Super Earth's Antifascist State

My Thoughts on Helldivers 2

“Keep our glorious Super Earth safe and do your duty by reporting ANY unpatriotic behavior to your nearest democracy officer.”

The PA system rings overhead as I’m de-frosted out my pod and brought onto the Deck of the SES Shield of Morality. As a competent helldiver for The Super Earth Government, defending our way of life and the right side of history across the galaxy I could see who was on my ship, with no helmet to hide their visage.

"Welcome back helldiver, glad you’re aboard so we can get started.”

…chimed in Ship Master Skogsberg, her clean shaved head accentuated her ethnically ambiguous appearance, but she was there to give me the tactical data on the strategems I would need for my upcoming mission against the Termid menace.

My pod is locked and loaded, I select my boosters and strategems and I dive right, feet first into hell— feet first for Managed Democracy….

Fresh off of the heels of a week’s worth of “discourse” over Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, Arrowhead Game Studios has seen unprecedented levels of success with their latest title, Helldivers 2. A continuation to the their top-down 2015 cooperative shooter, the sequel is a third person, objective based extraction shooter that pits you and your teammates against hordes of ravaging Terminids (think the bugs from Starship Troopers) and armies of terminator-like Automatons. For the sake of transparency, I purchased the game myself, I’ve streamed it multiple times, and it’s quite fun.

My time in the game as of today.

The game is clearly an homage to Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, with the same kind of Would You Like To Know More? style of propagandistic footage that you’ll watch when you first load up the game. Much like Verhoeven’s movie, it depicts a world of an ultra-militarized, “democratic” society that is ethnically diverse, with sexually integrated armed forces, and taking on the Bugs as if they just attacked Buenos Aires. The introduction video is hilarious, we’re given a view of a peaceful Super Earth colony, clean streets, safe neighborhoods, with patrolling troops as we witness the only straight white male in this entire universe watches in horror as his black wife and mixed race child be graphically killed by the Terminid bug menace. My first reaction had me laughing so hard to a point where I wish I recorded it, however if you want to you can relive the one White Male of Super Earth’s radicalization time and time again as the video introduction plays every time you load into the game.

The homage Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers is felt as soon as you load into the tutorial, with its training section giving you no trouble at all and happily subjecting you to death if you fail any of the sections of combat or not diving underneath live fire Gatling Turrets. The soundtrack is exemplary, and you could easily swap it out with the score Basil Poledouris did for the movie and it would tonally fit right in. And just like Isaac Young’s observations on Twitter, the game’s attempt at parody fall flat on its face despite the community manager’s attempts to dissuade the gamers from having a positive feeling about the aesthetics of the game and fascism. Certainly doesn’t help in the midst of talking about the game’s politics that some of the community relations personnel for the game have pronouns in the bio.

Not posting the @, and the obligatory call to not harass these people.

Death of the Author, something much beloved by the New Left just a few years ago, has been abandoned for the sake of telling the Chuds that they can’t enjoy something, because the author’s intent denies them the ability for right wing or conservative adjacent individuals from enjoying things. My good friend and co-host

Gio's Content Corner.

wrote about this extensively in his post “Bugmen and the Death of Art.”

Quoting from the Article:

But all in all, in conclusion, what we can say is that authorial intention is but one interpretive lens among many. And the reason why we must get rid of the thesis of the death of the author is because of fundamental anxiety in which we live in. That there can be no proliferation of various interpretations or interpretive lenses. That they can fall in the hands of “dangerous reactionaries” in the far right, and therefore works of art must be guarded and shuttered off at all costs. Lest they fall into the hands of the “wrong side of history”. Even something as powerful and spiritualized to the Millennial as nostalgic itself must be taken into a strange process of what Arthur Chu in the Gamer Gate days called “mind-killing”. Where an and all thoughts to the contrary of the social messaging must be set to the flames. Nostalgic itself can only be taken up when it serves present political concerns, the impulse itself is dangerous to the current progressive liberal order of things.

The online right, from its anti-SJW days to its now more openly reactionary appearances haven’t just gone for death of the author, but the Hijack of the Author. This isn’t to say that the author is dead, or that the soyelennial bugmen screaming at me not to appreciate the fascistic garnish of their product aren’t around anymore, but rather that in the public image of things, they aren’t at the discursive helm anymore. In the same way (for better or for worse) “Literally Me” genre of films as explored by The Kino Corner has become the core identifying character traits for politically dispossessed White Men in America, so too has the Helldivers become “Literally Me” characters just as Johnny Rico from Verhoeven’s film has become a rallying cry to the right. After all if we’re seeing online communists identify with the bugs of Starship Troopers, then of course the appropriate response would be “The Only Good Bug is a Dead Bug.”

Everyone knows that you’re making fun of fascism, and people don’t care.

