Who is the most beautiful person of Smac&AC

[Alinestra Covelia]

Neptunus: Concerning Dee -- I don't dislike her any more than any other faction leader. In fact, if there was a faction leader I have to admit I actually do dislike, it would have to be Pravin Lal, for reasons which should be obvious based on my choice of faction

However I think that Firaxis did not really follow through with the character of Deirdre. They made very interesting characters of all the other six faction leaders:

Santiago is a skilled leader, brilliant military tactician, and a success from humble roots. She also starts off all the trouble on board the Unity in the first place, and comes close to hijacking the entire mission. (vide Journey to Alpha Centauri story.)

Miriam is a charismatic speaker, trusted and eloquent. She is not afraid to engage the technology of the future in an argument - she defends her faith with logic and reason. However, she is guilty of being blind to the validity of the other factions' ideologies, and ingame is too aggressive.

Morgan is practical and his goals are longterm, but at the expense of his contact with the common people. Whilst it would be unfair to say that he is motivated solely by greed, it might be more fair to say that his long term goals are heavily influenced by it.

Zakharov is the most intelligent of all the leaders, and his goals are lofty and enviable - to approach omniscience. However, his moral code is impaired and this is emphasized in his character.

Lal is the humanitarian, but even in this case Firaxis have conscientiously acknowledged the drawbacks of a bureaucratically heavy society, and the abuses of power that even those at the top are tempted into (Lal pulls strings for his wife Pria to be accepted into the mission, he later steals a piece of her flesh to regenerate her if possible).

Yang seems mostly negative at first glance - but upon closer inspection his very deep plans for the future come to the fore. As my now-defunct "Chairman Sheng Ji Yang" thread demonstrates, people are still arguing over whether he's a Communist thug or a superhuman leader striving for enlightenment, but either way his authority and control are unquestioned.

Dee on the other hand has no drawbacks. They've drawn a conservationist ecologically conscious woman who is beautiful, compassionate, intelligent, etc etc ad infinitum, but otherwise she is pretty flat and emotionless. What about the practicalities of a green economy? What about the nitty gritty of a society that lacks survivalist ethics - merely a mystical collective desire to merge with the Planet?

So when I come across Dee in a game, to me she is a less believable character than the rest, and depending on circumstances, I tend to take her less seriously. Besides, the idea of a Hiverian dictator taking a prancing filly like Dee seriously are pretty slim... although certainly not impossible

[shameless plug]

(watch story for further developments)

[/shameless plug]

Do we have any lesbians here? If so, would any of you choose Dee over, say, Roze or Santiago?


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Machines: outthinkable YES outfightable NO.
Men: outfightable YES outthinkable NO.
Allie Cove: outfallable INEVITABLY

Homepage http://www.enixine.dabsol.co.uk (Shared)

[mark13]

Wow, pretty detailed Allie........

Personally, I would choose Deirdre (hmmm....... )
but let's face it, the only reason she's in the equation in the first place is the shameless desires of the Firaxian developers........

Need I say more?

[RedFred]

Fun Aki Z. attachments? H'minee? I had no idea you were so kinky, XWaste!

It looks like a route for Deirdre again. I'm another fan of hers. And what is this about two empty wallets, AC? How do you know that we don't appreciate her for her mind?

Aki is my runner up. Sexiest voice in the game.

[Neptunus]

A really thorough reply typical of Allie Cove...

Actually, I'm with you. I see your point and I have to admit that, on Journey to Alpha Centauri, Dee had the most low-profile, colorless and totally pathetic role. She certainly is the only leader not standing for her ideals (social agentas), at least to the degree other leaders do. And of course, I think it's hard to see enough tangible evidence justifying the effectiveness of her green policy to the planet's ecosystem.

[Hydro]

AC,

I must dissent.

Your criticism of Dee comes down at two levels: Dee as a character and at the Gaian society she creates.

First let’s look at Deirdre as a character. From her bio, she is as well developed and ‘real’ as any of the other factions. She isn’t a great but shady deal maker like Morgan, or an Einstein-like thinker like Zak, but she is an accomplished world-class biologist in her own right. Due to her background, her concerns are for helping people, and especially those who are afflicted by wars and events they can’t control. In my estimation, this is the basis for the empathy she is so well known for. What is unique about her bio is that this very empathy, and her deep understanding of biology, gives her and the society she forms an edge in the alien ecology of Planet. Basically, she is able to grasp the fundamental difference of Planet long before any of the other faction leaders. Dee’s understanding is innate and subtler when dealing with humanity’s new home. By comparison, Zak uses intellectual brute force to understand, Morgan strives to understand so he can exploit, Miriam believes she already has the Truth (leading to her blindness, and her –1 Planet rating), Lal has other humanistic concerns, and Yang’s ‘truth’ is his vision of a unified humanity (Planet is largely irrelevant to his ‘truth’).

