Who really are the 'good guys' in PS2?

If you read the lore, it clearly states that Terrans are Republicans and NC are Democrats (that's why they wear red and blue, respectively). The Vanu are Green Party hippies.

its obvious that vanu defend the lsd/mdma side of the force , they cant be good ffs

According to the lore on the Planetside Wiki, the NC do sound like they come out on top, with the Vanu right behind them, and the TR are soundly the bad guys in my take of it.

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For those who haven't or don't care to read it, it pretty much boils down to everyone was relatively cool with everyone, but the TR (Earth's unified government) began encroaching on corporate business with increased regulations, so the NC was born as an alliance of businesses to combat (peacefully) that. Meanwhile, alien tech is found, stirring up a separate movement that will eventually become the Vanu.

Cue space expedition time to explore a wormhole! Things go bad fast, many die, the rest stranded on the far end of the universe. To maintain order that has been fleeting amid the turmoil, the people start volunteering their freedoms away to the TR (increased restrictions, curfews, etc), with the assurances that this is all only temporary; until they find a place to settle down, as return home is impossible. 'Temporary' goes on for too long and the NC begins to shift their focus from freedom in business to just freedom from oppression. Clashes in the fleet increase.

Aux, the planet we all fight on, is found and things cool a bit, but the TR never relinquishes the marshal law they attained while in space. This doesn't sit well with the NC and eventually things escalate to full on war. Through all this, the Vanu had grown increasingly cult like with a scientific focus and a mindset that the key to pushing humanity forward was through the mysterious Vanu influence coming from these artifacts. They were often treated as second class citizens and ridiculed for their obsessive beliefs. So, when the TR and NC decide to go to town on each other, the VS use this as the jumping off point to declare their independence. The lore isn't too specific as to why they have to fight for this, but apparently no one cared to let the VS just leave and they had to fight their way out.

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So, while no one force started off good or bad, they were able to develop into what they became, primarily through adversity:

The TR was built after unifying Earth's governments and provided decades of peace and as a whole, is likely good for humanity. However, the faction left behind the wormhole became increasingly militaristic and it sounds as though they've grown accustomed to ruling by an iron fist, refusing to give up the freedom to rule that martial law provided, instead reveling in the power.

The NC sounds as though it was originally formed out of both corporate necessity and greed, but given the lore, it sounds like the business oriented portion of the faction, at least for the members stuck behind the wormhole, is now primarily concerned with personal freedoms and thus why I peg them as the likeliest of good guys, despite possibly greedy beginnings.

The Vanu sound a tad crazy in the lore, overly focused on alien tech (some of it 'talking' to its discovers) but the fight for independence is an honorable one; it's just that the lore doesn't make it clear why they had to wedge their way into the TR/NC conflict. I'd assume an all out war between two large factions would be the best time to just slink away and grab some territory off to the side for your own, or, worst case, work up an agreement (ally or neutral) with one of the two parties.

Link to the lore I read if you want the source. http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Lore

What I find interesting is that they have taken some classic ideological archetypes and then kind of turned them on their heads in some way. For example you have the VS who are on the surface all about technology and science, and yet in the lore they in effect a quasi-religious organisation who worship an Alien god, most unlike your standard scientocracy (is that even a word?)

The NC are a little more classical in terms of the sort of US ideal of capitalism meaning freedom. But then they form up into a giant monopoly which is a big no no for free markets and of course in reality mega corporations are far from promoters of genuine freedom.

Lastly the TR, kind of your classic authoritarian government that gets worse and worse over time and yet they are also credited for keeping mankind going both back in the old Solor System and for the colonists after the wormhole collapsed. You could see them as necessary evil or indeed a much needed strong hand on the tiller, afterall freedom is useless if you are dead.

I'll tell ya who is definitely not the good guy... me... I just kill people for the fun of it... even my allies if no one is looking

TR are the republicans, NC is the tea party, and VS is some kind of cult. And the war on Auraxis has been going since 2003 with no exit strategy in sight, so I guess there are no good guys.

it will be settled when the war ends... who ever wins will be the good guys because they get to dictate what is written in the history books...

Objectively speaking, Vanu. Left vs. Right king of pales when you compare it to evolution of our entire species.

But then again, using alien tech to do it? That's almost like cheating.

Doesn't sound like Republicans, at all.

Sounds more like it (NC, naturally)

So the technologically advanced empire was founded by a crazy person, no surprises there.

