Based Fiction and Franchises

[LindyAF]

So we have a thread on "woke" franchises which push leftist/progressive themes, on some level, I thought it might be interesting to have a based franchises thread- what franchises and other fiction oppose it, or push an opposite message?

I read and quite liked The Powers of Earth and Causes of Separation, by Travis J. Corcoran.
It's clearly inspired by Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and mirrors it in some ways, but it is its own story. It's of the genre of Sci-Fi that allows one "magic" device and explores it and it's consequences, in it's case this device is an anti-gravity drive. True anti-gravity, in that it replaces the force due to gravity with an equal force in the other direction. Here's a summary-

Spoiler: Summary

Earth in 2064 is politically corrupt and in economic decline. The Long Depression has dragged on for 56 years, and the Bureau of Sustainable Research is hard at work making sure that no new technologies disrupt the planned economy. Ten years ago a band of malcontents, dreamers, and libertarian radicals bolted privately-developed anti-gravity drives onto rusty sea-going cargo ships, loaded them to the gills with 20th-century tunnel-boring machines and earthmoving equipment, and set sail - for the Moon.

There, they built their retreat. A lunar underground border-town, fit to rival Ayn Rand's 'Galt's Gulch', with American capitalists, Mexican hydroponic farmers, and Vietnamese space-suit mechanics - this is the city of Aristillus.

There's a problem, though: the economic decline of Earth under a command-and-control economy is causing trouble for the political powers-that-be in Washington DC and elsewhere. To shore up their positions they need slap down the lunar expats and seize the gold they've been mining. The conflicts start small, but rapidly escalate.

There are zero-gravity gun fights in rusted ocean going ships flying through space, containers full of bulldozers hurtling through the vacuum, nuclear explosions, armies of tele-operated combat UAVs, guerrilla fighting in urban environments, and an astoundingly visual climax.

The Powers of the Earth is the first book in The Aristillus series - a pair of science fiction novels about anarchocapitalism, economics, open source software, corporate finance, social media, antigravity, lunar colonization, genetically modified dogs, strong AI…and really, really big guns.

The author is an AnCap, which I am not, and the work is definitely political fiction, even utopian fiction. What I really liked about it though is that the author is willing to explore hard questions about his politics, even when he doesn't have a firm answer. It's an exploration of an ideology, one the author clearly agrees with and advocates for, but it's not an author tract. In fiction, since the author controls the world, it's easy for the authors of political fiction to consciously or unconsciously avoid questions that their ideology struggles with. Corcoran doesn't, and in some ways I think that makes it better than most works of political fiction.

There's a scarcity of whole franchises that incorporate explicitly RW messages the way some do leftwing ones, obviously, but there are still some that draw on RW themes. Probably I think the most based and popular franchise is Warhammer 40k. I don't think it's intentionally based, and in fact my guess was that a lot of the writers dislike some of the fandom that it attracts, but I think the premise of a fundamentally harsh, hostile universe sort of inherently leads to it unless it's intentionally counteracted. It also has sort of runs into the same issue I think the Starship Troopers film ran afoul of, a sort of satirical backfire in which any over the top parody of a militant xenophobic society is just unironically cool as hell. Let's just say that there's a reason plenty of 40k threads on certain other sites get periodic periods of people freaking out about how liking the Imperium is "fascist apologia." If you want to check it out but don't want to get into paying a dollar per plastic army man, I recommend the Eisenhorn and Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Warhammer is based for the same reason Watchmen is based, accidentally; lefty authors attempting to make straw men of the right accidentally create things that real people actually like. Both Empire and the Old World and the Imperium of 40k are supposed to be Whig Historical, Black Legend, socialist criticisms of the Holy Roman Empire. But like Rorschach and the Comedian, they are simply better than any of the alternatives in universe, and people respond to that.

But things that are actually Based and on Purpose?

+Dune.
+REH (Conan and Kull).
+Actual Lovecraft (not modern pastiche).
+ERB and Most Sword and Planet.
+JRRT (Morecock hates Tolkien so much, he thinks reading TLotR is like reading Mein Kampf, so there’s a stamp of approval).
+Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, the originals make post moderns squirm.
+Legend of Galactic Heroes.

?? Maybe Metabarons by Gimenez and Jodorowsky, I haven’t read enough of it to make up my mind.