Next, is Dee ‘flat and emotionless’? Only if her character doesn’t have depth, or if she doesn’t really believe in anything. On the contrary, after Yang, she has the most insightful quotes on Datalinks, and almost all of these have to do with Planet, and understanding how humans can function in the alien ecology and a growing awareness of the potential sentience of Planet. Is this a ‘mystical drive’? Absolutely not, since she is right! It can be more strongly argued that the other faction leaders are blind to the facts staring them in the face, and Dee is the truly perceptive one among them. To be rounded a character must have downsides, too, and Dee certainly has these, and they are reflected in her society (see below). On a personal level she is perhaps overly idealistic, although I should note that she is no less fanatical than any of the other faction leaders, and is a little more likely to be a good neighbor than, say, Yang, Santiago, or Miriam. Whereas Yang yearns for control or discipline of the individual for the greater good of society/humanity, Dee believes in the society for the good of the individual. Again, this goes back to the background in her bio, which is useful in understanding motivations.

So, in my mind, Dee as a character is entirely believable. For each of the faction leaders you have to read between the lines by compiling the bio information, useful snippets in Datalinks, and the default faction SE to get a full picture (note – this is how Yang becomes, perhaps, the most thoughtful of the SMAC faction leaders as opposed to a mere Communist Thug).

Second, let’s look at the Gaian society. Dee’s society is the most non-militaristic or least authoritarian of all the factions (-1 Morale and –1 Police, pacifistic nature). This is in keeping were her overall vision of humanity, and how a society should function on a general level. Is this non-survivalistic? I don’t think so. All the factions start out on the same plane when they crash land on planet – trying to survive under trying conditions all alone in a uniformly hostile environment. Later additions (e.g. – Democracy and Green, and other SE choices) come only after the society has the infrastructure and resources to support these more advanced governmental and economic choices. By definition, all the factions are survivalists at the start, and then only add to their default SE mix as their societies grow and can afford to. Now you can argue that these Gaian default SE penalties are pretty minor, and I won’t disagree. The benefits of +2 efficiency and +1 Planet are huge, and in the early and early mid game the lack of FM is not an issue (it is later, to be sure). Are these advantages unreasonable? The +1 Planet I discussed above is associated with the Gaian awareness, sympathy, and open mindedness to their new environment. The +2 efficiency reflects the tendency to reuse and reduce, and only really kicks in as the society gets bigger. In the real world we have seen that a regulatory environmental structure (like in the US) can, in the long run, save lots of money that would be required to clean up industrial messes (working in this industry, I can guarantee that it is much less expensive to prevent pollution than to pay a consultant like me to clean it up). This is the nature of the ‘green’ Gaian’s efficiency – a proactive societal bias toward ‘green’ (small ‘G’) that is actually an investment in the future (“…we vow not to repeat the mistakes of the past…” Gaian intro). Later, this is taken to new heights by adding Green to the SE mix, resulting in a super-green/efficient faction (although I haven’t quite figured out how you get +2 Planet out of Green SE, but that’s not Dee’s fault).

The conclusion is that I respectfully disagree that Dee is either flat as a character, or that her society doesn’t make sense. I will agree that she is, perhaps, the only ‘good guy’ in SMAC, but that is part of the design – you have to have conflict, and what more useful way to do this than to set a beautiful and empathetic woman against a gun-toting militarist, an erratic and hypocritical bureaucrat, an ethically challenged scientist, a dehumanizing communist (“…we will stomp on the face of humanity, forever…” paraphrase of George Orwell’s 1984), a religious fanatic, or an industrial hedonist? Sounds like a good game design to me…

Hydro

P.S. – Neptunus, actually, Dee is just as likely as Morgan, Zak, or Lal to go non-linear if you are non-democratic and/or non-green in your SE choices. So in what way does she stand less by her ideals?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Hydro:

Cool post! So refreshing to see that I'm not the only one to write reams in defence of a loved one!

Fair point about the SE choices voiceovers - I guess I never really paid too much heed to Dee's particular ones - my major observations of her being based on the ingame description (NOT the site bios) and the site story (which as you note actually portrays Yang very much as a closet Commie).

