The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I mean Japanese culture really hasn't been like that for hundreds of years, they still have traditional Shintoism around but you really don't see that "falling on your sword" thing anymore, I mean even the shofixty font has an Asain and more specifically Japanese style to it from the sharp and simple curvature that leaks over to create small serif details, you might as well give the Yehat terrible teeth and give the Punk pink sunglasses and rainbow dyed shirts, I think they should be a little more distinct and less like traditional Asian culture, they can still have a large influence of it like having a religion that every object has some kind of soul, like rock spirits and metal spirits and stuff, but I just think it should be toned down a little bit.

You are free to feel that way.

I merely disagree with you.

Ok, but is there any logical reason at all for why you disagree? It's not like the topic is locked, other people can speak their mind.

References to old cultures, accurate or not, are not necessarily bigoted. The Shofixti are never said to be Japanese (they just have Japanese accents and some similarities to some parts of old Japanese culture) and they certainly aren't making fun of Japanese people. They're portrayed as brave heroes, albeit brave heroes that actually ended up making things worse (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NiceJobBreakingItHero). You might well say that the Yehat are racist because they depict Scots as barbaric tribes that kill each other.

Yeah but the Sofixty are particularly obviously trying to resemble what someone thought of as Japanese culture, and I can guarantee you that every single organized army in the entire world has brave "heros" that would also rather go out in flames than die doing nothing, not just the Japanese soldiers, so the fact that the Japanese culture was picked specifically to emulate a brave and self-sacrificing people plays into that Japanese stereotype that still get's made fun of even today. And what about Clingons from Star Trek? They are race and honorable but also brave people that also act suicidal when facing enemies, yet have such diverse and unique customs and cultures that they cannot be particularly associated with any particular race of people on Earth.
Instead, if authors want to include Asian culture in the game to not leave anyone out, a large component of Shofixty culture can be what is a large part of Japanese culture still today (as religion counter intuitively continues to grow in Asia), but not specifically stereotyped towards Japanese culture but is involved in many other Asian cultures which is Shinotism. Shintoism itself has origins in the Japanese region but has had modifications and roots from various religions, very old religions and ideas, the main principal of which is that there is a spirit for every distinct type of natural object.

So, what's the problem? Again, the Shofixti are not Japanese. Their design just has some references. How are the Shofixti more "racist" than the Yehat are toward Scots?

They're just references, that's it. You said something about giving the Yehat bad teeth to make fun of Scots, but nothing like that occurs with the Shofixti. You're just making a mountain out of a molehill. The Shofixti are a species of rodent people with some references to Japan in their design. That's it.

The only thing the Yehat seem to be in reference to is a heavy Western European accent, hopefully the lack of teeth is not an extension of the stereotype. The problem is that the Shofixty so closely resemble a stereotypical western view of Japanese culture that its annoying and the Shofixti don't seem unique enough. The self sacrificing isn't only about honor, it's also a tradition about celebrating short lived beauty in life which their architecture is suppose to also emulate. As I said before, the Clingons from Star Trek (next generation) care about honor and have that suicidal tendency but are not too closely related to any particular culture on Earth. The Shofixty should be unique enough that I cannot heavily associate them with any particular Earth culture.

You have it all wrong! Japanese people are offensive to the Shofixi!

It's ok for me to say that. I have a friend who's 1/5 Shofixi.

And I have a friend who's 100%, and it was kind of awkward when they they learned about the Shofixy, no other race in the star control series is that heavily oriented towards a particular culture on Earth.

Awwww ... how didn't your intestines implode due to the sheer shock of that experience?

(http://triadmomsonmain.com/images/Rachel%20Originals/Home-Alone.jpg)

BTW hey everyone! This guy has a 100% Shofixti friend!

Because the Japanese are use to being descriminated against and facing stereotypes like "you know martial arts right?" in the US.

The only two Shofixti (shofixty is a cute typo btw) you ever run across in game have extreme prejudices against Ur-Quan.  I guess you could call them racist.  However, saying Shofixti (as a race) are racist, just basing it off of Tanaka and his brother, seems a bit racist (then again, at that time they're the only two Shofixti left).

In the game the shofixty probably are racist, but we're talking about implications in reality. They defanitely should have toned it down.

If you're going to fill the boards with goofiness, please at least make an effort to spell it right.  :'(

This isn't goofiness, this is something that was literally very awkward for a Japanese friend of mine to see, and that's kind of a problem if there's a component that's so racist that someone can feel uncomfortable about it.

Your friend is a moron. (Though I have no reason believing he/she even exists)

The Shofixti design is NOT racist, it doesn't propagate hostile sentiments nor harmful misconceptions towards any race of people. I guess fans had plenty of opportunity to discuss this accusation ad nauseum every time someone yanked out the racist card, but here are some of my thoughts:

The Shofixti design is just as "offensive" as the Druuge, Pkunk or Ilwrath, yet I don't see too many people championing the sensitivities of corporate entities, youth movements or religious groups. This is because anti-racism rants gain unquestioning moral support quicker than any other concern in our time. Jumping on this bandwagon became the trend ever since Hitler got his ass kicked, crying out "racism" became a popular way among self-important idiots posturing as progressive thinkers. onpon4 is right, the Yehat has references to the Scots similar in nature to those of the Shofixti. They have an easily distinguishable scottish accent -- something you wouldn't even need an education to recognize -- while there's no such thing as a "Western European accent". If you're ignorant about a subject, you come off better with admitting it rather than making shit up.

