Deus Ex: Manking Divided - The Mechnical Apartheid - General

[QUOTE=spekter;50403133]You're easily exposed to the pro argument because society celebrates it at that time. The whole point is if you dig and listen there's plenty of counter-argument going on it's just suppressed.[/QUOTE] I think one of the more notable ones is that lady who has to essential get a mind reading chip sticked in her head so she can stay competitive with other real estate agents or whatever it is she does.

[QUOTE=Mingebox;50403284]I think one of the more notable ones is that lady who has to essential get a mind reading chip sticked in her head so she can stay competitive with other real estate agents or whatever it is she does.[/QUOTE] [sp]Same social enhancement Aug you can get as the player, basically. There's also direct references to people being forced into augmentation, either as "enhanced" sex slaves, or just to stay competitive in the market. DXHR is very "Pro-Aug" on the surface, but in side missions and in-world it clearly explores the downsides of augmentation.[/sp]

[QUOTE=glitchvid;50403356][sp]Same social enhancement Aug you can get as the player, basically. There's also direct references to people being forced into augmentation, either as "enhanced" sex slaves, or just to stay competitive in the market. DXHR is very "Pro-Aug" on the surface, but in side missions and in-world it clearly explores the downsides of augmentation.[/sp][/QUOTE] I still remember standing near one of the doors in Jensen's apartment building and hearing a couple having an argument wherein one was becoming put off by the other's augs only for the other to remind them it was their idea in the first place. IMO the game was really only super pro-augmentation if you never bothered to listen to ambient conversations or skipped a lot of dialog.

[QUOTE=elowin;50400229]Honestly I think this whole mechanical apartheid idea might have been a poor one. Not because it's controversial, but in a way because it's controversial. I'm just pretty damn sure it's going to end up being the most black and white thing ever. Apartheid = bad. You can argue that's just true, apartheid is just bad, but I think that'd make for a pretty uninteresting scenario. Especially for a game so fixated on choices. And even if they wanted to show their apartheid in at least a somewhat neutral light, they wouldn't risk the insane backlash that might bring.[/QUOTE] its basically the Israeli/Palestine conflict. A minority of augs are causing widespread panic in the human population, so the human population retaliates by treating almost every single aug as an terrorist and puts them into camps to be tortured and watched 24/7. both sides have innocents but both sides have minorities that are pulling the strings. So you have to choose whats the greater good.

[QUOTE=spekter;50403133]You're easily exposed to the pro argument because society celebrates it at that time. The whole point is if you dig and listen there's plenty of counter-argument going on it's just suppressed.[/QUOTE] That's not true, though. The anti-aug argument is not suppressed at all. Even suggesting that seems pretty silly considering [sp]it's literally backed by the illuminati.[/sp] Either way though, that wasn't what I was talking about. The people in the game on the anti-aug side are almost universally irrational fearmongerers. [sp]Purity First are straight up terrorists, Sandoval supports Purity First and helped with a kidnapping, Hugh Darrow is jealous of augmented people, Bill Taggert was involved with the attack on Sarif Industries, started a massively violent riot, and is also fucking Illuminati. And both the big terrible events in the game, the Detroit riot and aug incident, were directly caused by anti-aug sentiment.[/sp]

[QUOTE=elowin;50409219]That's not true, though. The anti-aug argument is not suppressed at all. Even suggesting that seems pretty silly considering [sp]it's literally backed by the illuminati.[/sp] Either way though, that wasn't what I was talking about. The people in the game on the anti-aug side are almost universally irrational fearmongerers. [sp]Purity First are straight up terrorists, Sandoval supports Purity First and helped with a kidnapping, Hugh Darrow is jealous of augmented people, Bill Taggert was involved with the attack on Sarif Industries, started a massively violent riot, and is also fucking Illuminati. And both the big terrible events in the game, the Detroit riot and aug incident, were directly caused by anti-aug sentiment.[/sp][/QUOTE] It all probably would have been a lot better if they had more successfully pushed the narrative that Jensen's augs were some sort of burden forcefully pushed on him. I mean, he looked more or less normal in the context of the narrative, it didn't really seem to negatively effect his quality of life, and frankly they were cool enough that it was hard to feel sorry for him. It would have been one thing if augs weren't widely accepted yet or if he was some sort of partially disfigured metal monstrosity like Gunther.

