Lore
[Authoritarian Trope] Casually being questioned/threatened by an imposing authority figure out of nowhere
One way to really set the oppressive atmosphere of a setting is by having our characters get randomly questioned or interrogated by a soldier/cop out of nowhere, often for very minor reasons
"Pick up that can." (Half-Life 2)
When Gordon first arrives to City 17, a Combine Civil Protection officer he's passing by suddenly drops a soda can in front of him and orders him to pick it up. If you comply here and throw the can in the bin he'll amusedly let you pass, but if you don't then he'll proceed to whip out his stunstick and attack you on the spot
"I'm just a tourist." (Andor)
In the episode "Announcement" of Season 1, a random shoretrooper on Niamos questions and threatens Cassian (using the fake alias "Keef Girgo") for nervously looking around too much while they're conducting a crackdown. The trooper asks if he's "a part of it" to which Cassian repeatedly protests that he isn't and that he's just a perfectly normal tourist; he's then violently arrested by him anyway and sentenced to hard labor in Narkina 5 without a fair trial
"Now, you. Show me your identification papers, please." (Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus)
A Nazi commandant randomly sits down at Papa Joe's Diner, orders a strawberry milkshake for himself and then very casually asks Blazkowicz to show his ID papers to him. Here you can show him your fake IDs (where you use the alias "John Smith") which seems to fool the commandant for a bit before he looks at a wanted poster on the wall and immediately recognizes your true identity, frantically pulling out his pistol before being shot by the diner's owner
First he compliments the milkshake, saying it's a great American invention. He says something about liking the owner a lot for it too. Then he says despite that, he thinks it should be more German. He also interrogates BJ on the fire station he's based out of, based on his firefighter disguise. It's not subtle but it has this revolting veneer of politeness
Wolfenstein has lots of these intense moments. Iirc there is a train scene where you talk with the main villain frau engel, same kinda vibe and fits the trope too
If i remember correctly she has you do a psychological test choosing pictures. But it actually doesnt matter what you pick. She thinks BJ is a pure aryan regardless, because he looks the part. The test conforms to her prejudices not the other way around. Another illustration of the petty nature of facist power
It might be history-fiction, but you can tell that some level of investigative work had been put into the design of the game.
A more subtle yet equally relevant thing is how all the Da'at Yichud supertechnology is downgraded for the mere fact of not being "German" enough. In-game the nazis altered technology able to pull stuff out of its arse like bloody Doraemon's purse just because they held the belief that only them could perfect those items, putting their egos way before scientific advancement, much like in real life
what sells it is sharpe’s calm “on what charge, m’lord?” he’s asking for a rule that doesn’t exist, and the answer shows that none do. the scary part is how casually it’s delivered, like he’s reading a menu
That Resort World into prison arc was so important for the Start Wars lore universe as a whole.
It shows how you can never be free living under an authoritarian government. Without simple concepts as right to legal representation, defense and habeas corpus... the state can and will arrest random people for random reasons at will.
You don't get it. It is meant to show lack of justice in tyrannical systems, and also how dumb fascist regimes sometimes can be. They've got the right guy, all that ISB effort was for nothing, and yet they couldn't capitalize on it.
The thing is, in the end they didn't fail BECAUSE they imprisoned him. They failed because Andor's so dangerous he essentially solo overthrew a max security prison.
Like, if he didn't regardless of who caught em, he dies down there. Their goal is achieved. That actually speaks to a grim efficiency in any situation where the guards are not comically inept and basic two-step security is in place.
That's the irony to me.
If he wasn't the hero here, the empire woulda just won by pure accident. Because it's not like the ISB would catch him regardless.
Kinda undermines it a bit and retroactively justifies their actions in a fucked up kind of way that is entirely immoral.
Because their oppressive net of law WORKED ENTIRELY here. Cassion just rambo'd right through it anyhow.
Plus, they never even knew he was a wanted man. Andor’s arrest helped keep him hidden from the ISB in later episodes. Not only are mass arrests inefficient, but counter-productive.
Lol, no the Nazis did not "caught a lot of bad people" not in relation. They however "cought" a lot of democrats, homosexuals, Sinti and Roma and people they generaly did not agree with. They also oppressed some criminals in a way that they simply did not allowed them to be free after their sentences, which is also not catching bad people in my book.
That's part of the irony. The reason ISB can't find and interrogate the rebel Cassian Andor, is because their own "Justice" system jailed for something he didn't do
But the question that makes it so ethereal is:
Would he have been jailed if he wasn't.
The actions of the empire are generally indefensible. Frankly the empire is cartoonishly evil (but so are many current leaders in reality, so who knows, maybe spot on)
Because there's an argument to be made that he probably wouldn't have been jailed if he WASN'T on the run since he was very visibly sketchy and nervous.
So... if the rebel Cassion Andor didn't exist, the civillian Cassion Andor would (!)probably(!) have walked by just fine.
I realize it's goofy. But also an ironic thought.
