I do find the association with the Nazis a bit far fetched. The cog is a symbol associated with syndicalism, socialism, and to a lesser extent technocracy. It is also used often for specialised agencies related to infrastructure development, logistics, etc. Interestingly, a cog is also on the background of the Italian coat of arms. If you Google "cog political symbol" you will mostly get some fantasy political entities from RP forums or some obscure left political parties in Africa. The lack of immediately obvious nazi-related findings on the search engine is a good proxy variable for evaluating the obscurity of the relatedness of a cog as a political symbol to the nazi ideology. Similarly, a Spartan helmet that is overused in different sports team logos instead of alleged swastikas is too much of a leap of faith and a biased approach to interpretation. As Sam Harris put it: " one can find a proof of the second coming of Jesus in the recipe of cup noodles if looks for it hard enough".
Maybe to the German people the connection is more obvious, but for me despite having extensively studied political theory there is no self-evident connection.
The naming might be contentious and I agree with Lemon that "protection" might sound better. Not because of the alleged nazi references but because for their RP it will suit better, imho. Defending synthetics in addition to humanity hardly counts as "human purity".
(07-09-2023, 01:56 AM)Shimamori Wrote: The Coalition ships have a red star on them which is the symbol of the Air Force of one infamous country committing war crimes right now, and nobody bets an eye. Some tiny unof faction makes a logo that vague resembles an obscure not prohibited political faction that many people haven't even heard of and everyone is losing their marbles. C is for consistency
It's complained about because the name and the logo used are too overt in what they're supposed to tell and thus create a very bad first impression. The reason you don't see complaints about Xeno, well, xenophobia is because they have roleplay backing it up and never use anything remotely related to extremist organizations, at least I don't consider their "Don't thread on me" flag to be one. Same goes for the example you gave with the Coalition. It has roleplay backing it up, and even if it's slightly questionable, it has been the narrative of the faction as a whole since well before the events described.
I do not share the same opinion as Karlotta, that much is certain, and I can understand that people would like to roleplay organizations that want to also fight back against transhumanism and what-have-you, but it can only go so far before it both turns into a direct import of some obscure far right group or a faction that is just not fitting in the Freelancer universe (AI, Auxo, etc amongst others we have already and are hard to understand from an outsider perspective).
My suggestion, as I said prior and as others have since largely reposted together with their bits, is that this faction needs either a different name, or a different logo, as right now the iconography used coupled up with the whole purity masquerade is too much.
(07-09-2023, 01:56 AM)Shimamori Wrote: The Coalition ships have a red star on them which is the symbol of the Air Force of one infamous country committing war crimes right now, and nobody bets an eye. Some tiny unof faction makes a logo that vaguely resembles an obscure not prohibited political faction that many people haven't even heard of and everyone is losing their marbles. C is for consistency
Same goes for the example you gave with the Coalition. It has roleplay backing it up, and even if it's slightly questionable, it has been the narrative of the faction as a whole since well before the events described.
So, if a faction had, say, the roots in Nazi Germany inRP, would it be ok to use swastikas? The Red Star has a very strong connotation nowadays regardless of the lore behind it. If you try to defend a well-known symbol that is directly used by an aggressor in an ongoing war by using lore but try to bash a faction the symbols of which vaguely resemble some obscure reactionary faction that even does not pop up in Google searches unless you specifically go for it, then I would address you to the thesaurus in the section of hypocrisy. Coalition on disco is also a player-made faction, so no FL lore should be used discriminately to cover it up.
Leave it alone. At this point it will devolve into who subjectively finds what offensive. If the administration finds a problem with it - fine by me. If it is simply trial by forum - then the creators deserve the right to stick with their original idea or to alter it depending on how well their ingame interactions go and if they get ignored.
You're looking too much at the details while forgetting that the Coalition as a faction was established not by Discovery in terms of what it does but by Starlancer. It is mostly a complete import from that game, but it has also adapted itself somewhat well-ish, with maybe the exception of its playerbase.
That the counterargument to my statement is just a what-if is not something I am keen to entertain, as I only mentioned what the overall view of the group thus far seems be, that being of a very very questionable entity with even more questionable iconography.
We of course can go on for hours and hours listing what-ifs, but the fact of the matter is that this faction as it currently is does not fit either in the inRP universe, nor outside of it in the forums.
As a closing note on the Coalition shenanigans, they have been brought to the attention of the staff many times before with little actual success, so it is only logical then to assume that the emblems they use are fine, short of posting pictures of Lenin and Stalin all over the forums (those got deleted if I recall correctly).
