Hi! Long time lurker, first time poster. I apologize if this is overdone or inappropriate, I hope that I don't inadvertently cross a line, please let me know if I do. Feel free to ignore me if this is too heavy handed, and again, I really hope I'm not pushing any boundaries.
Riya really, really bothers me (I'm sorry Franks), in a way no other character does, she feels tonally inconsistent and as if she was designed to deliberately spite the player, insult their intelligence and their moral sensibilities. She feels at odds with the overall much more lighthearted or hopeful portrayals in the game, even when the game deals with heavier subject matter, there is a certain respect to it and a nice outlook, including well done, expressive ways to roleplay that allow you to help people and make the world a better place.
- She is explicitly racist, of course, on a massive multicultural space station where humans are a minority, she actively loathes, harasses, mocks, and discriminates against people, breaking ethical boundaries as an officer of the law, and causing many violations that are unacceptable for any officer in any circumstance.
- She sexually harasses people, including her commanding officer, who she explicitly mocks and objectifies when they react to her explicit abuse and bigotry.
- She harasses a young women chatting with her friends because of the way they speak.
- She readily threatens violence and confrontation with people over minor grievances (again, on a populated core space station home to millions if not billions of people).
- There seems to be a very thin line in her understanding of consent, she has no safeword, and doesn't seem to separate sexual play and consensual degradation from the way she treats people normally, actively sexually harassing people and being incredibly forceful, without setting boundaries before hand.
- The game actively mocks you for trying to do the right thing, and Officer Greene nonsensically tells you off for "shuttling her back and forth" despite the fact the only reason that occurred is due to atrociously corrupt management (borderline victim blaming). She justifies her consistent abuse and exploitation to numerous people due to her being a halfway competent police officer and soldier (doing her basic duty of protecting and rescuing people, which is not justification for the potential lives she can ruin), such constant abuse and harassment could cause mental illness and depression in young people who live on the station.
- If a Steele for some reason decides to have children with her, she actively attempts to teach her children to discriminate and hate people based on their race, and actively insults the mother of her children right in front of them.
- Despite her sole reason for being stationed being fulfilled, she is for some reason still not held accountable for the serious harm she causes, let alone the reason for her being stationed being flimsy justification, as the many other soldiers who worked on the mission did so without an active history of abuse.
- There seems to be an air of insulting people for objecting to this, doing a basic moral act as a decent citizen and human being is treated in the game as you being an idiot, I lost a lot of respect for Officer Greene when she justified sexual harassment and abuse.
- The player is given an extreme lack of agency and powerlessness, despite how serious an issue this actually is, and how this wouldn't be accepted even slightly during current day, let alone a sexually liberal and egalitarian society far into the future.
- As discussed previously on the forum, the concept of her "not actually being racist" and instead doing it to upset people (emotionally harass and abuse young people, potentially causing serious issues and repercussions in their life) is inherently no different to being a racist vile person.
I'm trying to think of other examples of such a serious nature in the game, but the most I can think of are people who are explicitly heinous criminals (who are treated as such). Most of the game, even fight scenes, are of a much more lighthearted tone, and almost always have explicit consent as well. I'm just really, really confused about how this is considered okay? There also seems to be quite a few plot holes and oversights via this being present in the world as it is.
I hopefully expressed myself decently and didn't upset anyone, I just really wanted to get this out of my system.