Can a democracy not be tyrannical? A true democracy (where all legislation is decided by popular vote) says that as soon as 51% of the population has come to some conscious they can vote away the rights of their neighbors. Now that said the TR is probably not a true democracy, the name Terran REPUBLIC implies it is a Representative democracy (you elect individuals to represent you), but make no mistake democracy and tyranny are not mutually exclusive.

Non regulation (the absence of force) is freedom, it's not a guise. Now you can argue that perhaps coercion (using regulation to force behavior from individuals that they might not otherwise exhibited) is a good thing, but then you are arguing that freedom (the freedom to act in a voluntary manner) is at some level immoral.

Furthermore what is greed? It's an emotionally charged word for self interest. Where that self interest becomes destructive is when I act from a position of coercion, rather than from a position of voluntary action. All my interaction with business is done voluntarily. I want some good or service, and if I deem the the value to equal to or less than what I'm willing to exchange for it (money) then the two parties both agree to exchange goods/services (money being the agreed medium representative of goods and labor).
On the other hand nearly all my interaction with government is done through coercion. "Pay your taxes or we'll come and get you." No one ever once woke up on a nice sunny Saturday afternoon and said to themselves "I think I'll stroll down and see what the DMV is up to today"

The Vanu are interested in forcing individuals in adapting a specific philosophy. Perhaps that philosophy (and the technological advancements that come with it) will benefit humanity, but the Vanu are not presenting you with a choice.

Who ever is left standing is the "good" guy.

Its all personal beliefs. No good guys per say, it all comes down to what you stand for. Or what looks best since its a game. In RL Id compare them almost to different sects of religions, TR being restrictive to what is allowed to be believed and interpreted IE: Roman Cathlic. NC being a sect from TR where they want the rights to believe what they want. VS being a group that believes that science is the answer to all.

If you remember in the trailer, the NC guy says, "War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
There really are no good guys when it comes to war.

I'm surprised no one has jumped on the Nanite Systems bandwagon. Seriously. These guys are selling military equipment to all three parties, the equivalent of war profiteering or gun-running. Imagine if no faction had Lightnings, Ammo Supply, Repair Guns, Liberators, or Galaxies.

So obviously TR.

From a moral perspective, having read all the fluff;
TR is based on American principals, with the TR back on earth ending all war, having a solid representative republic, etc.

However, after our expedition was caught on the wrong end of a wormhole, the TR military present began to get tyrannical in an effort to make supplies and order last. "Order at all costs".

Effectively, the TR is a warning about trading too many of your freedoms for order and security.


The NC is based on the philosophy of Objectivism, with each member fighting for self advancement and only looking out for their own interests. On the high level, their "generals" are corporate execs etc who are only looking to further their business interests. On a low level, the grunts (you) are after cash and advancement, hence the constant "I'll make sure you get your bonus check" of NC congratulations.


The VS are just technophiles looking to have some epic nano-raves. The TR and NC both took exception to this, (and also their constant disregard for humanity in general) at the same time the VS attacked the TR and NC for scraps of Vanu tech.
This is why all VS firearms are weaponized lights shows. They were built for raves. The beamer originated, in fact, as a low power purple strobe.

Chaos Daemons, Dark Eldar, and Chaos Space Marines are pretty evil.

Yea...40k is less shades of grey, and more dark grey to utter black. Even the Imperium is pretty awful to its citizens and cares nothing for individual lives, and the Tau, often considered the closest to 'good guys', regularly preach "join us or die". 40k has no good but it definitely is rife with evil.

PS2 is more of just conflicting ideologies without a 'right' side - only where you stand on those ideologies.

Every side is the good guys... for someones terrorist is someone else resistance fighter....
In reality, if you got a gun in your hand And don't believe your the good guy, then something is really amiss.

The whole point of having the morality be ambiguous is that you are supposed to decide. Each Faction is meant to have it's own definition of "good" and "evil." An NC is going to tell you that they are the good guys. TR is going to tell you that the NC are evil and that they just want peace and order. The Vanu will tell you that the other two factions are evil because they are denying human evolution or whatever. That's the point. You decide which angle you like better.

Also, it should be noted that as far as I'm concerned, all 3 factions have both redeeming and negative qualities, but again, that's the point. It's quite realistic when you consider how things work in the real world. Perception is really what it comes down to.

That's the serious, overly RP concious answer anyways. As far as the actual game goes, it's a choice between Purple, Red and Blue and that's as far as most people will think.

eh all governments are tyrannical... hell all groups or organizations with any form of structure are, from organized religion to a little league kid's baseball team, if looked at from the right perspective