There was apparently an interplanetary war lasting years between a fascist industrialized space society and checks notes 20-30 cowboys.
Even that could have been done ok if the factions weren’t both garbage self-defeatingly stupid fascist shitholes. Like if the UC was a socialist state that had tacitly tolerated/been unable to stop capitalist colonists from establishing corporate powers and so found itself effectively in a permanent low-intensity conflict with itself as the central party tried to keep control over these large parallel power structures, while the FC was a coalition of breakaway fascist corpo-states that were actively trying to encircle and undermine the UC.
But as it is the two factions are “the fascists from Starship Troopers” and “the Confederacy but it’s constituent parts are feudal corpo-states” and they’re both stagnating and rotting away and being chipped away at by petty warlords in a universe where the literal only hope is that maybe the reform Serpent cult might have a not-dogshit ideology and they successfully wipe out all the fascists and ancaps, but we don’t know anything about them because they’re almost completely absent from the story as it is. And the Bethesda execs and a terrifying chunk of their fans think it’s a good, aspirational setting full of hope.
I think the real problem is that they wanted to have both a well-established space-faring society but also an american frontier settler-brainworm aesthetic, when the two are clearly mismatched. The FC makes sense if the grav drive has only been around for a single generation or something, not the 200+ years as depicted in-game.
maybe the reform Serpent cult might have a not-dogshit ideology […], but we don’t know anything about them because they’re almost completely absent from the story as it is
:todd: had to remove any content involving House Varuun so that it could be made into a $30 DLC later.
The FC makes sense if the grave drive has only been around for a single generation or something, not the 200+ years as depicted in-game.
Having watched a bunch of Bethesda game analysis essays, this is a problem that is consistent with their writers. Bethesda doesn’t really seem to understand time spans.
Aside from the obvious issue of Fallout 3 where 200 years later everything is still a wasteland and unlooted, the same problem is present in Skyrim. For instance, Esbern, one of the last remnants of the Blades, somehow manages to live in hiding for 25 years in a sewer, without any way to earn money and buy food, and while avoiding detection.
The Thieves Guild questline is also made substantially worse by a 25 year gap in the backstory.
Like DAMN Karliah, you were working on this revenge plan for 25 years and this is all you have? A stupid mead business scheme and one single dose of the poison everything hinges on?
Of course, the fact that the writers keep patting themselves on the back by having every other character comment on how genius her plan is doesn’t help
if the grave drive
I’m imagining a setting where Starfield’s early designers made that same typo and just rolled with it instead of admitting their mistake to tod, and how much more interesting of a setting it would be if their FTL tech was some weird necromantic bullshit.
they wanted to have both a well-established space-faring society but also an american frontier settler-brainworm aesthetic
I’m glad I’m not the only one that picked up on that. In that “making of” video, Bethesda made a huge deal about wanting to capture “the wonder of space flight and exploration”, but at the same time having space travel be routine. It’d be like getting excited by driving down the highway.
