Why not show the Tr and VS in more positive light?

[1] Yes. SerialKillerWhale (SKW from now on) wrote that piece based on the writings of another NC player's work, that of Artoriusaurus Rex (AR from now on) found here. In that piece AR does the same thing that SKW does; try his best to absolve the NC of any blame for the cronicled events of the official PS2 lore and put his own positive pro-NC spin on it. Both are guilty of the same thing; ignoring the unbiased 'narrator' style story of "how did this whole kerfuffle on Auraxis happen?" that I draw my info from in favor of the many fluff pieces that add flavor and details to the overall story. NOTICE: as far as I can see all these fluff pieces are written FROM SOMEONE'S VIEWPOINT or otherwise detailing small events. These are all supposed to flesh out the overall lore, not contradict or replace it, and all are inherently biased towards one faction or another. Arch examples of these would be the various entries in the lore archives.

[2] No it's not. the Story you link is called "Conspiracy" - it is part of the lore archive and details a meeting between two N.C affiliates and the secretary to Lt. Commander Waterson of the T.R military. In it, it becomes clear that Lt. Waterson PLANNED to replace the standing T.R president and enact policies he felt were vital for the fleet's survival, going with the typical T.R viewpoint of "security and survival comes before anything."

There are 3 issues with the idea that this short story proves anything:

1. It never states out-right that Lt. Waterson and his allies actually destroyed the Discovery-7, it don't even make it clear that he intended for anyone to die or to blow up a ship to begin with. It does make it clear he had plans to topple the president and assume control, then enact measure he considered vital to save the fleet. It don't make anything at all clear regarding that event and it's still possible that the ship was destroyed by other forces. Given the fact the meeting on the Discovery-7 was between the president and many top T.R officials and a group of leaders for the local insurgents, anyone could have been responsible. Hell, for all we know a huge gun-fight broke out and someone managed to critical the main reactor in the process, blowing the whole ship up. We simply don't know and the story leaves the cause for the ship's destruction up in the air WITH INTENTION.

2. It's a known fact that this story has canon issues, given the fact it's not even accurately timed.

From the lore archive, at the bottom:

Known Discrepancies.

"According to the majority of sources available, Tom Connery was killed on January 6, 2642. However, in the short story “CONSPIRACY”, which takes place four days after the destruction of the Discovery-7, Joseph MacGuire refers to Connery as though he was still alive. After seeing a video in which Brent Waterson is implicated in a plot against Connery’s life, MacGuire says the the video “needs to get to command before someone offs Old Man Connery”, despite the fact that the entire fleet was made aware of Connery’s death on the day it occurred 4 days earlier. Still more confusing is that, earlier in the piece, MacGuire’s companion Jack Sloan refers to the destruction of the Discovery-7 as though it had already happened, suggesting—somewhat impossibly—that they knew of the disaster but not that Connery himself had been involved.
It is likely that the piece was originally written to occur prior to the destruction of Discovery-7 and was later edited to occur afterwards, with MacGuire’s conflicting line overlooked in the edited version. It is also possible that the author became confused due to the inconsistent use of date stamps: Many of the short stories use mm.dd.yyyy while others use dd.mm.yyyy. “CONSPIRACY” itself is broken into three sections date-stamped 1.11.2642, 1.2.2642, and 1.11.2642 respectively. While the first and third sections’ stamps could be interpreted as either four days after the explosion (January 11) or two months prior (November 1), the second section’s stamp can only be interpreted as January 2—not February 1—as it details events that had to occur not only before the explosion aboard Discovery-7 on January 6 but also before the events in the first and third sections of the story. Assuming the three dates within the story aren’t inconsistent with each other, the sections can therefore only be interpreted as all having occurred in January of 2642"

In short, it's an editorial cluster-F and no-one can say for sure what it's meant to do as a story or even WHEN it's meant to take place. I consider it a broken piece of lore fluff and little more.

