Post by Dextix on May 22, 2016 11:31:39 GMT -8
Introduction:
Greetings everyone, its me again. In the last thread i shortly analyzed the possible impact that Cera (Homeworld of Shields) and crew interaction with other crew members such as engineers, could have had on the story, its progression and characters and how it would help to bring the game and the universe to life. In the thread i mentioned Kayto and his PTSD.
We get a glimpse of what seems to be something akin to PTSD when Kayto Shields starts dreaming about his (presumably) dead sister. Nightmares about her and what happened that day. Now, it actually turns into a good revenge story when hunting the Legion and can even be seen as an obsession, a good story avenue to explore. However, i saw another possibility that i thought about, Shields having actual PTSD.
In this thread i will focus on that story avenue, its possibilities, implimentation and overall progression. Now, i understand that Shields as a character is more or less shaped by the player and the choises he makes in the first two games, however, the writting in the first two games esstablished him as a character beyond a faceless protagonist that we could merge with. He has his own individual character while the player only shapes it slightly in certain directions.
Any critisism, ideas, or anything really, is welcome.
Analysis:
First of all. Kayto, is a ship captain (doh). He is a naval officer that sits on the bridge and gives orders. Now of course, he would have military training as shown in the operation "wedding crash" , but he is not a soldier. He is not a grunt, that is thick in fighting. When he kills an enemy, he does not see a person, he sees a ship or a ryder. He Doesnt see the enemy bleed, being shot, or dying from lack of oxygen. He only sees an explosion. This makes his kills impersonal, not that related to him. Now this is really important, because while being in a war, he is more or less insulated from the real horrors of war, even from hard command decisions. You can call him a combat virgin if you must.
However, then, ongess happens, and he is kidnapped. Now that is not really traumatic, the real trauma comes when the "rescue" arrives to get him out of there together with kryska, he sees real war, civilians dying, and the biggest impact on him is imprinted by the death of a little girl who was simply caught in a crossfire, who he equates with his sister eventually.
Even veteran soldiers can end up with PTSD, and this is a complete greenhorn in ground fighting. He most likely has never even shot anyone with his gun for real. He is a newly trained officer, who has never been in a firefight. That is potentialy extremely traumatic.
From whati gather in layman terms there are two types of PTSD (if you simplify). Acute ones, which occur from especially traumatic events that happened once (9/11) and can be triggered by simmilar experiences or show up in dreams. And chronic PTSD, which occurs after many traumatic events experienced during a long time frame (Years of fighting). The chronic one is more dangerous, as it is far harder to cure (If it is even possible) and has stronger effects on the afflicted person. It makes them nervous, possibly psychotic if they get triggered.
And what i noticed in the games and situations presented is that Kayto has the potential to have PTSD. His whole family, is dead, his friends, are dead, his world, is occupied. That is traumatic enough but then he lands on an industrial planet under the "liberating" hand of Alliance. He sees the slums of an industrial world and the harships they experience. He gets betrayed, for survival and gets kidnapped by Cossete. Then he sees and hears what Cossete had to go through. And to top it all off, during his "liberation" he gets into a firefight in an urbal area with many civilians and sees a child before his very eyes die. The very same child that he met before and betrayed him for survival.
That would be hard to deal for a simple footsoldier. But for a ship officer, who has never experienced such combat? This could have severe reprecussions. Hell, he is basically a kid himself, just out of high and the military academy. Hell im surprised how he got off that easy.
Effects:
Now, having PTSD could help to further explore his own personality, and inner struggle with himself and again, even cause conflict with other crew members and pilots who would not like to see him that way. They would try to help him or maybe be mad at him. This could even result in some romance options and improvements to them when a girl he likes (choices needed) helps to overcome his personal problems.
Remember the scene where he dreams a nightmare in which the dead child turns into his sister? When I read that nightmare scene, I just imagined how dark it could get, but at the same time how interesting it could get. (This is a simple scenario for example of how that scene went in my head).