Yes, the Shofixti design has Japanese references buildt around a stereotype perpetuated in pacific war flicks, but that stereotype has nothing to do with Japanese culture in general and only portrays Japanese fighter pilots as mouthy maniacs. It's a perception propagated in wartime, when it's normal to demonize the enemy.

In Star Control 2 the stereotype was used because in the relative peacetime everyone with the minimum mental capacity of a 5 year old knew that it itself is outdated and ridiculous, and no one -- with the exception of those with an urge to mount a nonexistent moral high horse -- would think that it's the developers' actual perception rather than what it actually is: a mockery of a silly old stereotype. It's in because it's fun, and is neither harmful nor bigoted nor insulting in the context of a videogame with some furry little dudes coming from the planet "Cabbage" awaiting the arrival of a legendary hero named "Radish".

Neither in the original SC2 or in UQM the font used for Shofixti dialogue are asian styled characters. If you want to ask why UQM-HD has an asian-like inkstroke font for the Shofixti, ask dczanik about that, maybe he choose that font out of bigoted anti-japanese hatred.

The 3DO version of the game was dubbed in Japan and no one raised one single eyebrow about the Shofixti content there. Maybe because they're grownups who have more serious business than playing a resentful princess routine over some talking rats.

The Shofixti design isn't original, so what? Originality is overrated, and it isn't either a strong point of Star Control, nor should it be. The distinctness of Star Control is the result of PR3's masterful wielding of unoriginal ideas often borrowed from other media of pop and geek culture. Star Control deals in what it's target audience -- meaning people with interests similar to those of PR3 -- are familiar with and that includes harmless stereotypes. It's possible to create depth in the Shofixti concept while embracing the "Japanese" aspect, but toning it down is merely an attempt to fix something that isn't broken, and achieves nothing more than turning the Shofixti into non-Shofixti. Anyone whose goal is to override the original concepts of SC1-2 is a heretic, an enemy of Star Control and should have their head stuck on a spearhead.

Above all, if you don't like the content then don't play the game. Also if you don't like the content, don't write plot for it, or at least don't bother the Star Control fans with it.

I for one am not interested in the concerns of crybabies smartassing about things they can't even spell right.

I don't know what you're so unnecessarily hostile about, you have no right to call anyone a moron, especially people you don't know. Though I don't believe it was completely intentional by the writers of SC2, it was fine in SC2 since the Shofixty culture was not largely defined but seemed to be over-exaggerated and continued the stereotypical views instead of making the Shofixty more unique in p6014, which as you know is not completed yet and can be changed. As I said before, it's possible to have an honorable seeming race without building that strongly off of Japanese culture.
And if you hadn't noticed, the war is over, the Japanese aren't fighting anyone, we should be getting rid of those stereotypes by now anyway as every army in the world has those who would rather sacrifice themselves and destroy their enemy. The Japanese only gained that stereotype because they were an enemy of the United States who at the time and possibly still has the most advanced and prosperous advertising and multi-media capacities while the Japanese had a particular method that they preferred to sacrifice themselves by ramming their airplanes in other enemy planes ships or bases and create large explosions.

You also said that none of the star control series uses Asian style text, but guess what? I googled "Japanese style text" and this was one of the first things that came up http://evilbrainjono.net/blog?permalink=547           which is very similar to the text that i see the Shofixty currently have. It even says on that page  "I am proud of my total ignorance of Chinese culture. Or maybe Japanese culture. Not that I would know the difference." and even goes on to say "People, it's time to stop using curvy triangles to signify Asian-ness."
And then on top of all of that you try to say "Originality is overrated" when originality is exactly one of the main components that makes star control such a great game.
People wouldn't have to  "raise eyebrows" in Japan because the Japanese businessmen/women were not eager to make a fuss about race like most business people in the entire world, which does not rule out their possible dislike of the stereotypes.

I don't even think your friend exists, and my experience with my japanese colleagues -- grown men -- completely differs from yours, however you have equal right to disbelieve the existence of my colleagues, so building your points on how heartbroken your friend is kind of doesn't matter AT ALL on a forum where such things cannot be verified. With the same effort I could say I have God on my side with the power of being more right than you are no matter what you say because he's fucking GOD for Christ's sake -- omnipotent and shit -- so you lose, I won and now get the fuck out! Problem is I don't believe in such a tactic as it's a sign of dishonesty, and the only thing you achieve with using it is that now you strike me as a dishonest person, the type I don't like -- therefore the hostility.

But hey I accept that everybody regardless of their nationality is a unique person, and if your friend really exists he's on different opinions from my theoretically existing colleagues, which then means he is a unique moron because getting insulted over a VIDEO GAME where one of the most valuable GOOD GUYS of the plot are buildt around some cultural and historical references and a stereotype nobody takes seriously is MORONIC. It takes a below-average intellect, an overly comfortable life and a lot of free time to develop such PETTY concerns. However as I said I believe your friend is merely an imaginary extension of yourself, therefore when I say he/she is a moron I really mean YOU are a moron. Glad we clarified that.

No sensible adult believes people will be so butthurt over mere resemblances, and the design of the Shofixti was completely intentional from their very conception. Even in SC1, the Shofixti Scout had captains named in Japanese, and it was a cheap spacecraft whose best tactic to deal damage was to blow itself up. It's based on the kamikaze war tactic, where self sacrificing aerial units were formed to perform special tasks, though those IJAAF and IJN pilots rammed their target instead of blowing themselves up. I can also say your point about every army having self-sacrificing "heroes" is very very weak. In our culture, the Japanese are associated with the kamikaze war tactic, because the only naval/air force that ever utilised officially formed suicide task forces of fanatics in history is that of the Empire of Japan. Pilots of other nations might jump to their deaths to save their homeland, but only in Japan they did on command, in an organized manner (though crashing a fighter nowadays would cause a smaller economic crisis) -- therefore the connection with japanese culture, which was further embraced in SC2, when the music was made, and later when spoken dialogue was made for the 3DO version.