 

[JasonSanjo]

But things that are actually Based and on Purpose?

+REH (Conan and Kull).
+Actual Lovecraft (not modern pastiche).

I second this so much. The original Lovecraft circle (possibly sans August Derleth because... well, he insisted on bringing the contextually nonsensical black-and-white, good-vs-evil dichotomy into it) was very much based and, in most cases, intellectually honest, unlike so many of their "successors", particularly from the last decade or two.

 

[Skallagrim]

I read and quite liked The Powers of Earth and Causes of Separation, by Travis J. Corcoran.

+Dune.
+REH (Conan and Kull).

+ERB and Most Sword and Planet.
+JRRT (Morecock hates Tolkien so much, he thinks reading TLotR is like reading Mein Kampf, so there’s a stamp of approval).
+Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, the originals make post moderns squirm.
+Legend of Galactic Heroes.

I second all of these. They are all well-written, immersive explorations of their themes (ranging from basic pulpy ones to deep philosophical topics). Moreover, they're good stories. That seems so obvious, and that's why it's often overlooked, but it shouldn't be. A lot of more recent stories are so incredibly cringy (read: the antithesis of what we call 'based') because they sacrifice the story to do a lot of soap-boxing.

What @LindyAF writes about Corcoran is completely accurate. The man has certain ideas, and he's not shy about advocating them, but he never betrays the story for the sake of messaging, and he's not afraid to present the obvious problems. Neo-Heinleinian, indeed! Breath of fresh air.

Maybe Metabarons by Gimenez and Jodorowsky, I haven’t read enough of it to make up my mind.

Abolutely recommended. Weird, yes. But also a masterpiece. Jodorowsky always goes all-out, and this is what he made when his Dune adaptation fell through. It takes all the ideas hje had there, and turns them into an original story. The whole meta-saga encompassing that setting (including The Incal et cetera) is just phenomenal.

Actual Lovecraft (not modern pastiche).

Lovecraft is fascinating as fiction, but I'm not sure if I'd call it 'based'. He's totally neurotic about everything, and it shows. It's hard to explain, but to me, the essence of a 'based' work is that is driven by a sense of confidence, or -- failing that -- stoic determination in the face of adversity. Lovecraft ultimately boils down to helpless despair.

-------------------------------

As for some suggestions of my own:

-- H. Rider Haggard. Especially Eric Brighteyes, King Solomon's Mines, She and The World's Desire (which he co-authored with Andrew Lang).

-- G.A. Henty, a.k.a. the master of the boy's adventure book. Wulf The Saxon is, to me, his masterpiece. In the Reign of Terror and No Surrender! are adventure books taking a strong position against the muderous excesses of the French revolution. By Sheer Pluck is set in the Ashanti War and thrills from the first to the last.

-- Speaking of adventure books... definitely don't stop reading Athur Conan Doyle when you're done with Sherlock Holmes. His best books are actually historical adventures. Sir Nigel and The White Company should be required reading in all schools.

-- Poul Anderson is mostly known for sci-fi (I'll come back to that) but The Broken Sword and Mother of Kings (historical fiction) are really great, too. More fantasy are A Midsummer Tempest and Three Hearts and Three Lions.

-- Can any list of based authors be complete (or even acceptable) without Rudyard Kipling? Kim and The Man Who Would Be King are his absolute best. (For the latter, also see the film.)

-- Tolkien was already mentioned, but most readers stick to his Legendarium. His take on The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is brilliant.

-- Herman Hesse was definitely based. If you don't believe me, read Siddhartha and The Glass Bead Game.

-- We return to Poul Anderson to talk about sci-fi. The whole Technic Civilization Saga (now collected in six books) is great. The 2006 omnibus book Time Patrol and the (chronological) sequel The Shield of Time are definitely worth reading. The High Crusade is fantastic, too.

-- H. Beam Piper! Lots of great ones, but for 'based', I'd say Space Viking wins top marks.

-- Concluding with a book that is, like the first one mentioned in this thread, neo-Heinleinian in the tradition of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold. There's not enough unabashedly libertarian sci-fi anymore, and this one's a cool exception.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

I second this so much. The original Lovecraft circle (possibly sans August Derleth because... well, he insisted on bringing the contextually nonsensical black-and-white, good-vs-evil dichotomy into it)

Lovecraft is fascinating as fiction, but I'm not sure if I'd call it 'based'. He's totally neurotic about everything, and it shows. It's hard to explain, but to me, the essence of a 'based' work is that is driven by a sense of confidence, or -- failing that -- stoic determination in the face of adversity. Lovecraft ultimately boils down to helpless despair.

