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I got this idea reading some of Obormot's comments in the topic "OMG! It's a Voinian. To understand this, you need to know that the game was made from a West European point of view.
Voinians=USSR. There's plenty of proof that their socialist (i.e no trade) and they honor their heros a litte too much (Borb=Lenin?)
UE=Western Europe. In the European view of the Cold War, the USSR's main enemy. Also UE can mean United Europe as well...
Miranu=United States. They might not fight the Voinians, but the US never fought the USSR durring the cold war. From the West European point of view, americans were "Freindly aliens".
Strands/Strandless/Alien Renagades=Middle East. The Strands, like the jews and the arabs, fight each other for reasons centuries old. The strandless are the nations caught in this conflict. The alien renagades are the terrorists. The Miranu tries to maintain peace in the strands, and they fight the alien renagades. Likewise the US tried to keep peace in the Middle East and fought the middle eastern terrorists.
Emalgha=Hungary? This is the one I'm not sure about. They represent some member of the Soviet Bloc that rebeled aginst communist control. Hungary is my best guess, but their revolt failed. The Emalgha's revolt seems to have been slightly more succesful..
------------------ "You can make something idiot proof, but someone else can make a better idiot"
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If definitely seems that the Voinians have a kinda suspicious commie kinda feel, the way the plotlines in the missions are written. As for the rest it seems more speculative; I dont know if Id peg the Miranu as the U.S., they dont seem quite big enough or something. I think any resemblance is probably accidental anyways, it doesnt seem like Ambrosia would be trying to make that kind of political statement
deep
------------------
Ya conspiracies are everywhere, LOL
Some people read way to much into things
Dragon
That's a thought, but I think you mixed up UE and Miranu. America fought Vietnman and Korea, and won the space race, while Europe provided us with bases and traded with us.
Maybe both the game and the Cold War followed traditional rules of combat ind sides.
------------------ #29 on the Periodic Table
Quote
Originally posted by Nathaniel:
**That's a thought, but I think you mixed up UE and Miranu. America fought Vietnman and Korea, and won the space race, while Europe provided us with bases and traded with us.
**
Now remember that the game was written from a West European point of view. Most UE names (except for New Chicago and that other moon in the same system) are European (New Rome, etc.). The UE flagship is the UES London. The capitol of the UE is in Lyons. They talk British English, while the Miranu seem to sound more american. We lost Vietnam, and many outside the US consider Korea a US loss. And the west europeans see themsevles as the great heros of the cold war. At least the west europeans I know.
Plus the Miranu are blue...
Were any west europeans involved in the making of EV:O? I thought it was mostly and American endeavor, perhaps with a bit of Russian and British help. I don't normally include Britain in western europe, because most of them hate Europe, but you probably know more about western europe than I do.
Originally posted by Nathaniel: **Were any west europeans involved in the making of EV:O? I thought it was mostly and American endeavor, perhaps with a bit of Russian and British help. I don't normally include Britain in western europe, because most of them hate Europe, but you probably know more about western europe than I do. **
Mainly Brits. Americans only did the engine and such. The stroy, systems, ships, anything creative, etc. was done by Peter Carthright (sp?) and a few other Europeans.
As a Brit, I would say that most people I know feel very srongly connected to Europe, and are eager to join the Union. Its sad that you think otherwise cheers
------------------ rřß
Well, I know that they aren't all in agreement. There are some who wish to be a part of Europe, and others who don't, or at least that's my understanding. I read a poll which showed young people in Britain feel more British than European and express little interest in being a part of Europe. I also know that many people are mad about some of the things the European Union has been doing, but not being from Britain, I wouldn'tknow for sure.
(QUOTE)Originally posted by OctoberFost: (B)I got this idea reading some of Obormot's comments in the topic "OMG! It's a Voinian. To understand this, you need to know that the game was made from a West European point of view.
Voinians are Russians (Soviet, whatever). Basically the name of the race has been taken from Russian (Slavic) language. Voinian Russian word "Voina" means "war". On the other hand, what the hell Anna Balashova is doing with UE. Converted spy? By the way, I'm Russian myself. When I started playing EV/EVO about 3 years ago, I was just amazed to see quite a bunch of Russian personalities in EV/EVO and in the plug-ins. There was even plug with Russian characters in the bar meny (was it Eye of Orion?).
UE is most definitely Europe. I once saw a holo-vid that goes something like this:
There will be a common currency all over UE space before the turn of the century
Clearly that referes to the Euro
To the Euro-Brit agument, I am British and I don't think that Britain should join with Europe. After all, we are the richest, have the strongest currency, like totaly different things (Styles ect.) and no-one in Europe (Nationaly) speaks English. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate any of Europe (Exept France), but I mean, didn't WE get formed into an away island? We may be a very small island, but we are different (and rascist) enough to be another continent. My conclusion is that the general feeling of Britain is that most people dislike or hate Americia, for reasons little or unknown, France, for anything we can think of, Iraq/Iran/Afganistan, for obvious reasons, Germany (Very slightly, and only old people), fore the damage done in the war, Kosovo, India, Pakistan and other Middle Eastan and Asian countries, for flooding us with refugees, and finaly, Scotland, for defieng our rule (Naturaly).