It is interesting that you draw notice to the faults of her faction as being part of her profile. I hadn't thought of that much, partially because the Gaians are a faction I rarely play as. But that doesn't really overcome the lack of a "dark side" for her, or a character hamartia.

You admit this yourself - that Dee is portrayed as the goodgirl of the piece. My question is "Should Firaxis have done this? Is it right to polarize her and nobody else?" Your faction weakness argument is a good one and one that I hadn't considered thoroughly enough for the Gaians... but when we are discussing the attractions and/or portrayal of the leader, does that matter so much anymore?

Personally, I still find Dee too saccharine for my tastes. The personal bios speak of her traumatic past and hint at some individualist political swervings. (Dee comes from "Free Scotland", for a start... what the Americans don't realize is that Scotland's not exactly the green and wooded land of auld castles etc that they might imagine -- think bagpipes and deep fried Mars Bars instead.) In game, this is not touched upon. Instead, Dee is at best "beautiful" and at worst "eco-daft".

As a final point (and I know before even saying it that it's prejudiced and taken out of context) there's a voiceover that has the Gaians overrunning a Spartan outpost. If this is a bona fide voiceover, and not just my memory having a glee with me, then it points at some real discrepancies between the characters ingame and their other backgrounds.

Certainly I thought that Miriam and Yang changed considerably from the storyline background to their ingame personas. A question is Which of these do we take as being more "genuine"?

And as a postscript, I would like to add that breast tissue is akin to a suspension bridge and is not infinitely supple. If a suspension bridge collapses, it can always be rebuilt. But once a breast has grown torpid, it stays that way for life...

(What's the frequency of silicone and silicaceous substances on Planet? Dee might have cause to inquire about this later on...)

[Eurhetemec]

Hydro - Really, dude, you seem to have severe pro-Dee issues, and because of this, completely fail to see why many people, perhaps even most people, dislike her, especially people who don't see things in black and white. We realise you love her, but really... 8)

I will undoubtedly repeat myself a tad, but please bear with me.

Anyway, the core point of most people's strong dislike for Dee is that she is a "goody-goody" or "goody-two-shoes" or a "paladin", and matches up to NO-ONE in real-life. IRL, no-one is perfect, all are flawed, however subtley. SMAC acknowledges this beautifully with ALL the characters except Dee. She's just "Good" when all others are "Real". Everything she does or says is "right" or "correct". Always. This is unrealistic and annoying, especially in a deeply morally "grey" game like SMAC.

Is she totally without depth and so on? No, you clearly show she is not. She is, however, without FAULT. Perfect. Infalliable. I should not need to repeat myself to say why that is stupid, and annoying, on a variety of levels. She has no apparent friends or relations, or any kind of visible personality apart from the fact that she is "right", and annoyed with those who are "wrong".

Overall, she's a big, fat (not literally, of course), geeky, cliche, IYAM. The nerd's idea (no insult intended to ANYONE, I am a geek, IMO, note...) of the "perfect woman", beautiful, intelligent, qualified, respected, "wise" (as in "always right"), calm but passionate, approachable yet inviolate, and so on. A real "pedestal" woman, if you get my meaning. Way beyond any "mortal", which makes her doubly annoying to RL women, I would suspect. I've seen her before in less realistic, more geeky comic-books, novels, especially sci-fi, perhaps in films, too. Oh, and let's not forget the "Celtic" element, either. Ack, as a Celt myself, I absolutely reject this "Celts are perfect" cliche, and Dee is part of that, too. I hate cliches, and the other characters avoid them, even Yang and Miriam, "commie" and "religious nut" though they may be.

She in no way resembles any real person, and frankly, if her views were so obviously correct, then others would share them. She shatters the glorious "mudbath" (whoa, talk about mixed metaphors!) that is SMAC, where *everyone* is dirty, to some degree, and worse, she knows it (impossibly), criticising everyone, and behaving, in-game, like an ass (the Queen of Backstabs, IMX).

Get my point? There are a VERY large number of reasons to hate her, or at least resent her, and she IS unrealistic, you singularly failed to disprove that, I'm afraid.

On Topic: Aki-Zeta5 is prettier, and has a much nicer voice, but, as noted, she is a crazy cyborg who wants half your brain. Still, better be assimiliated that have to hang around with Little Miss Perfect 24-7, so, if Aki would so kind as to get the right-brain remover ready...

*PS: One should note that I am biased because LMP (Dee) has backstabbed me more times than anyone in the game, and it's always more irritating given her superior attitude and supposed "good-ness". You EXPECT to be backstabbed by Yang, I mean, but Dee...

