United We Stand - Political WIP

Sorry, apparently I wasn’t clear with my last post. I wasn’t implying that censoring/banning non-socialist parties would be okay, or that it wouldn’t fly in the face of the concept of democracy and freedom. I merely meant to say that they would maintain a form of democracy for those that “color inside the lines” and don’t challenge the overarching assumptions the government operates under.

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Exactly as all communist and fascist dictatorship everywhere. My politics teacher in uni had a joke “Best way to know a country was or is a dictatorship is looking if the have democracy or freedom in their name” So yeah you could fake being a democracy all you want that doesn’t make it true Even Stalin made a PARLIAMENT and Franco…
So still my point neither Solidarity or NO are democrats. Like most parties in 30s

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I’ll be honest I with the removal of the New order path I most likely will not be continuing to play this since that was my preferred path and the fact I just never enjoyed the solidarity path but other wise I hope you have a good time finishing this.

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I throught about this and perhaps it would be best to not cut NO path just yet but instead first talk with historian or somebody and try to find a way that Implements NO path without the NO path being pro fascist, i think there can be way to implement NO path while making it clear that you are against fascism and Expert could help with that.

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Yeah i am with you on this i really liked that path it felt so fresh in my opinion i always love to see things from a different angel.

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While removing the N.O. path seems to generally be seen as a bad thing, if there’s one silver lining to it, its that’s Alex has less he has to develop, meaning we can get the game sooner!

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Don’t think it’s worth though

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New Order path is a quintessential part of the game. While you are playing as NO, you have this both horrifying and awe-inspiring feeling of watching some great catastrophe unfolding. You know future has something terrible for these people in store: war, repressions, suffering, death. Disillusion and dissapoinment in their ideology. There is no happy ending here. But it is exactly what makes their storyline so powerful and moving. These sympathetic and relatable characters don’t know things as we do, they didn’t learn the lessons we learned today. They are making horrible mistake and they will have to pay for it inevitably. But this is how it’s happened historically, and there is much we can learn and much we should remember about this.

Divided We Fall was amazing game about these subjects, but I think United We Stand is exploring them on a whole new level. This should continue.

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Most people want to see the other side for example in the Killzone series a lot of people want to play as the Helghast and for Cod or other ww2 games I would love to play a German campaign thing is the game publishers try to go the safe route so yes I would love it if you kept the N.O in the game because they’re the side I’d like to play because I don’t connect Solditary political wise and to me they are some what boring but like I said before regardless of your decision I hope you make an amazing game and good luck.

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I meant it as a joke, and as a way to break the ceasing of comments that had occurred.

i mean neither is it worth it to be harassed because some people will consider depiction to be endorsement, Honestly NO will only be in game if Alex trusts people to be adults, thinking for themselves with reasoning skills. Humanity has way to dissapoint.

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I find it an interesting juxtaposition that “United We Stand” is so divisive and that whole parts of the story line might come falling down while “Divided We Fall” seemed to have a pretty solid development process and was without controversy.

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@AlexClifford1994
If you don’t feel comfortable with writing the NO path, don’t do it.
Maybe you could instead implement a conservative path? But that would be too much work I guess…

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Oh sorry about that then :sweat_smile:

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@Inthelittlesips

I Dont know why either.

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@AlexClifford1994

i just found excelent post on Spacebattles Which i think is decent argument On why Fascism is not necesarily racist, despite racism often being side effect. What follows below is the copy of the post

A few excerpts:

(…)
Fascism’s core elements
Fascism requires some basic allegiances, such as to the nation, to national grandeur, and to a master race or group. The core principle — what Paxton defined as fascism’s only definition of morality — is to make the nation stronger, more powerful, larger and more successful. Since fascists see national strength as the only thing that makes a nation “good,” fascists will use any means necessary to achieve that goal.

As a result, fascists aim to use the country’s assets to increase the country’s strength. This leads to a nationalization of assets, Montague said, and in this, fascism resembles Marxism. [What Are the Different Types of Governments?]

