Dissertation on the thematics of the Revolution

[Itseasytosee2me]

Introduction
Revolution is a widely popular game mode, one that servers like to handle very differently from each other. I'd like to analyze what the revolutionary game mode seeks to achieve, and how different implementations work to make this a reality.

For those somehow unaware, while the game mode of revolution has quite a bit of variety, the basic fundamentals of the game mode look something like this, no matter what server you are on.

At the start of the round, some players are chosen to be head revolutionaries, and are given the objective of overthrowing the authority figures, usually the captain and heads of staff, and usually by killing, capturing or exiling them.
The head revolutionaries have the capability to convert other players to their cause, making them revolutionaries who have the same goals.
Revolutionaries can typically always recognize eachother on sight.
If the heads of staff are overthrown the revolutionaries win, if the revolution is stopped (usually by killing, capturing, or exiling the headrevs) the heads of staff (and maybe the crew?) win.


The thematics of the revolution
Merriam Webster defines a revolution as,

"A fundamental change in political organization, especially the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed," or potentially, "A fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm."

The idea of a revolution invokes many historical events. The Bolshevik revolution, where the Russian monarchy was overthrown after two very bloody civil wars. This along side many other similar communistic rebellion is why there is a common association between the idea of revolution and socialism in the zeitgeist. Freedom from tyranny (or perceived tyranny) is the bases for most real world revolutions. The french revolution also seems to be a large influence on the revolution game mode (viva la revolution, and all that.) The entire motivation for our antagonists to rebel is established by some servers, but not all.

The word Mutiny is also often used in place of revolution. Mutiny is defined as, "forcible or passive resistance to lawful authority, especially concerted revolt (as of a naval crew) against discipline or a superior officer.
Which makes sense, given the common setting of space station 13 is on a space station, and the common comparison between space vessels and naval vessels in works of media. Space station 13, which has a captain and a crew, falls into this dynamic exactly as much as you would expect. Mutiny is probably a better word for the revolution gamemode of most servers, as revolutionaries are hardly ever given an actual political reason to fight, but they are often given the objective to specifically revolt against their suppiror officer.

The revolutionaries of /tg/ station are not given directly a reason to rebel, in fact, the common revolutionaries are explicitly brainwashed by the head revolutionaries using flash devices. They are also able to be deconverted from being a revolutionary by uses of mindshield implants, all of their loyalties and objectives hinge on brainwashing. It is unclear if the head revolutionaries on /tg/ are also brainwashed provocateurs, or if they are acting on their own free will. On one hand, they are completely resistant to mindshield implants and are trained in how to brainwash someone with a flash, on the otherhand, normal revolutionaries can be automatically converted into head revolutionaries if there are not enough in play. Headrevs being mind controlled currently ambiguous. It is also said explicitly in player facing messages that the syndicate is the faction who supplies the head revolutionaries with their flashes, and their cybernetic implants are of syndicate make. Also in player facing messages we see that the head revolutionaries are supposedly "employed" by some faction. It seems fair to assume that the revolutionaries are agent provocateurs from the syndicate given this information, although it is not outright stated. There is definitely Bolshevik theming as well, as the greeting to the revolutionaries revers to their fellow revolutionaries as "comrades" a stereotypical communist choice of words. The revolution is also referred to as a munity by multiple in game sources. The revolution is also correlated to the act of workers unionizing, which is tangentially related to a communist revolution, in which workers come together to use their strength as the working class to archive their goals, but really unionizing rarely has anything to do with cooperate overthrowing. However, the concept of workers coming together against their bosses is at least reminiscent of forming a workers union, so the idea works at least on that level. However, no wear in messages presented directly to the head revolutionaries or the revolutionaries themselves does it mention anything about being motivated by oppression, capitalism, authoritarianism, or even cooperate exploitation. The only explanation for why anyone involved in revolution is doing anything, is that they were brainwashed, probably by the syndicate.
Many TG derived servers, like beestation and yogstation are the exact same story.

Goonstation revs, although mechanically different, have almost the exact same story as /tg/. On goonstation however, revs are explicitly said to be a brainwashed cell of agent provocateurs sent by the Syndicate. The head revolutionaries are access to a few special items supplied by the syndicate to help them overthrow the station. There are also a few refences to the Bolshevik resolution, or calling the heads of staffs tyrants, but this is not really expanded upon any further. Oddly, goonstation has the mechanic that any revolutionary is able to "convince" his fellow crewmember into joining the revolution by simply beating them into critical condition. As far as I can tell, no where is the justified as to why someone would join a mutiny against the heads of staff. The new revolutionary will remain this way until a non-revolutionary beats the shit of them, in which case they will deconvert. The fact that goonstation has implants that can also deconvert these revolutionaries indicates that it is some sort of brainwashing effect, but no where is there any reason given as to why being beat up by a brainwashed person then makes you brainwashed, or why then being beat up by a non-brainwashed person would make you not brainwashed. Goonstation is a pretty silly server, so perhaps we aren't even due an explanation. The mechanics are very gamey, but no doubt they are fun. These revolutionaries are explicitly told they are revolting because their leaders are tyrannical, but the real reason is that they are brainwashed.