I know the war is over, the problem is that YOU still don't understand that the survival of a stereotype is not the continuation of the war it's associated with. YOU are the problem. As many memes, this stereotype survived while it's perception changed in peacetime. Now it doesn't do any harm to anybody, nor is it bigoted. It's so old most people don't know where it comes from, and people who know does NOT take it seriously. Know why? It's an important testament of our past, where such SILLY beliefs existed. Same as Noah's Ark or the geocentric world view: harmless and stupid. It doesn't mean we should eradicate these concepts, we can still use them for our amusement. As subjects of our amusement we can remind ourselves that these beliefs should not be taken seriously. Therefore the stereotype is not an insult to anybody, it's a mockery of itself. All is a matter of CONTEXT. So why get rid of it? Just so our culture degrades to a politically correct fantasyworld where everything is, was and forever be all flowers and butterflies? That's what you want? A generation of degenerates who can only access unfunny, uninteresting sanitized content and don't know where we come from and will repeat all the retarded hate and violence because they're unaware of what they're supposed to feel amused about? I suspect you want something like that, sir, because "feeling insulted" is nowadays a trendy excuse to justify conflict, something you so desperately seek with your half-baked arguments. It does not matter if they make any sense as long as they create a "debate" like this, which you started only to pat yourself on your shoulders for being such an intelligent, likeable and morally superior person.

No official game in the Star Control series has asian inkstroke fonts, only UQM-HD has it which is Damon Czanik's (dczanik here) PERSONAL project for UQM. UQM-HD is not even part of the official development, it's a MOD, and P6014 is a MOD sequel developed in parallel. Damon is the head honcho of both UQM-HD and P6014 art now. The only thing his choice of font type has to do with the Shofixti is that he tried to embrace the asian aspect of the design. To clarify, I don't agree with him. I should have told him (maybe I did) not to use that font, not because it's "too asian" (because it's not -- it's pseudo-mock-asian at best) but because there is a plethora of fonts that look way more asian, and the ORIGINAL font doesn't look like any of them. But maybe you should learn to read before having any ambition to write, I already pointed out who you should contact about the fonts. It's Damon Czanik, your "boss" in P6014. Tell HIM how much a racist scumbag he is, I'll sit back waiting for the results.

About originality in SC, your drivel of fake enthusiasm reveals only that you really don't have any idea what you say. Check http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Influences_and_references
References are the lifeblood of Star Control, which makes it necessarily unoriginal. But that's how that should be! Originality is terribly overrated, and because critics use the word as a compliment, masses believe it's some sort of magical quality that turns everything better. Not at all. In the case of Star Control, concepts are very simple and familiar to anyone. Playing GAMES are not supposed to require a diploma, a Nobel Peace Award, a political agenda or a specific moral mindset. It is supposed to be fun, and gaming is not fun when the brain has to deal with alien concepts all along. An original element in a concept has no connection with your real life, teaches you nothing about it, means nothing to you as a person and therefore is not nearly as valuable as a basic, core idea. Most SC races are buildt around basic stereotypes and moral challenges, because they are part of a human test. The Shofixti concept is simple: they resemble whatever the popular understanding of Japanese people is + they are incredibly fertile and focused on reproduction. That's it. But why is that? Do you think Tanaka resembles an old, crazy Japanese soldier still fighting WWII because of an attempt to spread hate and discrimination against japanese people, or maybe because the japanese are HUMAN and you have to cope with a very human situation to get further in that particular puzzle dealing with an "alien"? Do you think the fertility of the Shofixti implies that the japanese are somewhat biologically-socially undesireable, or maybe that ability is required as the reward for your extra work and morally positive decision? How would you recognize the solution of a REALLY original puzzle without anyone pointing to the correct direction? How would following that direction be a challenge?

It's funny how you think Japanese businessmen have such an inferior moral fabric to yours, sir. Not only that, but you also imply that Japanese businessmen in general are passively condoning racism and therefore are morally inferior to businessmen of anywhere else. YOU ARROGANT, RACIST FUCK! You even dehumanize businessmen by saying it's all just their fault, not including japanese gamers in the picture who didn't raise any eyebrows either. Here's a few reasons why:

1) in Japan, there are a shit ton of popular media content where antropomorphic animals behave japanese
2) in Japan, they ADOPT foreign media content where antropomorphic animals behave japanese
3) in Japan, people spend much more valuable time working/studying instead of detecting racism in video games with a magnifying lens
4) in Japan, popular media often satirize japanese customs, historical events and the attitudes of different japanese social groups, as well as foreign ones by using stereotypes

Star Control 2 is something that could have been made in JAPAN. It was like everything else in Japanese media, so why feel insulted about it? They don't know what the stereotype means, and if they know they laugh about it, or just don't care, except in the western world where self-proclaimed saints and obnoxiously overtly sensitive people are waiting behind every corner to make everybody else feel sour about playing a game.

