Please Reduce Nazi Imagry in Necropolis

[ToasterStrudel]

If you try, and if you search long enough you can easily find someone bad wearing something similar to something we have in game. I'll take the suggested change for example. It took me five minutes and I found a image of a kamikaze pilots uniform which looks like the suggested replacement. I think we're making mountains out of mole hills here.

 

Spoiler

http://imgur.com/a/wvMU6m9

http://imgur.com/a/9IHs3aQ

 

 

[KingOfThePing]

As a german I never once thought for even a second these resembled nazi uniforms. Like, not in the slightest. As Strudel said, you can find anything and compare it with everthing if you search long enough.

[Skull132]

5 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Don't whataboutism this.

I should be the one who should be telling you this over your attempt at a retort. Here's the thing. What I did was raise an analogous example. This is a technique in discourse used to establish a baseline on how something should be handled, specifically due to the fact on how the general example is already handled. This does expect a level of logical coherency, though, and the general acceptance that similar ideas and concepts should receive similar treatment.

Your post was, "Remove this because it's cringe and associated with nazis" (paraphrased, though the choice of words is yours). However, as I presented, we quite avidly use iconography from other, just as brutal and just as relevant regimes in our lore. Content that is just as "cringe". Ergo, I raise the question, "Why should this go, and not that"? And there is a response to this! Simply disprove the analogy.

The soviet and other cringe material (ATLAS as well) is used as a quick and efficient way to communicate certain holds that the faction may possess. Tajarans use Soviet iconography because they are heavily based off of the USSR. Makes sense! Per this point, we see that the requirement for using such iconography is their usage as a tool of creative communication first and foremost. There is also the argument of taste to be made, but considering that there's no swastikas or other explicitly clear icons of the 3rd Reich being used, I'd say this case is far better than that of the red star with sickle and hammer, and Russian naval uniforms. So we have our requirements for use: it must be relevant to the lore if it is indeed a nazi reference.

The main question then is: are the requirements met for using such iconography met, or are they going counter to some of them? To extrapolate: are the uniforms nazi symbology and is the use of such symbology befitting the faction?

And the reason why I care is because the question of "Why" behind certain decisions is important. Specially since this could well set a precedent for using such symbology in the future.

[Mofo1995]

This thread is waaaaaaay waaaay waaaay spicier than it has to be. I don't really think we had to get so heated in here. It's a uniform sprite, not a big gameplay mechanic or central lore plot development.

I do think it looks like a brownshirt uniform. I could whip up a sec officer with a square mustache, some hair (i forget which looks most like hitler, CIA is decently close) and make him a necropolis contractor, grab a satchel and not wear body armor and bam, pretty decent hitler cosplay. I could accomplish the same thing with a tan suit and red armband in the custom loadout, but I think the big difference here is that one is a valid security officer uniform and the other is not. 

While there's soviets and soviet accessories on station and many references to evil totalitarian regimes in history to represent the faults in our in lore factions, the issue I have with this uniform is that it's a uniform for a security officer. You can't really make a soviet cosplay officer as successfully. I feel it should probably be reworked or removed because of this distinction of being a security uniform as opposed to a uniform in general (like I said, anyone can grab tan suit and red armband to accomplish the same thing), but I'll admit this also comes from a place of wanting security to be more uniform in nature with less variety.

While I do think it should be removed, it's not the end of my world if it isn't, I don't really think there's a need to get at each other's throats over this. Does everyone really feel that strongly?

[Kaed]

Marlon, I like you and all, but this is some a weak sauce subject for a thread.  You won't find any disagreement from me that the nazi regime was bad but we can't spend the rest of the time putting anything even tangentially related to them on blast.  When you're accusing a bland little pixellated khaki uniform of being nazi imagery because of two red pixels on the arm, I think you've crossed the line from cautious to 'pearl-clutching excess'.

I personally dislike how so many of our uniforms and clothing options in a far flung distant future are based on modern sociopolitical imagery, but I recognize that visual mnemonics are a powerful tool for telling people about what is going on.  It is easier to give the silly cat people inexplicably soviet uniforms, as if the concepts of soviet russia are somehow part of a universal shared culture across galaxies, than it is to create something entirely fresh and new that might require you to explain more about what it means to a layman who just joined our setting.  Plus, you can just photoshop cat heads on top of existing artwork and lol, tajaran art done, minimal effort required!

But as with any visual mnemonic, replicating the uniform designs (even if only vaguely) of a facist or dictatorial regime comes with heavy baggage.  People were hurt by these regimes, but we need to learn to separate the actions that people made under them from the the actual imagery involved.  It is, in fact, possible to think that a nazi or even nazi-like uniform looks snappy without being a nazi, or pro-nazi, or even thinking things like nazis do.  Even today in our world, some countries in the eastern asia region use or have used nazi imagery in media or advertising in hilariously cringey ways that cause westerners who to shuffle their feet in discomfort at the context they are seeing that these countries were oblivious or apathetic to.   

Even in this thread itself, I've seen people throw out accusations of nazi imagery, and accusations of accusations of nazi supporting. This is how people act on the internet when the subjects of nazi imagery comes up, and it's really sad. This isn't the way to behave, and the fact that nazis were (and still are, regrettably, today) bad people does not mean we should all act like highly judgmental, exclusionist jerks towards each other too. At the end of the day, you should be condemning nazi-like behavior on the server (spreading racism, advocating for hate crimes, etc), not trying to scrub out anything that you think might somehow invoke the visual metaphor of it.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Kaed

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

6 hours ago, Brutishcrab51 said:

under one year ago in a human lore arc that never finished in a manner that very few people ICly agreed with outside of ATLAS (as indicated by the premier of the USSR going to mars to fight atlas politically)

just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean it doesn't exist

i love you jackboot

What?

[Shenaanigans]

I honestly don't see what the big issue would be to just remove the armband or otherwise tweak the uniform in a way that takes it that step away from "nazi adjacent." Like. Whether or not you personally think the uniform screams NAZI COSPLAY or not, the fact of the matter is someone was made uncomfortable by the resemblance and I see more people in here trying to cry "wHy ArE yOu CaLlINg Me A nAzI sUpPorTeR" than being sympathetic and saying "okay, let's make a tiny change to fix this". Seriously. The pushback to this very politely put concern is what's making this thread into an argument, not the concern itself.

I think we can all agree that a new player coming in here and seeing a sec uniform as resembling a nazi uniform, and drawing conclusions about our server based on that, would be a bad thing. So just make the tweak.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

11 minutes ago, Shenaanigans said:

I honestly don't see what the big issue would be to just remove the armband or otherwise tweak the uniform in a way that takes it that step away from "nazi adjacent." Like. Whether or not you personally think the uniform screams NAZI COSPLAY or not, the fact of the matter is someone was made uncomfortable by the resemblance and I see more people in here trying to cry "wHy ArE yOu CaLlINg Me A nAzI sUpPorTeR" than being sympathetic and saying "okay, let's make a tiny change to fix this". Seriously. The pushback to this very politely put concern is what's making this thread into an argument, not the concern itself.

I think we can all agree that a new player coming in here and seeing a sec uniform as resembling a nazi uniform, and drawing conclusions about our server based on that, would be a bad thing. So just make the tweak.

While I think someone who would draw a conclusion on this is jumping to them(since they are new) and therefore this concern shouldn't even be considered, I do agree with the fact that we could just remove the red armband(which resembles a line more than an armband lmao). Like, there are enough red accents on the uniform otherwise to have it still fit the Necropolis color scheme.

[Shenaanigans]

I will come out and say that I personally didn't notice the correlation, but I don't play security much and also haven't been here for that long. I just feel that there's no harm in perhaps being a little over careful and making a small change.

[Scheveningen]

There are 10,000 different ways that could've been better put for the argument to change the current status quo, but none of them were really taken. There's a reason why Godwin's Law exist, and it's mostly designed to prevent impromptu conversations about Nazism and otherwise making normal people uncomfortable. This thread had to be the most inflammatory display possible, and lo and behold this thread still hasn't gotten very far in spite of the efforts of the people in the replies to get this on track. 

