Who's the Villain?

[Kokayi005]

"Out on the rim, there are many Xenogen installations and facilities, many of which are rumored to engage in questionable and unethical research. There have even been suggestions that the company is tied to the illegal slave trade, selling research specimens it has finished with as permanent indentured servants. Nothing has ever been proven, and so long as their products work better than the competition’s, they’ll continue to hold a strong market share. " ~ XENOGEN

COC2 has Kysarra. And I know the demons as a whole are the problem of COC. But I don't buy your rival and cousin being the big bad at the end. The first time I played TITS I thought the corporations were using the gene mods to manipulated everyone is complacency with sex and drugs. I always zero'd in on Xenogen and JoyCo. And I especially am suspicious of the Treatment. But having never finished the game or gotten past Myrellion, I had to start over and now I doing even more research into the machinations of the elite behind the scenes.

People always saying their happy working for some lab somewhere. Could they be brainwashed? The Planet Rush. Maybe it's a scam to get people to seek out new worlds so they can be put to heel or made docile? Problem is, I'm not sure how far in the future the game is. It's 2019 now, if this 2100 something, this just could be the new normal like it was in the year 3000 for Fry in Futurama. Society just changed. And Xenogen and JoyCo are just MoMCorp. A generic money hungry bunch of corporations giving the people what they want in excess so they can keep making money.

I just feel like there's got to be more. If COC and COC2 is about saving the world from twisted demons who alter our minds to toy with society. Then wouldn't TITS have demons of a different kind. Monsters who manipulate people not with magic curses but with drugs and plastic surgery? When I think about that and how powerful and successful your father, Victor is said to be. I feel ashamed that he didn't do anything to wake people up before dying.

 

[DespairMD]

If anything your father, being a very affluent man, likely contributed to the issue, or at the very least didn't help. Tits is in an Uber-capitalist semi-dystopia, so pretty much all big company's are shady and hold way too much power. However, with the main plot of the game being centered around the probes I don't really see any of them being the "villain" per se. If anything its simply just your cousin being an asshat.

 

[Kesil]

The cousin is to TiTS what Gary Oak (well, Green/Blue) was to the first Pokémon games. I for one am okay with no single Big Bad and everyone and their kaitrit indentured servants being shady. At least, until the actual Tainted Space gets introduced.

P.S. Vic was too busy keeping his genetic code together to go all WAKE UP SHEEPLE on people. Even the Church of the One is mostly okay with replacement parts.

 

[null_blank]

Take a look at Gibson's Neuromancer. It's protagonist Case, (not to be confused with Kase) along with a hand selected team wind up releasing a self-aware AI so it can merge with it's other half (also a self-aware AI). The fuckers even go into space to pull this off.

What changes for the world at the end? Nothing. Nothing changes.

Welcome to dystopia.

 

[Kokayi005]

But your cousin is weak. Like is she gonna pull a 180 and suddenly mod herself into a killing machine? I doubt it.
I'm talking to Kimber right now, and it's like in the back of her mind she knows she works for some shady assholes. But she's too "stoked" to nay-say her dream job. I feel like people are in denial in the game. They think "oh the people in Space Texas got the Treatment, they're dumb, but that'll never happen to me". Little do they know that everytime you use a mod or drug you likely getting a piece of the Treatment just watered down. So little by little you head to the extreme change that the mysterious Treatment is. And that's the end game. The companies want the people docile so they'll buy what they want them to buy and allow laws that keep them in power. It's a scam.

@Kesil
There needs to be a big bad IMO because otherwise there's no finality. There's no stakes. Your cousin is someone who needed saving. She's no threat.
And if they wait too long to intro the villain it winds end up as an info dump at the end. And I hate that. Imagine playing a whole game, and then suddenly in the second to last dungeon the villains is revealed with barely any game left to get to know him or his motives or learn to fear his powers. WEAK.

Victor Steele spent over a lifetime altering himself. As smart as he was, he couldn't find time to send his research on a problem to freedom fighters out there somewhere? I don't buy it. I think he drank the Kool-Aid and was in denial about how deep the rabbit hole went when it came to rumors of evil corporations. Because it was convenient for him, allowing him more time to be a billionaire playboy.

