Quadhelix
01-20-2008, 09:55 PM
Awhile ago, I found an intriguing article at CnCWorld, written in 2000 by someone with the screen-name of "Cabal," that posed the question: "Are GDI and the Allies Really the Good Guys? (http://cncworld.org/index.php?page=features/articles/goodguys)" The basic premise of the article is that Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun show signs that the sides that are portrayed as the "good guys" might have a bit of rust on their shiny Ranger stars. He-or she-does take the evidence a bit too far by claiming proof that GDI and the Allies are "evil" from a few examples that they aren't children's cartoon G.I. Joe-level good guys, but nevertheless the article is only about three paragraphs long and is worth reading.
Either way, this article got me thinking, and I began to consider the possibility that C&C is a little too absolute with its morality: GDI is clearly the "good guy" in spite of the two or three lines of dialog cited to prove its "evilness," while Nod is clearly the "bad guy" (although Nod's "evilness" is not as self-evident as GDI's "goodness"). This is not necessarily a good thing.
Flaws in Cabal's Arguments
In Tiberian Dawn, the only "evil" thing that GDI does (kill Kane as opposed to capture him) is not evil. Whether or not GDI's mandate required it to capture war criminals as opposed to assassinate them, Kane was too big a threat to let get away: he was a nuclear-capable rogue agent and letting him live may well have been the greater evil. Backed against the wall as Kane was, GDI had no way of knowing whether he would launch a nuclear attack against civilian targets if he were not neutralized quickly. Also, given the fact that many within the Brotherhood literally worshiped Kane, it is doubtful that any prison could be built to hold him long enough for him to be brought to trial. Given the threat he posed, it was too great a risk to allow him to escape and rebuild his network.
In Tiberian Sun, General Solomon had arranged to have Slavik framed to be a traitor. While "Cabal" argues that this was part of a GDI plot either to kill off people in Nod without a trial or to cause Slavik to seek revenge and thus give GDI an excuse to crush Nod, such an assertion is rather extreme for the evidence provided. While Solomon's deal with Hassan and framing of Slavik do show a shadier side of GDI, Nod did something similar in both the First and the Second Tiberium Wars: frame GDI for a massacre that either never occurred (TW1) or was perpetrated by Nod itself (TW2) in order to promote its own agenda. Furthermore, killing Slavik was not a random act by GDI, but rather part of a plan to keep Nod peaceful and under GDI control: Hassan was content with peace with GDI, as long as he was in control of Nod; Slavik, on the other hand, was more than eager to destroy GDI and his power and popularity were growing. In short, GDI was most likely trying to kill Slavik in order to prevent the vary war the "Cabal" claims GDI was trying to incite.
What is best taken from Cabal's article is that the moral positions of the "good guys" in C&C are not completely unassailable. He is wrong, on the other hand, of claiming that their moral ambiguity makes them evil; after all, their enemies were guilty of far worse.
GDI's Moral Failures in Command&Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
In previous games, GDI has always been portrayed as a global protector that, despite some underhandedness and occasional "ends justify the means" thinking, at the very least tries to promote peace and prevent excessive civilian casualties-note that GDI got most of the "evacuate civilians" missions while most (all?) of the "slaughter civilians" missions went to Nod. As of Tiberium Wars, however, GDI's "moral armor" takes a hit the size of Battleship cannon.
A central part of Tiberium War's backstory and plot is GDI's abandonment of the Yellow Zones, which left huge tracks of land and large populations of people ripe for Nod to acquire. Although GDI probably lacked the resources to maintain a significant presence in the Yellows Zones, the evidence points toward total GDI abandonment of the people trapped in the Yellow Zones. Had GDI made any ventures into the Yellow Zones, they would have encountered a significant and hostile Nod presence; still, at the beginning of Tiberium Wars, there are those among GDI who feel that Nod is no longer a significant concern. There is no evidence that GDI made any attempt to provide humanitarian aid to the people stranded in Yellow Zones, despite the fact that in the real world, the United Nations' primary method of responding to crises is humanitarian aid.
Another issue of GDI's moral decay is Director Boyle's willingness to sacrifice millions of lives in order to kill Kane. Although General Shepherd's desire to kill Kane was at least partially justified by the threat of nuclear retaliation should Kane not be eliminated quickly, the Director Boyle's actions show the exact opposite attitude toward the loss of innocent life: General Shepherd reasoned, "It's necessary to kill Kane in order to prevent massive civilian," whereas director Boyle obviously felt, "It's necessary to kill Kane in spite of massive civilian casualties."
The true crowning moment of the game, in my humble opinion, is when Boyle orders the Player to use the Liquid Tiberium Bomb on the Scrin Relay Node. The only flaw with that part of the game is that it is possible to destroy the Relay Node without using the Tib-lq Bomb; the ending would carry far more emotional impact for the Player if, despite hours of pounding away at the Relay Node with Avatars, railgun Mammoths, the Ion Cannon, Nukes, the Rift Generator, etc., he or she finally comes to the realization that the only way to save mankind is to sacrifice thousands of innocent people by using the Tib-lq Bomb.
