If you ask someone if they are Nazis, and their answer is to get confused and ask about the premise of the question, there is about a 90% chance they are Nazis. Non-Nazis will say, “What? No, definitely not.”
If you ask someone who isn’t a Nazi if they’re a Nazi out of nowhere then confusion seems pretty valid. If there’s a premise to it that they understand (by being Nazis or acting like ones) you’d get less genuine confusion.
E: I wasn’t talking about the specific case in OP but in general
I wore a brotherhood pin in high school. But that was before fallout 3 was released when the brotherhood were essentially militaristic hermits. I loved fallout when it was essentially an anarchist propaganda piece that satirized all power structures as eventually toxic in rebuilding the apocalypse. The only good guys were the followers of the apocalypse who were strictly anarchist.
The brotherhood were portrayed as ineffectual and the enclave were essentially the brotherhood if it became less isolationist. Both were obviously satirizing American political ideologies. Fallout 3 decided to throw all that out and make the brotherhood interventionist, meaning the theme was a fight between good America world police with the brotherhood and bad America world police with the enclave. A suitable post 9/11 liberal who lives in Bethesda’s view of the world, but largely uncritical to power structures. You got to vote for the “lesser of two evils” in that game, but that fact was presented uncritically and not satirized at all.
fallout 3 was released when the brotherhood were essentially militaristic hermits
The Brotherhood has been authoritian racist tech bros since FO1, with most of their expanded lore coming out of Tactics long before FO3 was even a concept. Their goals were to take technology (that they didn’t even understand) to keep it out of the wrong hands, while also eliminating any non-humans they encounter. They grew in rank by essentially running protection rackets and straight up conscripting wastelanders into slavery.
They are portrayed this way right from the get go, you just have to actually do some digging and read their holotapes to find out how bad they really are in the first two games if you didn’t get the hint from your first encounter with them where they literally send you to a giant irrated hole in the ground, expecting you to die as a way of saying “get lost and go fuck yourself.”
Bethesda tried to make them less evil and less stupid in 3.
I kind of ignore tactics and I think I made my actual distain of them pretty clear. The problem was fallout 3 making them into the good guys. They never were. My pin was as tongue in cheek as the naming of the primary fan site at the time “no mutants allowed.”
Or Caesar’s Legion as that is much more clearly fascistic. The BoS can be but they are malleable depending on the game. Fallout Lore is remarkably inconsistent.
Meh depends on the setting. My partner and I are organizing smaller concerts from time to time. If we are about to book an unknown band sooner or later we have to ask the Nazi question.
It’s not about “getting someone”. The concerts are in clubs that have a zero tolerance. If there’s a Nazi band on the stage shit will hit the fan. This may range from other bands refusing to play in the same stage to people attacking each other.
You get usually two kind of responses:
People are pretty clear in their response: “Of course not” or “Fuck Nazis” are the usual replies here.
Then there are others who get offended or try to discuss what Nazi means. That’s a “yes” in disguise and enough to not book them.
Every faction is the bad guys, it’s individuals (or sub groups like the salamanders) within the fiction that get to rise above their faction and be good guys.
The very premise is “everything is fucked up, trapped in the low equilibrium of the Prisoner’s dilemma where no faction can genuinely rise above because the others will take advantage”. The Imperium of Man, aka Catholic Space Nazis, are part of that. Other parts are the “Torture like your life depends on it, because it does” Dark Elves, the “If I stop fighting and slaughtering, I get a terrible headache” World Eaters, the “we infect people with brainwashing worms so they sabotage planetary defenses before calling our massive murderbug army to devour all life” Tyranids and plenty more pleasantries.
But the players don’t share the values of the faction the pretty plastic pieces they play with represent. Well, most of them. But if you uncritically adopt the “Kill all mutants, human supremacy, fanatical devotion to a single autocrat” mentality of the Imperium…
(Good guys, by some definition, exist, but they’re usually just good when compared to their peers, not to our moralic values. Lobotomised cyborg slaves and casual speciesism are still par for the course even for those good guys.)
Tbf, if someone asked to join my discord server and asked if we’re Nazis I would also ask for further clarification. Not because there’s a chance we might be Nazis but because it’s an odd question.
I get the impression that even those agreeing with the Nazi-like stuff are not literally self-identifying as “Nazi”, so I think you’ll get that initial “huh” reaction regardless.
Might be better to ask a more specific telltale question.
If you ask someone if they are Nazis, and their answer is to get confused and ask about the premise of the question, there is about a 90% chance they are Nazis. Non-Nazis will say, “What? No, definitely not.”
I would also accept “did you just call me a fucking nazi?”
If you ask someone who isn’t a Nazi if they’re a Nazi out of nowhere then confusion seems pretty valid. If there’s a premise to it that they understand (by being Nazis or acting like ones) you’d get less genuine confusion.
E: I wasn’t talking about the specific case in OP but in general
Yeah but even if there’s some initial confusion, most normal people will get to a clear negative answer pretty quickly.