Nevertheless, you're free to try tuning down the Japanese in the Shofixti in Project 6014, but you won't do any REAL Star Control fan any service with a non-Shofixti Shofixti. You'll do it ONLY for yourself. Overriding the original concepts you'll do EXACTLY the same crap Legend did with Star Control 3. For that no SC fan will give you any indorsement, and you shouldn't expect anyone give any applause or encouragement to you. I think this is about your EGO, you're just putting up a smokescreen with your fake loving-caring concerns, so you can feel yourself free to meddle with something according to a vision only you care about.

BTW Want to see REAL racism in games? Google "Ethnic Cleansing", or "Romanii in Spatiu". The latter is a romanian space shooter where you have to kill gypsies and hungarians (a.k.a. Kwayne = me). THAT is real racism, REAL negative implications towards different people and REAL suggestion of hatred and fucking genocide, not a space adventure where your FRIENDS have a superficial resemblance to a silly stereotype.

Anyway, what's your problem with people expressing how much they don't care about something that doesn't have any connection with their everyday life? That is racism too? Not giving a shit? You need some real problems, man. Maybe a life, perhaps a job, or a girlfriend.

I didn't read your post as I have been informed you are not worth listening to. Good luck with life.

You are misinformed. It is a good read.

You'd think so until you found out just why project 6014 was stalled and mainly why the author collaboration fell apart. My guess is he tried to act childishly offensive again in the post, again for little reason which is against the forum rules anyway. I'm surprised he's not banned yet, he seems like some copy of another troll I found while I was browsing through the forums.

Anyway, I'll continue with my cohesive 17 page and increasing plot-line of p6014 that utilizes the more official races and creating planets textures and sound effects.

I still maintain the Shofixti are only racist against Ur-Quan.

But to throw my two cents in, while it is clear the Shofixti are the epitome of certain east Asian stereotypes, I wouldn't say their existence is racist by the designers.  It might be racist if they said, "Hey, every Japanese person is like a Shofixti."  Which they don't.

I've interacted with a good few Japanese people and I can't see any of them being offended by what the Shofixti are in SC2.  I suppose it just takes one to be offended, though.  Then again, Japan has plenty of stereotypes about Americans, and I don't get offended when I hear them.

Japanese stereotypes of Americans are funny.

I wouldn't say the Japanese person who I showed it to was "offended" and angry, but it was definitely awkward, and if I remember correctly there was even a somewhat Asian sounding voice-over. The Japanese were still known for their kamakazi pilots during the world war and he could easily see how the Shofixty's self destruct device combined with the font he saw in p6014 and Asain style of the Shofixty dress in p6014 that the Shofixty emulated some type of stereotypical view of Japanese culture. We should at least get rid of the curvy triangle font and proceed to tone it down somewhat. It's not like it's a massive change, and it's not like SC2 is going to be changed.

I think it was a low blow for them to make the US one of the first countries to "bow down" to Light in deathnote, I mean the US still has the most advanced military technology in the world, but it's like I'm "offended" by Japan, but it's something sort of illogical that was clearly meant to be some kind of little stereotypical insult that doesn't particularly make the show better. And then there's other stuff, but there's also I think "Kung-Fu Hustle" or some kind of fighting movie with Jet Lee who faces an American fighter that is literally 300 pounds of muscle and is very slow, as if Americans have a "too much muscle" problem, which was almost a compliment if he weren't so damn slow. But I suppose a general unhealthy diet would lead to a decrease in IQ which I thought I saw an article about at some point.

I could see how that would be awkward.

American: Dude I love this game! And it finally got an HD update! AND IT'D GETTING A WORTHY SEQUEL!
Nihonjin: That sounds awesome! Let's play it!
*play the game, get to Shofixti*
Nohonjin: ...
American: ...

It'd be like getting my wife to play it... then getting to the sex scene.

Were the situation reversed (Japanese person showing me something he/she likes with heavy Americsn stereotypes) I'd surely laugh.

Well I think Japanese culture like Spanish culture and German culture and Tibetan culture and Laotian and many  Middle Eastern cultures (though formalities in Germany seem to be decreasing) is still somewhat formal they don't necessarily have the loose comedy of everything that somehow the US incorporated into their daily life, and so a fully Japanese person who was born and raised in Japan would be more likely to find it awkward. Whereas a Japanese descendant raised in the US would be use to that type of comedy and have plenty of things to make fun of Americans as a way to sort of balance it out.

You're not reading my post but you GUESS what it is? Wow that's a great way to address opposing views. Not surprised though, most of your content on this forum is guesswork only, which is already a good enough reason for harshness. Dismissing others won't make your case stronger.

I know where the P6014 story comes from, and it's just a one sided fairytale. Plot development didn't fall apart, it was disfunctional all along -- and it's nonexistent at the present merely because someone had to sweep away a determined writer (that's me) and the estabilished premises of p6014 out of cheap personal disfavor (I didn't bend over for every assrape I was requested to receive). The real story is much longer, but off topic. (Buy my autobiography if you care :P)


About the font we kind of agree, the problem is still you taking stereotypes as unambiguously bad. They're not, and twisting a design out of it's original form because you have 1 person who felt "awkward" is kind of an overreaction. SC2 won't be changed by it, yes, but as I said you won't do any service to the estabilished community with your priorities driven by political ideals. The dress of Hiroku has resemblance to chinese designs, combined with a heraldic symbol that resembles japanese clan emblems. I didn't draw Hiroku to offend anyone, I did it because I respect the japanese and chinese cultures so I wanted to pay an homage by embracing their designs into the imagery of the race they most appropriately belong to. To say that it's racist is a personal insult to me, and completely missing the point of a simple aesthetical choice. Even I don't know where it exactly comes from, but most possibly here:



Then read with the stereotype-detector goggles off.