Kayto gets up from his nightmare, wipes away some tears from his eyes and stumbles towards a cabinet. From inside of it, he takes a bottle of Vodka (Booze always finds a way, even with regulations), and starts drinking to forget the pain, he drinks the whole bottle and in the end passes out. Then in the morning Ava comes to complain about him being late on his paperwork (Because of course he is) and sees him on the ground, with a bottle in his hand and the picture of his sister in another.
Crew reactions:
This could either result in a huge conflict between them, during which Ava would critisize his weakness and unprofessionalism, which could be resolved. Or this could result in her feeling bad for him, wanting to comfort him, but not knowing how because of the stick up her ♥♥♥♥. This could also depend on the affection points you have gathered with her.
Sola could find his behavior not fitting of a commander because she is detached from the deaths of people. Or if you went and got affection points with her, she could show her inner feelings and how despite being detached from the deaths of her comrades, she still feels sad for them, she could help him ease the suffering or even teach him some technique to deal with it.
Icari could understand Kayto and help him because she possibly experienced that too (Expanded in another thread) or she would kick his ♥♥♥♥ and tell him to stop moping around like a loser and go fighting, with her tsun tsun showing. A good kick in the groin, a couple of hours of shouting and getting him riled up and vuolia, you have a good Old Kayto up and running (with a few extra bruises in certain places).
Kryska, could find this unprofessional and unfitting of a commander and have similar reactions like sola (Because despite their differences they are not that different from one another) Or could use this as a leverage for further spying action (Expanded upon in other thread).
Claude could use this for spying also, and could either further sabotage Kayto (Expanded upon in other thread)or actually help him, again depending on the circumstances. And when considering her "godess" status, she could either play with him or also try to help him subtly (Even one of those perverted scenes could keep him occupied).
Ending:
You get the point. PTSD is a serious issue that could be explored by the writer in the universe and handled well. Again possibility of GOTY of sunrider ½, which could be priced but with vast improvements to the game in story and other departments and would make the game that much better.
Now, i also understand that writting about PTSD while not having experienced one would be hard. However, extensive information about it is available for a realistic portrayal of it.
Tommorow on sunrider forums! Claude and her holyness will be explored. The creator of the thread will be lynched by a mob of Claude Acolytes and so much more! Next time!
Greetings everyone, its me again. In the last thread i shortly analyzed the possible impact that Cera (Homeworld of Shields) and crew interaction with other crew members such as engineers, could have had on the story, its progression and characters and how it would help to bring the game and the universe to life. In the thread i mentioned Kayto and his PTSD.
We get a glimpse of what seems to be something akin to PTSD when Kayto Shields starts dreaming about his (presumably) dead sister. Nightmares about her and what happened that day. Now, it actually turns into a good revenge story when hunting the Legion and can even be seen as an obsession, a good story avenue to explore. However, i saw another possibility that i thought about, Shields having actual PTSD.
In this thread i will focus on that story avenue, its possibilities, implimentation and overall progression. Now, i understand that Shields as a character is more or less shaped by the player and the choises he makes in the first two games, however, the writting in the first two games esstablished him as a character beyond a faceless protagonist that we could merge with. He has his own individual character while the player only shapes it slightly in certain directions.
Any critisism, ideas, or anything really, is welcome.
Analysis:
First of all. Kayto, is a ship captain (doh). He is a naval officer that sits on the bridge and gives orders. Now of course, he would have military training as shown in the operation "wedding crash" , but he is not a soldier. He is not a grunt, that is thick in fighting. When he kills an enemy, he does not see a person, he sees a ship or a ryder. He Doesnt see the enemy bleed, being shot, or dying from lack of oxygen. He only sees an explosion. This makes his kills impersonal, not that related to him. Now this is really important, because while being in a war, he is more or less insulated from the real horrors of war, even from hard command decisions. You can call him a combat virgin if you must.
However, then, ongess happens, and he is kidnapped. Now that is not really traumatic, the real trauma comes when the "rescue" arrives to get him out of there together with kryska, he sees real war, civilians dying, and the biggest impact on him is imprinted by the death of a little girl who was simply caught in a crossfire, who he equates with his sister eventually.
Even veteran soldiers can end up with PTSD, and this is a complete greenhorn in ground fighting. He most likely has never even shot anyone with his gun for real. He is a newly trained officer, who has never been in a firefight. That is potentialy extremely traumatic.