[QUOTE=Anderan;50409270]It all probably would have been a lot better if they had more successfully pushed the narrative that Jensen's augs were some sort of burden forcefully pushed on him. I mean, he looked more or less normal in the context of the narrative, it didn't really seem to negatively effect his quality of life, and frankly they were cool enough that it was hard to feel sorry for him. It would have been one thing if augs weren't widely accepted yet or if he was some sort of partially disfigured metal monstrosity like Gunther.[/QUOTE] Yeah that whole narrative was like, barely even a thing. It was always weird to me how normal augmented people looked in Human Revolution, when in the original Deus Ex everyone with pre-nano augs (and even a few with them) looked like horrendous abominations.

Hell, they at least could have had him dealing with need for neuropozyne instead of "lol nah your body perfectly accepts the augs with minimal rejection symptoms", the whole [sp]he's possibly been genetically modified as a child to be able to naturally accept augs or something[/sp] was kinda stupid. I know it's Deus Ex and we need some conspiracy shit going on but really now.

[QUOTE=elowin;50409219]That's not true, though. The anti-aug argument is not suppressed at all. Even suggesting that seems pretty silly considering [sp]it's literally backed by the illuminati.[/sp] Either way though, that wasn't what I was talking about. The people in the game on the anti-aug side are almost universally irrational fearmongerers. [sp]Purity First are straight up terrorists, Sandoval supports Purity First and helped with a kidnapping, Hugh Darrow is jealous of augmented people, Bill Taggert was involved with the attack on Sarif Industries, started a massively violent riot, and is also fucking Illuminati. And both the big terrible events in the game, the Detroit riot and aug incident, were directly caused by anti-aug sentiment.[/sp][/QUOTE] So what about how the game portrays augs being used with sex slavery? Or the fact soldiers require augs to even stand a chance and as with Talion AD end up losing the chance of a normal life once they're fully weaponized? Or the mission involving a woman who either had to become augmented and thus indebted to the Triads or lose her job? People not being able to afford nupoz and thus turn to illegal suppliers, and the supplier himself putting himself in a risky position just to support those people. Tim Carella having to shoot a teenager just because he's augmented thus automatically classified as a larger threat. The list goes on. All of which are side quests (sans Carella depending on choice) you need to pursue personally to find out. Purity First and Humanity Front being puppets hardly helps classify them as genuine argument pieces. [editline]28th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=elowin;50409349]Yeah that whole narrative was like, barely even a thing. It was always weird to me how normal augmented people looked in Human Revolution, when in the original Deus Ex everyone with pre-nano augs (and even a few with them) looked like horrendous abominations.[/QUOTE] The great collapse + apartheid = very few heavily augmented people left. It's stated most military augmentations don't need the consideration of blending in when being made/applied. Jensen is a one-off specifically because of infiltration purposes.

infact, you see the choices in the reveal trailer. Jensen rescues an aug civilian that was being abused by the police, only for the same said aug to join the aug terrorist group and commit a bombing. both sides are technically evil.

[QUOTE=Anderan;50409390]Hell, they at least could have had him dealing with need for neuropozyne instead of "lol nah your body perfectly accepts the augs with minimal rejection symptoms", the whole [sp]he's possibly been genetically modified as a child to be able to naturally accept augs or something[/sp] was kinda stupid. I know it's Deus Ex and we need some conspiracy shit going on but really now.[/QUOTE] It might've just been done to draw more parallels between Adam and the Denton brothers.

everyone's a douchebag it's up to jensen to find the side that's slightly less douchebag and hope they aren't secretly in enough conspiracies to actually be the bigger douchebag

God damn, those czech posters are so bad. I mean they're grammatically correct. But no one would ever hang up BEZ OTALENI or something similar. [QUOTE=Anderan;50409390]Hell, they at least could have had him dealing with need for neuropozyne instead of "lol nah your body perfectly accepts the augs with minimal rejection symptoms", the whole [sp]he's possibly been genetically modified as a child to be able to naturally accept augs or something[/sp] was kinda stupid. I know it's Deus Ex and we need some conspiracy shit going on but really now.[/QUOTE] It's intentional to tie him into the Jensen triplets backstory. His genetics are important to the illuminati. Plus similar to the Jensens he's the first of a kind.

[QUOTE=spekter;50409406]So what about how the game portrays augs being used with sex slavery? Or the fact soldiers require augs to even stand a chance and as with Talion AD end up losing the chance of a normal life once they're fully weaponized? Or the mission involving a woman who either had to become augmented and thus indebted to the Triads or lose her job? People not being able to afford nupoz and thus turn to illegal suppliers, and the supplier himself putting himself in a risky position just to support those people. Tim Carella having to shoot a teenager just because he's augmented thus automatically classified as a larger threat. The list goes on. All of which are side quests (sans Carella depending on choice) you need to pursue personally to find out. Purity First and Humanity Front being puppets hardly helps classify them as genuine argument pieces.[/QUOTE] You keep bringing up that these things are in side quests, as if you're assuming I didn't do any of them. Like it's some kind of "hidden information" or something. It's not like any of them are even remotely difficult to find, every single side quest is either triggered automatically or right in your path. Either way, I don't really think any of your examples are even relevant to anything I've been talking about?