Literature as well as reality doesn't operate by rigid logic. With President Silas (or Sairas) declaring capitulation and full support to Kira, the authors intent was to convey that even the most powerful entity amongst mortals cannot stand against anyone with power over life and death. That notion further shows the reader the sheer weight of the challenge the protagonist faces, and it is indeed effective and makes the show absolutely better. It is an interesting coincidence that with among the highest rates of religiosity in the first world the US is already submitting itself to a judgemental abrahamic God (despite it's constitution), but the US is not a specific target for stereotyping here. Would the Soviet Union or the British Empire be in the same position power-wise, Tsugumi Ouba would have used them instead. One could propose using a fictional county, but that wouldn't be as effective either, because it would weaken the relation of the reading audience to the world of the books.

Anyway, what onpon4 meant is probably like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QMH8Tof69SE&t=37
... or this (I loved this episode so much): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9MbdbqEZn7E

Kung Fu Hustle was one of Stephen Chow's Hong Kong flicks, not a single american there.

But the case of the "muscle problem" of "american" fighters vs the famously tiny Jet Lee is very similar. It's a mere cautionary tale of David and Goliath, telling that blowing up your abs and biceps and having a vicious image means little challenge to the discipline, flexibility and balance of martial arts. It has nothing to do with IQ. Muscular characters are not typically american, or even western, though if you work with live action projects and you need brutishly large and pumped chinese or japanese actors I don't envy your task. One of the most muscular characters I can recall who is a particular imbecile is this:


But there is also a character who seems even more dense, almost mindless:

Both RUSSIAN, by japanese designers. Now why don't the russians feel "awkward" about depicting them as brainless brutes? Probably because they don't mistake CHARACTERS with NATIONS.


Again, guesswork. Funnily, stereotyping guesswork on top.

Well I noticed you were actually mature enough when I glanced over the page that you didn't try and swear every paragraph.

The project may not have been the most cohesive from the start, but I so far have had success creating a story that includes every official race and keeps their key personality traits along with some of their technology, so I'm sure your constant arguing didn't help. On the other hand I was able to compromise with another author pretty easily, and it turned out well.

Secondly, if you'll notice, other people had expressed different views without writing a 1000 word essay or trying to be offensive.

Then, I'm sure p6014 was purposely made with the Shofixty to emulate a to a greater degree the stereotypical view of Japanese culture which obviously I'm not the only one perceiving because otherwise it wouldn't have been built into p6014. Many cultures (of which I know people from by the way) still have formality as a large role and Japan is one of them. It would not be accurate to say Japan likes cats and making fun of itself because it has Hello Kitty advertisements everywhere in Tokyo in the same manner that having KFCs everywhere doesn't mean everyone in the US is from Kentucky or eats fried chicken all the time. And as I said before, the adjustment to humor also depends on where someone was raised, if whether they were use to the loose comedy that countries like the US have.

With regards to death-note I suppose it could be both, because with how the US congress has been acting in the last decade it is somewhat of a stereotype that they act cowardly to protect their careers.

The large muscle men as you say would also further show what I was suggesting, that formality is still important in Japanese culture and they view US culture as being very informal to the point where they even made it a stereotype to point it out the lack of discipline in their non-comedy movies. But like the US they were unaware of some things about the other culture, which is that it even though boxing seems simple it still takes years of training, both in strength training and motion to become a good boxer and it takes a lot of practice for any fighting style to be developed properly.

@Kwaine - TF2's Heavy is also noticeably Russian. Rocky's big opponent was too, Governator's russian cop character, e.t.c. This stereotype has been used A LOT.

@FakeMcCoy - about responces length - Kwaine is a wrighter, most of the rest of us are not...

The whole thing is a widely used trope in fiction: "Planet of hats". It's where you take one human trait and blow it out of all proportion to represent a nation. In Shofixti's case it was duty. The resulting species turned out to resemble Japanese.
The Druuge are very similar to pre-WW2 antisemitic propoganda's depiction of Jews. You don't see me offended.

Yeah I'm a writer too, that's why I don't need 1000 words to express simple points.
Anyway as i said before SC2 wasn't going too over the line, though you could still suspect a link to Japanese culture, which was exaggerated in p6014. Not only that as I've been trying to say, other nations have a sense of duty, and if you look at the Klingons they are nothing lie the Japanese or really any particular race of people but still highly value duty. The closest they come to is probably the Spartans, which unlike the Klingons they did not have a complex education system like the Athenians did who still excluded woman, and the Spartans seemed to be more defensive throughout history rather than trying to go about taking over every country.

Thank you, there has been a good ten years since I last shot milk out my nose.

You know that annoying kid at school who said he was a musician because he knew three chords on the guitar? You're being that guy right now.
Calling onesself a writer carry a few more implications than simply knowing a language and being physically capable of putting words down on paper/a computer screen.

Knowing how to hammer a nail doesn't make you a carpenter. Being able to multiply numbers on a sheet of paper does not make you a mathematician. There's more to it.
Frankly, your spelling is worse than anyone else I know and none of my IRL friends have English as their first language.

You're trying to create a moral outrage about a harmless stereotype, your wall of text  that you like to call a storyline in the star-control forum sucks. You are not a writer, you do not know anything relevant at all.
There has been a while since I have encountered someone so utterly blind to their own incompetence. Stop thinking you have something to say.
Stop it.