(…)

According to Paxton, these regimes excel at propaganda and make use of grand gestures, such as parades and leaders’ dramatic entrances. Fascists scapegoat and demonize other groups, though those groups differ by country and time. That is why the German Nazi regime demonized Jews and others, while Mussolini’s Italian regime demonized Bolsheviks. (Mussolini worked regularly with Jews, and his mistress and biographer was Jewish. Because of his alliance with Hitler, he did eventually incorporate anti-Semitic components into his regime, but overall he differed from Hitler on the subject of biological racism.)

Paxton, author of several books, including “The Anatomy of Fascism” (Vintage, 2005), said fascism is based more on feelings than philosophical ideas. In his 1988 essay “The Five Stages of Fascism,” published in 1998 in the Journal of Modern History, he defined seven feelings that act as “mobilizing passions” for fascist regimes. They are:

  1. The primacy of the group. Supporting the group feels more important than maintaining either individual or universal rights.
  2. Believing that one’s group is a victim. This justifies any behavior against the group’s enemies.
  3. The belief that individualism and liberalism enable dangerous decadence and have a negative effect on the group.
  4. A strong sense of community or brotherhood. This brotherhood’s “unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary.”
  5. Individual self-esteem is tied up in the grandeur of the group. Paxton called this an “enhanced sense of identity and belonging.”
  6. Extreme support of a “natural” leader, who is always male. This results in one man taking on the role of national savior.
  7. “The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success in a Darwinian struggle,” Paxton wrote. The idea of a naturally superior group or, especially in Hitler’s case, biological racism, fits into a fascist interpretation of Darwinism.

(…)




*​

Mandemon said:

And like I said: racism existed, but it was not part of the doctrine. Mussolini state never held official racist view of one race being superior to others, and Mussolinis own views went from one end to other. He both spoke about death of white race but also denied race theory.

Mandemon said:

Ones that predate Hitler’s rise to power and alliance with him? Because Hitler had bad habit of pushing his insanity to others.

Mandemon said:

There is difference between “illegal because it is considered bad” and hatred. Nazis hated Jews and anyone who wasn’t part of the “Aryan race”. Mussolini “merely” considered them deviants.

Prior to 1938

Until the alliance with Germany, Mussolini did not originally have real prejudices against the Jews, neither before his accession to power, nor after it because he collaborated in magazines directed by Jews, had friends and Jewish collaborators, and had a love affair with a well-known Jewish intellectual in the Socialist Party, Margherita Sarfatti, for about 20 years, and he never made a statement in favor of the theses of the anti-Semite Preziosi for whom he had no sympathy. (source: Pierre Milza (author), Mussolini , published by Fayard editions in 2007, page 750.)

There are some Jewish personalities among the first funders of fascism, such as the commendatore Elio Jona, the banker Giuseppe Toeplitz, a number of great landowners in the Ferrara region who supported Balbo squadristi squads. There are at least five Jews among the “sansepolcrists” of March 23, 1919, and at least three Jews in the official martyrology of the “fascist revolution”; in addition, 230 Jews received the certificate attesting to their participation in the march on Rome, and by the end of 1922, 750 had their party membership cards. (source: Pierre Milza, Mussolini , published (in French) by Fayard editions, 2007, page 751.)

Between 1927 and 1932, good relations were established between Mussolini and the leading personalities of Italian Judaism and a rapprochement between the fascist government and the Zionist circles took place: Chaim Weizmann was first received by Mussolini in 1926 and noted that the dictator was not hostile to Zionism. From 1928, there was a strong current of adherence to fascism by many Italian Jews: 5,000 memberships between October 1928 and October 1933, almost 10% of the Italian Jewish population. (source: idem , p. 751).

In 1934, Mussolini receives Chaim Weizmann a second time: they spoke about a rapprochement with France and Great Britain, Mussolini declares that Jerusalem cannot be an Arab capital.