That’s true. But I’d definitely also want to know what prompted the question
it’s a warhammer 40k group.
There’s a 50/50 chance they’re neonazis. (ask if they ever play as Imperium… that’s a solid way to find out.)
Same with Fallout fans who are oddly obsessed with The Brotherhood of Steel.
I wore a brotherhood pin in high school. But that was before fallout 3 was released when the brotherhood were essentially militaristic hermits. I loved fallout when it was essentially an anarchist propaganda piece that satirized all power structures as eventually toxic in rebuilding the apocalypse. The only good guys were the followers of the apocalypse who were strictly anarchist.
The brotherhood were portrayed as ineffectual and the enclave were essentially the brotherhood if it became less isolationist. Both were obviously satirizing American political ideologies. Fallout 3 decided to throw all that out and make the brotherhood interventionist, meaning the theme was a fight between good America world police with the brotherhood and bad America world police with the enclave. A suitable post 9/11 liberal who lives in Bethesda’s view of the world, but largely uncritical to power structures. You got to vote for the “lesser of two evils” in that game, but that fact was presented uncritically and not satirized at all.
The Brotherhood has been authoritian racist tech bros since FO1, with most of their expanded lore coming out of Tactics long before FO3 was even a concept. Their goals were to take technology (that they didn’t even understand) to keep it out of the wrong hands, while also eliminating any non-humans they encounter. They grew in rank by essentially running protection rackets and straight up conscripting wastelanders into slavery.
They are portrayed this way right from the get go, you just have to actually do some digging and read their holotapes to find out how bad they really are in the first two games if you didn’t get the hint from your first encounter with them where they literally send you to a giant irrated hole in the ground, expecting you to die as a way of saying “get lost and go fuck yourself.”
Bethesda tried to make them less evil and less stupid in 3.
I kind of ignore tactics and I think I made my actual distain of them pretty clear. The problem was fallout 3 making them into the good guys. They never were. My pin was as tongue in cheek as the naming of the primary fan site at the time “no mutants allowed.”
Enclave is probably more accurate
Caesar’s Legion is the most accurate
Or Caesar’s Legion as that is much more clearly fascistic. The BoS can be but they are malleable depending on the game. Fallout Lore is remarkably inconsistent.
We were talking generally
If you know anything about 40K, the prompt should be self-evident
Meh depends on the setting. My partner and I are organizing smaller concerts from time to time. If we are about to book an unknown band sooner or later we have to ask the Nazi question.
The setting here feels similar.
what do you look for in their responses?
surely they dont go „oh yeah we are nazis, you got us“
It’s not about “getting someone”. The concerts are in clubs that have a zero tolerance. If there’s a Nazi band on the stage shit will hit the fan. This may range from other bands refusing to play in the same stage to people attacking each other.
You get usually two kind of responses: People are pretty clear in their response: “Of course not” or “Fuck Nazis” are the usual replies here.
Then there are others who get offended or try to discuss what Nazi means. That’s a “yes” in disguise and enough to not book them.
Of course setting, their actions and whatnot matter. It isn’t out of nowhere if there’s some context for it that the recipient also understands.
In 40k where the Imperium are outright fascists, the context is already there
Isn’t that just roleplay, though? Don’t know much about 40k, but I imagine someone’s got to be the bad guys, right?
Every faction is the bad guys, it’s individuals (or sub groups like the salamanders) within the fiction that get to rise above their faction and be good guys.
The very premise is “everything is fucked up, trapped in the low equilibrium of the Prisoner’s dilemma where no faction can genuinely rise above because the others will take advantage”. The Imperium of Man, aka Catholic Space Nazis, are part of that. Other parts are the “Torture like your life depends on it, because it does” Dark Elves, the “If I stop fighting and slaughtering, I get a terrible headache” World Eaters, the “we infect people with brainwashing worms so they sabotage planetary defenses before calling our massive murderbug army to devour all life” Tyranids and plenty more pleasantries.
But the players don’t share the values of the faction the pretty plastic pieces they play with represent. Well, most of them. But if you uncritically adopt the “Kill all mutants, human supremacy, fanatical devotion to a single autocrat” mentality of the Imperium…
(Good guys, by some definition, exist, but they’re usually just good when compared to their peers, not to our moralic values. Lobotomised cyborg slaves and casual speciesism are still par for the course even for those good guys.)
Yes
This is the answer right here.
Tbf, if someone asked to join my discord server and asked if we’re Nazis I would also ask for further clarification. Not because there’s a chance we might be Nazis but because it’s an odd question.
I’d be wondering ehat did I do to make them think I might be on a Nazi Discord server lol. I get you.
This is also ‘getting confused’, to be fair, lol.
I get the impression that even those agreeing with the Nazi-like stuff are not literally self-identifying as “Nazi”, so I think you’ll get that initial “huh” reaction regardless.
Might be better to ask a more specific telltale question.