It's perfectly legitimate to say "tone it down" and on top of that my general plotline has support from other people, and even the people who disagree still agree with some major parts of it. If you want to spend hours writing you're more than welcome to, just contact a project leader and show him some stuff and you're on the team. If I didn't know any better though I'd say you were someone who already got kicked off.

I don't want to spend hours writing, I want you to stop it.

Hence "Stop it."

If you're not going to write then don't blame other people for taking the initiative, so "stop it" with the trolling.

I would hardly call that trolling.

Calling people morons isn't trolling? Saying "I lost confidence when Nico joined", calling seemingly random groups of people "self-important idiots", instead of actually having a logical discussion continuing on to say things like ""Maybe because they're grownups who have more serious business than playing a resentful princess routine over some talking rats.", calling me an "ARROGANT, RACIST FUCK" especially when I'm suggesting that p6014 tone it down with the stereotypes, isn't trolling? If you think that's not trolling, you might have serious issues.

I was referring in particular to the post at the top of this page where Umgahdrone explained why you are wrong, but if you want me to comment on the thread as a whole, I have to say that the one who looks most like a troll here is you. I don't (yet) think you are one, but you're acting more like a troll than anyone else in the thread. (Yes, even that post you skipped, while admittedly rather full of profanity, wasn't all that trollish.)

Calling people morons is indeed not trolling; at least, not always. Calling people morons out of nowhere just because they disagree with you or said something you didn't like, maybe that's trolling, but calling people morons and then explaining in detail exactly why they are morons, with reasonable arguments (rather than logical fallacies) to back them up, is not trolling. It's not very nice, sure, but it's not trolling either. The same general principle applies to everything else you listed in your post with incredulity about it being not trolling. Trolling is not as simple as you seem to think.

As for the actual topic of the thread... Why would you want to tone down the stereotypes? They've been used on purpose; they're an integral part of Star Control. They're so blatant that they're obviously not meant to be taken seriously. If you toned them down, wouldn't that suggest that maybe you actually are taking them seriously? If you eliminate them altogether, wouldn't that suggest you're making something completely different? In other words, something that is not Star Control.

Bottom line: it's not racist to embrace a stereotype in the name of comedy/parody. Star Control is a comedy/parody. Thus, there's no racism here.

Can we stop arguing about this now?

i'm pretty sure the Shofixty weren't made the way the way they were to be funny. If it was suppose to be funny, it would have been more obvious like the Spathi's "B.U.T.T" missiles and the Syreen's "Penetrator" ship. Racist seeming remakrs don't have to be intentional. For instance a judge can rule in a case that because someone had crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine that the person possessing the crack cocaine receives a sentence up to ten times longer than if they had been convicted of using powder cocaine. However, a disproportionate amount of a particular ethnic group use crack cocaine way more than the Caucasian population and thus have longer jail times for using the same drug. it's not the judge or jury trying to be racist, it's just that that particular system was not made with that disproportion in mind. So to make it clear, no one has to have anything against Japanese people to build off of an old stereotype, we should at least get rid of that triangle bonsai font.

1.  It is spelled Shofixti.  You claim to be a writer?  Learn to spell the words properly, even the made up ones for a game.  It's your topic, do it justice.

2.  The Klingons, again you seem to lack the ability spell the name properly, were actually originally based on the Russians.  In the Original Series, they were devious, belligerent, and untrustworthy in general.  They were meant to be the Soviet Union to the Federation's NATO.  In a similar vein, the Romulans were based on Imperial Roman culture.  Still are, in all honesty, including the slave rebellions.

3.  Were the Shofixti based on stereotypes?  Absolutely.  All the races of Star Control were to some degree or another.  It's a form of crude humor, yes, but it is still humor.  There is nothing inherently racist about any of it, as stereotypes themselves aren't necessarily a bad thing.  Using your own topic, the Shofixti, they are shown as honorable, loyal, dependable, and brave.  Accomplished warriors, an essential part of Alliance culture, and above all:  Friends to humanity and the Yehat.  Is there anything there that one would not want to emulate?

Yes, they have the Glory Device.  Perhaps that could be linked to the Divine Wind aspect of Japaneese military history.  However, I view it instead as the last ditch effort of the Shofixti to be certain that if their ships are going to go down, the last man standing can make sure the deaths of the crew on board mattered and spared the lives of their fellow Allies.  Again, a noble and honorable sentiment.

If you go purely by the Shofixti that appear in SC2, and their pure belligerence against the Captain?  He is the last on his ship.  His race seems to be wiped from existence.  He believes you are his enemy, the enemy that caused the death of his entire race.  He wants vengeance.  I honestly can't say I blame him.

People who think that spelling mistakes especially for a completely fictional realm are a valid arguments for anything are obviously only here to troll. If you want to write a storyline that agrees with all the suggestions that 20+ people have made along with speech dialogues then go ahead, I've been looking for a team.

Obviously I was referring to Next Generation, another strawman. There's two versions of klingons and you purposely used s strawman to state I was talking about the klingon that completely contradicted with my description of them which is completely coherent with the Next Generation version. I think you should quit trolling while you're ahead.
So if you go up to a Japanese person and tell them that because they are Japanese that they are honorable warriors who kill themselves in glorious actions that no one will be offended? It's already a bad enough to stereotype that all Japanese people have black belts in karate.  When star control tries to be funny it's more subtle than blatantly using stereotypes, like B.U.T.T Missiles or an exceptionally long ship called the "Penetrator". Anything already is "some tiny bit" of stereotype because the only things that can be a tiny tiny stereotype are common in any culture in the world while the actions are characters in UQM are already based off of terrestrial emotions and responses.
The phrase "stereotypes are not a bad thing" makes me lose faith in humanity.