What Could Be Done Differently?
On of the things that inspired me to start this thread was the game Fallout and, to an extent, its sequel Fallout 2. Both games have many possible endings depending on the Player's choices. Also, the "moral" thing to do is not always easily apparent; as an example, you have the opportunity to repair a leaky nuclear reactor in one area, preventing radiation from leaking into the groundwater, and thus preventing a neighboring city from invading to shut down the reactor. On the other hand, if you optimize the reactor, supposedly to promote a peace treaty between the two cities where the city with the reactor provides power while the other city provides medical supplies, the other city invades the city with the reactor in order to gain unrestricted access to the power. Also, the Fallout world is filled with groups that, while not evil, are not shining paragons of virtue either: even the "villain" of the first game was not evil, but rather had a vision of the future with which not everyone agreed. His vision was actually quite noble: the enhancement of humanity to strong, intelligent supermen; what he failed to realize was that the supermen were also sterile, and he actually killed himself when he learned the truth.
Players should have to make tough moral decisions during the game: there are ten houses in a village, and three (randomly selected) of them are going to spawn several suicide bombers that are going to attack your base. Do you level the village? Do you accept the damage to your own forces? Does your decision depend on whether the village as a whole is loyal to the other side, or does the preservation of your military force justify the loss of your own civilians?
Another thing that I want to see-although probably never will-is a game were none of the sides have the moral high ground. The Starcraft manual, for the Terran backstory, mentions rampant mutation and unrest on Earth, and a "United Powers League" that formed to quell the unrest and eliminate the mutants, cyborgs, etc. In Fallout 2, Vault City is incredibly xenophobic, conferring Citizenship on only a small handful of outsiders-none of whom are mutants-and practically enslaving the rest; the so-called "Enclave" plans to purify the human genome by releasing a virus to wipe all other human beings on Earth, leaving only their mutation-free DNA. These are excellent models for the GDI of C&C4, no longer a caricature of "the good guys," but instead is a civilization-and to an extent, a species-trying to survive in the face an unprecedented, dynamic, and viscous alien threat.
In short, for C&C4's plot, I want a GDI that is in a state of permanent martial law, its forces arresting or killing any mutants that they encounter, and not afraid to exterminate Yellow Zone towns to weaken Nod forces. In response, I want to see a new, more viscous Brotherhood of Nod, using nanite plagues, nuclear and Tiberium missile attacks on major GDI population centers, and perhaps even rudimentary mind control techniques to retaliate. I want to see the GDI internment camps for mutants and the Nod mass graves of heretics. I want two sides that are noble, honorable, and virtuous in their own minds only, and nowhere else.
Of course, the odds of GDI being portrayed in such a manner is rather slim, and it might not even be the best portrayal of GDI. It would be, however, the Realistic portrayal of the remnants of Western civilization, trying to find security in a world rapidly coming apart at the seems.
Either way, this article got me thinking, and I began to consider the possibility that C&C is a little too absolute with its morality: GDI is clearly the "good guy" in spite of the two or three lines of dialog cited to prove its "evilness," while Nod is clearly the "bad guy" (although Nod's "evilness" is not as self-evident as GDI's "goodness"). This is not necessarily a good thing.
Flaws in Cabal's Arguments
In Tiberian Dawn, the only "evil" thing that GDI does (kill Kane as opposed to capture him) is not evil. Whether or not GDI's mandate required it to capture war criminals as opposed to assassinate them, Kane was too big a threat to let get away: he was a nuclear-capable rogue agent and letting him live may well have been the greater evil. Backed against the wall as Kane was, GDI had no way of knowing whether he would launch a nuclear attack against civilian targets if he were not neutralized quickly. Also, given the fact that many within the Brotherhood literally worshiped Kane, it is doubtful that any prison could be built to hold him long enough for him to be brought to trial. Given the threat he posed, it was too great a risk to allow him to escape and rebuild his network.
In Tiberian Sun, General Solomon had arranged to have Slavik framed to be a traitor. While "Cabal" argues that this was part of a GDI plot either to kill off people in Nod without a trial or to cause Slavik to seek revenge and thus give GDI an excuse to crush Nod, such an assertion is rather extreme for the evidence provided. While Solomon's deal with Hassan and framing of Slavik do show a shadier side of GDI, Nod did something similar in both the First and the Second Tiberium Wars: frame GDI for a massacre that either never occurred (TW1) or was perpetrated by Nod itself (TW2) in order to promote its own agenda. Furthermore, killing Slavik was not a random act by GDI, but rather part of a plan to keep Nod peaceful and under GDI control: Hassan was content with peace with GDI, as long as he was in control of Nod; Slavik, on the other hand, was more than eager to destroy GDI and his power and popularity were growing. In short, GDI was most likely trying to kill Slavik in order to prevent the vary war the "Cabal" claims GDI was trying to incite.
What is best taken from Cabal's article is that the moral positions of the "good guys" in C&C are not completely unassailable. He is wrong, on the other hand, of claiming that their moral ambiguity makes them evil; after all, their enemies were guilty of far worse.
