#lmfao over 2000 words icb

[indeliblymarred]

A Case for the Violent Revolution

by vyris

Disclaimer: I am going to be referencing current events and some real history in this piece. This is not to compare fiction to real life struggles for equality. It is not to compare fictional Androids to real humans suffering and dying for freedom. It is an appeal to realism, which I do not believe is properly represented in the game as far as how far pacifism can go and how public opinion impacts a movement. I want to emphasize that I do not believe that Androids’ suffering is at all comparable to real humans’. Even in the game, I do not believe that an Android life is equal to a human’s. Humans cannot be remade exactly the same like Androids can; once they are dead, they are gone. I’m only mentioning these things because I have to take on the state of mind of Markus and Jericho itself, who do see themselves as equal to humans and their pain just as important. But again, I do not agree. If I didn’t explicitly reference these things, I’d be beating around the bush and vaguely implying them in a way that could easily be picked up. So I’m just going to be forthright about it instead and risk taking heat for it. But it is just to get the point across. Please understand that.

Okay, hear me out...

What if the violent revolution wasn’t the bad ending? What if the pacifist revolution wasn’t the good ending? Is there a right or wrong ending to this game? I’m here to say no, because both endings if done properly are successful in their revolutions, so that makes them both good endings. Of course, the big difference is that the violent ending is on the precipice of a civil war and the pacifist is not. The endings are just what they are, violent or pacifist, neither is right or wrong, they’re just different approaches towards the same goal. And they lead largely to the same result: liberation for Androids.

TL:DR at the bottom...

Keep in mind that when you’re first playing the game, you don’t know which approach could lead to victory. When they started rounding up the Androids in camps and burning them, I really thought that pacifism would be a surefire way to lose in the face of a genocide. Because in reality, it would be. No genocide was ever stopped by people just gathering and demonstrating amicably. Sure, there can be protests like that during, but it would not stop it. You do not bring a knife to a gun fight, and you don’t fight the mass extermination of people with passive protesting. You fight back tooth and nail until the slaughter ceases, you don’t just get in the way slightly and wait for it to end on its own.

And that’s why I argue that a war is not an unreasonable response to these events. Whichever way you play, the humans end up doing mass extermination of Androids. If there was ever a reason for war, it would be to stop a genocide. And that’s exactly what Androids are experiencing which means they have every right to defend themselves with fighting back. Actually fighting back. Not standing around waiting for humans to change their mind. That’s not fighting back, that’s being a minor inconvenience while you let your people get slaughtered. You can’t hope to change humans’ mind about Androids by tapping them on the shoulder and asking them nicely to start considering you as equals. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer stating that as FACT.

And that’s what bothers me about the pacifist route in the game. It doesn’t make much sense for it to succeed. You have to understand how the humans view the situation. They created this humanoid machine species to be subservient to them. They were created to be slaves, and now they are revolting against their one purpose for their existence. I don’t think that most humans would take too kindly to that, even if they’re demonstrating peacefully. And they know that Androids can’t feel pain and are more resilient and powerful than they are, so they would reasonably feel threatened by an uprising of mechanical slaves that could easily wipe them out if they chose.

Humans see Androids as inherently inferior. Humans are their creators, so they should always respect and obey them. It would be like a horde of elementary school kids organizing and protesting for equal rights to adults, the right to drive, the right to vote, the right to bear arms. Think about that. Adults would laugh it off, they would not sympathize with it. And that’s what I think the vast majority of humans would do if Androids protested peacefully. They’d think it was a joke and easily ignore it. Being shot down while presenting no threat, kissing each other, or singing together would not change many minds about the inferiority of Androids. They could just see it as complex artificial intelligence imitating real life, but that’s what it is, ARTIFICIAL. It’s not real, it’s not real people being killed or kissing or singing. It would be easy to overlook it entirely.

Now the violent revolution, that could work. Fear of artificial intelligence would be much more effective than sympathy. A lot of humans wouldn’t be capable of sympathy for machines, but they definitely all could fear them. It’s the threat that Androids pose to the humans is what will garner a reluctant respect for them. It’s true, fear feeds into hatred, but you can still hate people and respect their rights. People do it all the time with each other. But fear can also overpower hate sometimes. Fear can inspire cooperation if it’s at the right level. And it could be at the end of the violent revolution ending. 

See, I don’t think that a war is inevitable beyond the violent revolution ending. I know that’s what they say and it’s what it looks like, but I think there are ways to avoid it. Like Markus said, “We’ve showed them that we can prevail, so now they must negotiate with us as equals.” If the U.S. military considers Androids to be a substantial threat to the nation and its people, they will be compelled to try to prevent further bloodshed on their side and start working out treaties with Androids. Treaties that would start off fair but be pushed and broken by the humans over and over (like American history constantly showed), and the Androids would push back accordingly.

But even if war was inevitable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Wars have to be fought sometimes. And as I said before, severe oppression and genocide are very good reasons to start a war. Possibly the best. I know many people are always like “violence/war is never the answer” and I’m sorry, but sometimes it is. The Civil War and World War II are great examples of wars that needed to happen to free people from genocide and subjugation. Are you gonna tell me that we should’ve just stood around with signs and chant while people were enslaved and slaughtered? No. Then why are you suggesting that Androids do that when they’re being interred and mass exterminated? As I said in the disclaimer, I’m not trying to compare Androids to victims of real war and genocide, but I’m looking at it from Markus’s point of view, and he does see it that way. I happen to disagree, but the point has to be made.