May I add that these are nether my full opinion, Rob's (Hopefuly) or anyone else in Britain. They just tend to take a chunk of it and leave it at that. I have a paticular hate against Germany, not the people, not the cultare, not the goverment, but the history. I have reasons for this:
1. Much of my family was killed in the war. I have spent years finding files and things that tell me of my former family. It seems, that, in WW1, 8 members of my family died, mainly in battle, and in WW2, 12 members, in battle and bombings ect. 2.They have purchased many car companies and factories over here, losing thousands of jobs. Village economies who relied on car factories are now tumbling, all beacause of BMW and co.
I wait a respnce to this, and I fear it may be a harsh one. Don't flame me for this. I have explained as best I can and have already stated that this is just a general opinion, and most people only believe in a bit of it. If you are British, then please disagree with me as much as you want. I do't care. I am simply stating an opinion and a truthful one. Also, if you are British, please add to my list of 'British Hates'. I would be glad to know what other Brits think.
-Gav
I suppose it doesn't matter if your'e an Aussie then does it (mate)? ----------------------------- "The GST (Goods and Services Tax) is cancelled!" - The only thing John Howard has to say to the Australian people to get re-elected.
It's strange - when I saw this topic title, I thought someone had made a shrewd observation about the Strand war (which really does have a cynical Cold War influence - pointless, long, mainly low-level conflict, pursued by sides with (when viewed from a certain level) only nonsensical, superficial cultural differences, for no clear reason.)
As for the points made here - the 'each of these aliens, etc. is X in the real world' analogy seems terribly strained, especially when you get on to 'the Strands are the Middle East' (interestingly though, the Strands actually do fight one another for centuries old reasons that no one understands - whereas in the Middle East, Balkans, any other part of the world which is slightly complicated, this is just the perception of uninformed outside observers (backed up, of course, by the media, to save them from having to actually explain anything or educate anyone).
If UE seems like Western Europe, I would suggests that this is mostly because it contrasts strongly with well-known future United Earth/humanity examples like ST and B5 which (because they are produced by and primarily broadcast to) Americans, feel like America-in-space. (I often notice things like this in plug-ins or stories: references to the UE President, for instance. While United Earth does have a President, his role is mostly formal and just as a technical head of state (for a state which isn't entirely sure it is a state) - and it's a rotating position, and few people would know who it was at any given time (bit like Switzerland). So to see a US-style President portrayed (especially if he acts somewhat like Harrison Ford in Air Force One) amuses somewhat.)
The Voinians are socialist? I think even the most distorted and confused post-Soviet socialist would have trouble reconciling outright slavery with even the most concise edition of the complete Marx. They are simply highly bureaucratic, impersonal and inflexible - the way any large empire (whatever its ideology or whatever it tries to call itself) is bound to become.
While I don't doubt that what OctoberFost calls 'the Western European view' of the Cold War in which 'Western Europe ... (was) the USSR's main enemy' - I'd say it is far from universal. I'd say a more general Western European view was that we were stuck in the middle while a pair of moderately belligerent and ever so self-righteous arriviste superpowers threatened each other with weapons of mass destruction over our heads. Perhaps some Europeans see Western Europe as having been USSR's main enemy - my part of England however, was (and still is, for no reason I can claim to understand) covered with US Air bases - and on the news when I was small it was always mainly the US (and possibly allies) arsenal and military being compared against that of the USSR. I'm not under any illusions here.
What the UE is based on is what might have happened to the Great Powers of the 19th century (who, yes, you will note were European) if a) they'd been colonising space, not the rest of Earth, and just around the time when the first world war would have been due, some unpleasant aliens arrived, forcing them to cooperate to survive - a cooperation which then continues once the crisis is over because the people of Earth begin to realise that they have more in common with each other than everything out there (so, in fact, a very European influence and reference, just not the one you thought it was).
A few other things: Planet names are fairly evenly distributed between the peoples and nations most likely to be first out there if (in the mid-21st century) interstellar drive did suddenly appear. If there's a slight bias towards European names - well just be glad I limited truly regional influence to one shuttle which might be called the U.E.S. Ipswich - rather than naming every last bit of space dust after small villages in Suffolk.