GDI's Moral Failures in Command&Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
In previous games, GDI has always been portrayed as a global protector that, despite some underhandedness and occasional "ends justify the means" thinking, at the very least tries to promote peace and prevent excessive civilian casualties-note that GDI got most of the "evacuate civilians" missions while most (all?) of the "slaughter civilians" missions went to Nod. As of Tiberium Wars, however, GDI's "moral armor" takes a hit the size of Battleship cannon.
A central part of Tiberium War's backstory and plot is GDI's abandonment of the Yellow Zones, which left huge tracks of land and large populations of people ripe for Nod to acquire. Although GDI probably lacked the resources to maintain a significant presence in the Yellows Zones, the evidence points toward total GDI abandonment of the people trapped in the Yellow Zones. Had GDI made any ventures into the Yellow Zones, they would have encountered a significant and hostile Nod presence; still, at the beginning of Tiberium Wars, there are those among GDI who feel that Nod is no longer a significant concern. There is no evidence that GDI made any attempt to provide humanitarian aid to the people stranded in Yellow Zones, despite the fact that in the real world, the United Nations' primary method of responding to crises is humanitarian aid.
Another issue of GDI's moral decay is Director Boyle's willingness to sacrifice millions of lives in order to kill Kane. Although General Shepherd's desire to kill Kane was at least partially justified by the threat of nuclear retaliation should Kane not be eliminated quickly, the Director Boyle's actions show the exact opposite attitude toward the loss of innocent life: General Shepherd reasoned, "It's necessary to kill Kane in order to prevent massive civilian," whereas director Boyle obviously felt, "It's necessary to kill Kane in spite of massive civilian casualties."
The true crowning moment of the game, in my humble opinion, is when Boyle orders the Player to use the Liquid Tiberium Bomb on the Scrin Relay Node. The only flaw with that part of the game is that it is possible to destroy the Relay Node without using the Tib-lq Bomb; the ending would carry far more emotional impact for the Player if, despite hours of pounding away at the Relay Node with Avatars, railgun Mammoths, the Ion Cannon, Nukes, the Rift Generator, etc., he or she finally comes to the realization that the only way to save mankind is to sacrifice thousands of innocent people by using the Tib-lq Bomb.
What Could Be Done Differently?
On of the things that inspired me to start this thread was the game Fallout and, to an extent, its sequel Fallout 2. Both games have many possible endings depending on the Player's choices. Also, the "moral" thing to do is not always easily apparent; as an example, you have the opportunity to repair a leaky nuclear reactor in one area, preventing radiation from leaking into the groundwater, and thus preventing a neighboring city from invading to shut down the reactor. On the other hand, if you optimize the reactor, supposedly to promote a peace treaty between the two cities where the city with the reactor provides power while the other city provides medical supplies, the other city invades the city with the reactor in order to gain unrestricted access to the power. Also, the Fallout world is filled with groups that, while not evil, are not shining paragons of virtue either: even the "villain" of the first game was not evil, but rather had a vision of the future with which not everyone agreed. His vision was actually quite noble: the enhancement of humanity to strong, intelligent supermen; what he failed to realize was that the supermen were also sterile, and he actually killed himself when he learned the truth.
Players should have to make tough moral decisions during the game: there are ten houses in a village, and three (randomly selected) of them are going to spawn several suicide bombers that are going to attack your base. Do you level the village? Do you accept the damage to your own forces? Does your decision depend on whether the village as a whole is loyal to the other side, or does the preservation of your military force justify the loss of your own civilians?
Another thing that I want to see-although probably never will-is a game were none of the sides have the moral high ground. The Starcraft manual, for the Terran backstory, mentions rampant mutation and unrest on Earth, and a "United Powers League" that formed to quell the unrest and eliminate the mutants, cyborgs, etc. In Fallout 2, Vault City is incredibly xenophobic, conferring Citizenship on only a small handful of outsiders-none of whom are mutants-and practically enslaving the rest; the so-called "Enclave" plans to purify the human genome by releasing a virus to wipe all other human beings on Earth, leaving only their mutation-free DNA. These are excellent models for the GDI of C&C4, no longer a caricature of "the good guys," but instead is a civilization-and to an extent, a species-trying to survive in the face an unprecedented, dynamic, and viscous alien threat.
In short, for C&C4's plot, I want a GDI that is in a state of permanent martial law, its forces arresting or killing any mutants that they encounter, and not afraid to exterminate Yellow Zone towns to weaken Nod forces. In response, I want to see a new, more viscous Brotherhood of Nod, using nanite plagues, nuclear and Tiberium missile attacks on major GDI population centers, and perhaps even rudimentary mind control techniques to retaliate. I want to see the GDI internment camps for mutants and the Nod mass graves of heretics. I want two sides that are noble, honorable, and virtuous in their own minds only, and nowhere else.
Of course, the odds of GDI being portrayed in such a manner is rather slim, and it might not even be the best portrayal of GDI. It would be, however, the Realistic portrayal of the remnants of Western civilization, trying to find security in a world rapidly coming apart at the seems.