wgreen
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Post by wgreen on Jul 7, 2012 23:33:58 GMT 1
I was curious about the Batarian Hegemony and how it actually worked, what are your personal thoughts on how they run things on their home world. Also i was wondering about their customs and religions. From what i know they believe in the scripts, "The Four Pillars." and that body language is crucial to their society.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Jul 8, 2012 6:26:25 GMT 1
It's a game. They deliberately left out most of the details on the Batarians so they could be henchmen in ME2, and cannibal fodder in ME3. The only clue is the word "Hegemony." I doubt even Gaider has focused too much on it.
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wgreen
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Balsa Son! Balsa!
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Post by wgreen on Jul 8, 2012 7:17:47 GMT 1
Alright, that clears up a lot, i am writing a fanfic based from a batarian perspective and just wanted to make sure i didn't mix up any details. Thank you for the response! ;D
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Post by jklinders on Jul 8, 2012 13:55:11 GMT 1
We know they practice slavery to compensate for their being out on their own to prop up their economy.
We know that travel to and from their homeworld is heavily restricted. We know that they use propaganda to control what their population thinks of the Hegemony a lot.
Other than that, we don't actually know anything.
I was thinking, maybe 3rd Reich with a bit of Persia or Rome mixed in.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Jul 8, 2012 16:12:23 GMT 1
We know they practice slavery to compensate for their being out on their own to prop up their economy. We know that travel to and from their homeworld is heavily restricted. We know that they use propaganda to control what their population thinks of the Hegemony a lot. Other than that, we don't actually know anything. I was thinking, maybe 3rd Reich with a bit of Persia or Rome mixed in. And a good sprinkling of Stalinist Russia for good measure.
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iamseph
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Post by iamseph on Jul 8, 2012 21:45:06 GMT 1
We know they practice slavery to compensate for their being out on their own to prop up their economy. We know that travel to and from their homeworld is heavily restricted. We know that they use propaganda to control what their population thinks of the Hegemony a lot. Other than that, we don't actually know anything. I was thinking, maybe 3rd Reich with a bit of Persia or Rome mixed in. Aside from the restricted homeworld that doesn't make them any different from the other species' in the ME canon There's the Quarian slave that you can help get a job or get freed on (I think) the Citadel in ME2. The dialog around that encounter made it seem fairly common and normal. Legalised and regulated doesn't change the fact that it is essentially slavery. What government doesn't use propaganda to control how others view them? All we really know about the Batarians is that they get a bad rap and have some history of wars. Sure a lot of them are mercs, then so are penty of Asari and Humans but they seem fairly civilized when you go to their big cities. For all we know the "mainstream" Batarians on their isolated home planet are (or were ) one of the most civilized and peaceful people of the ME canon.
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Post by jklinders on Jul 8, 2012 22:33:43 GMT 1
Slavery is illegal in Citadel space. Illium where that quest is, is in the Terminus systems. Omega has a news blurb where the Hegemony is whining about it.
The propaganda machine is supposedly so advanced in the Hegemony that there is no access to independent or alternative information sources at all. Think Chinese internet firewall on crack.
The Batarians are getting a bad rap because their government are a pack of smashed assholes that pursue war whenever they want something that diplomacy won't give them for free and stoop to piracy when they are too weak to fight.
In other words, it's self inflicted on them by their rulers. No wonder they restrict travel off planet. No one would want to live there. In all real world cases where a government restricts travel, it's because living there sucks. think about it.
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iamseph
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Post by iamseph on Jul 8, 2012 23:13:07 GMT 1
Other than what I remember from the games and the ME wiki, I don't have that much information to work with. Could you cite your sources? Your information doesn't sound very impartial.
The fact that some human societies restrict outside travel because they don't want people leaving isn't evidence that the Batarians do it for that reason. I agree that it's a possible explanation but it is not the only explanation. Since as far as I'm aware we've seen nothing of the Batarian homeworld in canon I'm going to need a more persuasive reason than that.
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Post by jklinders on Jul 8, 2012 23:32:22 GMT 1
Other than what I remember from the games and the ME wiki, I don't have that much information to work with. Could you cite your sources? Your information doesn't sound very impartial. HereTry the codex as well. The wiki is based on the novels and the codex so is reliable and the codex is a direct channel to Word of God on the lore. Trust me, between their hostile and piratical activities against humans, and picking fights with both the Salarians and the Asari, history shines a really crappy light on them. Show me a good reason for it otherwise. Give me an example of a non oppressive regime here in the real world and I will concede you may have a point. Otherwise I will be forced to invoke Occam's Razor as the least complicated explanation for travel restrictions off of Kar'Shan with the available info is that it sucks to live there so everyone would leave if they had a choice. Add in an 11th century caste system with oppression built in (all readable in the codex) and who would want to stay given a choice unless they were in the less than 1% at the very very top? There is little reason to put leather pants on this Draco. Why are so convinced they were given a bad rap may I ask?