3. The story also points out that many of the major issues that faced the fleet were caused by the N.C themselves, but the fact that the story puts the T.R's leadership *AND* the actions of the N.C both in bad lights, seem to have passed over the heads of SKW and AR. Hell, the story ends with the secretary having her simple request for a secure room and some food so she can live, blocked behind loads of N.C corporate red-tape and BS, she ends up getting shot for pressing her case and pulling a knife on one of the N.C when it's clear he's trying to BS her. Some heroes. I could personally easily draw the conclusion from this story that the N.C are A-holes and that the T.R is suffering under noble ideals and loyal soldiers, but misguided leaders corrupted with power. See how easy it is to draw your own biased conclusions from the lore fluff stories now?

[3] TR leadership enacts draconian means of keeping the fleet safe, perfectly in line with their "safety and stability first" doctrine. It's understandible and point out their slide into darkness. The road to hell is after all paved with good intentions. It also shows the beginning of the corruption that will eventually overtake the TR's leadership - they have absolute power and absolute power...

[4] The facts are present but as I've said repeatedly now, SKW twists the known FACTS to support his own OPINION on the NC's character as a faction to make them seem more heroic than lore intends. His biased assertions are just that - biased assertions. I do wonder how many times I got to say this.

I am not stating that the established lore is not the way he claims when he points to documented pieces of fluff, I am claiming he's actively ignoring the parts where we see the NC in a bad light.

[5] No it's not. It's basically what they are, for the most part. Just look at the difference between the official lore page and the lore archives and the stories in it. The Official lore page, as I've said, is a cut-and-dry "the story so far" ordeal that don't pick sides, it tells you what has happened in wider terms, without a terrible richness of details. All of the lore archive's stories are biased to their sources of origin, or they are smaller pieces like "Conspiracy" meant to add details to the overall lore and/or to flesh-out specific events, and in those cases it puts several factions and events in bad and good lights. There is the TR flavor, (PLANETSIDE 2 BACKSTORY PART 1 – JAKE DUFFY, TERRAN REPUBLIC QUARTERMASTER) the NC flavor (PLANETSIDE 2 BACKSTORY PART 3 - JOE WALSH, NEW CONGLOMERATE MASTER SERGEANT, SEARHUS) and the VS flavor (PLANETSIDE 2 BACKSTORY PART 2 – SANDY JONES, VANU SOVEREIGNTY CHIEF OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT), along with other small stories.

[6] Completely irrelevant. The story of the TR leadership's fall to darkness is well-detailed and not the subject here, the subject here is the biased claims of SKW and AR that the NC are basically the "Good guys" of PS2 - there is no such thing and the lore supports this. Everyone are shades of grey, and that's a fact. This is good to, because as the makers of a game featuring a 3-way war, it's in their better interest that all 3 factions get equal air-time and promotion.

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The idea that SOE should keep giving NC the promotional spot-light at all times as they have because the NC are somehow the good guys is absurd. It makes no sense to claim the NC are good guys as it's supported by nothing but the wishful opinions of some players, and further and more importantly, it could end up harming the game in the long run.

There is no point having a fun game about a 3-way war if one side is over-represented and over-emphasized as morally correct and just and the others are not. This created imbalance and ultimately can topple the whole game. I'd like to be able to play PS2 in a few years and enjoy it then as I do now, so I won't stand for any more BS about this faction or that faction somehow being the "right faction" as there is no such thing. It should fall down ot nothing but flavor to sway your choice, not a supposed moral imperative.

Rekt

I'm actually quite disturbed how it seems the officials may sympathize more with the killer than the victim in some cases, as if the latter don't matter cause it's gone.
It doesn't make me feel much safer, to say the least

American political scientist Robert Putnam wrote an interesting article about how diversity has a negative correlation with trust, and in general, the solidarity within the community.

Think it was this one: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x/abstract

It makes you wonder if the EU isn't heading towards a social pitfall in the future.

Wait a second... the link you included there is simply to a wiki page... and as they say you can never trust a wiki fully. Do you have an official source that the wiki relies on? Something like the official PS2 website?

Yet "Conspiracy" is part of the official lore (and I should note that in your link to your "official" lore there is no mention of the real official lore that is "Conspiracy"). Sure there may be inconsistencies, but it is official (more official than a wiki page) nonetheless.