[QUOTE=elowin;50410072]You keep bringing up that these things are in side quests, as if you're assuming I didn't do any of them. Like it's some kind of "hidden information" or something. It's not like any of them are even remotely difficult to find, every single side quest is either triggered automatically or right in your path. Either way, I don't really think any of your examples are even relevant to anything I've been talking about?[/QUOTE] They all show the cons of augmentation yet you're making it out like the only things showing the anti-side are these "irrational fear mongers" that are immediately within view of the main storyline. The discussion of the theme is not limited to factions and even within those factions there are multiple narratives which clearly show the factions aren't flat-out good/bad.

[QUOTE=spekter;50410175]They all show the cons of augmentation yet you're making it out like the only things showing the anti-side are these "irrational fear mongers" that are immediately within view of the main storyline. The discussion of the theme is not limited to factions and even within those factions there are multiple narratives which clearly show the factions aren't flat-out good/bad.[/QUOTE] I don't see how it has anything to do with apartheid? [editline]28th May 2016[/editline] It really is limited to the factions, though? The factions are your choices. You can't choose anything but the factions (or killing everyone for shiggles) [sp]Sarif isn't flat out good or bad. He's a pathological liar but he genuinely wants to help people through augmentations. Both Taggert and Darrow are flat out bad. Darrow is a mass murderer, whose primary motivation is jealousy. Taggert is horrible all around, and also the Illuminati.[/sp]

[QUOTE=elowin;50410204]I don't see how it has anything to do with apartheid? [editline]28th May 2016[/editline] It really is limited to the factions, though? The factions are your choices. You can't choose anything but the factions (or killing everyone for shiggles) [sp]Sarif isn't flat out good or bad. He's a pathological liar but he genuinely wants to help people through augmentations. Both Taggert and Darrow are flat out bad. Darrow is a mass murderer, whose primary motivation is jealousy. Taggert is horrible all around, and also the Illuminati.[/sp][/QUOTE] You literally tried making the point Mankind Divided will be biased because you think Human Revolution was biased towards Sarif and pro-augmentation, when that's literally not the case. The choices you make are based on what you think is right for the world which are influenced by everything you see in the game not just what those few survivors at Panchea say. Infact the endings themselves aren't very clean cut to begin with. If you think Taggart and Darrow's endings/viewpoints are bad that's your personal opinion but you can't say they've put heavy bias for Sarif and pro-aug views when there's plenty of material in the game to explain all sides of the situation.

[QUOTE=spekter;50397635]CP2077 isn't remotely about that. It's an entire city steeped in multiple stories and various issues. The trailer they put out was literally just a "we're making a game" marketing gimmick. Not remotely linked to the main story just one small scenario in the grander scheme of things. The point of CP2077 is Cyberpunk as a whole not just one political avenue. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjHrGxSVVVA[/media][/QUOTE] To be fair, cyberpsychosis is a big thing in CP. Although I doubt it'll be the main plot point.

[QUOTE=wraithcat;50409720]It's intentional to tie him into the Jensen triplets backstory. His genetics are important to the illuminati. Plus similar to the Jensens he's the first of a kind.[/QUOTE] I'm aware, I just didn't really like it.

I'm so excited Michael McCann is back for the score, it sounds so good.

[QUOTE=spekter;50410330]You literally tried making the point Mankind Divided will be biased because you think Human Revolution was biased towards Sarif and pro-augmentation, when that's literally not the case. The choices you make are based on what you think is right for the world which are influenced by everything you see in the game not just what those few survivors at Panchea say. Infact the endings themselves aren't very clean cut to begin with. If you think Taggart and Darrow's endings/viewpoints are bad that's your personal opinion but you can't say they've put heavy bias for Sarif and pro-aug views when there's plenty of material in the game to explain all sides of the situation.[/QUOTE] Well, I disagree. For starters I don't think most of the examples you brought up earlier have any connection whatsoever to restricting augmentations. The only one that I think could be seen as a legitimate argument for regulation would be the neuropozyne issue. And one of the main plot points of the game actively removes that issue. Secondly, in the end you have to choose one of the factions (or none), and no matter whether you agree augmentations should be regulated or not, the faction that supports the regulation is just about objectively evil. Supporting the faction is a bad choice, even if you agree with them on this one issue. [editline]29th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Anderan;50410648]I'm aware, I just didn't really like it.[/QUOTE] I understand the need to make the protagonist somewhat unique, otherwise there's little reason for him to be overpowering the utterly impossible odds that the game throws at him. And from a gameplay perspective, I can also see how a neuropozyne addiction mechanic would most likely just end up being annoying. But when they wanted to push Jensen's whole "I never asked for this" angle, it just seems silly to deliberately cut out the greatest negative to cybernetic enhancement in the setting from him.