The examples skull provided are not whataboutism. Whataboutism is, in response to someone pointing out an issue, claiming that there are "much bigger problems than this!" in attempt to divert from the original issue. Skull brought up another ideological foil to Nazism - the Soviet Union - in attempt to test if the OP's logic still held up. He did not bring up any of his points to completely distract from the initial point, either. Since there are more people alive today who were victims of the Soviet regime than the Nazi regime, doesn't it stand to reason that Soviet aesthetic in the lore/game world is equally or more problematic because of the risk it holds in offending people?

Which rounds about to what the actual issue is, which is not Nazi imagery specifically. The actual issue is using imagery in our game that is essentially parallel to existing (or formerly existing) regimes or powerful forces in real life that hurt people for one reason or another, whether it's due to fascism, racism, imperialism, authoritarianism or whatever else negative connotation you want to use. Completely open to interpretation on that point, feel free to add to it.

Steps we should take to avoid that, imo, is completely dialing back if not shutting the door on real-life parallels in design and lore. We were going to have that conversation eventually, so it might as well be said now. Aurora needs to be its own thing, not some sociopolitical experiment to get people woke about real life bullshit when a strong majority of people come to Aurora to have fun in a video game and not have these extremely difficult and uncomfortable conversations about politics. The Auroraverse can tell its own story about how authoritarianism and fascism impacts its own universe without needing to use Nazi or Soviet Union imagery to convey a point when virtually anything creative and remotely original would do the same thing.

[Scheveningen]

11 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

While I think someone who would draw a conclusion on this is jumping to them(since they are new) and therefore this concern shouldn't even be considered, I do agree with the fact that we could just remove the red armband(which resembles a line more than an armband lmao). Like, there are enough red accents on the uniform otherwise to have it still fit the Necropolis color scheme.

It more resembles a stripe or an accent rather than an actual armband, yes. Actual arm-bands in the game are far thicker with greater depth, so the initial OP was stretching but still highlighting broad problems throughout all of the lore and design.

think you honestly have to be looking for Nazi imagery on purpose to actually find them here though.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Kaed]

7 minutes ago, Scheveningen said:

Steps we should take to avoid that, imo, is completely dialing back if not shutting the door on real-life parallels in design and lore. We were going to have that conversation eventually, so it might as well be said now. Aurora needs to be its own thing, not some sociopolitical experiment to get people woke about real life bullshit when a strong majority of people come to Aurora to have fun in a video game and not have these extremely difficult and uncomfortable conversations about politics. The Auroraverse can tell its own story about how authoritarianism and fascism impacts its own universe without needing to use Nazi or Soviet Union imagery to convey a point when virtually anything creative and remotely original would do the same thing.

Very much in agreement here. I've been wanting us to stop relying so heavily on cultural mneumonics for design for a long time.

[Zundy]

Which kinda feeds into the original sprite but not in the "Nazi's bad" sense, but the, "why are we using uniforms from modern day earth in 2461 when we can literally do anything."

[Brutishcrab51]

3 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

What?

The USSR was literally a faction in human space until like a year ago when it was arbitrarily turned into one of the three megaprovinces on Earth. There was literally a lore article wherein the Premier of the USSR allied with the senator of Mars to fight ATLAS politically over it.

That's "what" I mean.

[Doc]

This thread isn't about the direction of the server's lore, it's broad scale fashion design, or even the server's sprite design style. It's, apparently, about this particular sprite being "cringe" enough to warrant removal or significant redesign. If we want to discuss how to reformat lore and the greater sprite palate of the server to better represent the story lore is or should be trying to tell, it would be best to start a new thread that isn't so marred by... whatever this is.

 

I wouldn't be personally offended if the red band/stripe/strap/line was removed, but still nothing in this thread has given me any inclination to think that's necessary, beyond as a sort of appeasement just to get this thread closed.

[Brutishcrab51]

12 hours ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

The amount of gaslighting, whataboutism, and irrationality is remarkable. It was specifically said by both the maker of the sprite and the human dev pegasus that Necropolis isn't intended to have nazi themes but also they don't want the uniform removed because it's fine.