And while certainly there's no evidence that Waterson blew up Discovery-7... it would be a very strange coincidence that things happened exactly as Waterson would have wanted, including having him land in the leadership position. Anyone with a bit of a critical mind would be able to connect the dots there.

I agree with you here. SKW definitely "fills in the gaps" a bit more than the evidence should allow. At the same time though you seem to be dismissing facts out of hand and unwilling to fill gaps that logically should be filled.

What parts specifically are you referring to (in the real official lore) that put the NC in a bad light? I agree that there should be things that make the NC less than heroic, but I simply can't find them in the non-wiki real official lore.

See, I have problems with your "official" lore wiki page because it omits many of the stories that are included in the real official lore (like "Conspiracy"). It's one thing to be fairly analytical... but it's another thing to omit evidence. That in itself is bias: not reporting something because it would make one side look bad.

And "Conspiracy" isn't simply a "richness of detail", as it contains evidence that could very well color perceptions as to the factions.

In other words you can't simply ignore parts of the official lore (not some wiki page) because it makes one side "look bad" and then rely on unofficial details in order to make the other side "look bad". We can only rely on the official lore that is given to us; as imperfect as that may be everything else is just speculation.

And your speculation is as bad as SKW's.

I don't speculate. I base my arguments on the official page's history of the game-world, from the causes that created the TR all the way to the outbreak of war on Auraxis, this lore is found here.

[1] The official lore page, that I linked above, has a section at the very bottom that reads "Further Reading." Here is what you find there: "All of the above information has been pulled from various story-related articles on the official PlanetSide 2 newsfeed which has been organized and stored in the Lore Archive here on the wiki. For additional insight into the world of PlanetSide 2, we recommend visiting the newsfeed or archive and reading the lore articles found there."

Note that the official lore page itself links to the archives that you claim is not trustworthy. You may not like it, but these *ARE* the official sites.

[2] "Conspiracy" is in the lore archive, second-last Expandable tab. By the way, you do not get to dictate what is and is not "real" lore. Conspiracy is indeed part of the lore archive, but it's a flawed work (as I have pointed out) and no matter how big the chance is it don't make anything clear - that is my point regarding this story. Also, even if it did, all it would confirm is that the TR's leaders were corrupted with power, and we already knew that and I've already said that much, several times.

[3] What facts am I ignoring? I've made it clear that the lore explains (among other things) the fall of the TR from a democratic to an autocratic government. I'm not omitting or ignoring anything at all, and I'm surely not trying to say the TR are somehow perfect - I would not want to fight for a super-perfect-do-no-harm kind of faction anyhow. I *LIKE* the fact TR is flawed.

It just so happen that I like their positive sides as well. The difference between me and SKW is that I like TR as a grey-shaded faction, he wants his platinum-shiny NC, and is unhappy about his grey-shaded NC being a thing. Well Boo-F'in-Hoo - I deal with facts, not fantasy.

[4] Seriously? What parts? Read up on the official lore, here, then go expand and read all the fluff pieces, here. If after that you walk away with "I can't see where NC does something shady or bad" then I can't help you.

[5] See point 1. The lore archive IS OFFICIAL, and the pieces in it are there to flesh out the story that the lore page's overall storyline explains. I am not omitting anything at all, I take into account EVERYTHING there is to find on the PS2 lore.

[6] Conspiracy is richness of details in that the events it fleshes out - the destruction of the Discovery-7 - are the focal point of the story and this event is all but mentioned in passing in the overall lore, ergo the story adds more details where the "primary story" did not. It is official lore, but personally official lore that I question simply for how inconsistent it is.

Regardless the worst case scenario of "Conspiracy" is that Waterson really did blow up the ship, allowing him to grab power. It allowed him to start the TR's fall to darkness, and we already knew about that, it does nothing more than affirm our already existing knowledge that TR got bad.

And again, for the FINAL TIME, I am not speculating about anything, I base my arguments on what's available in the official lore - and both the lore page I cite and the lore archive are official, regardless of your feelings on that matter - and I hold to the established position that all factions are shades of grey as far as actions and morality goes.

