Yup.For everyone except 0,01% of IoM elites Federation would be paradise.And even if bugs were attacked first,they still want kill people.
Movies Starship Troopers: The bugs did nothing wrong
- Thread starter ThatZenoGuy
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Poe
Well-known member
Again, fan fiction. The federation literally are the good guys of the film and the other side are /bugs/
If anything, the Federation are anti-heroes, and given what was revealed about the Bugs in the third film (their motivations), the Bugs are basically selfish, Lawful Evil antagonists.
King Arts
Well-known member
Remind me what happened it was years since I watched.
Poe
Well-known member
If we're counting other movies etc then the OPs argument doesn't work at all since we know the bugs are intelligent due to the sequels. But OP only wants the movie to be taken into consideration
Simonbob
Well-known member
I don't get that. And I watched the movie a few days ago.
Where does that come from?
That's retroactive reasoning and ignores the rules of the OP. Just because Jaws 4 exists, doesn't mean Bruce in the first film was a Psychic voodoo possessed shark.
Everything about the Federation is "anti-hero as a protagonist"; how they treat their citizens and the casualness about human life, the outright fascism (which is, amusingly enough, a thematic parody of it), religious persecution ("Mormon Extremists" being, ya know, people literally just trying to do their own thing away from the Federation), even the culture on Earth... and they're the good guys because the Other Guy is a race of space bugs that, for one reason or another, deserved or not, are completely alien in thinking and are hostile to humanity.
They're not heroes; they're anti-heroes who are the good guys in this crapsack universe.
Simonbob
Well-known member
When does that happen? Ok, a death happened in training, acidental, but that happens in all dangerous training.
What fascism?
There isn't even close to enough details to say that.
Were they willing to beat their women? Were they willing to exclude anybody who isn't a mormon? Honestly, we don't know anything about them.
Have you even seen the movie?
The drop was on their homeplanet, which had millions of years of buildup, with Plasma bugs apparently being their colonization reproductive caste, shitting into space.
It'd be the same as giving NASA infinite budget for colonization rocketry and wondering why over a million years they have enough space shuttles and rockets to target orbiting spacecraft. It's just kinda a byproduct of being able to get into space, the ability to also shoot stuff near your planet.
They're also fairly close-ranged (orbital tops) and VERY inaccurate. With WW2 Flak-esque levels of hitting.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Yes, and?
Shitting plasma into space has no evolutionary advantage. This means that the space-shitting caste was genetically engineered as a weapon. An anti-space defense weapon.
My point is that we do not know what capabilities bugs have, exactly. So there is no reason to not take the Federation at their word.
They are clearly not primitives.
True. And it has no relation to their ability to hit a planet.
An anti-space defense weapon used by a species which has never even seen another space-faring race before? At least not within a couple weeks or so. That seems doubtful, the 'warrior' bugs look pretty nifty at just going around doing bug-stuff, brain bug is just a big fat termite-esque leader caste, plasma bugs just appear to be their colonization caste, or if the bugs ever fight one another, the 'majors'.
The official Federation perspective up until Klendathu is 'the bugs are stupid by human standards, and obviously cannot think, as a bug that thinks is offensive!'...Annnnd apparently also capable of nailing planets across a galaxy...
If they barely manage to hit orbiting ships which aren't maneuvering, they have no hopes of hitting anything outside of their solar system. It probably took them years if not longer just to get a single hit onto their neighboring planets.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
You are making assumptions.
We do not know that bugs had "never seen another space-fairing race before".
Warrior bugs are not "just going around doing bug-stuff", they are clearly hive-mind controlled. I have watched ants fighting, and ants have far more individuality in their actions than warrior bugs do.
Brain bug is more akin to the Borg Queen than anything.
How do you get from "we shoot bloody plasma" to "colonization caste"? They would fry their own eggs!
You are clearly mistaking propaganda for actual belief.
Western Allies, Nazis, Communists... they all portrayed their enemies as incompetent idiots before and during the Second World War. Does not mean that their propaganda was true, or that their actual leaders believed it. It was simply for consumption by the masses.
Planets generally do not maneuver. Orbiting ships start taking evasive action the moment first one is hit.
Dude, either you haven't watched the actual movie or your understanding of it is very, very poor.
1. The actual Klendathu Invasion. They literally just tried to Imperial Guard the entire planet with infantry dropships. This wasn't a case of the "Normandy Beaches" where they had to send in infantry first, it was their first choice. Even against an enemy seen to be nothing but insects, this is just callous. And stupid.