A final command FakeMccoy, but it is more of a plea.

Drop this subject. There is nobody who agrees with you.

It really pains me to see a thread like this and I dare say I'm not the only one.

First off, your wrong, second off, agreeing or disagreeing has no effect on logic or the actual occurrence of events. People can be bothered by something whether you agree it bothers them or not.

I would say that your constant misspellings and grammar flubs are very good evidence that you're not actually a writer.

If you want to ask Damon and Nico if I wrote stuff for the project be my guest. On top of that, it merely signifies I was rushing something out for people to view to give more time to think about different aspects. If you're some fancy professional writer you're more than welcome to write for the project because I've been looking for writers.

There is a difference between a spelling mistake and a compulsion to typo.  No writer worth his salt would continually typo the primary subject matter that he or she is actually writing.  Once tor twice?  That's a mistake.  Yet to consistently fail to spell virtually any alien race name?  You are either trolling or you lack any and all coherent writing ability.

While I do enjoy writing, attempting to work with someone who takes no pride in his work or makes little to no effort to compose it...  No, just no.  It would be like group projects in school.  The stupid kid would expect the real writers to do all the work.
Oh, yes.  So obvious that your "Clingons" were merely the Klingons of Star Trek The Next Generation rather than The Original Series or the transition from TOS version into TNG version.  Or, you know, not.  
The Klingons, even in The Next Generation, were still attempts at emulating Russian stereotypes.  Relucant allies with the Federation.  Claiming to be honorable yet still maintaining assassinations and sneak attacks.  Even their state of the art technology looking like space junk.  Basically, US/Western thoughts on the Russian Federation.

Yet I suppose you CHOOSE not to see that

Why would I go up to a random person and tell them they're honorable or a warrior?  You don't quite grasp what a stereotype is, do you?  Only an idiot BELIEVES a stereotype applies to everyone.

To ANY friend, if I knew his or her family's military background?  I'd gladly tell them that their brother/uncle/cousin was more than honorable and noble when he sacrificed himself to save his friends and squad mates by throwing himself on a grenade to take the blade.  I'd gladly tell them their great grandfather was a hero for going down with his plane to deliever the torpedo that sunk an enemy battlecruiser.  This is no matter which side they fought on.  Why?  Because it takes guts to make those kinds of sacrifices.  It's a courage many of us wish we had, might even say we have, but if push came to shove we would be either seeking cover and letting Private Jimmy take the shards of the grenade or turning the fighter-bomber around to save our own skin.

Also, I hate to break it to you, but a "BUTT" projectile that makes a farting sound and a dildo-shaped rocket ship flown by crews of only women are not "subtle".

You know, you remind me a lot of a troll over on the old solar-outpost forums (before the admin lost the domain much later on and a porn site bought it out, much like Starcontrol.com for awhile).  I think he went by Chenjesu or Slylandro.  Same writing style, same nonsensical ramblings.  Except he was talking about eating fungus, deep children, and rainbow worlds.  Damned drug addled freak he seemed to be.

Amen.

No one has doubt that you submitted your drivel.  We all just realize it is poorly written and the plot lines are utter garbage.

If Project 6014 wishes to lower themselves to your standards, well...  They'll certainly be going the way of Timewarp.

I want you to go ask a real professional writer if spelling a fictional race of people wrong has anything to do with writing a storyline or dialogue, because if you think spelling has anything to do with telling a story, you've obviously never written a thing in your life. People have been telling stories for thousands of years without any writing, it's just orally passed down which only proves you're wrong. As long as it's understandable, there's nothing truly wrong with it.

Or, you know, they are. The Klingons definitely were not as "sneaky" and manipulative in next generation and definitely were changed to care about honor more than living in where as in the original series sneaky is most of what they were.

If you have no idea who they are and you tell someone they are an honorable warrior just because they are Japanese, that's definitely racist. If on the other hand you told any random person on the street they were an honorable warrior, they would probably keep walking and think you're some weirdo.

Which is exactly what I said before, you can quote me saying that every army in the world has brave people who would sacrifice themselves, that's why it shouldn't be a stereotype of Japanese people, but rather just a recognition that every side has their own heroes and there is no need to view strictly Japanese people in that sense.

I didn't know it was called BUTT missile until after the first time playing the game through, nor did I notice the long ship was called the penetrator, they are subtle things you have to look for in the dialogue that a particular race only mentions once.

You can have admins cross check the ip addresses if you want.


If your such a great writer then get off your ass and help complete the project, other-wise accept the fact that writing something seriously will often include "drafts".

Well... Tolkien did rename dwarfs to dwarves.

You might as well call the depiction of the Syreen sexist/misogynistic, even though it's just meant to mock tropes of old sci-fi  with "(random colored)-skin space babes".

Well maybe it was the intent of the Syreen to be sexist, they seem to be doing fine as a matriarchal society. Unlike with the Shofixty, the Syreen were made specifically because they wanted to depict a possibly sexist and matriarchal society, whereas with the Shofixti they wanted to emulate a "noble" race but then after that the writers assumed the best way to represent nobility was with Japanese culture, they didn't want to depict the Shofixti as Japanese first, but by assuming that the way to represent nobility is through Japanese culture, they stereotyped. It's not like anyone was trying to be racist, they were just careless about stereotypes that don't actually cohere to any specific culture of people.

That's strange, that's exactly how I feel when I read your posts. I guess you share the same feeling about them after actually reason what you said.