For the final time, given that this is the case, SOE has NO REASON to out-right ignore 2/3 of the factions in the PR efforts. Give the damn VS and TR some love, and be fair about it. I am sick and tired of the serious lack of promotional balancing we got going here.

You need to understand, although that wiki page is based on the official lore (which is cataloged in the lore archive), that wiki page is absolutely not official.

It is only official if it was published or commissioned by SOE for the purposes of PS2. Anything else, including a summary, is unofficial.

Simply put, you cannot base things on that wiki page and claim it to be "official". It is not, and cannot be because it by the very definition it is unofficial as it is unaffiliated with SOE.

Instead, the only definitive works are the ones that you find in the Lore Archive, which in turn come from the official PS2 website. Coming from the official website makes it official lore.

This is why your argument is inherently flawed.

The unofficial wiki page that you cite is inaccurate because it 1) includes many things that are not found in the official lore and 2) fails to include things that are found in the official lore.

For example, this is the only thing the "official" wiki page you cite mentions of the Discovery-7 incident:

It makes no mention of Waterson's scheming which is actually official lore. That omission is a fairly serious one that represents bias. A fair report that included all known sources would probably read:

So it's fair in that it doesn't overstep the official lore; it never says that Waterson was the one who blew up Discovery-7 (as that's not in the lore), but it does certainly present the evidence that we have. Without mentioning Waterson's planning your wiki page makes a serious omission of the facts.

At this point I'm wondering if you are just doing your damn best to waste my time by trolling like a waste of biomass, you keep arguing minor points when the overall point I've been trying to make have been flying right over your head all this time.

You claim though that all of the info I've shared is completely worthless because somehow the lore archive is legit but the overall story is not, so all my info is flawed.

Well then share the source of your "official" info or stop arguing that my info is flawed, I have very little patience for this crap at this point and you better put up or shut up.

The overall story on your wiki page is not legit because it fails to mention important pieces of official lore.

My example was how it portrayed the Discovery-7 incident. It made no mention at all of Waterson's plotting. A complete and fair summary of the official lore would have included that.

Is that simple enough for you to understand?

EDIT: And do you have any info that SOE ordered the creation of the wiki and controls its content? In other words if I can just go in and change things, then it's unofficial. If only an SOE appointed/paid moderator can change things, then it's probably official.

EDIT 2: I just looked it up on the "About" section on that wiki... and they even admit that it's unofficial. To quote:

So you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The very wiki you claim is official is very clearly unofficial. Yet you believe that you have a clue as to what's going on.

I'll be blunt.

I made a mistake.

The whole "Not motivated by money" bit was based off someone else's work, before I realized the "Lore" page, unlike the "Lore Archive" one, wasn't official.

Nevertheless, everything else I mentioned came straight from the official lore, by way of the archives. Focuslight, at this point you seem to be grasping at straws and demanding evidence that was shown to you time and time again.

Look here. Open the apropriate folder, Click source document. Boom, there's your evidence. For example, Conspiracy, the one that has evidence of Waterson being responsible for the destruction of the Discovery-7?

Right here.

Now then, if your only other arguement is that it has a flaw in it, and therefore can't be official. I'm afraid that's just the kind of dedication SOE shows.
.

it doesn't really say what "Waterson is planing."
The NC were going to throw her girl back to the wolves cause the had to talk to cooperate HQ.
The girl had grenade she used to kill them and most likely blew up the evidence she wanted to give them

There is not really any good guys here.

Also this is just the actions of a few people. Every side will have good people and bad people.

True. All we know is:

1) Waterson wants Connery to step down
2) Miller points out that Connery will never step down and the people would never democratically remove him
3) Waterson threatened the safety of Miller's family in order to get Miller to go along with the plan (this also implies that Miller is critical to the plan)
4) Waterson planned to pin the blame on Mattherson's NC (this implies that whatever Waterson has planned can be pinned on someone)

What we know happened afterwards is:

1) Connery is killed
2) Waterson is installed (not elected) to replace Connery

So while it is possible that Discovery-7 just had a nasty gas leak and Waterson's plan was simply to bake Connery a cake and ask him nicely... it wouldn't be very difficult for most people to figure out what's going on.