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"You're standing on my neck."

[Alinestra Covelia]

Just a quantifier before anybody accuses me of being an ultra-hetero, militant, jealousy-green, promprincess who hates Dee just because she's a stuck up snotty brattess (is that even a word?) etc etc ad infinitum,

When I'm playing as the Hive, she's always nice to me. Can't fathom why. Even when I'm Top and she's Second, Dee's been pretty meek and complacent.

Makes it all but impossible to betray her... but never accuse me of not putting in the effort

[Eurhetemec]

I know exactly what you mean about Dee loving the Hive (loving Yang? There's an ugly image!), and they being the first faction I played, and played for a long while, I never had problems with her, to start off with. Which just made her repeated later betrayals of MUCH more strongly socially and environmentally aligned factions even more irksome and bitter-making and somehow continually unexpected. Grrrrr.

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"You're standing on my neck."

[stuntman19]

Your bad for trusting the lil princess of smac. Dee always kisses up to the Hive...I think its the naked wheel barrel racing with the Chairman.

[RedFred]

Zooming off topic, I am surprised that some people are disliking Lady D. due to her lack of realism. Each of the original seven strikes me as a humourless fanatic cardboard-type character in their own way. If you check the dossier on each one it will say something like extremely competent in their own field but due to (each one's) narrow focus none of the seven should never be allowed to reach a position of leadership. What if Deidre has a poorly-developed darkside? For me, someone like Morgan has a complete absence of a good side.

The beautiful thing with this game is that due to each of our core values being different from the next person, different people will have different heros or villains. For some people, it seems that Deidre's perceived lack of bad traits is cause for dislike or resentment of her. Why not? The same thing happens in real life.

I got the feeling that a separate group of Firaxian people were responsible for developing all the quotes than the group that did the initial character sketch. If so, the "quote group" did try to breathe some life into the characters that would have otherwise been very one-dimentional. I think that they did as good of a job that was possible given their constraints.

Ignoring looks altogether, for me, easily the least likeable of the original seven would have to be Lal. You would have thought given his agenda that he would have been the most admirable. But his stuffy bureaucratic voice, his stupid book "Mindworm, mindworm" ,his shiftiness in alliances and, let's face it, his sheer lack of charisma make him hard to like.

SMACX seems very much like an after-the-fact add-on. The storyline is not nearly as coherent. I didn't bother to read all of it. While I love playing SMACX, it seems to me that the characters don't have the force of the first seven. Nonetheless, the designers should be commended for adding humour to the game. Under the guise of alien misunderstanding, both progenitors have been given some funny lines during diplomatic discussions.

I find the Datajackass's voice to be the most irritating, her quotes the most goofy or banal and her agenda the most ludicrous. Was this deliberate on Firaxis's part, or do I just not get modern American culture?

No one seems to emerge as admirable in the SMACX group. I am actually warming to the gal/guy I once referred to as "that little castrato" who is very much the darkside of Lady D. Silly hat notwithstanding, I think that most people who enjoy a Green Lady D. gaming experience won't mind an occasional switch to a game of bashing a few heads around with the Prophet.

[Eurhetemec]

ROTFL - That diss on Lal is classic, really, I actually slipped off my chair as I read "His stupid book "mindworm, mindworm"...". Yes, his book IS very annoying, I must admit. He is a "**** ", but I still very much dislike Dee. As I said, I'm biased.

I still say that Dee is less realistic. You say "people are like that in real life...". I say "no, they are not...". No-one is ALWAYS right. Cardboard cut-outs the others may have been, but Morgan, for example, is highly likeable, and not "evil", just a capitalist pig. He doesn't want your brain or anything, just your cash. Besides, he paid for the "jaunt" to AC, so that's why he's there.

I disagree on the SMACX characters too, though obviously they could never be so thoroughly worked in. Remember that none of these people, say perhaps Lal and Morgan are leaders because they have been put there "officially". Most are leaders because people follow them, not because they are competant. I mean, look at Hitler. Useless at strategy, bizarre personality, lots of "defects" but a nation followed him. Just because you SHOULD lead doesn't mean you will. Heck, any role-call of world-leaders reveals that. Many are basically underskilled, winning their positions in other ways. Just look at potential President Bush. No insult to those who may vote for him, but he's incompetant, mentally and experientially, yet he could EASILY lead America, the most powerful nation on Earth (Gore is an ass too, I grant you, but he's not mentally incompetant. He knows the difference between "hostile" and "hostage").

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"You're standing on my neck."