Speling an gramar r not realy importnat. U can styl git ur poynt akross.

Exactly, I completely understand that sentence and my guess is most other people did too. People had been telling stories orally for hundreds of years before written language was known by an average person and even before written language was invented.

ur dern tuten teh gud egish ant nedid u dnd ned 2 b gud ridur it ok iem gud ritur enewae cuz u cin liek git it lol

"You're darn tooten; good English isn't needed. You don't need to be a good writer. I'ts okay, I'm a good writer anyway because you can get what I'm saying."
It's like some kind of delusion, or many people here have some kind of weird fetish for trolling. Spelling doesn't make a story good or bad, it's what the content conveys, which is why it doesn't matter if you don't spell things perfectly as long as you can be understood at the level you desire. In general it's better to use proper English because you can convey a higher level of detail, however misspelling one letter of a few words when people have been telling stories without written language for thousands of years doesn't prove anything. In fact, I bet you could even do some kind of poetry by writing in the manner you tried. If Andy Worhal proved that anything can be art, then even the worst English in the world can convey something deeper if you put enough effort into it which I bet is something you never expected.

Here's another suggestion: Instead of people wasting all their energy calling my first draft which is 3 weeks old (which I have already moved on from 2.5 weeks ago and am on draft 4 which is completely different and more than half way done with), people actually help Damon and his 70 hour work week and Nico and his effort to get a masters degree to actually put effort into writing yourself what would make the p6014 storyline better after looking at the wiki suggestions. That is, if you care about p6014 and the SC series more than trolling. On top of that, we need dialogues for races written a well, and if you think a first draft is my prelude to a final product, since neither of the project leaders really dislike me, why don't you put more energy into writing a completed and better plot line and dialogues so that your stuff gets put in over mine?

Actually, you have something of a point: it's a logical fallacy (though I'm not sure which one) to assume that because you are a bad speller, you are therefore bad at writing stories. But it doesn't reflect well on you if you insist on spelling "Shofixti" wrong on multiple occasions. It suggests that you are either stubborn, not paying attention, or extremely lazy. None of these qualities are good qualities for writers to have.

It's still a fallacy to say that good writers can't have bad qualities because that implies good writers are perfect people or that there is some mystical force preventing good writers from having those bad qualities. The thing that stuck the most was hearing the dialogue. One's memory for sound works better than one's memory for vision so it's only natural I would remember remember the sound of the word first while I was zooming through the first draft and in the case of sounds both an "i" and "y" can sound the same.

A good writer is *highly* unlikely to be unable to write coherently and correctly. Can you point me to a single post of yours that does not contain at least one mispelling or run-on sentence?

I detect no fallacy in onpon4's response. Nobody said writers need to be perfect, however if your work is so heavily affected by the aforementioned qualities, you shouldn't expect anything good coming from people you're addressing with it.

In other words, the consistent misspelling conveys only that you -- while claiming witch such a conviction that you're a writer -- don't give a shit about the quality of your writing. You've been critiqued numerous times for your work by numerous critics, but instead of a rational response e.g. "Okay guys I'll fix this" then presenting an improved product, you blame others and make up excuses for your failure.

Presenting updated versions would be very easy, but you refuse to do such a thing and try to cover behind the concept of drafting -- a defense that might work in case you're working with pen and paper, but in an age and situation where editable digital medium is at your hand it's none less than obvious bullshit.

When it comes to you, bullshitting regularly comes in a package deal with constructing erroneous arguments, this time about the ancient traditions of storytelling. Rather than doing the more reasonable and less labour intensive solution of correcting yourself, you sweep the responsibility over to the reader saying "it's fine as long as it sounds English". It's not. Writing is not telling or vice versa. Writing was invented for a reason, which is to make records more accurate and reliable than oral accounts. Reliability is an important component of making records, that's why there are rules to writing, ensuring the right spelling and grammar. Those who read are reading with these rules in mind, and becoming distracted by errors, and beyond a certain level of tolerance are simply annoyed by them. Now, as an alleged writer, is your goal to distract or annoy your readers? I guess not, because allegedly you made a record of your ideas to be reviewed and discussed by other forum members. So here's an advice: make it reviewable and discussable!

However if you insist arguing with how correct writing is not important, here's an alternative solution from someone who does give a shit: don't write, and don't call yourself a writer! If you have such a confidence in your theory, then for you it's more effective to tell us your story orally, and call yourself a "storyteller".

I didn't say onpon specifically had that fallacy, I said "it would be a fallacy say..." in case he or someone else would mention it later. It's fine if people don't have things "good" to say as long as the criticism is constructive. Trolling because of a few spelling errors does not fit that category, at least on the more mature SC2 forum I actually got constructive criticism about specifically what was wrong with it and it helped me develop a better plotline.

I definitely don't care about the quality of a first rough draft, first drafts are just to get an idea down.  

Which I've taken into consideration to make a 4th draft.


I was told specifically second hand from Damon by the original creator of p6014 to stop posting content regarding p6014 in a pubic-ally accessible manner because they felt too much information was being revealed.

In the first written language, there were ancient versions of "ya mama jokes". And, the purpose of writing being to record has nothing to do with the fact that you can have a good story without a single writen word. If you want to record it, that's fine, but it doesn't make a story good or bad to write it down. In fact if it get's modified over time, it may even become better.

Misspelling a few fiction races by one or at most two letters does not make an entire document unreadable. Just more ramblings of a troll.

Locking this thread; it is not doing any good for the mood on the forum.