I hope there's an option to take down your own company. I hope you can forsake your inheritance and break the cycle of corporate greed and control.

@null_blank
So... what you're saying is that TITS will end with no changes to society. Or are you saying nihilism is the focus of the story?

 

[null_blank]

So... what you're saying is that TITS will end with no changes to society.

You may not be able to change anything but you can get yours and protect what you got.

I'm not saying TiTs adheres directly to cyberpunk themes but most of the time it isn't about the protag saving the world. It's all about the protag against the world. The protag often does not represent morals of society but instead lives with their own moral code because society is corrupt. And by going against society the protagonist also goes against the mega corps because society and corporatism are so intertwined. TiTs actually does let Steele commit planet-changing acts (or it will) but most of the time this takes place on frontier, far from the core worlds.

Or are you saying nihilism is the focus of the story?

Nihilism is always there. You're a big boy, you don't need momma to add "and they lived happily ever after" at the end.

 

[Kesil]

Little do they know that everytime you use a mod or drug you likely getting a piece of the Treatment just watered down. So little by little you head to the extreme change that the mysterious Treatment is.

There are several reactions to the Treatment. Also, you can't double-Treat your Steele (kindly correct me if I'm wrong). And then there's what you can learn when talking to Shizuya...

The companies want the people docile so they'll buy what they want them to buy

Things are rather expensive for the average TiTS NPC.

There needs to be a big bad IMO because otherwise there's no finality.

You have to find all the probes before you cousin does. If anything happens along the wild goose chase, that's up to Fen&co.

Imagine playing a whole game, and then suddenly in the second to last dungeon the villains is revealed with barely any game left to get to know him or his motives or learn to fear his powers.

I don't have to imagine anything. I'm a FF fan, especially the early games.

 

[Kokayi005]

@null_blank
Even adults like happy endings. I don't require it, but after putting in a lot of hard work and growing attached to characters, I'd be sad if nothing got better.
I'm glad that you can do your own thing and enjoy freedom, but unless that freedom teaches by example, that's not helping. It's like how I was playing Bloodborne and was sad at the end when all it felt like you did was survive a nightmare and wake up. I just hope, if you can only help a few it at least uplifts the people and inspires them to do more than consume and fuck for the corporations benefit.

@Kesil
A fellow FF fan? Welcome, you are among friends. I played 6 thru 10, 12, 13s , Type-0, 15 and 14. Not all are good. Not all stood the test of time but I loved most of them. And I have great memories of their iconic plots.
Say we find all the probes. What can the cousin do that will legit feel like "this is it, the final battle"? Nothing. She's all talk. Basically a street level villain pretending she's Lex Luthor.
Things are costly in more ways than one for the NPCs. The debt scam. The mods altering minds. Rivalries amongst shop owners to turn a trade even when the big biz wins no matter what cuz they both sell their product.
I got the treatment the first time thru because I had almost no money and I had fucked up my character with a series of crappy stuff I ate. So I was tired of looking ugly. This time, not touching it. Nor will I do anything but get Badger arrested. Fool me once...

 

[Wsan]

The real villain is
the player
society
colenso
the ongoing realization that no matter what you achieve among the stars as Captain Steele, nothing will ever change and everyone is trapped in a nightmarish hyper-dystopia where playboys and playgirls act out their every fantasy aboard their space-faring pleasure yachts and the have-nots toil away in icecream shops on New Texas

 

[null_blank]

the ongoing realization that no matter what you achieve among the stars as Captain Steele, nothing will ever change and everyone is trapped in a nightmarish hyper-dystopia where playboys and playgirls act out their every fantasy aboard their space-faring pleasure yachts and the have-nots toil away in icecream shops on New Texas

There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing….”

 

[Kokayi005]

@Wsan
Are you being serious?
That's the big reveal?
I wonder if Fenoxo is holding a mirror up to us the players and asking us to question the fantasies were playout out in his game. Maybe deep down a world where sex sells but a well written story earns nothing is a true hell.