Ok, I am going to mount a defense of Lovecraft (and Derlerth), one that that is perhaps a little idiosyncratic, but one hopes that the intent comes through.

Lovecraft’s horror is at it most basic, a horror at a demystified, desacralized, deracinated modernity, where nothing is holy, nothing has meaning or purpose, all goodness and truth and beauty have been relativized and equalized under the reign of quantity over quality. A horror at a Science! and Enlightenment! and Liberalism! that have collectively murdered the self-confidence and self-assurance and frankly being and action centered mentality of the pre modern, Medieval European; replacing them with trembling introspection, diffidence, naval-gazing, irony, and money and status grubbing. In this he most contemporary with Nietzsche, these are both men who deeply wish they could themselves be heroic Medieval men, but are themselves unable to escape the spell of demystification woven by the Science! cultists in labcoats and the Whig Historians.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. ”

"Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

All the Monstrous Ancient Alien Gods are there to make mockeries of the Men of Science! who have killed God and dynamited the chains that kept the world stable in its central position in the passion play of reality. That they did not intend to doom us all to falling into chaos, madness, and aeternal night is of little comfort. Regardless of the intentions of the learned and wise men who murdered God and the Medieval Mind, if Christendom was murdered or committed suicide, the nobility of Aryan man is doomed to be swamped by the teeming hordes of Africa and Asia unless he recovers his mystical conception of himself and his place in a meaningful drama of the world, and his self confidence and ability to do what must be done thereby.

Whereas August Derlerth is that kind of man I admire most, the Stubborn Catholic, who says "No! I don't care what the labcoated Priests of Rationality have declared, nor the Sophists in their towers of Ivory, I believe what the Doctors and Fathers have taught, what we have always and everywhere believed. Galileo was wrong!"

And this is why the Derlerthian hero can face the Monsters of the Id, the Terrors from the Abyss of Night, and 'In this sign, conquer'. In this way, I would argue that Derlerthian works are superior to those of Lovecraft, in theme and formal meaning, in that they dare to hope that modernity and the monsters unleashed thereby may be defeated in the end, if not word-craft and the mastery of sentencing. Also, without Derlerth and Arkham House Publishing, Lovecraft's work would have gone the way of so many other forgotten writers of his era.

 

[Skallagrim]

Ok, I am going to mount a defense of Lovecraft (and Derlerth), one that that is perhaps a little idiosyncratic, but one hopes that the intent comes through.

I don't agree with your assessment, but I agree very much with the idea behind your assessment. If that makes sense at all. I mean to say: I don't think they did it quite as well as you credit them with doing it, but what you describe does sound like a good thing.


Speaking of good things... I can't believe I have neglected to mention C.S. Lewis. Should be on the list, too.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

+Legend of Galactic Heroes.

Man, I remember watching the whole series a couple years ago, and jotting down notes as I went through it. I thought that it was overall good, but the epiphanies and the moral and political arguments were very bizzare.

I remember watching the Golden Wings OVA and thinking that it was egregious how the characters thought with our modern 21st century standards, in ways that shouldn't apply to their world at all. Reinhard's motivation to save his sister and seek revenge is compelling, but his "ISN'T FEUDALISM TERRIBLE?" speech was preachy and immersion breaking. Why would Reinhard, a boy who grew up in the nobility, be the one with the radical "tear down the aristocracy" mentality? His view might've made sense if the OVA had shown us Reinhard being a victim of the aristocracy beyond what was simply implied. The villain was rather one dimensional.

The 110 episode show's flashback did a better job of establishing Reinhard's hatred towards the nobility, but it's still a stretch to call them evil for not volunteering to go to the front lines. If we had been shown that there was a draft that the nobility were exempt from, I'd be more inclined to sympathize with Reinhard in this regard.

Very disappointed to see how one note the portrayl of the nobles were. The show didn't even make an attempt to look at the aristocracy from the perspective of a society that has been conditioned to accept the aristocracy. It's a very flat, revisionist view of it from a post-modern perspective.

