PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Hello everyone. Welcome to my new podcast, Shortwave Sci-Fi. If you listen to my show from last year, then you might know it wasn’t the most polished or consistent show. It was called Global Transmission. It wasn’t great. I mostly just talked about whatever I felt fitting for the week. But this year, things are going to be different. The entire show is going to be based around science fiction media, with each episode covering a different franchise and its connection to the real world. I’m glad to be back and talking about the things I love in an environment where I’m actually focused on what I need to be talking about, and now has a small amount of meaning to real life. With that being said, this first episode is about the games in the Helldivers franchise. Many are familiar with the concept of science fiction soldiers fighting enemy factions in space. It’s been done time and time again. But if you ever stop to think about how insignificant one soldier might be in that Grand Army, consider, you know, for Star Wars, one Imperial storm trooper or one clone trooper, they have almost no sense of into that individuality, seeing as they’re created for the purpose of fighting. And what I like to think is that Helldivers ends up sharing that same sense of a hive mind, although it’s approached in a bit of a different way. The game revolves around the unified government of Super Earth. They’re in a galactic war against three enemy factions, the illuminate the terminids and automatons. We each with their own unique treat traits, strengths and weaknesses. But the first section of the podcast is meant to cover the game at face value, so we’ll discuss those factions in a moment. The gameplay in the first game consists of top down shooter mechanics along with a heavy emphasis on Team gameplay. The second game released in early 2024 February, I believe, is a much more graphically impressive third person shooter, still using squad tactics. And although the game can be played alone or with random people, it’s the most fun when you play it with friends. Most objectives are simple, liberate a certain area and clear enemy troops that stand in your way. This can include starting fuel pumps, clearing out cities and escorting civilians, to name a few. At its core, Helldivers, two is a simple extraction shooter that does its job well, but what lies underneath? I’ll do my best to explain my knowledge of the war. The entire world is ruled under one government called Super Earth. They’re caught in the middle of a huge galactic war between robots, giant bugs and a cult run by an AI overlord. Some ordinary civilians enlist. Civilians of Super Earth enlist to become Helldivers, the defense force of Super Earth, not just anyone can join. You have to be the best of the best. The tutorial in game is shown as like a training test, and after the recruits proves themselves worthy of wearing the iconic cape that the Helldivers don. Each one gets their own battle station ship to deploy from you can squat up with up to three other Helldivers to collaborate on the missions. I guess the funny part is that every action, I haven’t confirmed this, but from what I have heard, every action that the players take in game is considered canon in the lore to convey the massive scale of Super Earth army. Every single move you make in game is part of the lore. So like, if you were just messing around with your friend, he killed them on accident, that that’s part of the story, and players are actively given by the developers major orders to carry out. And it’s like, you know, eliminate one or like, five million bugs, and they have a few. The whole community has a whole days to complete that. And if they fail these orders, it has consequences on the story and also objectives. Personally, I find the AI cult faction, the illuminate the hardest to fight, but that’s really subjective. I don’t know why I put that in the story category, but I just want to say that they’re a pain every single time, and then for this part. So how does this all connect to the real world? Well, it’s not that complicated. The game itself is meant to be taken at face value. However, most people don’t realize that the entire game is satire. The patriotism of Super Earth is extremely exaggerated. It’s meant to poke fun at hyper patriotic military archetypes. And honestly, I think it’s effective because it’s lost on some people. Many believe that the Helldivers are truly spreading managed democracy, quote, unquote, as they claim. But if you take a moment to look at it, it’s a critique of colonialism, claiming to liberate planets while killing mass amounts of its population is clearly a joke. I must admit, whenever I do play the game, I fall into a sense of pride for Super Earth, and it puts you in the Spirit, in the shoes of a Helldiver, because you just feel so I don’t know, cool and unstoppable most of the time, if you’re playing on a higher difficulty, maybe not. But I understand, though, after I log off, that is meant to be over the top and how, yes, they mean for you to side with the Helldivers. But looking at it objectively. They are not the heroes of this and many have said that Helldivers is a spiritual successor to Paul Verhoeven film Starship Troopers, which is another work of satire, essentially the same plot. I haven’t actually seen the movie, but from the clips I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, they seem to have quite a few similarities, and I might actually cover a Verhoeven film next time, because, you know, I love, love, love Robocop, but I don’t know yet. I don’t know what I’m gonna do next time. If y’all have any suggestions, let me know, because I have ideas. Obviously I’m gonna do another transformers episode at some point, because if you know me at all, I probably haven’t shut up about transformers. And I know it’s a childish thing, but I don’t care. It’s something I love, and so I’m gonna do another episode about it this year, how that connects to real life. Anyway, I should probably read the outro I have scripted. So I wrote this episode a bit longer than the ones I made last year, but that’s because it’s supposed to be a little more polished now that I’m actually focused on writing it rather than just putting it out to get the grade and I but I just want to thank you all for listening to the first episode of Shortwave Sci-Fi, and I hope you enjoyed it. My name is Connor Riley, and I will see you all in the next episode.