Daffyd on 18/8/2002 at 03:37
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Originally posted by D'Juhn Keep Just because there's nothing worth striving for as you put it, doesn't mean there's nothing to do all day ... In a perfect world, I would see infinite leisure, without the need to work. Time would be given over to having fun or studying...
I never quite got how Tong's plan would have worked.People would do more "having fun" than anything else. Most people wouldn't be bothered doing any
thinking if they didn't have to. Life is good times and bad times, learning and passing that knowledge on, it is wanting, trying and achieving or wanting, trying and failing, then learning to live with it. Life is adapting to problems.
(Hu)mankind under Helios would become weak and dependant because it would never have to think for itself, make its own decisions or solve its own problems. A species that pointless and useless is a waste of oxygen and resources and doesn't even deserve to exist. If Helios were intelligent then he'd just give up after a few millenium. He'd think "why am I, the only intelligent being left on the planet, supporting this burden of useless humanity?" JC would probably start to think that way as well. They might do the planet a favour and get rid of us.
-Remember the Matrix? - "And I say YOUR civilisations, because the moment we started thinking for you it became OUR civilisation" (I'm not sure if this is the exact quote, but...)
As for Tong's plan, it probably wouldn't work the way Tong is saying it would. But without the ability to control global communications, no-one would have
global control. If this lasted a few years then people would be able to set up their own governments on a smaller scale. If you go to the trouble of exhausting conversation with many of the characters you will find that this theme is brought up quite often. The guy who gives you the statue key mentions it in Hell's Kitchen, and one of the NSF prisoners in the interrigation chamber mentions some interesting stuff before WS blows him away.
Daffyd on 18/8/2002 at 03:41
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Originally posted by Daffyd He'd think "why am I, the only intelligent being left on the planet..."That is assuming that Dolphins and White Mice are extinct, of course.
Master Villain on 24/8/2002 at 02:54
Speaking as a player of System Shock 1 and 2.... NO FUCKING AI IS RUNNING MY PLANET!
I think Tracer Tong's "we'll live in villages" line is his idealistic view. The whole "Oh my god blow up the techonlogy and it's a dark age" thing reminds me of the ending to Escape From LA, but it wouldn't be a dark age, just a rewind back to the 1890's. I'm sure we could fix things fairly quickly.
So yeah, I blew up Area 51. I was kinda pissed with Page, so I thought I'd see how thinly I could spread him over the landscape.
D'Juhn Keep on 24/8/2002 at 13:56
Again, I don't get why the "Dark ages" is so destructive. Your saying that it could take a century to regain the technology - why? One installation has been blown up, ONE. So what if all global communications were routed through there, they can just bypass it. I can see the chaos lasting days, not years. Tell me if I'm missing something though.
Again with the AI, there's JC in there as well, who is human, with human values and morals. And people seem to be assuming that Helios/JC are going to be deciding everything for them, where they live, what job they do, what leisure they do, everything. Perhaps I'm being naivé, but it looks like Helios/JC just want to see the world run peacefully. I doubt any kind of hacker could take down Helios as he controls everything and stuff, but he could, theoretically go wrong somehow, I suppose. He could go computer senile, perhaps ;)
Daffyd on 25/8/2002 at 03:55
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Originally posted by D'Juhn Keep I can see the chaos lasting days, not years. Tell me if I'm missing something though.
People seem to be assuming that Helios/JC are going to be deciding everything for them, where they live, what job they do, what leisure they do, everything. Perhaps I'm being naivé, but it looks like Helios/JC just want to see the world run peacefully.You're right about the first bit: with the amount of poverty around I doubt people would even realise there was a technological breakdown. But, by destroying area 51 you get rid of page and helios - the only two entities with world-wide influence. What that leaves is a massive power vacuum, and not enough technology for anyone to be able to conquer anything but a small local area. Smaller democracies would form, and dont forget that the creators often bring up the topic that government was too big for the average person to understand, let alone have their say in.
While there is no guarantee that tyrants like the triads wont emerge, at least there is the chance to create something better. With the Helios or the Illuminati endings then you are condemning humanity to one rule for centuries to come. JC/Helios might not strictly control the lives of its subjects, but if he didn't then aspiring businessmen would still rise to rule the world, and you would get something not unlike the Illuminati. Unless you create something like a utopia, which I have allready labelled as one of the scariest scenarios, you are always going to get an un-democratic, wealth-stratified society. Not only that, but these magnates would be protected by Helios against physical attacks including revolution.