And she had a knife to the guy's throat and came with a grenade.

She was there to save her own hide, and when it was clear that wasn't happening, she put a knife to someone's throat to try and get that, then killed them so that she wouldn't die alone.

By the same token you can say the NC are supporting the terrorist groups that are undermined the government.

It written that way on purpose. You don't have all the facts so you can fill in the holes the way you want to cause everything is just hinted at.

The TR are a Duty, Loyal, the needs of the many out weight the needs of the few, who may have gone to far in the name of security and safety having to imprison or even kill people who didn't deserve it.

The NC want less rules and restrictions so they have more freedom but could possible be funding or actually working with terrorist groups who kill and steal to undermined the current government.

The more the one faction acts the more the other faction digs in and it spins in a downward spiral until all out war

No, the things I listed are literally what happens in "Conspiracy". The things with numbers next to them are indisputable facts.

In the last paragraph I point out one possibility of what might have happened... and I imply a second possibility.

Yet we both know which one was more probable... and that's the point really.

The good guys are Earth (everyone still at home) the bad guys are the Vanu, not sovereignty. Clearly the aliens have this all planned out. They found humanity but wanted to do research on us before they invaded, so clearly they want us as slave labor or a vassals to their galactic empire. Maybe they want us as cannon fodder for their own galactic wars with other empires. but since they don't know anything about humans from what we eat, what environments we live in ect.
They used the worm hole to bait us in Prometheus style, and Auraxis is actually a test world so they can study us before they bring us into the fold. Think about it, all the continents have don't have very natural shapes, but seem very exact in their shape; just worn from erosion and such over the centuries/millenniums. They also unnaturally feature only one climate, per continent.

TL;DR
The aliens are behind EVERYTHING!!
Vanu stop worshiping them before you get yourself and all of us hurt! NC grow a pair and get over it your ways are old and dead, move on, adapt, you'll feel better and look back at this war and think it childish. TR who aren't loyal enough, get it together, kill those who insist on fighting and spare the ones who want to stop, no i don't care what the traitorous scum said about your mother, we need to unite and get back to earth before it's too late!!

Lore arguments and all that aside, I think the answer is pretty simple.

The NC are the only group whose short term goal is arguably good compared to the TR and VS. Basically the NC are the rebels fighting against the oppressive TR who can be seen as The Empire and the forceful VS who can be seen as the Borg.

The thing is none of the factions are fully good or bad but instead it all depends on which aspect of their grand design you look at.

The TR of earth are the only government to see total global control AND have people unanimously call it a golden age. The TR have proven that under their rule things CAN be a utopia and balanced for all people. While the Auraxian TR have become draconian and oppressive, they are the only ones who could truly say that life would be better under their rule. Cut off and afraid they've done terrible things but their long term goals would see all people brought back under rule and ideally life would return to utopia and hopefully find a way home safe and soundly.

For the NC, they are the average joe shmoe, your every man who fight for freedom and to maintain their way of life. They fight against tyranny dictating what they should do and zealots who believe they know better. To most people these are indeed great and noble ideas but people need to remember that all this was founded by corporations who were apparently the only people who had issues with the 'golden age' of the TR. If the NC win they have no long term goals besides rendering the world back to what we have today. Big wigs with tons of money telling lesser people what to do. Freedom for now at the cost of utopia later with no direction beyond the corporate heads can finally do what they want.

And lastly the VS who wanted nothing to do with this war, they were able to 'cure' death itself and could have created a utopia the likes of which the TR couldn't even dream of. The VS wish to create something unparalleled and extend humanity into the stars and beyond, to allow us to reach our potential and more. To them, the TR and NC are shortsighted fools who would see this potential limited or outright destroyed during their power tantrums. The two factions need to be put down in order for the VS to be able to truly research advances and return home and enlighten the rest of the earth! (for good or evil depending on what you believe would happen)

Basically the TR are currently trying to regain their power base while still being seen as corrupt. Their long term is unification and prosperity the likes of which no other government could ever dream of. The current 'right now' goal of the TR is 'evil' but long term is good.