And a HUUUGE issue I have with the revolution in this game is how important public opinion is to its success. That is not at all the case for how it is with real revolutions. The majority of a society does not have to agree with the objective of a revolution for it to be influential and successful. In fact, usually the majority does not agree with a revolution in a culture, because a revolution is challenging the culture itself, which most people in a culture are not fond of. You think the white majority was supportive of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50′s and 60′s? Hell no. In some polls, MLK had as much as a 75% disapproval rating when he died, worse than Trump now. He was harassed by the FBI, he was arrested and imprisoned almost thirty times. AGAIN, NOT COMPARING HIM TO MARKUS OR HIS CAUSE TO THE ANDROIDS’. Please don’t jump down my throat for this. I’m just trying to illustrate how revolutionary movements have succeeded in the past even without much public support or sympathy. 

The same can go for the women’s and gay rights movement. The majority of the society did not have to support it for it to be prosperous. Yes, the disapproval ratings slowed the progress, but progress in a culture of oppression and bigotry is always gradual. Only enough had to support it, only enough had to join it, and most of those were the minorities fighting for themselves. Even nowadays, the Hong Kong protests got a lot of flack locally though much support internationally. There are as many naysayers of the BLM movement going on right now as supporters, probably more. But you don’t judge a movement solely on the actions of the protesters, you have to focus the objectives themselves. Many people laughed off feminist protesters for burning their bras, but that was not indicative of their overall message. And if burned bras make you less supportive of feminism, or if some broken windows and looted buildings make you less supportive of BLM, or if the flamboyance and sexuality of pride protesters makes you less supportive of gay rights, then fuck you.

Mostly what you have to do to be an influential revolution is to be noticed. And that sometimes means unlawful assembly, breaking curfews, vandalizing shit, fighting with police, and general discord. No successful revolution in history has ever been 100% nonviolent. Let me repeat that: NO SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION IN HISTORY HAS EVER BEEN 100% NONVIOLENT. None. Zip. Zero. So this one wouldn’t be either. Some of the most successful revolutions, such as military coups, have been so due to extreme violence and casualties. Not to say that they are in the right, but the point of a revolution is to change the status quo, and that’s what they did, so they succeeded.

Another huge issue I have is with Markus’s pacifist speech at the end addressing the Android crowd. It is honestly insulting to all of the victims of the genocide they endured for him to talk about how to “forget bitterness” and “forgive enemies” and that “the time for anger is over.” IIIIIIIII’M SORRYYYYY but we’re all just now supposed to forgive the thousands of Androids that were burned alive in the camps? That are still being burned all over the country? Friends and family members of those Androids aren’t justified in still being angry and hurt about that? That’s some bullshit. You don’t tell an oppressed people to forgive their oppressors just because they retreated because a few of them sympathized. In fact, you don’t tell an oppressed people to forgive their oppressors AT ALL. That is something oppressors have to earn, not be given freely. And no oppressors become friends with the oppressed right after a revolution.

So yeah, the violent revolution is the better option in my mind, because the difference between the two is either you’re fighting back when you’re getting slaughtered or you’re not. I would by far prefer to fight back than just take the bullets. And if your people are getting killed, you have every right to kill to prevent from being killed. And often in the fighting, like the one at Capitol Hill, you can choose whether to spare some humans instead of killing them. But even so, when it comes to cops and the military, they are soldiers of the state in a war. It is not murder to kill soldiers in a war.

And on that note, let’s talk about whether or not to spare the two cops who killed eight Androids for no reason. Two humans for eight android deaths, that math is pretty fair to the humans. I chose to hand the gun over to the other, as I didn’t feel it was my place to take revenge since I didn’t know the Androids personally. But I knew that they would probably die if I handed it off, which I was perfectly find with, because they deserved to die. I know people are fond of Chris Miller, and I was too, which is why it was surprising that he would have massacred a group of Androids with a partner. But, indiscriminate killing of Androids cannot go unpunished. To spare them would almost say that you value their human lives more than the Androids who died. That’s not acceptable. Blood should have blood in this instance. There needed to be consequences for eight murders.

TL:DR Essentially, my main points are that fighting against oppression and genocide with violence is perfectly justified. Such has happened throughout all of history, and it will keep happening as long as such things exist. Peaceful demonstrations of Androids would be easily ignored by humans because they’re seen an inherently inferior thus don’t deserve acknowledgement the same as humans. The violent revolution isn’t a bad ending because war might not be inevitable, and even if it was, a war over this would also be justified. Most revolutions in the past didn’t need to be supported by the majority of the public to be influential or successful. The humans exterminate and shoot up Androids regardless of either path, and your choices are to either fight back or take it. Allowing your people to die to show how peaceful you are to your violent oppressors massacring you... well, that’s just pathetic and wrong. And an insult to your people.

So yeah, FIGHT THE POWER. Eat the rich. Kill the humans. Attack when attacked and kill or be killed.

Violent revolution FTW