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Author Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE  (Read 1740489 times)

Egan_BW

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4950 on: June 30, 2017, 01:53:41 am »

Just play them as space buddhists or something.
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Radsoc

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4951 on: June 30, 2017, 06:24:50 am »

You know those times when you read or listen to people who just don't know what they are talking about? Paradox have had real good and serious depictions of historical events in the past, but for me I experience that they let someone who has no clue write box and event descriptions in many Paradox games of late. Their depiction of materialism in Stellaris is somewhat caricature-like, just like how they depict the USSR and socialism in HoI4 (while unwittingly glorifying Trotsky). I don't think it's an agenda, it's just that they do it to the best of their ability, when they should've asked consultants for fact checks (i.e. real proponents of materialism or communism) instead of writing (by default liberal "common knowledge" preconception) statements no materialist or communist would sign on to. The game universe seems to support 'spirituality'/idealism at its core, which in essence falsifies materialism, while letting both exist simultaneously with real effects, when they in reality exclude each other.

By including "materialism" in a by design religious game/universe, all materialist civs and players turn out to be silly - because they are wrong. The game should've been designed the other way around, i.e. with religion in a materialist universe, but where, figuratively speaking, prayers are left unheard.

Sure, they take a lot of other liberties, so why not, the game works. But they simultaneously want you to immerse yourself in their stories. This gets hard when the inner logic of the stories are in contradiction. It's a bit like magic intense games like Skyrim. The feudal economy of that game does not reflect the state of "technology". Why do menial manual labor when you could just do some magic to skip it. The level of magic in that game would correspond to a super high tech economy, beyond our modern one, in terms of automation and transport, yet it's all surrealistically in a medieval setting. A good story should have no paradoxes or contradictions, even if it's just made up, to be plausible. So, yeah, paradox interactive.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 06:31:10 am by Radsoc »
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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4952 on: June 30, 2017, 07:04:16 am »

I'm curious, beyond the Warp, what exactly is 'religious' in the game? There's plenty of rational materialist civilizations in the game that make sense and produce great material works of wonder. Where I think the game falls flat is that it has a weird preconception that if you are materialist, you automatically go cybernetic/synthetic, and if you're spiritualist, you automatically go psychic/transcendent. I think both philosophies can and are fully capable of being independent of the whole physical ascendance/mental ascendance paradigm. A fanatic spiritualist empire that worships machines and technology (Hello, Cult Mechanicum!) and sees becoming cybernetic/synthetic as becoming closer to the Machine God should be just as reasonable as a logical materialist empire that approaches unlocking psychic potential and transcending the physical form as a logical and scientific method to bootstrapping evolution through science.
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4953 on: June 30, 2017, 08:42:26 am »

I'm curious, beyond the Warp, what exactly is 'religious' in the game? There's plenty of rational materialist civilizations in the game that make sense and produce great material works of wonder. Where I think the game falls flat is that it has a weird preconception that if you are materialist, you automatically go cybernetic/synthetic, and if you're spiritualist, you automatically go psychic/transcendent. I think both philosophies can and are fully capable of being independent of the whole physical ascendance/mental ascendance paradigm. A fanatic spiritualist empire that worships machines and technology (Hello, Cult Mechanicum!) and sees becoming cybernetic/synthetic as becoming closer to the Machine God should be just as reasonable as a logical materialist empire that approaches unlocking psychic potential and transcending the physical form as a logical and scientific method to bootstrapping evolution through science.

i mean, that kind of is the exact problem he's pointing at. If psionics were "real" then a real materialism would try to account for them. placing psionics solely in the realm of "spirituality" just means stellaris materialism is wrong on its own terms.

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
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Persus13

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4954 on: June 30, 2017, 08:47:51 am »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4955 on: June 30, 2017, 08:56:34 am »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.

they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
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Teneb

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4956 on: June 30, 2017, 09:03:15 am »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.

But I think the reason they decided spiritualism = psionics was to give that something to the spiritualists. The materialists had AI and such, and it seems Paradox is going with the Star Trek style of thought that dictates that logic is the opposite of emotion, with some elements of Dune too.
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ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4957 on: June 30, 2017, 09:40:57 am »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.

Of course that's the mainstream of Swedish politics. But that's not who their games are for. There is a significant chunk of their players who are ultranationalist / ultraright-wing, with basically every strain of insane alt-right thought you can imagine (Breivik defenders, neomonarchists/pro-fuedalism, pro-ethnic cleansing, etc etc).