However, to take a look at something different, some stations have a more unique approach to conversion. I believe it was bay that first introduced "roleplay revolution" currently called mutiny on bay. The concept still holds all of the core features of revolution, but the execution is much different. The most obvious change, is that joining the revolution is voluntary. A revolutionary must simply walk up to you and use their "Recruit to Faction" action on you, which then presents a simple yes or no choice. There is no mechanical difference between a revolutionary and a head revolutionary in this way. Additionally, there are "loyalist" antagonist who function to thwart mutiny and win as long as the revolutionaries loose, and can similarly convert other people to their faction just as a revolutionary can. However if a revolutionary attempts to convert a loyalist, or vise versa, the conversion is failed and the converter is aware that their target is on the opposing side. On bay, given there's no mind control, you would expect that there would be a reason for the crew to want to willingly join a mutiny, and their is. The lore is that the station that the station has been in constant operation for an extended period of time, and the command staff and company is mandating that they can not yet return home because there is still much work to be done. The mutineers are the ones who have been stretched to the breaking point, and want to rouse the rabble and overthrow command, so they can go home. The loyalists are the command staff or the crew members who feel the trouble brewing, and want to insure that the company's mission continues onward. This implementation certainly serves to portray revolutionaries as characters with legitimate motivation, but whether or not these mechanics encourage roleplay is not so obvious.

Lifeweb, the ever controversial, has a similar take on revolutionaries. I'll be keeping it rather vague as to not upset any members of a secrets club too much. Lifeweb is a much grittier game from the space station 13 you are familiar with, to the point where it is hardly identifiable, its also very roleplay focused. It does still however, have a revolution game mode, called rebellion. Lifeweb has a futuristic/medieval setting where pretty much everyone lives in abject horror, beholden to the tyranny of a baron and his house of nobles. Through certain circumstances, a player may become particularly motivated to lead a rebellion against the nobility and achieve a better life for the people. With this newfound rage and passion, the fresh rebel acts to capture all of the nobles, alive if at all possible. The rebel may attempt to rouse the rabble by standing up on crates or tables and making speeches about the tyranny they face, and how they can reclaim their lives if they rise up together. Exactly what is said is up to the player, but you must say something. If listeners to these speeches were sufficiently agitated, they join the rebellion. The specific requirement of players to proselytize to others about their plan to overthrow the baron and the recipients decision as to whether or not to listen does do a lot to encourage roleplay, and considered ones choice of word. It also encourages people to go out in public and speak en-mass to a crowd in order to get as many members of the rebellion as possible, which is quite thematic for the setting. The setting of course, helps alot with this kind of conversion method, as people living under clear tyranny are not that difficult to reasonably convince to rebel.

We see that many different servers have differing takes on how the revolution gamemode is portrayed, varying on how they fit into server's mechanics and culture. Are any of these objectively better than each other? Well that depends entirely on what you want out of the game. You could say that /tg/ revolutionaries could benefit from more flavor as to why they are here and what their motivations for starting a revolution are, but you might also say that it's better left ambiguous. You could say that goon's outlandish unexplained conversion mechanics detract from the verisimilitude of the game, but you could also say the game is silly enough that it fits right in. There are probably improvements that could be made to all of the systems we have here, but before we make any swift action, we should take a look at exactly what we are trying to achieve, and how our changes will make it a reality.

[PapaMichael]

damn that's crazy

[Rohen_Tahir]

k

[Timonk]

i disagree

[EmpressMaia]

I wish life web accepted me

[Itseasytosee2me]

I wish life web accepted me

There is always next February.

[Timonk]

I wish life web accepted me

There is always next February.

Is life web running out of players again?

They surely won't deny me for a third time, right? :clueless:

[TheRex9001]

The flashing is kinda cool and I like it, it isn't voluntary, instead the head revs literally brainwash people and that's why mindshielding prevents it. It plays well and has nice flavour.

[Dalmationer]

Interesting thread. One of the first things that I thought when I first played Revolution as a gamemode in about 2014, was that the brainwashing element draws obvious parallels to 'communist brainwashing' conspiracy theories. Many of these theories originated from American soldiers and POWs in Vietnam who defected upon realising the atrocities that civilians were being subjected to and that the people's army of vietnam were more-or-less in the right. It's worth noting that 'stockholm syndrome' comes from a similar place-- Captives in a bank robbery in Stockholm were sympathising more with the bank robbers than with the police, who were actively escalating the situation and behaving violenty, so the syndrome was invented as it was not understood by the authorities why this would be the case.
Personally, I'm more fond of the voluntary union-style mutiny/revolutions that some other servers use, at least in theory. I will say that one downside i've often seen is that heads of staff on such servers are often too nice to the revs, because they don't want to be the baddie!!

Historical revolutions are often not 'lead' as cleanly as ss13's. Often they're democratic, or a coalition of various organisations with similar or conflicting goals, but one overall similar goal. Very often, the period after the revolution is very tumultuous, with people seizing power or changing things around. The 'big' french revolution actually happened right after another, less violent revolution. The Bolsheveik revolution was followed by a repression of anarchists and other groups who aligned themselves with the bolsheveiks to end the tsars.

SS13's revolution, imo, is most comparable to a workplace organising campaign, and i'm not just saying that as a union organiser. In a revolutionary union, e.g. the IWW, IWGB, or syndicalist unions, the end goal of a campaign is the eventual supplanting of management by the union's body, and seizure of the workplace into worker control. Now, this happens to some extent in SS13, but at present the round just ends. I personally think it would be much more interesting to come up with an idea of what actually happens after that.

I've been meaning to write for some time about SS13, the workplace, and ability and access. SS13 is, more or less, about the objects you have, and there are some things that I particularly feel are quite interesting, if unintentional, mirrors to the way that real workplaces operate. As a union organiser, I believe that this game can teach you quite a lot of the skills that a real life union campaign needs. Specifically, working out a map of the workplace, thinking about how to access certain areas to talk to certain people, communicating without being heard, etc...