[QUOTE=elowin;50416046]I understand the need to make the protagonist somewhat unique, otherwise there's little reason for him to be overpowering the utterly impossible odds that the game throws at him. And from a gameplay perspective, I can also see how a neuropozyne addiction mechanic would most likely just end up being annoying. But when they wanted to push Jensen's whole "I never asked for this" angle, it just seems silly to deliberately cut out the greatest negative to cybernetic enhancement in the setting from him.[/QUOTE] Oh I wasn't saying make it into a mechanic, just make it part of the story or something. I fucking hated the medication mechanic in Far Cry 2 and that's basically what it would have been more of if it had been a gameplay mechanic.

[QUOTE=Anderan;50416256]Oh I wasn't saying make it into a mechanic, just make it part of the story or something. I fucking hated the medication mechanic in Far Cry 2 and that's basically what it would have been more of if it had been a gameplay mechanic.[/QUOTE] Personally, I think that was one of the few things I liked about FarCry 2. It gave me an actual, substantial reason to do quests, that wasn't either "Because the story wants you to" or "To lift completely arbitrary restrictions on the weapons you can get." The only thing I would have liked about that particular mechanic in FarCry 2 is if it allowed me to do the medicine quests at any time, and stockpile the medicine.

[QUOTE=Fr3ddi3;50402271]Remember national millitaries no longer really exist in the deus ex world, as such people who want to protect and serve in a millitary capacity would have to join PMC's such as Belltower.[/QUOTE] Well, the Canadian Military still exists at least, that General touring the Sarif Industries test area in the opening walk and talk for Human Revolution was Canadian.

[QUOTE=elowin;50416046]But when they wanted to push Jensen's whole "I never asked for this" angle, it just seems silly to deliberately cut out the greatest negative to cybernetic enhancement in the setting from him.[/QUOTE] I don't think they wanted to do that, though. The "I never asked for this" angle, despite being in the advertisements for the game, is actually a choice you make in HR. You can very well go the other way and say you love being augmented.

Honestly, with Mankind Divided choosing its own solution, it's not like a 'choice' matters from HR now besides exerting the player's own opinions. And no matter what we do in MD, the original Deus Ex is still on-track as augmentations will be mostly cycled out or suppressed while nanoaugs become a valuable yet isolated asset for the conspiracies. That's the problem with video game prequels, at least for me. When you know everything's just going to get worse in the future, you know your protagonist can only either have a small, isolated victory, or they'll lose everything horribly and potentially die to fade into obscurity. Whether Mankind Divided will do more deliberate setting up for the original Deus Ex is another debate altogether.

[QUOTE=Tuskin;50417788]Well, the Canadian Military still exists at least, that General touring the Sarif Industries test area in the opening walk and talk for Human Revolution was Canadian.[/QUOTE] The worlds nations do still have their own millitaries, even by the time of Deus Ex the US still has an army and marines. But in HR specifically they have all been severly underfunded and downsized to the point that PMC's have moved in and all but taken over around the world, the australlian civil war for example, 1/3rd of the people fighting it on both sides are PMC's. My guess would be that national millitaries exist in the deus ex verse in a national guard capacity rather than force projection across the globe.

I would assume that in the Deus Ex world it's because far too expensive to realistically maintain a large standing army so it's just easier to pay a PMC to fight when you need them. Since it's Deus Ex there's enough conflict going on that they always have business.

[QUOTE=Fr3ddi3;50418031]The worlds nations do still have their own millitaries, even by the time of Deus Ex the US still has an army and marines. But in HR specifically they have all been severly underfunded and downsized to the point that PMC's have moved in and all but taken over around the world, the australlian civil war for example, 1/3rd of the people fighting it on both sides are PMC's. My guess would be that national millitaries exist in the deus ex verse in a national guard capacity rather than force projection across the globe.[/QUOTE] I just have missed that. Thanks.

[QUOTE=elowin;50416046] But when they wanted to push Jensen's whole "I never asked for this" angle, it just seems silly to deliberately cut out the greatest negative to cybernetic enhancement in the setting from him.[/QUOTE] I think it's cause they wanted to focus more on Jensen's mental and emotional side effects rather than physical ones. One of taggart's first lines was "the body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient"