Anti-Military Bias

Incoming rant.

My background has a lot to do with the military.  My growing-up years were spent following my Army dad around the United States or overseas, surrounded by men and women with total dedication to serving their country.  After my father's retirement, my brother joined and is currently serving in the Air Force.  My husband and my father-in-law are both prior service, as was my grandfather and two of my uncles.  Between them all, they represent service in all four of the United States Armed Forces.

I admire greatly those who put their lives on the line to protect freedom and to serve their country.  With this in mind, it can come as no surprise I have some real issues with some of the light/dark choices available in SWTOR.  They illustrate to me a clear anti-military bias on the part of the designers.

For instance, there is a quest chain on Ord Mantell involving some stolen medicines.  Soldiers will die without these medicines.  Turns out the medicines were stolen by some refugees.  Refugees will die without these medicines.  But when you go talk to the refugees, you find the medicines have been stolen from them by some bad guys.  After you recover the medicines, you have a choice:  return them to the military or return them to the refugees.  But . . . if you return them to the refugees, you get light points.  If you return them to the military, you get dark points.

Is the life of a soldier really worth less than the life of a refugee?  What would be so wrong with returning them to the military?  In the story line, they owned the medicines, to begin with.  If you told them about the plight of the refugees and asked for help, they just might give it.  (In real life, it happens a lot.)

I wouldn't even have a problem with the quest if either choice was neutral, but as it is, you are clearly being told by the game designers that helping the refugees is "good", while helping the military is "bad."  It's almost as if the designers believe that letting a soldier die is just fine.

Fast forward to Taris.  A team of soldiers is missing, and you are sent to search for them, lest they have fallen into danger.  When you find them, you discover they are not in any danger; they are deserting.  You are faced with a choice:  let them go, which gives you light points, or tell them to return to their duty, which gives you dark points.

Now, contrast that with certain quests on Nar Shadda, where telling criminals to turn themselves in brings a light side reward.  What makes demanding that these soldiers return to face justice so wrong?  They have broken their commitments, they have dishonored their names, and they are no less in arrears with the law than the criminals who did so for monetary gain.  (Is the difference the fact that the criminals were "greedy", while the military guys are a pitiable bunch, afraid they are going to die?  Is that really the way those who serve want to be perceived as a group?)

And yet, the "good" choice is to let them go, and the "evil" choice is to insist they be responsible and return to their commitment.  (Worst possible scenario:  they face a court martial, where they might be acquitted or shown leniency . . . unlike the Empire, where they'd probably be automatically executed.)  Do the game designers think so little of soldiers and the job they do as to think the right thing is for soldiers to be cowards and desert?

These are just two of the many examples my husband and I have found as we have played the game.  As we try to play all light, it disturbs us greatly when faced with these choices.  There have been times my husband has chosen the dark choice because it would have been the right one in real life for a faithful Trooper doing his duty.

It wouldn't be as big a deal if this happened only once, but to see this thought pattern repeated over and over, even in the Trooper class quests, is disturbing.

When I /sighed and commented that, looking at some of the light/dark choices, it seemed the people who wrote the script didn't like the military very much, one of my guildies responded something to the effect of, "You're a gunslinger.  Don't gunslingers dislike government?"  (I was on my alt.)  Granted, I am on an RP server, but unlike some people, my characters are always an extension of myself.  I can't completely disassociate myself with them, no matter what their class.  And I am a law-abiding citizen who believes in people taking responsibility for their own lives and choices.  (To be honest, after that comment, I seriously wondered if I should be deleting my gunslinger.)

It is difficult to enjoy the story when the light/dark side choices presented to me overtly try to tell me that believing in honor and duty to country is incorrect.  It isn't easy to feel good about the game when the game designers indicate that the members of my family who have served in the military are somehow worth less than those people who do not make similar sacrifices.  And I hate myself for choosing light side choices which I know are not right, but only politically correct.  (Don't the scriptures have condemnations for those who call evil good and good evil?)

And yet, if you choose the dark choice because you know in real life it would be the right one, you're left with dark points on your record--a mark of judgement placed against you by the game designers displaying their own bias.

Time for me to start ignoring the judgements of people who do not matter in the long run.  After all, I have to do it in real life all the time:  it's called standing up to peer pressure.