There are three UE Flagships (the Incontrovertible, the London and the Earth) - the London is a conceit on my part of course: no one would ever have been able to get that named passed for a Flagship. Trying to find a good name (ie. acceptable to all parties) for such a flagship would be difficult: it couldn't refer to any place or city, person or myth, anything at all in fact, which corresponded too closely with any particular country. Impersonal things like Victory or Defiance might sound okay - except that 'the Victory', at least, was of course the flagship of a rather famous British Admiral. Not to mention that the name would have to translate well into half a dozen other languages at least. I don't think there has ever been a warship called the Incontrovertible - and it's probably a good example of the sort of silly name the think tank involved would eventually come up with.
The 'capital' of the United Earth (or more correctly, the current seat of the United Earth Parliament) was at Lyons at one stage, however it rotates (in another mission it's in Lima) - how could people on Earth ever agree to have one fixed capital? There is no city 'international' enough to be acceptable. Everyone speaks British English because I speak (and write) British English - and didn't want to attempt corny American accents for any of the characters.
To our resident Russian (I hope 'Prikasaisia k ekranu chtoby vybrat' drugii iazyk' was a reasonable translation, I meant to get a friend to check it but never got round to it - I always worried it might sound something like 'Press yourself (rather than your finger) to the screen to choose a different language'. I'm fairly confident about 'Informatsionnaia programa coedinnogo mira', though.) the Voinians are certainly not meant to be Russians - and although I'll concede the point about the name, you'll note that Miranu contains the word 'mir' (meaning peace/world - Mir space station, anyone?) - does this constitute a subtle Tolstoi reference? Loads of distorted Russian words are used for system names (most notably Zachit - or more correctly Zashchit, meaning defence/protection), which works well as a quick way of coming up with a lot of alien-sounding names for an audience you don't expect to know the language. For a Slav, however, it would seem somewhat transparent - I can reassure you though that no comment on Russians or Slavs in general was intended by this usage (if I studied Japanese, I'd have used that).
Peter C.
PS. The common currency thing is a Euro reference - but more to the fact that it is always being talked about, just around the corner and coming soon without ever seeming to happen. The Euro is hardly the only common currency idea around though (ISTR some suggestions were made within NAFTA at some point) - really this is just saying that Earth still has no common currency in 21XX, let alone one exchangeable with that of the colonies (which is why interstellar pilots have to carry around small quantities of extremely valuable goods from world to world so that they can trade everywhere - if there was a single currency implemented (and improved interstellar communications) pirates wouldn't be able to steal credits any more.) And to Gavin: not a disagreement but simply factual correction - where you get the idea that Britain is the richest country in Europe and has the strongest currency I'm not sure - unless perhaps you're confusing us with Germany?
------------------ Ja sam ovde samo zbog piva
But Mira is an actual star , a pulsating variable, to be specific.
But life on a planet orbiting Mira would have to be damn hardy to survive the 11 month cycle
------------------ OpenGL Avara!
AIM: EVAndrewM
"I haven't seen myself lately, AndrewM." GreenYO, #ev
(This message has been edited by Andrew M (edited 05-21-2000).)
You may be right. Still, Voinians smell really Russian to me. Tne nature of the Voinian nation-arrogant, buracratic, etc. This is really Russian. The overpaid delivery missions, isn't it some fiature of Russian economy. The name of the nation. Well, why weren't they called Warrions, or Sensorians (that's Japanese actually). If we agree that UE uses Western community as a prototype, whom would you pick up as their enemy. I think Russia would be my pick. I haven't missied Miranu, though you opend my eyes on Zachit. My previous remarcs about Voinians were made in context of the conflict between them and UE. So Miranu were kind of irrelevant (though I said that presence on many russian words in EV/EVO really amazes me).
But Mira is an actual star, a pulsating variable, to be specific.
News to me
Communist nations, the USSR in particular, did use a lot of slave labor, or at least close to it. I do thik the Voinians are the Russians, because there are so many hints and similarities. They're economy is planned by the state, but is lagging behind, (we hear some line about "the faltering voinian industrial Leviathan" in one mission for them) they build really huge ships as shows of strength, (the Dreadnought) just like the soviets built the world's largest atomic device.
The strands-as-middle east theory also makes sense. The parallel isn't as deep as the Voinian one though, because none of the strands represent actual nations or groups. Remember, the representations are not so much accurate as they are representative of what the game designers thought, and my guess is that they were paying more attention to computer programming and their jobs than world affairs.
Mira's scientific designation is Alpha Ceti. A dimmer star contained withing the constellation Cetus is called Tau Ceti. It is visible to the naked eye, though. And it's a lot closer to us than Mira. Another little fact about Mira: It has its own class of variable stars. It also varies from magnitude 1 (quite bright, stands out) to magnitude 10 (cannot be seen unless using a telescope). BTW, almost all Confed worlds are named after actual stars, and a few Rebel worlds are too, but I can only think of one system in EVO. That was already mentioned.
------------------ Luca Rescigno "And may not every one of the stars or suns have as great a retinue of planets with moons to wait upon them as has our own Sun?" -Christiaan Huygens