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iamseph
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Post by iamseph on Jul 9, 2012 8:37:28 GMT 1
Yes that is the wiki page I was reading. Those details say very little about their culture on their home planet.
The fact that human society has no prominent examples of a culture restricting travel for reasons other than opression is grounds for nothing. The depth of human experience is contained in a very tiny slice of time on an invisible dot and is not exhaustive of all the realm of possibility. Just like the fact Batarians themselves exist in canon yet do not exist in reality, their society may have developed in ways that Humans can not possibly have experienced.
Suppose if I find myself playing a RPG set in the ME canon and had to make a decision based on how Batarian society functions on this little amount of information. In that situation I would absolutely invoke Occam's Razor and pick the option that is least complicated.
But I feel like my point has been missed. This is creative writing, and Occam's Razor is a lousy way of being creative. My original point was that there is no definitive evidence about how Batarian society functions, so the OP wgreen can write their society in other ways without breaking canon. I in my limited capacity of being just one guy can not exhaustively list everything the imagination could come up with as alternativeand reasonable explanations for how Batarian society functions. I will try later if you like, but I'm a little pressed for time right now.
This following thought is not meant as a part of the discussion, just something that occurred to me while typing this. Are Batarians really restricted from leaving their homeworld? Maybe the Hegemony monitors departures and perhaps restricts it just as our own governments do, but does not overly restrict it in the opressive way we seem to have concluded. I'm considering this because Batarians are found all over the place in the ME series. They never mention anything about breaking free of their opressive regime. Maybe they're just the lucky ones though. They don't seem like they're just going to open up to people they regard as enemies anyway. I'm just looking at the possibilities and, as wgreen asked, sharing my thoughts.
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Post by jklinders on Jul 9, 2012 9:52:04 GMT 1
Both the codex and the wiki describe their society as oppressive. They have a caste system that states that it is almost breaking a law to simply covet being in a higher standing than you are and they conduct their warfare through piracy and slavery.
Not all Batarians are like this by any stretch but that is not the point of the question you asked. You asked what their government is like based on the admittedly sketchy information available. The information available says that they have a rigid caste system that allows no upward mobility-oppressive. The information says they have pursued warfare aggressively in their short history with the council, including annexing an asari colony. The information says they severely restrict information both coming in and leaving their homeworld.
I cannot draw any conclusion about this other than their being very a oppressive and aggressive regime. One that needed to be watched. One that the council was watching closely if you listen carefully to the news updates that were coming through during ME 2.
In any event this is not worth fighting over. We both have access to the same info. Use it as you wish.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jul 9, 2012 11:18:36 GMT 1
I was thinking of writing an Batarian stormyself, like a squad member for ME" who happens to be an Batarian who left the Hegomoney after the Blitz.
For the Hegemony I had a 1984 feel of it, Big Brother is everywhere with large monitors in large cities showing humans as the bad guys. Expect secret police pulling people with black bags over their heads who then dissapear who dare oppose the regime. The only way batarians can get free of the regime is join merc bands, become pirates or escape from one of the outer colonies.
I recall in ME3, the Batarians are having a small rebirth because their goverment is gone pretty much. Also the seemed to worship Pillars of strength thus Idol Worship. then again it could be their version of the Christ statue in Rio.
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wgreen
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Balsa Son! Balsa!
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Post by wgreen on Jul 9, 2012 11:48:42 GMT 1
So i just had another quick question. I wanted to post part of this story, here to see what others thought of how i had written the Hegemony. The part deals with their religion and how it was protected from the Hegemony but now it is being taken over as well. I just wanted to know if i post it here or in the Fanfiction forum?
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jul 9, 2012 11:49:53 GMT 1
I think it fits better in fanfiction there dude.
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iamseph
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Post by iamseph on Jul 9, 2012 15:16:36 GMT 1
The discussion with jklinders has made me want to write something about Batarian society now just to explore other possibilities and see if they can be understood differently. I don't know if it's something I want to do enough to actually go through with it though.
I agree that it should be in fanfiction, wgreen, but I think it would be relevant to put a link to it here.
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