[Rhymes]

On the subject of the internal politics of the GTVA, my read on it for BP is that the civilian structure is something between the US's dual sovereignty setup and the European Union, where the individual systems manage their own affairs but are subject to the General Assembly/Security Council, especially when dealing with interstellar or species-wide issues.

Consider that the GTVA was founded in 2345, but that the regional blocs, per the FS2 techroom, continued to exist until 2358. I don't think it makes much sense that the blocks would be willing to dismantle themselves unless they had some assurances that a majority of their power and sovereignty would be preserved--those who have power don't usually like giving it up unless there are some pretty significant tangible benefits (eg trade controls so that you don't get competing states crippling each others economies with anti-competitive tariffs).

In addition, the GRANITE HUNTER files make brief mention of "Regulan Elections" at one point, which reinforces my theory that the systems at least have some degree of self-governance. It could be possible that the election is just referring to Assembly representatives, but I think it would be very difficult for the General Assembly to oversee running all of the different systems.

[themaddin]

If it's permissible in this discussion to look beyond BP canon, you can get a pretty good benchmark of what fascism sounds like in an FS setting from Inferno / Sol: A History and their EA. GT(V)A certainly doesn't sound or act anything like that.

Also, fascists probably wouldn't bounce back from being shown they're not so superior as easily as the GTA did in FS1, when they allied with the Vasudans against the Shivan Incursion, which had then only begun "humbling" them, pretty quickly.

[QuakeIV]

It seems like the highly fascist plan would be to wipe out the vasudans and claim the galaxy for humanity (or at least our tiny corner of it).

Given how much trouble the GTA went to trying to obstruct the GTI Hades (rather than actively supporting it) I think claims of outright fascism are unfair.

They seem to be steadily moving towards military dictatorship (per giving steele political power, for instance) but they aren't particularly fascist I don't think.

[T-Man]

I've never really thought about it, though you mo make good points there Snarks. Could it be that in FS1 the GTA is in a 'total-war mode' and so may be harsher than it normally would be? It is a 14 year war between massive inter-system powers that includes subspace jumps, so other than systems the notion of front line doesn't really exist anymore; could imagine it being a stressful time. The games don't really go into the civilian side of things so the GTA being fascist is certainly possible though; and the NTF would be a resurgence of that fascistic ethos in the era of the GTVA?

Definitely agree there's an aspect of totalitarianism come BP-era, though (without wanting to spoil anything) it felt it more born of desperation and a feeling of necessity than a desire for a government of that kind (much as I have some personal beef with the BP GTA, I'll grant them that at least ). They believe enemies of power levels beyond comprehension are ready to strike them anytime, anywhere; if they let themselves slip out of eternal paranoia, the entire human (and even Vasudan) people's could be wiped out. "We want democracy and freedom... after the Shivans are no longer a threat...".

[Phantom Hoover]

I don’t get an exceptionally authoritarian vibe off the BP GTVA. Our perspective of them shows a lot of their dirty intelligence and covert ops work but our own contemporary western democracies have done far worse in the same contexts, and I don’t think they can be called fascist without diluting the term into meaninglessness. As Battuta said they really don’t seem very ideological at all.

[FrikgFeek]

The GTI uprising in Silent threats has some fascist vibes but the fact that you go from total war to scientific cooperation to actively protecting Vasudan civilian convoys(in Exodus) without so much as a single racist remark from anyone involved makes it pretty difficult to claim  the GTA as a whole was fascist. I mean, both governments sign a cease-fire treaty alarmingly fast after the Shivans show up.
It's possible that the T-V war wasn't some 14 year total war of attrition where both sides were ready to cut each other's throats but closer to a feudal war where you have small flashes of action every few years but are still in  a "state of war" for much longer. The war never ended because it wasn't THAT costly and because both sides thought they could profit from it.
The Harbinger exists because it works well as a threat. And it's not a planetcracker, it's a citybuster at best. A bit of strategic orbital bombardment is very different from outright genocide. We also know that some form of ground-to-space defences exist so that would give it a military use as well.

That and the almost total lack of any pro-human rhetoric or propaganda. During the T-V war all of your briefings and in-mission orders are very detached and professional, not what you'd expect from a fascist military. People don't really start getting emotional until the Shivans and the Lucifer show up.