Spoiler: first season ending

Also disappointed with how the show is TELLING ME that Reinhard screwed up when Oberstein took away Reinhard's agency to screw up on his own. It would've been much more impactful if Reinhard had actually allowed the planet to be nuked, but instead the ships just magically get there ahead of schedule before Reinhard's fleet could have ever even reached there even if he had launched immediately.

The documentary in season 3 once again reminded me of how on the nose the political ramblings of the narrative can be. Some of the declarations in the documentary about militaries "inevitably taking over and becoming warmongers" are rather unfounded, given that it is usually the military that knows the cost of war and thus lobbies for peace. To make Earth out to be the 100% evil bad guy and the Black Legion to be the definitive good guys is reminiscent of the Allies whitewashing what they did after WW2, conveniently using the defeated Axis to distract attention away from their own heinous crimes against humanity.



Anyway, the show was pretty good. Not the best thing ever like the old guard anime fandom hypes it up to be, but I still recommend it.

EDIT: I also remember being pretty upset at how on the nose the show was about the impending character deaths. The narrator spoiled more of the show for me than TV Tropes or r/Anime combined.

 

[Skallagrim]

Man, I remember watching the whole series a couple years ago, and jotting down notes as I went through it. I thought that it was overall good, but the epiphanies and the moral and political arguments were very bizzare.

I remember watching the Golden Wings OVA and thinking that it was egregious how the characters thought with our modern 21st century standards, in ways that shouldn't apply to their world at all. Reinhard's motivation to save his sister and seek revenge is compelling, but his "ISN'T FEUDALISM TERRIBLE?" speech was preachy and immersion breaking. Why would Reinhard, a boy who grew up in the nobility, be the one with the radical "tear down the aristocracy" mentality? His view might've made sense if the OVA had shown us Reinhard being a victim of the aristocracy beyond what was simply implied. The villain was rather one dimensional.

The 110 episode show's flashback did a better job of establishing Reinhard's hatred towards the nobility, but it's still a stretch to call them evil for not volunteering to go to the front lines. If we had been shown that there was a draft that the nobility were exempt from, I'd be more inclined to sympathize with Reinhard in this regard.

Very disappointed to see how one note the portrayl of the nobles were. The show didn't even make an attempt to look at the aristocracy from the perspective of a society that has been conditioned to accept the aristocracy. It's a very flat, revisionist view of it from a post-modern perspective.

Spoiler: first season ending

Also disappointed with how the show is TELLING ME that Reinhard screwed up when Oberstein took away Reinhard's agency to screw up on his own. It would've been much more impactful if Reinhard had actually allowed the planet to be nuked, but instead the ships just magically get there ahead of schedule before Reinhard's fleet could have ever even reached there even if he had launched immediately.

The documentary in season 3 once again reminded me of how on the nose the political ramblings of the narrative can be. Some of the declarations in the documentary about militaries "inevitably taking over and becoming warmongers" are rather unfounded, given that it is usually the military that knows the cost of war and thus lobbies for peace. To make Earth out to be the 100% evil bad guy and the Black Legion to be the definitive good guys is reminiscent of the Allies whitewashing what they did after WW2, conveniently using the defeated Axis to distract attention away from their own heinous crimes against humanity.



Anyway, the show was pretty good. Not the best thing ever like the old guard anime fandom hypes it up to be, but I still recommend it.

EDIT: I also remember being pretty upset at how on the nose the show was about the impending character deaths. The narrator spoiled more of the show for me than TV Tropes or r/Anime combined.

These considerations are very relatable. I do esteem the series a bit higher than you do, perhaps, and that may be (in part) because I think I can explain why these things you mention are the way they are. For me, understanding what this story actually is helped me appreaciate it more.

Here goes: LotGH is reverse Star Wars.

Star Wars is very much a Western (and specifically American) story, with Eastern (and specifically Japanese) influences inspiring the way it is presented. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is very much a Japanese story, with Western influences inspiring the way it is presented. Lots of people approach SW as if its an "Eastern" story, and they tend to completely miss the point (for instance, they tend to get the Force wrong, thinking it's like Buddhism, when it's really not. It's actually just re-heated Christian morality covered in "oriental" sauce.) You get the same with LotGH. If you take its aesthetics at face value and look at it like an actual Western story, with Western(-esque) aristocrats and nations... it's bonkers. It makes no sense at all. The politics are insane.