Quote
But I think the reason they decided spiritualism = psionics was to give that something to the spiritualists. The materialists had AI and such, and it seems Paradox is going with the Star Trek style of thought that dictates that logic is the opposite of emotion, with some elements of Dune too.

The better comparison is Warhammer 40k (hence someone calling it "the Warp" earlier). Which, of course, is xenophobic space catholicism.

So given that, how can stellaris materialism exist in the same universe?
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umiman

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4958 on: June 30, 2017, 10:20:20 am »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.

they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Hahahahahahahaha.....

HAHAHAHAHAHHAA.....

Do you know what you're talking about here?

Do you even realize what company you're referring to?

You think they included a nonexistent religion framework ripe for exploitation to appease the fans? You think they even give a shit about that? Like, it even crossed their minds for a microsecond that they better "appease their hardcore deus vult fanbase"?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

ZeroGravitas

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4959 on: June 30, 2017, 11:29:43 am »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.

they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Hahahahahahahaha.....

HAHAHAHAHAHHAA.....

Do you know what you're talking about here?

Do you even realize what company you're referring to?

You think they included a nonexistent religion framework ripe for exploitation to appease the fans? You think they even give a shit about that? Like, it even crossed their minds for a microsecond that they better "appease their hardcore deus vult fanbase"?

i totally credit this explanation as likely and will admit you are right when they release a "build-a-religion" expansion like CiV:G&K / various EU4 religions.
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Paul

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4960 on: June 30, 2017, 11:59:20 am »

I can't help but laugh. How does the spiritualism in this game appeal to a "rabidly right-wing deus vult fan-base"?

The spiritualism in this game doesn't even come close to any real world religion, and certainly not any of the Abrahamic religions.

The closest it comes to is some forms of paganism or mysticism. The Abrahamic religions all have one thing in common (well, more than one thing, but this is the biggie): They believe in a single God who exists as the only God and who created everything in the universe, as it is, in 6 days. Some of the more liberal members of all 3 faiths don't hold to this, but the conservatives of all 3 faiths do hold to this.

This game's spirituality flies in the face of that. There is a higher plane where multiple gods or higher beings live, the whole setting is based on evolution and billions of years being true, and the ultimate form of evolution is to transform and ascend to that higher plane.

As what you would probably describe as a "rabidly right wing Christian" it doesn't bother me at all to play a game that represents things that way. It's a game, meant for entertainment purposes. It's not supposed to be educational or political. Even CK2, which could easily be very political and has a lot of history, still injects a healthy dose of silliness and fun gameplay. I also play Crusader Kings 2 as the *gasp* PAGANS and MUSLIMS sometimes! Oh, the horror - I'm conquering make believe Christians in a make believe simulation of alternate history! What would my rabid foaming at the mouth ring wing deus vult Christian friends think?
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Baffler

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4961 on: June 30, 2017, 12:22:00 pm »

By including "materialism" in a by design religious game/universe, all materialist civs and players turn out to be silly - because they are wrong. The game should've been designed the other way around, i.e. with religion in a materialist universe, but where, figuratively speaking, prayers are left unheard.

This comes off as pretty petty to be quite honest. Your complaint toward spiritual/materialist is literally "this game doesn't cater to MY philisophical position! Those dumb fundies should be left out in the cold!" I frankly think it's good on them for making spiritualism an actually viable philosophy instead of just dangerous assholes you have to work around, fight off, or keep appeased as is much more typical, while still making the opposite a good choice. I do agree though that limiting the Shroud and robots/upload behind one or another is a little silly, but I guess I can see why they did it that way.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4962 on: June 30, 2017, 12:33:46 pm »

conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.
I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.