@null_blank
American Psycho showed how the "wolves of wall street", and really any greedy sociopath anywhere, can get everything they want and still not be satisfied. WHY? Because society has instill this constant idea that you're never content. That you CAN'T be content. Because if you are. You're not buying something. And they can use you in that state.

EDIT:
Maybe Bateman said it means nothing him admitting all that because no one can stop him. Because so many are just like him. And because in his mind many aspire to be like him.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

Honestly all these answers are pretty much right. The villain is basically the setting, it's not a big baddie you can defeat to rid the galaxy of evil. Realistically, if if there was a super villain you could take out, you'd still need to change the entire rest of society.

 

[Kokayi005]

I was just thinking instead of "just saving the world" you went to the government place and get into politics after exposing the corruption and the story ends on a hopeful note with the questions of "did you make the system better or just become it". Like the saying, "you can't change the devil changes you", warning people not to be arrogant and think that evil can't always be redeemed or that you're not always the person who can do it at least. Sometimes you don't fix the problem you just become a new form of it.

 

[Wsan]

Fantastic book but the movie was even better. It's rare that the source material acts to enhance and empower the movie to elevate it above its predecessor but this is definitely one of those times.

@Wsan
Are you being serious?
That's the big reveal?

No. The big reveal is whatever fen wants it to be. I'm not going to spoil it (lol, which really implies I know more than I actually do, which is very little) but more serious machinations will come into play later.

While we're on the topic of empty men, I tried to find an article I read a little while back about why being Don Draper is awful but all I could find were quotes, styling tips and advertisements, and things you can do to be more like Don Draper. Shaking my fucking head.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

If you take Fallout 3 as an example, I'd say ordering the deaths of innocent people under your care and psychologically scarring the officers you ordered to torture someone while also sending some of those officers to what ends up being their deaths because the protagonist isn't allowed to solve conflicts with words while feeling absolutely 0 remorse and only being worried about yourself is pretty fucking irredeemable.

Yet you get negative karma for killing the Overseer, and nothing for those officers just following orders, who would probably be easily talked out of killing an 18 year old whose crime is being someone else's kid.

 

[ChromaTaphore]

The villain is capitalism. You have nothing to loose but your chains, comrade.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

The villain is capitalism. You have nothing to loose but your chains, comrade.

Da, tovarisch! For the Motherland!

Or I suppose that would be the Anatae Empire here.

 

[null_blank]

Also OP, I don't want to single you out but there is one thing I need to say not to just you, but like everyone here.

This is a game. It has specific fictional setting and you are playing a fictional character. If you write content for this game you are making content for fiction.
You are playing the game. Indulging in it does not advance totalitarianism or some other authoritarian ideology. This is all fiction and bad things happen to a lot of people in a dystopian world. If you do bad things in this game it doesn't mean you're promoting bad things in real life. I promise I haven't nuked any ant planets in IRL.

Try to avoid meta-gaming and injecting your modern morals into a fictional dystopian world or you're going to have a bad time, not with just this game but all role-playing games in general. After all, isn't that why you're here? Escapism? Why drag in all your personal baggage with you?

So just accept the game for what it is: erotic escapism.

 

[Nonesuch]

The big bad of TiTS is Meadow Steele, Whore of Babylon with a vagina like the thing at the centre of Messier 87. The final showdown pits you against the legions of her children, a battle terrible in its futility since they are almost literally respawning. Your only hope is to try and launch contraceptive into her mouth like the trench run in Star Wars.

 

[William.]

lmao

 

[Savin]

Who's the Villain?

Your dumbass Cousin Jack/Jill.

The end. No if, ands, or buts. Your cousin is the main antagonist of the game.

 

[null_blank]

Spoiler: What I think TiTs is

Spoiler: What it really is

 

[Kokayi005]

After all, isn't that why you're here? Escapism? Why drag in all your personal baggage with you?

So just accept the game for what it is: erotic escapism.