Mussolini will even attribute until 1942 Italy’s own genius to “a synergy of several peoples united in a same effort”:

"I have always considered the Italian people an admirable product of different ethnic fusions on the basis of a geographical, economic and especially spiritual unity. It comes from the spirit that made our civilization on the roads of the world. These men of different bloods were carrying a single splendid civilization. "

On December 20th, 1932, Mussolini declares:

"It is ridiculous to think, as has been said, that the synagogues must be closed! The Jews have been in Rome since the time of kings; they were 50,000 at the time of Augustus and asked to cry on the remains of Julius Caesar. We will let them live in peace. "

(source: Mussolini, Chronicles of History , published (in French) by Chronique editions, (ISBN 2-905969-92-X), page 68.)

Many Jews participated in the supply of gold to finance the Ethiopian war and engaged in numbers to the extent that even a military rabbinate was created (Pierre Milza, Mussolini , Fayard editions, 2007, p. 752.). He appointed Jews to important posts such as Guido Jung, Minister of Finance, or Admiral Ascoli, Commander-in-Chief of Naval Forces during the Ethiopian War.
In his official statements, Mussolini categorically condemned anti-Semitism and racism; thus, during his talks with Emil Ludwig, the latter asked him about his views on race in 1933, Mussolini exclaimed:

Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the “nobility” of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton. Gobineau was a Frenchman, (Houston Stewart) Chamberlain, an Englishman; Woltmann, a Jew; Lapouge, another Frenchman.

(sources: Gillette, Aaron (2002). Racial Theories in Fascist Italy . Routledge. p. 44. (ISBN 0-415-25292-X) and Emil Lugwig, Talks with Mussolini , Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933) pp. 69-70. Interview between 23 March and 4 April, 1932, at the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome)

Mussolini stated that racism was a stupidity: “Anti-Semitism does not exist in Italy. […] The Italian Jews have always behaved well as citizens, and as soldiers they fought well.” (Pierre Milza, Mussolini , Fayard editions, 2007, p. 751.)

In a speech given in Bari in 1934, he reiterated his attitude towards the Nazi ideology:

Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.

(Institute of Jewish Affairs (2007). Hitler’s ten-year war on the Jews . Kessinger Publishing. p. 283)

Mussolini will retrospectively attribute himself racist ideas. The Italian author Mauro Suttora in Mussolini segreto cites in this respect excerpts from the diary of the mistress of Mussolini, Clara Petacci, where he claims to have had prejudicial anti-Jewish views before the introduction of racial laws.

“I’ve been racist since 1921,” he proudly told his mistress on a boating trip on August 4, 1938, two years before Italy declared war on Britain.

“I don’t know how they can think that I’m imitating Hitler, he wasn’t even born then (in a political sense).”

Benito Mussolini regarded Adolf Hitler as a ‘sentimentalist’

Between 1938 - 1939

The war in Ethiopia marks the beginning of a racist policy against black people: to prevent any miscegenation, it is forbidden for any Italian to have a relationship with a native woman (decision taken on January 9, 1937 in the Council of Ministers and endorsed by the royal edict of April 1937).

From 1938 onwards, the fascist regime promulgated a series of decrees, all of which were called racial laws, which introduced measures of discrimination and persecution against Italian Jews. On March 22, 1938 the regime voted for the “Defense of Race” law, which strikes all foreigners, especially Jews, who fled the Nazi regime in Germany and Austria. Among the various documents and legislative measures which contribute to the racial laws is the Manifesto of Race ( Manifesto della razza ) or more exactly the Manifesto of the racist scientists ( Manifesto degli scienziati razzisti ).