The VS are trying to eradicate everyone because they just won't learn. Their long term goal would in their minds see unification and prosperity and ascend humanity to the stars and beyond. Their current 'right now' goal is oppressive and 'evil' but long term is good (debatable heh)

The NC are trying to stop the TR and VS from forcing their views on them and want to just live free! Their long term goals basically don't exist and would just end up puppets to corporations that for some reason upset with utopia (leading to believe they're corrupt or greedy) The NC's 'right now' goal is freedom and 'good' but their long term is vague and potentially very bad for people used to the golden age.

So yeah, NC look like the good guys because we're stuck in the 'right now' phase of history but are no more good or evil than the others.

The game really should try to show each faction in a good AND bad light.

its the agenda behind transhumanisim and its connection with eugenics.. it will be the elite that are lookin to use it for life extension.. the 99% will simplybecome the mind controlled slaves, the people pushing the wll be able to lock you out of sociotry.. these same transhumaniste are the same people pushing population reduction, u cant really beleive this will be made fore the every day peeps, we alreeady know how the nsa are recording all traffic online and building profiles on every one. you can really beleive they wont have back doors in the tecnology thst would allow the to take control og the tehcnology jacked in to an indivual.
trans humanisim is a stratergy to seperate from the laws of the univers.. imagine ow more effective it will be at brainwashing the pulic compared to thee bbc, cnn etc
and remember forced depopulation is the end gme for this is a 90% population reduction as well as ******ing the evolution of concousness.. transhumanisim is there to make the elite immortal and to take effective contrl of the populatio.. the is mountins of evidence to support this but i wll post links to offical documentation and vis from those involved at the top levels
ypu really need to look at the real agenda behind it and what those who are pussing it aand there connections to the commpanys involved in the development of the tehcnology

(excuse my ranbling but am pretty mashed, freeman fly has a lot oof info on the subject..
this also links to the elites obsession with the occult

Even today we have many issues with our technological development outpacing our social, philosophical, and moral development.

To quote the late Dr. Ian Malcom:

The thing is that with many scientific innovations there are benefits and detriments to society. It takes time for society to judge whether the benefits outweigh the detriments or vice-versa. For example, nuclear power is one for of scientific advancement that for a time was seen as a miraculous form of clean energy. We had people designing cars to run on nuclear power. But today we've realized that nuclear power has incredible costs to human life and the environment, and as a result we have cut back greatly on our development of nuclear power.

So take the VS "rebirthing" technology in PS2. Did the scientists think through what this might have meant for human society before they implemented it? How immortality, while sounding great on paper, might have social repercussions far beyond the biological advantages to living forever? I mean this is an issue that they explore in things as basic as middle-school literature like Tuck Everlasting. Yet the VS aren't even able to exhibit the critical thinking skills of 6th graders. One might argue that the willingness of the TR and NC to go to war was greatly increased by the VS's "rebirthing" tech, as it greatly reduced the costs of war.

Isaac Asimov explores this theme in The Bicentennial Man, where a robot goes through great lengths to become human. First by reworking its outward appearance, then by adding in equivalent human organs into its frame. But the final augmentation which made the robot a human was a mortality modification. That is to say to be human is to suffer, to be diseased, to be vulnerable, and ultimately to die. Those who cannot die are not human, not only in a biological sense but also psychologically.

Essentially the VS are so obsessed with the technical challenges of transhumanism that they haven't spent the proper time into figuring out if transhumanism is a good thing in the first place.

Bad OP, we Vanu never asked for this war. We simply wanted to study and develop the gift that is Vanu technology in peace, but you with your idiotic ideas of freedom and order had to stand in our way, and thus we are now at war for the better of humanity's future. All because you couldn't accept evolution and progression.

Actually the VS declared war on the NC and TR first, when the NC and TR were already fighting each other. The official article is here.

Essentially as the NC and TR start fighting, the VS declare war on both of them and attack them first with the intent to destroy. The quote from the VS leader is:

What the VS are after is a "convert or die" type of fanaticism, where you can believe in the VS mission for "humanity to reach its full potential" or be "eradicated".

Hardly sounds peaceful to me, especially when neither the NC or TR were attacking the VS at that point.