[RedFred]

Glad you liked my 'dis' of Lal. Feel free to add some comments on how you feel about the Firaxian job of creating the Roze character. A real hatchet job would be nice.

I'd like to make a couple of clarifications on my last post. When I was talking about Deidre's 'perceived' lack of bad traits, I meant that some see her that way and others might not.

Forget "Conversations with Planet" and look instead at the quotes from "Our Secret War". I would suggest that her conflicts with planet are 'secret' because it doesn't fit her image of champion of all things green. In other words she is choosing expediency over honesty.

Moreover, here in BC there is a war going on in the woods. The loggers and greens are going toe to toe and tactics on both sides get a bit morally dubious. While I am happy that many Apolytoners regard greens as having no bad traits, many people here view them with suspicion and hostility.

Another clarification, this time on my suggestion that real life people whom are perceived as having a lack of bad traits will often be disliked. How many times have you seen comments in this forum along the lines of 'Deidre is a real goody-two-shoes'? How often have you heard similar comments about real life people? I was trying to say that my belief is Firaxis was trying to create a cast of characters that people will react to differently on a gut level depending on their own core values. Not a batch of realistic, believable people.

Eurhetemec, I concede that Morgan, who apparently bribed his way on to Unity because he couldn't make it on merit, does have style and personality. But I still dislike him and think that he is a far more insidious villain than the others. Was it the research hospital where he cynically creates a hero against the mind worms myth? Morgan is an egotistical, greedy, self-serving, propanganda-spewing kind of guy. Notice how people with the Morgan last name get to run their own corporations? In his faction, you get to rise to the top if you have the right family connections.

All I am trying to say is that there is no right answer about who the heros and the villians are in this game. That is the beauty of it.

[Fitz]

IMO 'Our secret war" is not about the War between the Gaians and Planet, it is about the eight way war between the 8 factions (planet & the seven humans) and the veneer of civility that overlays it all (council meetings etc.).

And it's the Hologram Theatre that Morgan has a quote about 'Recon Rover Rick' and his horrible death. The Research Hospital is his quote about the nerve stapling of citizens who had broken in because they didn't like the concept of research hospitals.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited September 15, 2000).]

[Hydro]

Well, for a non-realistic and unbelievable character Deirdre sure does generate a lot of visceral responses. So, you felt betrayed when the Dee backstabs you (this seems to be a common theme, by the way), when of course you don’t deserve it? You trusted Dee? And this generates intense feelings of outrage, shock, and hatred? I find it odd that a card board cutout would generate such a reaction. Maybe Dee isn’t such a flat character after all…

But that aside, I think RedFred is right: Firaxis generated a wide spectrum of faction leaders, all of whom can conceivably have good points or values potential players are interested in or sympathetic with, or traits that can be detested. My natural inclination is toward Dee, both because of my perceptions of her personality and the alignment of her faction. AC is a die-hard and eloquent advocate for Yang, one of the most despised faction leaders (and one of the most misunderstood). The vaunted Vel sponsors the neglected Morgan, at least as far as game play goes (although not, strangely, in his fiction). Domai has been the true love of Jasonian for a long time, and recently Googlie has been playing with the Believers. When you get right down to it everyone gravitates, for one reason or another, toward one of the factions, which is symbolized by the faction leaders to give it flavor.

SMAC is all about its gameplay, which is defined by its story and setting. In my opinion Firaxis did an outstanding job with ALL of their original seven faction leaders, and did a decent job with the add-ons. Are all of them completely 3D? No, they aren’t. But compare them with any other game and I think most folks will agree that these characters, the storyline, and the setting taken together are what really make SMAC stand out from the rest. After all, the mechanics of SMAC is a tweaked Civ2; it is the story and the characters (even Planet, which has as definite character, after all) that makes it truly compelling.

Hydro

P.S. – I would offer a couple of players on the international stage as ‘good’ people: Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Mahatma Gandhi. Each of these prominent people stood for a cause, and could easily be called a fanatic, especially by their detractors. Devotees might call them saints. What the public knows about them is mainly about their cause, and the ‘big picture’ portions about their personalities. From afar they may seem ‘perfect’ or perhaps ‘goody-goody’, but who knows what they were like in person? Did they use foul language, or miss-speak now and then? Perhaps they had a shady portion in their past? Maybe they were incontinent? The public generally won’t know. So, while a prominent person may seem perfect it could be we just aren’t close enough to see their warts. Some might even hate them because they are perceived as being perfect. Then I guess that makes them cardboard cutouts since being perfect isn’t realistic. Time to re-write the history books.