That's because it's actually about Japan. Just with Prussian-inspired uniforms.

The way characters and their motivations are depicted differs quite considerably from how these things tend to be done in Western media. The implicit cultural values are just different, and you can tell. This often happens to the extent that the choices made, and the emotional reactions displayed, by characters in Japanese media appear outright insane to me. It takes watching multiple Japanese films/series to begin understanding that this is the norm; Western media characters don't behave like real people, either. They behave according to cultural conventions with which we are familiar in the West, and which we can 'place' (we know what it means). The way characters in pretty much any anime behave would never work if you somehow adapted it into a Western, English-language live-action film with no other changes. People would ask "why are these characters talking and reacting like complete madmen?"

You can tell that this stuff is made by Japanese people, is what I'm saying. It's reflected in everything. The way characters relate to each other, the way they react to experiences, the way they approach ethical questions, and even the way they interpret basic concepts. Look at the insistence Yang displays about the essence of democracy being civilian control over the military. That makes no fucking sense. The core of democracy is the principle that the people are sovereign, and that there are elections. But elections barely even get mentioned. The issue of a corrupt, stagnant government is raised, but the notion of "vote them out" never is. Only the possibility of a military coup is brought up again and again.

Why? Because this is Japanese. The post-war Japanese political world ended up dominated by the LDP, which did display problems with corruption and stagnation, and "voting them out" wasn't a conceivable avenue. Meanwhile, the cultural backdrop of World War II and its historical traumas defines the Japanese attitude to the military. From that perspective, "the civilian government, no matter how bad, may not be suborned by the military" really is the core of democracy.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is fundamentally about Japanese issues and concerns. It's a Japanese story dressed up with Western aesthetics. Once you look at it like that, it makes complete sense. And on its own terms... it's pretty fucking based.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Man, I remember watching the whole series a couple years ago, and jotting down notes as I went through it. I thought that it was overall good, but the epiphanies and the moral and political arguments were very bizzare.

<Biggus Snippus>

So I generally agree with many of your criticisms of the Anime, which I am given to understand are somewhat ameliorated in the novel (which I haven’t found time to read).

But we have in the Rheinhard story and character a sort of de Maistre-Ian critique of the decadent state of the Ancien Regime just before the end of the world and the reign of terror, and a sort of Bonapartist figure who reforges old and new into a new aristocracy, forcing the best breed and most able to once again serve the common good by serving the state.

And the story of how the Goldenbaum dynasty emerged out of the chaos and collapse of mass democratic confusion should be music to based ears.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why? Because this is Japanese. The post-war Japanese political world ended up dominated by the LDP, which did display problems with corruption and stagnation, and "voting them out" wasn't a conceivable avenue. Meanwhile, the cultural backdrop of World War II and its historical traumas defines the Japanese attitude to the military. From that perspective, "the civilian government, no matter how bad, may not be suborned by the military" really is the core of democracy.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is fundamentally about Japanese issues and concerns. It's a Japanese story dressed up with Western aesthetics. Once you look at it like that, it makes complete sense. And on its own terms... it's pretty fucking based.

But we have in the Rheinhard story and character a sort of de Maistre-Ian critique of the decadent state of the Ancien Regime just before the end of the world and the reign of terror, and a sort of Bonapartist figure who reforges old and new into a new aristocracy, forcing the best breed and most able to once again serve the common good by serving the state.

And the story of how the Goldenbaum dynasty emerged out of the chaos and collapse of mass democratic confusion should be music to based ears.

On a similar note, I find it... interesting (odd? disturbing? unusual? not sure) how there seems to be a trend in Japanese fiction where a one world order/unified empire is considered to be the defacto preferable status quo.

There are a billion Gundam series (and knockoffs) where the antagonists are space rebels/breakaway states trying to be independent from the one world order/unified empire that is the Federation. Sure, in some series the rebels are legit evil, but there seems to be the implicit assumption that the rebels should be opposed merely for trying to exist outside of the one world order/unified empire, and that the protagonists should stand by the federation no matter what, and that the rebel's criticisms are invalid. The only two Gundam shows were this wasn't 100% the case were Unicorn and IBO, which during the 5 minute epilogue gave lip service to the idea of the space people being "granted autonomy" (but realistically they never would).