Huh? I'm not here for escapism. I'm here to solve the mysteries of the game. It's like watching a movie "what's going to happen? Why?" That's why I'm watching that movie. When I play a game, ANY GAME, I want to know how it ends and to see if I can figure out the ending before it happens. If I can't, then I still have work to do as an analytical person. Yeah it's a game, but I'm not just gonna turn my brain off and play it without thinking any deeper when they keep foreshadowing evil stuff happening. Erotica RPG or not. It's still an RPG. And RPGs are known to have more going on in the plot and sub-plot than what people might realize. I can't talk to Fenoxo to get it straight from the horse's mouth. So I enjoy the ride and see if my theories are correct.

@Savin
IDK man, if it was really only you cousin why bother putting that dark hint in Xenogen's description on the wikia page? Naw. I think Fenoxo or whoever is doing a bait and switch. Besides there's really no harm thinking deeper about the game. I'm not changing it. I analyzing what is already there. I suspected a problem from day one, but reading Xenogen's wikia page and talking to Kimber all but confirms that your cousin is a peon that's no real threat compare to the ruined life the universe has become. Where's Earth? What happen to us back in 2019? Why is no one talking about that when they mock how short-sighted people from the past were about all girl schools (Azra conversation). To me, immersing into the game, thinking deeply about it, the frig logic that comes as I fall asleep considering the other angles, that's the fun in it to me. Just as much as romancing characters and altering my character to look like a pornstar but with a heart of gold and a heroic legend in tow.

@ChromaTaphore
In a way, yeah it is. I know you're joking but, yeah it is. If money wasn't the root to most evil, these Xenogen-style companies would not be force feeding mod after mod to people. What started out as a need to survive harsh areas, turned into an addiction for people with shallow minds or low self-esteem. That's straight from the lore.

 

[Evil]

Not every settings needs an over-arching villain who sits in their dark keep, stroking their moustache and plotting the downfall of the hero.

Sometimes the setting alone is enough to be the "villain". You have this setting where overpopulation can get so bad, that the solution that doesn't involve buying a soylent green license is instead having a planet rush. This is a period where companies and corporations can be made or broken, its how Victor made his fortune and made SteeleTech what it is. And you will have thousands, if not millions or billions of people deciding to try their luck and trying to find their fortune in the stars. And going by some of the bad ends that can happen to Steele, its obvious that a lot of them won't make it.

Then you have the ones who don't want to try their fortune but instead seek to get the real "them". Sera will most likely end up in slavery to repay her debts (from the look of it, her Dom content succeeding pretty much revolves around Steele not screwing her over). Aina had to work a shitty job for a couple of years to pay her transformation. And those are just two stories in a galaxy filled with people trying to make day by day, working shitty jobs just to get by.

And yeah, there will be parts of the story where the corporations do something shady. I'm pretty sure that you don't become one of the largest corporate entities in the galaxy without getting your hands dirty. And sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes its just padding and a little world building.

And forget the UGC, they're too centralised to be a true villain. It takes a lot of resources to guard the borders of your territory and even more on an expanding border during the Rush. They'll keep things comfortable in the Core, but never do anything to really fix society.

The closest you will get to a personal villain to Steele is your cousin, and even then their head is too far up their ass to be a credible threat. That honour goes to your uncle Max and even then, he's still trying to ride on his brother's coattails rather than do anything for himself.

There is no central villain, everyone you might want to consider as one are just specks of dust in a galaxy that really doesn't give a shit about any of them.

 

[Kokayi005]

Maybe they don't all need a villain like that. But with Xenogen's own page written the way it is I got flashback to the Designer Children of Xenosaga. Custom made genetically engineered kids because parents wanted perfect blondes and what-not. Maybe these games aren't meant to be theorized about or learned from. But you can't blame me to trying to think this way with the evidence in the conversation IN THE GAME.