1939 - 1943

Until then, the measures were aimed at foreign Jews, but with the war, they now targeted even Italian Jews. Even before the German occupation of 1943, 3,552 Jewish families out of 15,000 were victims of fascist persecution. Although it is true that Mussolini’s racism and anti-Semitism never reached the level of the Nazi, it remains that on the eve of the German occupation, the Nazis found in Mussolini’s Italy a suitable ground for their massive deportations. (Source (in french): André Brissaud, Mussolini, le fascisme , published by Robert Langeac, 1976)

On December 4, 1939, Galeazzo Ciano writes that

"The Duce has just seen a report on the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Poland. He advised me to send to the Allied newspapers the information contained in this report. It is necessary for the world to know these facts. "

(source: Mussolini, Chronicles of History , published (in French) by Chronique, (ISBN 2-905969-92-X), page 85).

In March 1943, Mussolini read a report on Nazi atrocities committed against Jews in the East (Source: La persecuzione degli ebrei durante il fascismo. Le leggi del 1938 , Camera dei deputati [House of Representatives], Roma, 1998, pp. 185-187 (in Italian)).

On March 19, 1943, Mussolini, who had just received a report on the Nazi atrocities committed against Jews in the East, again ordered not to surrender one of the 25,000 Jews in Italy’s occupation area: thus, the Italian military authorities occupying the south-east of France protected both French and foreign Jews against Vichy, and they prevented, if necessary by force, their arrests. This attitude will also be followed in the Balkans, where Italians have, as often as possible, protected the Jews against the Germans. (source: Mussolini, Chronicles of History , published (in French) by Chronique, (ISBN 2-905969-92-X), page 98).

German occupation of Italy (1943-1944)

Between 1943 and 1945, the government of the Italian Social Republic was complicit in the deportation to the Nazi concentration camps of many women, men and children of Jewish religion. In Italian territory, near Trieste, there was a camp intended for the deportation of Jews to German concentration camps. Inside the camp there was a crematorium where the German authorities committed many murders.


Though Italian Fascism varied its official positions on race from the 1920s to 1934, ideologically Italian fascism did not originally discriminate against the Italian-Jewish community. By mid-1938, Hitler had a massive influence on him, which sparked anti-semitic and racial views and the introduction of racial laws. The relevant article from Wikipedia has a lot of references, so I’ll quote a part of it:

Even after the introduction of the racial laws, Mussolini continued to make contradictory statements about race.[217] Many high government officials told Jewish representatives that the antisemitism in Fascist Italy would soon be over.[217] Antisemitism was unpopular within the Fascist party; once when a Fascist scholar protested to Mussolini about the treatment of his Jewish friends, Mussolini is reported to have said “I agree with you entirely. I don’t believe a bit in the stupid anti-Semitic theory. I am carrying out my policy entirely for political reasons.”[218] Hitler felt disappointed with Mussolini’s lack of antisemitism.[219]

Mussolini and the Italian Army in occupied regions openly opposed German efforts to deport Italian Jews to Nazi concentration camps.[220] Italy’s refusal to comply with German demands of Jewish persecution influenced other countries.[220]

In September 1943 semi-autonomous militarized squads of Fascist fanatics sprouted up throughout the Republic of Salò. These squads spread terror among Jews and anti-Fascists for a year and a half. In the power vacuum that existed during the first three or four months of the occupation, the semi-autonomous bands were virtually uncontrollable. Many were linked to individual high-ranking Fascist politicians.[221] Italian Fascists, sometimes government employees but more often fanatic civilians or paramilitary volunteers, hastened to curry favor with the Nazis. Informers betrayed their neighbors, squadristi seized Jews and delivered them to the German SS, and Italian journalists seemed to compete in the virulence of their anti-Semitic diatribes.[222]

It has been widely speculated that Mussolini adopted the Manifesto of Race in 1938 for merely tactical reasons, to strengthen Italy’s relations with Germany. Mussolini and the Italian military did not consistently apply the laws adopted in the Manifesto of Race.[220] In December 1943, Mussolini made a confession to journalist/politician Bruno Spampanato that seems to indicate that he regretted the Manifesto of Race:

The Racial Manifesto could have been avoided. It dealt with the scientific abstruseness of a few teachers and journalists, a conscientious German essay translated into bad Italian. It is far from what I have said, written and signed on the subject. I suggest that you consult the old issues of Il Popolo d’Italia . For this reason I am far from accepting (Alfred) Rosenberg’s myth.[223]

Mussolini also reached out to the Muslims in his empire and in the predominantly Arab countries of the Middle East. In 1937, the Muslims of Libya presented Mussolini with the “Sword of Islam” while Fascist propaganda pronounced him as the “Protector of Islam.”[224]

I hope this lengthy post provided a few answers.

As you can see i do see it plausible for This WIP to pull Mussoliny before He Allied with hitler for NO. Thefore i would say depiction of fascism doesnt endorse racism as was argued by some in this thread.

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The notion that depicting something endorses it is beyond ludicrous. That’s Jack Thompson thinking.

You guys say that but I cant help but find it strange that I’ve seen an alarming amount of ppls strongly support fascism on here and declaring that new order was their fav path for political reasons. Its almost as if actual fascists enjoyed that path and themselves caused the author to not want to work on this path anymore by association :thinking:

Like dont get me wrong I know not everyone who want the new order path is like that but you cant just close your eyes on the fact that this thread keep getting closed because peoples cant stop themselves from declarig their undying love of fascism, hate of communism and starting debates about it instead of discussing on how the game could be improved. The new order path wasnt an issue before we had peoples flood this thread with pro-fascist debates and before yall start telling us communism is the same remember that both were treated equally by the author and its peoples themselves who escalates that issue. You brought this on yourselves and now you’re arguing that its never been an issue but I’ve been here since the begining and I’ve seen this thread go from legitimate game developpement to non stop crying about fascism “superiority”. If yall kept your mouth shut about it like the author wanted and demanded MULTIPLE TIMES, we wouldnt be here right now. Everyone was fine with that path before, its legitimate fascists who gradually made it undesirable.

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I am member of a syndicate and a lawyer and my dad was a member of a syndicate and part of anti Franco regime. With friends that were in jail by political reasons and two were killed here in Ferrol when were on a public strike here in my city due mistreatment of workers in the naval shipbuilding.

I am far from being right wing. And fascism is one of the scourge of humanity and a shame.

However As a piece of art and a political portrayal of the messed 30s you can’t show one side without the other.
Communism VS Fascism tear Europe appart and the ideological fanatics poisoned the minds of half European nations. Turning nations like mine return to medieval and seeing how family dying by famine.

Hell if I hate fascism. That’s why I want they portrayed as they were and show how charismatic and poisoning they were and how racist and bad for women they were. Same I want portrayed the inner faults of communism in 30s.

As player I found more fun as fascist as rhe style is more fun to me. Socialists are more straightforward to my liking.

Still if NO is not part another should take over to balance the game nacionalism or conservatives. In my opinion only Communism is white out communism as good guys that’s why you play as one.
@cyanide you should not accusing people you don’t know. If you see something tell @moderators I don’t want this closed again. Please no need calling people things we are all adults

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It’s not depicting it that’s the problem, it’s roleplaying it/creating a platform for people to roleplay fascists that I worry strays towards endorsement, or at the very least providing a platform, literally and metaphorically

:ok_hand:

Just to let you guys know, currently as well as my actual job, which is very busy atm, I am also doing a lot of work on my actual real life book and currently talking to different publishers, so not too much work happening with UWS right now. As i’ve said before, i’m not abandoning it by any means. Regarding the debate that has been going on about the NO path, I have read all your posts and am considering how to move forward. Thank you to @CaesarCzech in particular for the great detail!

I want to attempt to move the thread away from the issue of whether NO stays or goes for a while, if only because I feel like all the arguments have been made, so I want to pose this question:

What would you really like to see in the coming chapters? What sort of things would you like your MC to be able to do/see?

I think I can guess @poison_mara’s answer…

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