From whati gather in layman terms there are two types of PTSD (if you simplify). Acute ones, which occur from especially traumatic events that happened once (9/11) and can be triggered by simmilar experiences or show up in dreams. And chronic PTSD, which occurs after many traumatic events experienced during a long time frame (Years of fighting). The chronic one is more dangerous, as it is far harder to cure (If it is even possible) and has stronger effects on the afflicted person. It makes them nervous, possibly psychotic if they get triggered.
And what i noticed in the games and situations presented is that Kayto has the potential to have PTSD. His whole family, is dead, his friends, are dead, his world, is occupied. That is traumatic enough but then he lands on an industrial planet under the "liberating" hand of Alliance. He sees the slums of an industrial world and the harships they experience. He gets betrayed, for survival and gets kidnapped by Cossete. Then he sees and hears what Cossete had to go through. And to top it all off, during his "liberation" he gets into a firefight in an urbal area with many civilians and sees a child before his very eyes die. The very same child that he met before and betrayed him for survival.
That would be hard to deal for a simple footsoldier. But for a ship officer, who has never experienced such combat? This could have severe reprecussions. Hell, he is basically a kid himself, just out of high and the military academy. Hell im surprised how he got off that easy.
Effects:
Now, having PTSD could help to further explore his own personality, and inner struggle with himself and again, even cause conflict with other crew members and pilots who would not like to see him that way. They would try to help him or maybe be mad at him. This could even result in some romance options and improvements to them when a girl he likes (choices needed) helps to overcome his personal problems.
Remember the scene where he dreams a nightmare in which the dead child turns into his sister? When I read that nightmare scene, I just imagined how dark it could get, but at the same time how interesting it could get. (This is a simple scenario for example of how that scene went in my head).
Kayto gets up from his nightmare, wipes away some tears from his eyes and stumbles towards a cabinet. From inside of it, he takes a bottle of Vodka (Booze always finds a way, even with regulations), and starts drinking to forget the pain, he drinks the whole bottle and in the end passes out. Then in the morning Ava comes to complain about him being late on his paperwork (Because of course he is) and sees him on the ground, with a bottle in his hand and the picture of his sister in another.
Crew reactions:
This could either result in a huge conflict between them, during which Ava would critisize his weakness and unprofessionalism, which could be resolved. Or this could result in her feeling bad for him, wanting to comfort him, but not knowing how because of the stick up her ♥♥♥♥. This could also depend on the affection points you have gathered with her.
Sola could find his behavior not fitting of a commander because she is detached from the deaths of people. Or if you went and got affection points with her, she could show her inner feelings and how despite being detached from the deaths of her comrades, she still feels sad for them, she could help him ease the suffering or even teach him some technique to deal with it.
Icari could understand Kayto and help him because she possibly experienced that too (Expanded in another thread) or she would kick his ♥♥♥♥ and tell him to stop moping around like a loser and go fighting, with her tsun tsun showing. A good kick in the groin, a couple of hours of shouting and getting him riled up and vuolia, you have a good Old Kayto up and running (with a few extra bruises in certain places).
Kryska, could find this unprofessional and unfitting of a commander and have similar reactions like sola (Because despite their differences they are not that different from one another) Or could use this as a leverage for further spying action (Expanded upon in other thread).
Claude could use this for spying also, and could either further sabotage Kayto (Expanded upon in other thread)or actually help him, again depending on the circumstances. And when considering her "godess" status, she could either play with him or also try to help him subtly (Even one of those perverted scenes could keep him occupied).
Ending:
You get the point. PTSD is a serious issue that could be explored by the writer in the universe and handled well. Again possibility of GOTY of sunrider ½, which could be priced but with vast improvements to the game in story and other departments and would make the game that much better.
Now, i also understand that writting about PTSD while not having experienced one would be hard. However, extensive information about it is available for a realistic portrayal of it.
Tommorow on sunrider forums! Claude and her holyness will be explored. The creator of the thread will be lynched by a mob of Claude Acolytes and so much more! Next time!