• Shrike502
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      2 years ago

      I would argue it’s a bit more insidious than that. Have ever noticed that whenever some piece of fiction wants to hammer home the notion of “this here be evil”, they go for a mixture of Soviet/communist and Nazi style? Aforementioned half-life has Soviet style apartment buildings, apparently as an indication of “poor quality of life” the people have. It all serves to implant the idea of “communism = evil dictatorship, and also same as Nazis”, to the point of reflex, as knee jerk as you say. On the contrary, Nazi shit gets treated with much kinder gloves.

        • Shrike502
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          2 years ago

          It’s not really an analysis of lore as such, but rather the conscious usage of Eastern European style to create the feeling of “depressing dystopia”. Iirc the lead visual designer was from Croatia and chose it specifically. I think we can guess what kind of “foreign occupation” they’d have in mind.

    • VictimOfReligion
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      2 years ago

      They fucking work like a religious group in the sense of “us vs them” propaganda, where no basic level of nuance is portrayed, only black and white thinking, echo chambers and strawmen about “them”, the “outsiders”, the “sinners and unbelievers”. This system fucking works like a cult.

  • Shrike502
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    2 years ago

    Well it used to be “City 17 but Russia”, guess the trend got updated