Not so goofy for anyone who is just nervous because there's an oppressive regime.
(I am also aware that many would be reasonably nervous when there's a rebel attack/police operation, I know the empire is a villain. It was just musing)
Well... a lot more than rebels will be afraid of the empire, if the line for 'enslaving someone to death' is looking afraid of the cops, you're not going to be mostly hitting terrorists. Especially cause that sounds terrifying to literally anyone.
Andor had to be pulled back in for the story to continue, and I like the fact that it wasnt an elite imperial crack team that traced him down, it was a random spot check without due process that starts the rube goldberg machine to blow up the death star and end the empire as a whole. If that shoretrooper had just been chill, Cassian disappears in obscurity and the rogue one raid fails, leading to god knows what
While also casually showing off their tech. This was a big deal for the time, full physics on any loose object in the world like a random can in the bin an NPC can knock over, and you can pick up, carry, and put back in the bin/donk off his head.
I replayed hl2 this year and sadly it's still impresive. Not a lot of games have player interacting with physics this naturally. Lil seesaw that you need to raise using barrels floating in water feels so good, it feels like lost tech sometimes.
It's because loosening constraints on makes game dev way harder. Valve programmed for every possible thing you could do with the can, accounting for it possibly getting lost or stuck somewhere inaccessible, etc.
So most "true" physics are either for cosmetic reasons or kept to sandbox games that are open-ended by design. Cases where if something breaks or something unexpected happens, it doesn't interrupt the player's experience too much.
Not a lot of games have player interacting with physics this naturally.
On the contrary, it's so natural for games to have object physics that we don't even notice it anymore. It's just that the vast majority of games don't have you directly picking up the objects as a dedicated mechanic.
In other words, it's so commonplace that it's a background feature rather than something games every bother drawing focus to.
It’s why we haven’t had a 3rd game (ignoring Alyx). We haven’t had that same wow factor in terms of progression. They don’t want it to be the same as previous. As soon as we hit the next paradigm shift with gaming tech/physics engines/idek or can fathom what it could be, i can guarantee the next half life game will follow suit (or probably even be the game that paves the way. Knowing valve they’ll be the ones to invent portal tech and incorporate it into portal 3 lmao)
Old valve and Bethesda games will always be great simply due to the fact the physics engine ensures you never feel ignored as a player and are always able to interact with the world.
Oddly enough, I think that metrocop was trying to let Gordon off easy. If you do as he says, he reports something in. I can never quite make it out, but it's something like "Reporting citizen conscripted for general service detail."
In Half-Life Alyx, you see what can happen to people who are conscripted for clean up work, in the form of various corpses strewn about the quarantine zone.
So I suspect he was supposed to grab someone off the street and drag them off to do some kind of forced labour, possibly lethally dangerous. Instead he just made you pick up a single piece of litter so he could report it in and call it a day.
what if he was fighting the resistance and got killed by me with a crossbow to the leg, pinning him to a wall to slowly bleed out despite having saved Gordon's life earlier?
Starts with you about to be executed by imperials. They realize you aren’t on the list and they have no orders to execute you. They send you to the block anyway
my conspiracy theory is that they made the intro with the imperial as hateable as possible and the stormcloack as fellow victims because they knew that if players where presented with the civil wars faction from a neutral standpoint, no one would join the stormcloaks unless roleplaying as a racist prick.
Rather, it’s because the average Skyrim player back in 2011 had likely also played Oblivion back in 2006—and in Oblivion, the Empire is presented, for the most part, in a positive light, with your protagonist literally helping the Emperor to save the world from an evil god who resembles the devil; you're average player was most likely going to have a big pro-Empire bias from the start, which would influence heavily their decision making to be pro-Empire, which isn't good if you want a grey dilemma.
Therefore, showing the most merciless side of the Empire, like their brutal crackdowns during the Stormcloak rebellion, was a good way to basically tell the players "look my pal, Oblivion was in Cyrodiil, the core, where the Empire is nicer; here they are a bureaucratic force ruthlessly destroying an independence movement in Skyrim, so have this into account when choosing a side in the civil war."
Wouldn't be surprised. Just look at how both sides respective capitals are introduced. In Solitude you watch the execution of the man who let Ulfric escape; even if you don't agree you can at least see where they're coming from. First time you walk into Windhelm you get a couple of guys accusing a woman of being a spy for no reason other than her race, and then threatening to break into her house in the middle of the night.
Well yeah, that isn't even really a conspiracy theory. If only 1 side has glaring flaws nobody in their right mind is going to side with them unless they're doing an evil playthrough
I would join the stormcloaks unironically because they are native to the land and can be reformed. Imperials are Thalmor bootlickers and Thalmor are basically super nazis
I didn't feel like they dropped the plot, I feel like her being missing was part of the plot. He was initially motivated to go look for her for personal reasons, and by the end he had set that aside for the rebellion.