Is this because of the whole myth about "there was an age where Japan was embroiled in bloodshed between feuding warlords... until Nobunaga came along and conquered united the land and brought hundreds of years of peace. Clearly any dissidents are evil warmongers!"?

 

[DocSolarisReich]

There are a billion Gundam series (and knockoffs) where the antagonists are space rebels/breakaway states trying to be independent from the one world order/unified empire that is the Federation

Because fundamentally the Japanese are a *Conquered People* who have adopted the dreams of their conquerors, the liberal democratic Atlantic Empire. And the fundamental dream of the Whig imagination is the 'Federation of the World'.

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

Those who follow the left-hand path will always seek to recreate the Tower of Babel.

"Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword."

 

[Skallagrim]

On a similar note, I find it... interesting (odd? disturbing? unusual? not sure) how there seems to be a trend in Japanese fiction where a one world order/unified empire is considered to be the defacto preferable status quo.

There are a billion Gundam series (and knockoffs) where the antagonists are space rebels/breakaway states trying to be independent from the one world order/unified empire that is the Federation. Sure, in some series the rebels are legit evil, but there seems to be the implicit assumption that the rebels should be opposed merely for trying to exist outside of the one world order/unified empire, and that the protagonists should stand by the federation no matter what, and that the rebel's criticisms are invalid. The only two Gundam shows were this once 100% the case were Unicorn and IBO, which during the 5 minute epilogue gave lip service to the idea of the space people being "granted autonomy" (but realistically they never would).

Is this because of the whole myth about "there was an age where Japan was embroiled in bloodshed between feuding warlords... until Nobunaga came along and conquered united the land and brought hundreds of years of peace. Clearly any dissidents are evil warmongers!"?

Because fundamentally the Japanese are a *Conquered People* who have adopted the dreams of their conquerors, the liberal democratic Atlantic Empire. And the fundamental dream of the Whig imagination is the 'Federation of the World'.

In the case of LotGH, I have a strong suspicion that what they're actually saying with all this is... "Japan needs another Meiji Restoration".

Consider it. Democracy is considered unable to solve the actual issues; that's a statement on post-war Japan. Meanwhile, the whole deal with the aristocrats... well, in Japan, the notion of the warrior-aristocrat was only a century in the past at that point. Looking at the terminal corruption of the samurai class, they may be considered as having failed Japan by losing their martial prowess. This is historical revisionism, but it's definitely on-message here. Because who is seen as solving the issue and taking Japan into its meteoric ascendancy? The Emperor Meiji.

So now we have a setting combining these things, and openly presenting the Emperor figure as being the Great Hero that is fundamentally needed. His opponents aren't depicted as being evil, all the issues get a fair hearing, but there's absolutely no doubt about where the series actually points. This being relatively recently after World War II, and Imperial Japan having lost (and having done some things that are only now being openly revisited in Japan), it would have been possible to say "the Meiji Restoration was awesome, actually". But saying "what Japan needs right now is for a strong Emperor to get rid of democracy and corrupt elites, and Make Japan Great Again"...

Well. That would be a hairy subject. So you dress it up in all those nice Prussian uniforms, and it's all just fictional.

Or is it?

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Well. That would be a hairy subject. So you dress it up in all those nice Prussian uniforms, and it's all just fictional.

Or is it?

Japan remains (much like Germany and Italy) an occupied country. The degree to which anyone can just say what they honestly think is rather curtailed. Much easier to file off the serial numbers, bury the dog, and set it all in space in the remote far future. But I'd argue there's a reason it remains something of an obscure gem. The masters of commercial and mercantile power in modern post-war Japan would certainly be uncomfortable with the suggestion they should be responsible to anything other than lining their own nests.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Japan remains (much like Germany and Italy) an occupied country. The degree to which anyone can just say what they honestly think is rather curtailed. Much easier to file off the serial numbers, bury the dog, and set it all in space in the remote far future. But I'd argue there's a reason it remains something of an obscure gem. The masters of commercial and mercantile power in modern post-war Japan would certainly be uncomfortable with the suggestion they should be responsible to anything other than lining their own nests.

What about the plethora of films and TV shows with stories about heroes fighting evil corporations and corrupt governments... shows that are funded by megacorporations? You'd think that the message would be self defeating, and yet these shows and movies get greenlit all the time. So perhaps the corporations know that the message of their works won't actually affect their bottom line in the end?