I will just actively encourage everyone to call necrosec brownshirts IC'ly since there's so much hostility to swapping out this accidental nazi themerey that both doesn't exists but is also fine I guess.

unless this is swapped out for it:

I would say that there is also no Nazi imagery in this uniform. Maybe there's Soviet imagery, though. And that's okay. Because Necropolis is Soviet. Its primary corporate HQ is located in Russia and its CEO is named Kazimir Boytsov. 

Tolyatti, Soviet Union, Earth, Sol: The headquarters of Necropolis Industries can be found in Tolyatti. The skyscraper complex consists of three Necropolis buildings, a Kumar Arms building, and a ConTec building. The complex is relatively austere and compact, though this can be said about any Necropolis building.

 

Why aren't you arguing on the front that this is Soviet imagery, not Nazi imagery? Brown and red is PRETTY SOVIET in color-scheme.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

48 minutes ago, Brutishcrab51 said:

The USSR was literally a faction in human space until like a year ago when it was arbitrarily turned into one of the three megaprovinces on Earth. There was literally a lore article wherein the Premier of the USSR allied with the senator of Mars to fight ATLAS politically over it.

That's "what" I mean.

Do you think this means i am a supporter of the ussr?

If you were offended you coulda made a thread about it. Its really funny to me that only now when its about nazi imagery that this "what about the soviets" is coming out of the woodworks.

Your argument is in bad faith.  No i bet you dont see any soviet imagery.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

The soviet hammer and sickle has nothing to do with this thread. If its all purged and gone it wont validate your arguments because this is still accidental nazi imagery. Go ahead and retcon the ussr and hammer and sickle its irrelevant to this uniform.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

2 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

It more resembles a stripe or an accent rather than an actual armband, yes. Actual arm-bands in the game are far thicker with greater depth, so the initial OP was stretching but still highlighting broad problems throughout all of the lore and design.

think you honestly have to be looking for Nazi imagery on purpose to actually find them here though.

Sure, Schev, I totally agree with that, but it doesn't really apply here since...

This wasn't intended to be nazi imagery, let's not forget this. I say this as a human lore developer.

Thanks.

Edit: To reiterate another point, we also didn't design this, the spriter did.

Edited December 19, 2019 by BoryaTheSlayer
addition

[Scheveningen]

Yeah, even then, I think the spriter understands the difference between an accent or uniform stripe, contrasting to that of an armband.

Whether others do remains to be seen.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

It doesnt matter your intention. You can have something interpeted different from your intention as the author.  It happens all the time.

This is an accidental SA uniform attached to the most yikes series of coincidences regarding its context.

[Scheveningen]

2 hours ago, Zundy said:

Which kinda feeds into the original sprite but not in the "Nazi's bad" sense, but the, "why are we using uniforms from modern day earth in 2461 when we can literally do anything."

Agreed.

[AmoryBlaine]

If you're getting "nazi armband" vibes, when every second uniform that is attached to a dept or faction has a coloured stripe to help identify it or make it stand out a bit more, you're grasping at straws.

[Brutishcrab51]

38 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

Do you think this means i am a supporter of the ussr?

If you were offended you coulda made a thread about it. Its really funny to me that only now when its about nazi imagery that this "what about the soviets" is coming out of the woodworks.

Your argument is in bad faith.  No i bet you dont see any soviet imagery.

No Jackboot I'm saying that there's no Nazi imagery here, but there may be Soviet imagery here, because the faction which the uniform belongs to in-question is Soviet-based.

See 

Spoiler

This is literally the uniform as-shown by the Necro-beige.

You also can't say "the USSR is irrelevant to this uniform" when the state exists, Necropolis is HQ'd in it and that's all written on the wiki.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Brutishcrab51
Seriousness buff 4.0.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

4 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

It doesnt matter your intention. You can have something interpeted different from your intention as the author.  It happens all the time.

This is an accidental SA uniform attached to the most yikes series of coincidences regarding its context.

Yet most who have posted here said you are making a stretch and that they only thought of it that way after seeing this thread. So, you are the one interpreting it that way.
Most people who have posted here also agreed that we can just change the red patch, accent, line, whatever.