Shepherd is an interstellar cop without accountability and unilateral authority to do whatever he wants as a member of the spectres. The media culture of the mid to late 2000s is unrecognizable to us, it was shit like the Wire and 24 and Mass Effect. Propaganda was insidious and everywhere (it still is) and the very few dissenters didn’t have anywhere to link up unlike now.
It’s more a testament to how much the culture has changed since the last 14 years that these things are causing actual friction that’s catching on. It’s also a testament to how much you’ve changed, too.
Hell, he’s much closer to a spook. He only reports to the joint council that heads up the universe iirc, and is authorized to get the job done ‘however necessary’.
The entire first chapter of the first game was spent trying to prove that one of the other space spooks, who was notorious for going by the letter of that mantra, was actually doing something illegal enough to justify pursuing him.
Hey, the Wire had some very solid anti-capitalism hidden under the cop apologia.
The part that stuck out the most to me even when it was getting released was the naked military worship.
The amount of handwringing about being held back by red tape, regulations and bureaucrats is very mid 2000s zeitgeist. We just need “men of action”.
it was shit like the Wire and 24
24 was quite something. Torture and imperialism justification everywhere, interspersed with really on the nose cisco product placement.
When you do a Cowboy Bebop and put neoliberalism in space but forget about the critique part.
Just Mass Effect/Star Wars/Western Sci-Fi in general things
Always thought Firefly got it fairly right allthough that is basically just Cowboy Bebop anyways
Star Wars is meant to be lighthearted and mostly for kids, but there definitely is some critique of empire, and like The Emperor manipulating war to gain power was partially inspired by George Bush during the Iraq war.
Mass Effect is kind of interesting because they do deal with some issues relevant to real world politics, particularly like the way the genocide of the Krogan is justified and carried out, but it also does silly shit like having species of aliens who are always bad guys.
I really like the DLC where the only possible outcome is to do a genocide on the Batarians. You know, the only alien race (other than the Reapers) that’s always depicted as villainous, and who are basically just a stand-in for black and Jewish stereotypes.
The rebels in the original trilogy are modelled on the Viet-Cong IIRC
The prequels depict how democracies can slip into fascism a la Germany, but maybe George Bush too and the patriot act.
Bioware are pure libs. It’s why the 4channers don’t like them, they just see idpol where we see liberalism.