It felt to me like it served as him learning to work for something greater than himself, and to sacrifice his wants for the greater good - a line that would ultimately reach the end at Scarif.
The Trial by Franz Kafka: tells the story of Josef K., a bank official randomly arrested and prosecuted one day by agents of an inaccessible authority, with the nature of the crime of which he is accused revealed neither to him nor to the reader.
It goes either way. If you let it continue, Super Spesh shoots him. It’s actually a hidden feature if you hit the melee button to smash him with the Fire Extinguisher Nuke
They’ll randomly shout abuse and shove you out of the way, if you watch they will also do it to random NPCs, ranging from random searches to summary executions, especially if the civvie in question tries to defend themselves.
“Show me your ID.”
No!
“On your fucking knees you Martian piece of shit!”
Hans Landa casually visiting a random French farmer in the beginning of Inglorious Basterds as part of a routine inspection, and then suddenly asking if he is hiding people.
I feel like the trope is supposed to be arbitrary petty shows of entirely random violent authority. The guard in half life just knocks over the can to have the petty power to make you pick it up. The guard arrests Julian on nothing more than a hunch and boredom.
The implication in the Inglorious Basterds scene is Landa already knew the farmer was hiding the Jewish family. The whole thing of talking to him about rats and milk is just ruse to back said farmer into a corner so he doesn’t resist.
Yeah, Landa had a pre-arranged plan with his men outside on how to handle things, and all he had to do when they came in was point at where he wanted them to shoot.
The only petty thing he did (besides the overall 'being a nazi' business) was letting Shoshanna get away because it amused him in the moment.
The funny part for Andor is that it is after Cassian’s team had robbed an imperial treasury reserve where they stored imperial paychecks. Now Cassian is just lying low with his alias. When Cassian gets arrested, he wasn’t recognized for the dude that robbed a treasury. He just looked suspicious, and then treated like a criminal. This showed the oppressive nature of the empire, you could have robbed a bank or even just had a regular Tuesday. Either case you are guilty as hell if you are nervous. This is scary.
Due to the robbery and some other factors (like a certain space station) they heavily increased the penalties before his arrest. Which leads to him getting 6 years labour camp instead of 6 months for his charges. At this point they were looking for any excuses to get free labour for Palpatines side project.
"Pick up that can" is such an effective moment, doubling down as both a plot demonstration of the grim world you are going to immerse yourself in, as well as being a technical demo for the object physics being so advanced at the time.
Adam Jensen can refuse to take the prosthetically segregated trains and despite not having much more authority than asking for ID, the police will 100% take advantage of that power and waste 15 seconds of your time.
I only found out that there even were segregated carts by the end of the game. Couldn't understand why people in loading cutscene constantly freak out.
True in legal sense, in practical sense you need to pray the local DA/US Attorney in relevant district feels they can win it. Because if they feel like there is not enough evidence for a good enough chance to sucessfuly prosecute they WILL kick it. Absolutely no one wants a prosecutorial loss against government on their tally and/or they also realise they get one shot at it and if they muck it, anyone wants to try again (assuming they even clear double jeopardy), they are gonna fight even more uphill battle.
ICE is deporting significantly less people than Obama or Biden so this makes little sense. Seems like they're less active now if anything. What ICE does (detain and deport illegal entrees into the country) is not controversial in any other country in the world except maybe Canada/UK/Ireland.
Detained, yes, absolutely. AFAIK no adults or unaccompanied minor citizens have been deported; the news tends to lump in “citizen child take by a deported relative” as “deported.” It’s a massive shitshow though so I’m sure it’ll happen eventually (or be revealed to have happened).
Being poor or a minority gets you harassed by the cops regardless of deportation though. My family members have been bothered on the street, and we’re whiter than Mitch McConnell - we just grew up poor.
In 1000xResist, you are stopped and questioned by an armed Red Guard while trying to go to your objective. Later, after some of them executed an NPC the player knew for 5-6 hours, you are promoted to the job of the victim
After promising to get revenge and changing areas, the leader of the Red Guards is waiting around a corner and orders you to stop, come here and answer some questions. It really drives home how powerless you are because even if you pick rude dialogue options and try to talk back, your character censors/filters herself and acts submissive and stays polite and cooperative
It really just feels like an authority check to make sure you know your place. You are allowed to go up but you don't belong there. And they never stop reminding you
When my dad was a college freshman he got pulled over by police and was told “you don’t look like you go to school hear” while literally wearing a hoodie with the school’s logo on it. Then when I was in high school (around 2019) a guy in my class got pulled over on his way to school because he was “driving too slow in a residential neighborhood.” And yes both my dad and classmate are black…
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u/Far_Reindeer_783 4h ago
The wolfenstein scene is fucking genius.
First he compliments the milkshake, saying it's a great American invention. He says something about liking the owner a lot for it too. Then he says despite that, he thinks it should be more German. He also interrogates BJ on the fire station he's based out of, based on his firefighter disguise. It's not subtle but it has this revolting veneer of politeness