the hero cannot die, or else the movie would be a tragedy. There are an equal number of supporting characters whose actors are non-minority. The better question is "why does the minority actor not play the hero", and the answer is in the question. The reason why people never care when the majority actor supporting character dies is because he died, he was just a supporting character, big deal.

And why is the hero always of the majority? Check out the backlash that they got over the Hunger Games, with Rue, described as having brown skin in the books, being cast as an African-American actress.

You and I have wildly different definitions of what constitutes "very good science fiction"... or just fiction in general. The questions that I'm prompted to ask are ones of confusion, not of intrigue.

All of the commanders lack any intellectual, emotional or moral reasons to fight. It's not that they're not "identifiable" reasons, it's that reasons to identify with them just don't exist, period, unless of course you identify with the qualities: Maniac, Pointless and Complete waste of time.

The Commanders are soulless gas pumps. Goals without motivation... and essentially they all have the SAME goal and just fight each other because... just because; no reason, no rhyme.

Since they're self replicating machines a female 'mother of bots' leader sounds really cool.

No. I am saying that they SHOULD appear female not that they have to. I have staded again and again that I want a great implementation of a female commander, not a tacked on solution. Having a well written female character is vital to that. If all commanders suddenly decide to identify as female thats all fine by me. I am saying they should appear as female because then the solution would not feel like an afterthought.

You seem to be fine with just changing half of the commanders to a female character - problem solved. I however am not. Maybe it's just me but I think that all commanders at the moment show clear signs of being male, and no commander shows any sign of anything female at all. Just changing some pronouns will not solve the issue for me. It will always stand out as a tacked on solution, with very little representation of a female being.

You seem to think that having one solution excludes every other, wich is not the case. We can still have She-Bots identifying as male, He-Bots identifying as female or either identifying as none.

Just because OP states "just from a Lore standpoint" does not mean that we are only talking about character.

To me most of the commanders show signs of being male, or at least inherit a male archetype.Every single one of those with a background written for them identifies as male. There are some who cant be defined, but there are no commanders using a female archtype. To me that is an issue. All I want is a female looking commander with a female personality. That does not exclude a male looking commander with a female personality or vice versa. I do not understand how you can pull of the mental gymnastics to call that objectifying women at all.

I know that this goes against what I have said initially about female archetypes breaking the lore, but after giving the issue some thought I have come to the conclusion that it is possible to create a female looking commander who still falls into the selfreplicating mechanism of war category.

I do understand gender definitions. I do not understand how having a female looking character prevents any other version of the gender spectrum to be implemented.

Please tell me what you wanted to know instead. I thought you were asking why we were debating in a forum, wich is intendet to debate. Maybe your point just got lost in translation.

Yes you are. If you wanted to talk about PA you should have stated "But we're talking about PA. So we know the circumstance.". You didnt so I answered your question with the parameters you gave me.

I agree 100%.

The hero is not always of the majority. Just watch I robot or Blade. Neither does the hero have to live. He can make a sacrifice and the ending could still be considered good, like in 300 - Leonidas dies for the good of his people but I would not consider the movie a tragedy.

All that being said arguing about stereotypes in movies or them not existing, it still conveyed my thougts on the issue well because people are familiar with it. This was the ony reason it was included in my argument. Not to invalidate any actor and their skill. I do not think arguing further about movies will help bring the matter of female representation in video games any fresh thought so I would like to focus on the issues at hand.

You and I have wildly different ideas of what a good foundation means.

Irrespective of what your definitions are, and whether you agree with me or not, that definition is supportable with quotes by prominent science fiction authors and editors, as well as what has made up the core of science fiction for the greater part of the last century.

The thing that stands out about science fiction is the presentation of ideas within the narrative, the plot and characters are often secondary to that.

So I am fairly confident in an assertion that the most important part of science fiction is the ideas that the stories represent, not the literary techniques used, mainly because I can back those words up with quotes. It is only fairly recently that such methods as good characterisation etc. have actually become more popular.

Brief aside: I just rediscovered a favourite scifi quote from high school - "A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content"

Sorry, reunion with an old friend. Carrying on.

I am going to quote a paragraph of interest, written by Thomas M Disch.

Emphasis is my own.


The foundation that we have is a universe of possibilities, where one species (machinekind) are dominant. MK could be us, or may not be us. However, they aren't organic, but technological. So if they were a metaphor for us, that's a pretty well concealed metaphor.

I'm talking about a safe metaphor. The equivalent of The Importance of Being Ernest. Oscar Wilde satired his own society to the extent that his own society laughed at themselves, not realising they were the ones being made fun of. Of Lucas's Vietnam War, where the American War machine is brought to its knees by the Ewoks of the Vietnamese. Contentious statement I know, but George Lucas himself has been quoted as saying that, so sue me.

Do you understand what I mean about the characters being sufficiently alien now? In appearance, they are giant robots, and they are not human in origin, so ergo they must not be human.


And now we come to the writing. The actual written lore we have been given. Not just the fundamental concepts, which I think are good ideas, but the actual writing. And I agree, it is not good.


However, I disagree that the robots are all fighting for no reason. That is a myth that has gone around the forums based on previous games. I do think it is stupid that these robots are machines of war, when they equally could be machines used to build cities, and I think that was a very limited approach that Uber have taken - it's kind of like the questions the ships ask in the animated version of Apeggio of Blue Steel


To get back to the matter at hand, examining the fundamental concepts of the four factions.