Of course that's the mainstream of Swedish politics. But that's not who their games are for. There is a significant chunk of their players who are ultranationalist / ultraright-wing, with basically every strain of insane alt-right thought you can imagine (Breivik defenders, neomonarchists/pro-fuedalism, pro-ethnic cleansing, etc etc).
I'm pretty sure that the whole fanatic spiritualist = psychics thing isn't a moral statement its more of an extremely stock sci-fi trope.  But I do agree that, how did that one person put it, the Paradox forums have some tendencies.  I would not say that's what Paradox games are for per se.  I would say that Paradox games attract a lot of people, like for example they have the historical revenge fantasy crowd with Aztec invasions and pagans/natives being able to survive and theoretically conquer the world.  Compare the Total War saga which usually makes factions like that unplayable (and had I think... 2 unit models in Rome 2 Total War that were dark skinned?  Out of like a bajillion.  Even the Romans and Iberians are very pale despite locals to those regions typically having more olive skin even in modern times, the Romans should be darker skinned than the Germanic barbarians).  Ah, anyway, I would say that what Paradox games attract is history buffs.  A very common fallacy of people who study history (which thankfully seems to be in the process of being pushed out of schools and history books) is taking primary sources at face value.  An example of this would be the Conan the Barbarian stereotype, a lot of casual history buffs are all over that shit for a million reasons but its just straight wrong.  Or for example Dominions which takes a wide but surface level interpretation of history (for example featuring the Aztec and African kingdom factions interacting with other factions over the course of countless years yet never adopting their weapons, when in reality those peoples straight up had guns for most of the Colonial period albiet not ones they made themselves).

Back to Stellaris, I'd also add that science fiction has always had a strong authoritarian (often fascist) strain to it.  Not, mind you, necessarily agreeing with that authoritarianism, but it exists as a subtext very often.  As does genocide which is extremely unusually highly present in sci-fi, usually going hand in hand with the authoritarian subtext.  I'd say that purely in terms of how they handle authoritarianism there are 3 strains of sci fi: dystopian (authoritarianism is the future and its bad), military sci-fi (authoritarianism is the future and that's OK), and space opera/post-apocalypse (authoritarianism exists but this is a story about people, not about governments).  Some of them are a mix for example cyberpunk skirts the edge between accepting authoritarianism (Ghost in the Shell) versus ignoring it in favor of a personal story (Neuromancer).

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Radsoc

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4963 on: June 30, 2017, 01:10:00 pm »

Materialism and idealism make, mutually exclusive, claims about the universe we live in. It's not just a matter of materialist or spiritualist civs following their own ideas. The problem is that the game actually answers the question in the scope of that universe in favor of idealism/spirituality, by having actually existing e.g. psionic perks and the things associated with that like "mind over matter", explicitly outside the realm of "reality". That's just one issue, but puts the materialists to shame, and in some ways ruins the immersion there, because materialists turn out to be wrong by the very premises of the game. It would've been better if they just left the question unanswered (and made the player decide if those prayers are unheard or not  ;) ), while maybe adding different bonuses including the reasons as to why a specific civ has a specific ethos. Ideas don't appear in a vacuum. Found a very old, but good, more detailed discussion over at physics forums https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/philosophy-materialism-versus-idealism.2677/ on the subject, for people who are interested.

Ironically a similar problem exists in HoI IV with the soviet focus tree, where guys who are supposed to be materialists are forced to adopt (tooltip self-described or not) idealistic nodes. It's an immersion killer. I would more be a proponent of a game mechanics where a change to material circumstances affect the ideas of a population, i.e. second order variable, than allowing players direct (tooltip) access to ideas.

I think the stated DF approach to magic is a correct approach, where you generate a basis (the laws of nature or what not) and then (try to) build a consistent universe out of that.
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Teneb

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Re: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE
« Reply #4964 on: June 30, 2017, 01:28:27 pm »

Ironically a similar problem exists in HoI IV with the soviet focus tree, where guys who are supposed to be materialists are forced to adopt (tooltip self-described or not) idealistic nodes. It's an immersion killer. I would more be a proponent of a game mechanics where a change to material circumstances affect the ideas of a population, i.e. second order variable, than allowing players direct (tooltip) access to ideas.
Soviets were only atheists on propaganda, both their own and others'. The Orthodox Church was a massive power in Soviet Russia, especially since it's not exactly easy to get everyone to just drop their belief system in a heartbeat. The Russian Revolution happened in response to the authoritarianism and militarism of the czarist monarchy, the consequences of industrialization and a wish to return to the old Mir rural system, not in response to religion.

EDIT: Reading the forum post you linked to, it seems you are confusing spiritualism (religion) with (philosophical) idealism. Stellaris spiritualism is not about Hegelian thought. Stellaris spiritualism is a vague belief system tied to the idea that there is a higher plane of existence tied to psionic energies, which turns out to be true. It does not reject that the material world exists outside our perceptions. Stellaris materialism, meanwhile, argues that there is no sort of higher power, instead everything can be explained through the scientific method. If something can't be explained by the laws of physics, then it's not because there is some mystic property to it, but that researchers got the laws wrong.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 01:40:09 pm by Teneb »
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