Yeah there's a difference you aren't seeing - they just conceived the faction, there's no history and attachment,it takes 10 minutes for them to make the alterations people are asking for that will keep the premise and tag identical and not resemble IRL problematic imports. After the specifics people brough up and Karlotta specified it seems a little too on the nose with that specific IRL group - both name and symbol, it takes no effort to name them to e.g. Humanity Preservation/Protection Fellowship/Federation/Fraternity/Foundation and/ or use different cog graphics.
Coalition doesn't have both symbol and name, and taking away the star that's been associated with the in game assets for so long would be way more effort and has changed meaning to in game history over the years - if I am OP, I'd just make the minor changes because nothing is lost and there's no effort and I can then focus on doing my thing in preserving humanity in its original form. As I said the existing name isn't even that evocative for the premise, the alterations will make it better even.
Was the same with First Armada - the tag was free and never used, but it came to my attention that a more or less dead faction used the same name we used originally as an alternative name in the past. Even though admins told us there's no need to make the change we did because it took little effort, tag remained unchanged and now nobody remembers, it hasn't been even brought up once since then and the Word "Armada" became associated with our in game identity. It will be the same if they make the minor alterations with synonyms with same initials that will let them keep same tag here - they change it nobody will even remember in a few months they had an issue with it. They keep it it will detract from their gameplay when now it take 10 minutes to make the change - just a no brainer if you ask me.
(07-09-2023, 09:30 AM)Darius Wrote: You're looking too much at the details while forgetting that the Coalition as a faction was established not by Discovery in terms of what it does but by Starlancer. It is mostly a complete import from that game, but it has also adapted itself somewhat well-ish, with maybe the exception of its playerbase.
That the counterargument to my statement is just a what-if is not something I am keen to entertain, as I only mentioned what the overall view of the group thus far seems be, that being of a very very questionable entity with even more questionable iconography.
We of course can go on for hours and hours listing what-ifs, but the fact of the matter is that this faction as it currently is does not fit either in the inRP universe, nor outside of it in the forums.
As a closing note on the Coalition shenanigans, they have been brought to the attention of the staff many times before with little actual success, so it is only logical then to assume that the emblems they use are fine, short of posting pictures of Lenin and Stalin all over the forums (those got deleted if I recall correctly).
What if in this case is a simple metaphor. Let me remind you, that the Coalition's symbol in Starlancer was not the red star. Some constituent states had it, apparently, but the Coalition's main coat of arms was the golden dragon slithering around a sword over a purple cross-like image. Mind also that Starlancer was released way before the ongoing war and so the symbol at that time was as innocuous as the Nazi swastika during the Munich Olympics. It is also equally entertaining how you defend the Coaliton being an import while the faction in question was accused exactly of the same thing - being an import. And I also do not concur with the statement it does not fit within the lore. C'mon, we have Crayter which is basically an import with a questionable place in disco and absolutely ridiculous socio-economic lore, we have Auxo, and we have the Coalition. Do they ideally fit the vibe and what exactly is this "vibe"? To some, it will be absolutely ok, and some purists would argue nomads should not be playable, lest having two NPC nomad factions.
Regardless, I do not really see an issue with either of what I or others mentioned above. This said, I am resting my case.
You guys are sperging out about the name (which also appears in mainstream videogames, btw, ie the anti-aug org Purity First in Deux Ex: HR) and the purple logo thing with the Spartan helmet when the elephant in the room is the fact that this is the Order with extra steps.
(07-09-2023, 10:11 AM)Altzek Wrote: You guys are sperging out about the name (which also appears in mainstream videogames, btw, ie the anti-aug org Purity First in Deux Ex: HR) and the purple logo thing with the Spartan helmet when the elephant in the room is the fact that this is the Order with extra steps.
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Isn't this meant to be a feedback thread for the faction "Human Purity Front" in Freelancer Discovery?
Whilst I get the topics discussed, this rightly isn't the time or place. It's up to the Faction's creator to alter the name and flag if they believe it crosses a line. I don't see an issue with it.
(07-09-2023, 02:34 AM)Saronsen Wrote: look for vague resemblances in everything and youll eventually find out everything is related to hitler and the nazis.
This, just let the guy create and play the faction. The community will ruin everything by bringing up connotations and references to media outside of Discovery.
![[Image: PVArGCT.png]](https://i.imgur.com/PVArGCT.png){kind=small}