America hasn’t come anywhere near fascism, and our war with Fascism in World War Two ensured it wouldn’t come anywhere near to American shores, but rather it would be the eternal boogeyman that haunts our dreams and our political life until The Last Judgement. Tess Kaur, writing for The Gamer explains that Helldivers 2 is the “Antifascist Answer to the Call of Duty” stating:

Most satire attempts to be subtle and thought provoking, but Starship Troopers the movie doesn’t bother. Its satire is obvious and loud, purposefully deconstructing far-right propaganda. It has child soldiers, for god’s sake. It’s very clearly anti-fascist. This is important because Helldivers 2 is an unabashed, obvious homage to Starship Troopers. They have more or less the same premise, with soldiers who fight to spread democracy through violence and bugs that you have to squish. And just like the movie, Helldivers 2 is a satire of fascism.

You didn’t need to state the obvious, I just don’t care. I can tell it’s satire listening to propaganda about joining the fight with friends, using two man-weapons that I can get as strategems like recoilless rifles or javelin-like missiles called “Spears.” I know just like Verhoeven’s film that the world of Super Earth, despite the fascistic trimmings of cool suits and taking on bugs and bots, is a world that I would see in any post-gamergate video game setting with progressive representation, diversity, and cheesy dialogue although the latter serves to the author’s intent in the case of Helldivers 2. The game is, as the authors of numerous articles and fans have proudly proclaimed is “antifascist.” They’re right. Antifascism is the political theology of the modern America and the Western World. Dr. Paul Gottfried, as he details on page 137 his 2021 book, Antifascism: A Course of a Crusade:

The antifascist state stands in contrast to the fascist one in the understanding of governance. It involves a sprawling administration, along with efforts to de-masculinize and de-ethnicize “populations,” a term favored by the German government offcials of our time who do not want to be associated any longer with a “nation” or “Volk.” The antifascist regime operates with forces dedicated to fighting “hate,” mass media, and public education.

The World of Helldivers 2 is an explicitly antifascist one, there is an ambiguous identity to the world, wherein the large black man in helldiver armor who stands by the tactical display near the Hellpods of my ship has the name “Yu Villa” in the same way the other two ethnically ambiguous women on my ship have the last names Skogsberg and Wirz, the Starfield representation problem strikes again. My character and my friends are fighting for the “Right side of History”, a term often cheered on by liberals as they get their victories handed down to them by Supreme Court Rulings or the State forcing it by gunpoint onto the disaffected masses. Yet…

The same thing can be said about Super Earth, the introduction video shows me clean streets, nice suburban neighborhoods and a militarized police presence keeping the world safe. No homeless encampments, no bikes getting stolen, all’s well that ends well….well save for a Terminid attack on your perfectly progressive interracial marriage. Where Helldivers 2 fails in its efforts to make fun of fascism is that the American Regime is closer to resembling the world of Super Earth than anything close to the fascist regimes of the 20th Century. Helldivers 2 is the logical conclusion to the progressive empire that rules over us now and has become Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Longhouse.

The Managed Democracy of Super Earth is just like the American Managed Democracy of today, wherein elections are fortified, ethnically motivated political groups can strike down proof of citizenship requirements for voting in swing states like Arizona.

My “Ultra-MAGA” behavior can be reported to my “Democracy Officer” (HR) if someone ever got a hold of my dox and decided to go after me and my employment. And just like the helmeted (but not so silent) protagonists of Super Earth, I am called upon to serve and die on behalf of those who do no look like me for some ephemeral cause of Freedom and Liberty that doesn’t really serve my interest at all. Managed Democracy is putting more White people in military recruitment ads because they know White men are walking away, they do not see a regime that benefits them at all. Nothing Sweet about Liberty when nationalist activists are arrested for simply putting up stickers speaking out against the Managed replacement of native Britons.

Helldivers 2 and its world is a perfect representation of Gottfried’s Antifascist State, but it is also despite its attempts at satirizing fascism reflects more on the current state of America and the West than it realizes, intentional or not. Yet despite this, the gameplay loop, and the adventurism of taking on bugs and robots in a space military, dropping down like Halo’s equivalent of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs) while chatting with my friends over Discord about what loadouts we will need to not only kill the Bile Titan but also how to get all the optional objectives as well for a Glorious Victory. The average Right Wing Twitter user playing this game has hijacked the author, the game is now about conquering and human supremacy in a world that was clearly meant to make fun of the Chuds and their kneejerk fascism, being a helldiver is based now sorry Xir.

Yet their attempt at entertaining parody, is more like reality than they realize. Just like the political thrillers and comedies that had started before the Trump era, like House of Cards or VEEP, they couldn’t keep up with the fact that reality was more entertaining than their fiction ever could be. Trump tweets derailed news cycles, and what his administration was up to on a day to day basis was better than anything Julia Louis-Dryfus and company could ever put on the air. The author has been hijacked, you control where the Hellpod lands, you can die for glorious victory while giving the bugs sweet “cup of Liber-tea” as you throw grenades into their nests but much like soldiers coming back from America’s own military adventurism, you’ll see people that don’t look like you, while the State espouses ideas of freedom and democracy that don’t include you, all while demanding you get back in the pod and fight Managed Democracy again and again just as you have always been called upon to serve.

Because after all…