As for the failure debriefings not all of them even blame you. Sometimes you fail, it's understandable, but you still can't proceed because that failure basically means losing the war. As for AWOL debriefings, yeah, that's generally what happens when you desert. All modern militaries treat desertion pretty damn harshly, fear is no excuse. This is doubly true when you're defending a capital ship with 10000 people on board. Even if the situation looks bleak you have a sworn duty to protect those people. Whether or not you can survive and/or accomplish your mission is not a moral problem, it's a tactical one. And therefore it's on your CO to make that choice, not you.

[Rhymes]

Minor quibble: assuming the numbers are accurate, the Harbinger is a 5-gigaton dirty bomb. That's more than a city buster. Probably still not a planet cracker (unless you stuck it under a fault or something, maybe), but would definitely mean bad things for anybody sharing a continent with its target, and probably mean bad things for anybody on the planet.

Granted, [V]'s conception of scale is...suspect, at best, but if you're rescaling the numbers than at that point it's whatever you want it to be.

[FrikgFeek]

Yeahhh, the Avenger fires at 4500 rounds per minute and the Fury is apparently at least a tactical nuke at 3kt. And the Tsunami... don't even get me ****ing started. It's supposedly "slow, low maneuverability - antimatter warhead (500 tonne mass-to-energy conversion)".
With efficient mass to energy conversion 500 tonnes of mass would produce insane amounts of energy.

[QuakeIV]

I don't really see any problem with future weapons being so powerful that planets start to look more like loosely collected piles of dust rather than something permanent, but I also tend to agree when people say Volition clearly didn't fully think through the implications of said weapons.

[Rheavatarin]

We don’t see a lot of pageantry, we don’t get exhortations to remember the Power of Man or to give up our lives for the state.
...
Maybe the closest we get is the FS2 intro monologue...but that’s hardly a stirring appeal to the strength of the military state.

What about the video introduction to the Colossus? Isn't that exactly the kind of thing you are talking about?

[General Battuta]

It’s a classified briefing, not a broadcast on GTTV.

[Nightmare]

I don't really see any problem with future weapons being so powerful that planets start to look more like loosely collected piles of dust rather than something permanent, but I also tend to agree when people say Volition clearly didn't fully think through the implications of said weapons.

I think the first problem with these stats is that unless GTVA invented a completely unknown type of chemistry every ship only nearby to an exploding Harbinger would just disappear.

[Colonol Dekker]

I thought Orions were meant to inspire safety in the civil population.

[QuakeIV]

We don’t see a lot of pageantry, we don’t get exhortations to remember the Power of Man or to give up our lives for the state.
...
Maybe the closest we get is the FS2 intro monologue...but that’s hardly a stirring appeal to the strength of the military state.

What about the video introduction to the Colossus? Isn't that exactly the kind of thing you are talking about?

It wouldn't be particularly fascist even if it were public, unless they forced every single citizen to watch it.

I don't really see any problem with future weapons being so powerful that planets start to look more like loosely collected piles of dust rather than something permanent, but I also tend to agree when people say Volition clearly didn't fully think through the implications of said weapons.

I think the first problem with these stats is that unless GTVA invented a completely unknown type of chemistry every ship only nearby to an exploding Harbinger would just disappear.

Like energy shields and/or fancy collapsed core molybdenum armor?

e: Also you can argue that the majority of the energy is directed in one particular direction, for instance Casaba Howitzers (which iirc have been tested to a limited extent and succeeded in directing the majority of the blast energy into a 1-2 degree cone).

[Nightmare]

My take on shield was that it was that they're some sort of "directed energy reactive armour" (like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain_(countermeasure) , just plasma based), so that the incoming projectiles/plasma shots/missiles/bombs are destroyed/dispersed before they come in contact with the ship. That would explain why fighters can survive impacts of multi-gigaton weapons (they simply don't explode properly), and why beams can pierce through with their overwhelming kinetic energy. That's not BP related though.

[General Battuta]

e: Also you can argue that the majority of the energy is directed in one particular direction, for instance Casaba Howitzers (which iirc have been tested to a limited extent and succeeded in directing the majority of the blast energy into a 1-2 degree cone).

Yeah that's mostly been my take on it. And some chunk of the yield is useless neutrinos or whatever.

[Aesaar]

My take on it is that numbers like that are obviously wrong and can be discounted just like obviously wrong information can be discounted in a historical primary source.

No, the Harbinger isn't a 5GT warhead, no the Avenger doesn't fire at 4500 rpm, and no, there weren't 2 million soldiers in Xerxes' army at Thermopylae (no matter what Herodotus says)