Well, I guess the who "fight evil corporations and government" plot is a modern cliche in Western stuff and K-dramas. Can't think of many examples in Japanese anime off of the top of my head from within the past 20 years.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

So perhaps the corporations know that the message of their works won't actually affect their bottom line in the end?

Criticism of Capitalism is a big business that earns the Capitalists millions of dollars. We have to remember that very little of what Capitalism does is sell people things that they need to solve particular problems. Most of what they do is sell people on stories about themselves and the world and ultimately identities. Today 'anti-capitalism' is just another packaged lifestyle product with magazine, clothes, music, movies, sub-cultures, and journals of critique.

 

[AnimalNoodles]

Falkenbergs Legion books and the universe it spawned are pretty based. The world is ruled by a declining co-domimium of the USA and the USSR. The USA is dominated by a corrupt monoparty beholden to oligarchs and plutocrats. Most of its highly diverse citizenry belong to a tax subsidized underclass who live in fenced off crime-ridden 'welfare islands' and are kept pacified with free food, free booze and cheap electronic entertainment.

Criminals, dissidents, undesirables and the unlucky are shipped off the outerplanet colonies, never to be seen again. The only hope of humanity is that the Co-Dominium Space Navy can keep things together just long enough to ensure that enough humans have been exported off world so that when Co-Dominium falls apart, the resulting global war wont be able to exterminate everyone.

Falkenberg is a colonel for a demobilised Co-Do Marine regiment, who goes into the mercenary business in the colonies.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Falkenbergs Legion books and the universe it spawned are pretty based. The world is ruled by a declining co-domimium of the USA and the USSR. The USA is dominated by a corrupt monoparty beholden to oligarchs and plutocrats. Most of its highly diverse citizenry belong to a tax subsidized underclass who live in fenced off crime-ridden 'welfare islands' and are kept pacified with free food, free booze and cheap electronic entertainment.

Criminals, dissidents, undesirables and the unlucky are shipped off the outerplanet colonies, never to be seen again. The only hope of humanity is that the Co-Dominium Space Navy can keep things together just long enough to ensure that enough humans have been exported off world so that when Co-Dominium falls apart, the resulting global war wont be able to exterminate everyone.

Falkenberg is a colonel for a demobilised Co-Do Marine regiment, who goes into the mercenary business in the colonies.

Agreed sir. Good call. Also to be considered is the spin off collaborative story series 'War World'.

Also of course we shouldn't forget Jerry Pournelle's 'There Will be War' series, or his efforts with his frequent collaborator Larry Niven, especially 'Lucifer's Hammer'.

And David Drake's 'Hammer Slammers' another 'prince of mercenaries' series of tales, I especially recommend the stories collected in the 'The Tank Lords'.

And no Based Fiction list could be complete without SM Stirling and Colonel Kratman of course. Stirling for the Draka and Belisarius* series, and Kratman for basically every damn thing he has ever written, but especially for the 'Amazon Legion'.

*Edit: Not Belisarius, the Raj Whitehall series, of course Raj is a Belisarius expy in the far future after the collapse of a stellar republic.

 

[AnimalNoodles]

Agreed sir. Good call. Also to be considered is the spin off collaborative story series 'War World'.

Also of course we shouldn't forget Jerry Pournelle's 'There Will be War' series, or his efforts with his frequent collaborator Larry Niven, especially 'Lucifer's Hammer'.

And David Drake's 'Hammer Slammers' another 'prince of mercenaries' series of tales, I especially recommend the stories collected in the 'The Tank Lords'.

And no Based Fiction list could be complete without SM Stirling and Colonel Kratman of course. Stirling for the Draka and Belisarius* series, and Kratman for basically every damn thing he has ever written, but especially for the 'Amazon Legion'.

*Edit: Not Belisarius, the Raj Whitehall series, of course Raj is a Belisarius expy in the far future after the collapse of a stellar republic.

Lets not forget that the Mote in Gods eye takes place in the far future of the Co-Do universe.

 

[edgeworthy]

Most of David Weber's work?

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Eh, I wouldn’t call classical liberal, bourgeoisie conservatism stuff like Weber’s Space Britain ‘based’, which is also my qualm about the Poul Anderson, H Beam Piper, Robert Heinlein, and MZ Williams works mentioned up thread. But sure if that’s your thing.

They’re all good stories for sure and worth any reader’s time.