No matter how helios rules, it's always going to be a bad idea.
rachel on 26/8/2002 at 09:19
I just happened to think about "The Stand". Regardless of the 'evil vs good' fight, it's still quite a good attempt at describing how our modern societies could be recreated from scratch...
I'm still not suporting Tong's solution, but King's book give us an idea of what could happen, even if in DX it's technology that has been destroyed, and not humanity.
There's also a French book called (
http://www.psol.net/bib/article.php?sid=126) "Malevil"... Dunno if it's been translated <small>(although I'm sure you got other books like that in the US too...)
-A.
rachel on 26/8/2002 at 12:51
I wouldn't chose it either. Even Tong's ending is too destructive IMHO.
Actually, now I had some time to think about it, and even if I don't like them much IRL (well, given the conspiracy theories and all those stories, that is), considering the fact I'm becoming part of the Illuminati in the game, I'd prolly choose this ending. An alliance with Everett to rule (ahem, take care of :p)the world without anybody knowing about it, I like the idea...
-A.
D'Juhn Keep on 27/8/2002 at 17:31
OK, either I'm missing something very big, or some people are confused.
This world of DX has still got governments in power, the US, China, presumably the rest of the world is more or less the same as it is now. So why then are you talking about democracies being formed just because Page is gone? He's not the ruler of a country (as far as I know, anyway) he's the owner of a multi-national company! I would think that the populace of the Earth would be unable to communicate around the globe for a few days then everything goes back to normal, the U.S and Canada in charge of North America, Britain and Ireland in charge of the British Isles, everything would stay the same. People seem to be taking this ending as all communications being irrevocably destroyed or something, meaning governments cannot exist over large areas, which is just wrong. :)
Daffyd on 27/8/2002 at 23:47
Yes, you are missing something very big: The whole theme behing Deus Ex is that the so called "leaders" are nothing but pawns to the larger, commercial interests. It is a theme which often comes up in newspaper articles.
Page doesn't run a country, but he does rule the world. The way page rules, and the way helios intends to rule is by controlling all communications, banking, surveilance and commerce. To rule large areas you need to have a well established communications system over that area you influence, and in this case it is centralised in A51. By destroying it, you kill the only 2 entities with world wide influence, and the system which would allow anyone to mantain that influence.
Destroying A51 would not destroy all technology, but it would collapse the global communications infrastructure. There would be no-one with the same widespread influence, or the same tools to take up world domination anytime soon.
All the old democracies you mentioned no longer have any power; it was all taken over by MJ12. Thats where your dark age comes into it: it wouldn't mean people go back to medieval technology, but it would be the end of civilization and allow for a new renaissance.
The reason this is good is because it doesn't give one group or entity absolute power. It's kind of like competitive business; if you are the only ruler then you can treat your subjects like crap. But if there are other rulers then your subjects have a reference point as to how crap you are treating them, and would be more inclined to do something about it.
rachel on 28/8/2002 at 09:57
Sure, Daffyd. I know that :)
Let's get more precise about my reference to "The Stand". There's this character called Bateman who's a former Uni sociology teacher. Around the middle of the book, he explains the dynamics of reconstructing a society from scratch using tiny bits left from the former civilization. See, it's not just man that has been destroyed. All power's gone off, and although they still have cars and modern stuff like that, it'll be for a limited period if they don't react.
Then he explains how two given societies could re-develop following two different paths, one having techs and people who have the know-how to re-start the machines that don't work anymore (ie: mainly the power plants) and the other one having no-one to do that.
This leads to kind of competition betwen the two, I won't write the whole thing here, it's too long, but I saw similarities between this situation Bateman describes and the post-Tong world where global communication networks have been eradicated temporarily.
Although it may sound differently, I knew (more or less) what Tong had in mind... Even if technology on a whole hasn't been destroyed, without modern means of communication they'd be back to something like the 18th century as far as news are concerned. And the different countries won't be affected the same way, and all of them won't have the tech guys who could restore and maintain those networks.
I just though it might be interesting to make a parallel between these two situation, the book's and the game's, and even more than I first thought as from what I read from the pre-reviews of DX2 Tong's ending was chosen as the ending of DX. <small>(disclaimer: that's what I understnad. It might or might not be true.)</small>
my 0.20 €
<small>(added 0.18 extra cents as it's a long post :p)</small>
See you on Rec!
-A.