Luckily they began to use their brains a little more later, such as the strategy of clearing out planets one-by-one in the KQZ with actual tactics and air support, and the strategies of capturing the Brain itself.
2. Whiskey Outpost. They suspected there might be a Brain Bug on Planet P, yet they basically sacrificed Razak's Roughnecks (later Rico's Roughnecks) just to confirm their suspicions. Carl even admits this, basically saying "I'm sorry this was your unit; this mission had a very low survival-rate" and justified it with a "we're in it for the species" speech. They knew, dude.
3. Razak himself shooting one of his troopers instead of the Hopper. Yes, it can be argued that he was mercy killing the trooper who was being torn apart (which I agree with), but the fact he did it after literally a second to consider whether the trooper was worth saving by killing the Hopper and expected (and had it done) the same mercy to be given to him? It says something about the MI and their priorities. At a stretch, you could even say they see themselves as disposable cogs in the machine, which is backed up by the constant propaganda to get more bodies in the MI and Fleet.
Also, let's not forget the end where Rico, Ace, and Carmen are used as tools to encourage the next crop of bodies for the "meat grinder" -- "Service guarantees citizenship!"
4. It's heavily implied that unless you're a citizen in the film (having served in the MI or Fleet), you're a second class, well, citizen. You can't even have children, can't vote, and many after-career jobs are blocked from you (shower scene, the classroom scene early on in the movie, et cetera). If you're a civilian? Well, tough shit; enjoy being the ignored underclass unless you're rich (Rico's parents) enough to basically coast through life without the "responsibilities" of being a citizen (which is still frowned upon, given Dizzy's reaction in training when Rico tries to quit). Again, this is indicative of the cultural attitude that you're looked on as being a parasite if you're not a citizen.
5. Dude, the entire Federation is a fucking parody of a fascist and hyper-militaristic state! The classroom scene even goes on about the "collapse of Democracy" and basically hyping up their current, militaristic government as being superior!
The film was so good at it that people actually thought, and some still think, that the film was pro-fascism! facepalm
Also, just look at the uniforms; the creatives behind the film have said that they based the designs on Nazi Germany's uniforms, and this is even more blatant with the uniforms of the higher ups, like those in command and intelligence (such as Carl and his not-SS).
6. Hell, the propaganda alone for the civilians/citizens on Earth is a perfect example: I'm pretty sure those "Mormon Extremists" were just regular Mormons who were trying to live away from the Federation, and they were so desperate to do it they tried their luck in the AQZ.
Edit: Or were they just normal Mormons labeled as being "extremists" because they're persecuted by the State for just being non-conformist?
There are many reasons why people think the asteroid which struck Earth was a false flag -- It'd be perfectly in character for the Federation to do this, since they have a Manifest Destiny approach to the galaxy (as seen in the Sky Marshal's speech).
There are many more examples I can't think of off the top of my head, but that's because I haven't seen the movie in years (aside from YouTube clips): The fact I can still remember all this pretty much shows how much of a poor understanding of the film you have.
So, yeah -- I'd confidently say the Federation is an anti-hero than an actual hero, regardless of the Arachnids' motivations and role.
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King Arts
Well-known member
LOL how do they treat their citizen's badly?
Fascism you sound like a liberal when you scream that.
As for the Mormons the early US in the 1800's also had issues with Mormons, was America circa 1800's a fascist state?
I feel like a point of order is that I never considered Starship Troopers an "antihero" type of film. Antihero is something I typically apply to individuals, not organizations generally speaking. But even on an individual basis when I think of antihero I think of Punisher, Deadpool and Black Adam, not someone making HARD decisions like a Captain John Sheridan or Benjamin Sisko who I feel are still quite heroic as opposed to an antithesis of heroic if that makes sense.
Grimdark or Edgy or morally grey or something might be more applicable to entire organizations being labeled.
Grimdark or Edgy or morally grey or something might be more applicable to entire organizations being labeled.
IIRC that's not actually said in the movie; the shower scene is basically "you need to be a citizen to have kids" (unfortunately, she got eaten on Klendathu after she fell into a tunnel and was dragged away by a Warrior, so no kids for her, sadly).
But, on the other hand, it does make sense; also makes me wonder if that's because "money greases the wheels" or something if their parents were non-citizens.