We have four factions, an unknown number of commanders (and biologicals) who do not belong to these four factions, and the members of the four factions.

1) Roman Faction want to build an empire, in space. (Does that sound familiar?) Oh, and hatred against progenitors.

2)Religious Faction aren't actually sure where they come from, but think they have found the one true god, and are ensuring that everyone will exterminate the progenitors, when they return. And because it's the one true god of everything, everyone else should follow it too. (Does that sound familiar?)

(It should be noted here that there is some confusion within the lore as to actually what the progenitors are - faction 2 reveal says progenitors are biological, but the overall lore reveal suggests that there is evidence that the progenitors could be machines)

3) Evolutionary Faction believes in peacemaking, specifically in the extermination of biologicals. Especially progenitors. (Does that sound familiar? - faction believing in peacemaking except for the extermination of a certain group)

And 4) believes in technological advancement. Oh, plus they actually like the progenitors.


I agree that it is poorly written and conceptually ill defined, but it's pretty clear from that quick mash-up that 1, 2 and 3 should be reasonably allied with each other. (Religious faction hates progenitors, tells roman faction, roman faction agrees, both factions tell evolutionary faction, evolutionary faction thinks progenitors are organic and should be killed, everyone is happy, roman faction trys to enlist biologicals as buildpower, evolutionary faction has exterminated them all but makes peace rather than warfare). Leaving the only "infinite war" lead by faction 4, because they believe they are superior to all, and almost certain to clash with the religious faction over differing views about the progenitors.


Which leaves conflict as a matter of religion. Which while illogical, is a very human excuse for waging war. Especially logical if one worshipper of the god was going to kill the god, and the other ask it for wisdom.

Of course the tropes sound familiar... that's why we call them tropes. And you can back up what you're saying with quotes all you like; it's not going to magically make me agree that the dross that has been put before us is anything more than dull and trite. It shines no light on the human condition other than zealotry, and provide absolutely nothing by way of a "human solution" aided by the technology presented.

It's a bitter little diatribe that, if your conclusion holds true, simply states that zealotry is bad and leads to war.

Roman Robot #1 wants empire in space.

Why? What motivation does said Soulless gas pump have for building it?​

Religious Robot #2 believes in a God.

Why? What revelation has this Soulless gas pump undergone to make it have faith in the unprovable?​

Genocidal Maniac Robot #3 want to kill everything for the sake of "peace".

Why? Generally, genocidal maniacs that use an end to justify the means are the BAD GUYS, not someone that you traditionally agree, nor identify with. Unless this Soulless gas pump gives a bloody good reason for what it's doing, I'm not going to identify with its cause.​

Socially Inept Robot #4 thinks tech is great and stuff. Wants "perfection".

*sigh* WHY!?
What does he hope to gain? What does perfection mean to a Soulless gas pump? Why does it believe that it is fit to be judge, jury and executioner of anything it sees as "imperfect"?
​

Finally: Pointless War

WHY IS THERE A POINTLESS WAR?! What are the motivations of the various factions that leads to war? What are the Soulless gas pump's irreconcilable differences that necessitate a four-way royal rumble to the death?
​

We have a war being fought by 4 almost indistinguishable flavours of zealot that have no motivation to fight and only the vague notion of smug superiority over their opponents. We have four equally bland, equally pointless story agents with each being as equally unidentifiable with as the last.

Unless you identify with irrational zealotry, stupidity, genocide or murderous OCD, none of these Soulless gas pumps has anything worth listening to in terms of an ideology... and then you still have to make up your mind as to which stupid genocidal zealot you want to listen to. There's no variety, no central conflict, no commentary on the state of mankind and no moral, intellectual or emotional quandary that I, as a rational human, can identify with.

You hit the nail on the head with your last thought. Religion is being used in the lore of PA as an excuse to wage war. 'Scuse me while I stop caring about misanthropes that just want an excuse to fight and kill.

---
The "Lore", as it stands, is an insult to me as an emotional, intellectual and moral human being,
and furthermore is a waste of my time.​

Yep.

I kinda think that's the point though Nanolathe... These robots aren't rational, reasonable or in any way identifiable with. It isn't as far fetched as it sounds though- Hitler for example had an unreconcilable, unreasonable and frankly totally illogical hatred of anyone who wasn't white, blue eyed with blonde hair (ironically a description HE didn't fit?!). You could argue about the fact that unfair restrictions placed on Germany after WW1 allowed him to gain power- and you could to some extent empathise with the German people who saw him as a way to a better life for them, however the man himself is pretty psychotic.

So from that point of view the lore isn't that far off the mark. Do I like or believe in any of the commanders causes, well no... Still I think the lore and factions are only there to allow you to have a nice big fight with multiple opponents over a galaxy so I think they are fit for that purpose. I also think Uber have been quite shrewd in keeping allot of the back story hidden. It gives them allot of scope to flesh out the story and in future updates bring in new factions, back stories and context into how it all started which could change it completely.

The problem with a alien mind and reasoning, is that it doesn't appeal to us, humans.

Why as a player should I feel compelled or even interested in the factions, when they are either 2D in the extreme, or alien beyond what I can understand?

So what you're saying is that I need to read, understand and identify with " mein kampf " before any of these factions will appeal?

Count me as far " Out " as it is possible to be.