I can't forget the UGC because the one racist cop in the game (a brown woman, maybe black, maybe from India descent, I see what you do there) is right there FRONT AND CENTER on the first locale you start the game on. Clearly the UGC is a issue too. Otherwise, she wouldn't be in the game. Neither would the traffickers and the debt collectors of loan sharks or the spies killing people who find them stealing satellite tech. The only reason I focus on the Xenogen assholes is because UGC seems too obvious and straight forward. Corrupt cops being jackboots. That's too easy. That's the evil you know. The evil that worms it's way into your mind, your culture, your heart. That's the evil you don't know.

https://xenosaga.fandom.com/wiki/Designer_Children

 

[Alabaster Chimes]

@Savin[/USER]
IDK man, if it was really only you cousin why bother putting that dark hint in Xenogen's description on the wikia page? Naw. I think Fenoxo or whoever is doing a bait and switch. Besides there's really no harm thinking deeper about the game. I'm not changing it. I analyzing what is already there. I suspected a problem from day one, but reading Xenogen's wikia page and talking to Kimber all but confirms that your cousin is a peon that's no real threat compare to the ruined life the universe has become. Where's Earth? What happen to us back in 2019? Why is no one talking about that when they mock how short-sighted people from the past were about all girl schools (Azra conversation). To me, immersing into the game, thinking deeply about it, the frig logic that comes as I fall asleep considering the other angles, that's the fun in it to me. Just as much as romancing characters and altering my character to look like a pornstar but with a heart of gold and a heroic legend in tow.

@Kokayi005

Rather you are that ignorant or you actually cant read the games you play, Savin is a DEVELOPER of the FenGames. (CoC1 is subject)

For TiTs he writes half the main story along with Fen (give or take). So when he says it's the cousin, its the damn cousin. Fen even says the same damn thing, there will be no bait and switch (TRUST ME, I KNOW).

Also, Savin is the actual CREATOR of CoC2, which Fenoxo has no apart of. He has way more say on this than you or me, and you are thinking way to much about this that its actually making people uncomfortable.

I don't even want to hear sorry from you if you feel it's necessary, cause it's all you do when called out on when you do stuff like this. "I'm an open book, 33-Year Old Black Man Virgin with gaps in my knowledge lol." is not an excuse you can use every 2 hours.

 

[Kokayi005]

Just because he's the author or developer doesn't mean I can't think any deeper about it if I want to.
Let's agree to disagree. Yall like to get mean spirited to try to piss someone off. It's not going to work. Savin is just another person to me. Working on the game doesn't mean I can't think any deeper than he says to. So troll me all you want. I'm not going away.

 

[Savin]

@Savin
IDK man, if it was really only you cousin why bother putting that dark hint in Xenogen's description on the wikia page? Naw. I think Fenoxo or whoever is doing a bait and switch. Besides there's really no harm thinking deeper about the game. I'm not changing it. I analyzing what is already there. I suspected a problem from day one, but reading Xenogen's wikia page and talking to Kimber all but confirms that your cousin is a peon that's no real threat compare to the ruined life the universe has become. Where's Earth? What happen to us back in 2019? Why is no one talking about that when they mock how short-sighted people from the past were about all girl schools (Azra conversation). To me, immersing into the game, thinking deeply about it, the frig logic that comes as I fall asleep considering the other angles, that's the fun in it to me. Just as much as romancing characters and altering my character to look like a pornstar but with a heart of gold and a heroic legend in tow.

You realize I'm the lead writer on the game, right?

There are lots of evil forces at work in the universe. The galaxy is full of villains. That's irrelevant to the story of TiTS, though. Your cousin is the main villain of this story whether you like it or not.

 

[QuietCoyote]

Just because he's the author or developer doesn't mean I can't think any deeper about it if I want to.
Let's agree to disagree. Yall like to get mean spirited to try to piss someone off. It's not going to work. Savin is just another person to me. Working on the game doesn't mean I can't think any deeper than he says to. So troll me all you want. I'm not going away.

that's pretty much saying "oh, Sauron isn't the main evil of Middle Earth, it's the hobbits!"

seriously dude, you're arguing with THE MAN WHO WROTE MOST OF THE MAIN STORY FOR THE DAMNED GAME. your philosophical thinking is profoundly backwards

 

[BoyHowdy000]

I always assumed Maximillian Steele (your cousin's father) would be the big bad in the end. Either that or a being that we assume to be a Lovecraftian horror from beyond our reality but really just ends up being one of the PCs from the "Show me your characters" thread when we pull off their mask.