Lore question

[d4verman]

I'm not up on the lore of the game. I had a mission where I fought the 5th column. It was just a broker mission, not any kind of arc.

I thought the 5th column was taken over by the Council. I never see any missions specific to them besides this one. Are they still a thing (at least on Homecoming)?

[Mjolnerd]

You're right -- it was taken over by the Council around issue 3 and after that they only appeared from time to time in special missions (mostly Portal Corp stuff that sent players to alternate Earths).

 

BUT

 

There was a storyline in issues 15 and 16 in which they returned. It started with the Dr Kahn TF (and Barracuda SF) in 15, and when 16 went live they actually showed up on the streets again.

 

5th Column Wiki Page

Edited March 4, 2023 by Mjolnerd

[Snarky]

Putting the nerd into Mjolnerd

[KC4800]

You can see the council fighting the 5th column on the streets of Founders Falls.

[Shred Monkey]

I could be remembering the wrong game, but wasn't there some real world backlash about portraying Nazi's in a game that proceeded the council takeover?

[tidge]

I won't spoil who is responsible for the split, you will have to do The Mender Lazarus Task Force to discover that.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, KC4800 said:

You can see the council fighting the 5th column on the streets of Founders Falls.

And boomtown (which makes some hunts rather difficult,) and often by wentworths in Steel Canyon.

 

11 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

I could be remembering the wrong game, but wasn't there some real world backlash about portraying Nazi's in a game that proceeded the council takeover?

 

As I recall, that's mostly just a persistent COH-urban legend.  (They're described as Fascists, there's no Nazi symbolism, etc.) Given there have been plenty of games (and other media) with overt, actual National Socialist iconography and the like...

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

As I recall, that's mostly just a persistent COH-urban legend.  (They're described as Fascists, there's no Nazi symbolism, etc.) Given there have been plenty of games (and other media) with overt, actual National Socialist iconography and the like...

 

I interviewed War Witch way back in 2008 and she confirmed this - both factions are fascists and no nazis are represented in game

[El D]

2 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

I interviewed War Witch way back in 2008 and she confirmed this - both factions are fascists and no nazis are represented in game

 

While they might not use literal Nazi symbols or espouse direct Nazi philosophy (which is certainly the best/safe call and an important distinction that comicbook media made pretty regularly at the time)... the 5th Column are directly tied to Nazi Germany. Just take the first paragraph of their background - "Before they were taken over by the Council, The Fifth Column stood as the last remaining threat from World War II, a group of super powered fascists still fighting a war the rest of the world left behind fifty years ago. The Fifth Column has the nefarious distinction of actually triggering the United States' involvement in the war against Nazi Germany. Hitler first sent the covert super team to Paragon City in 1939, tasked with spying on and sabotaging US shipping and naval development." Heck, that's quite literally where the name 5th Column comes from in the group's explicit context as 'continuing to fight WWII after it ended.' They are the 5th Column of the Reich.

There's also the Amerika Korps, the entire dimension of Axis America (in which Nazi Germany won WWII and took over the United States), and the friggin Reichsman. All linked directly to the 5th Column. Sure, they aren't waving around actual swastikas - so technically the game has no explicit nazis - but they're still as close as a Saturday morning cartoon version can get. Which is fine given the role they play as villainous antagonists and given the issues CoH would have faced tossing around any direct symbology. Filing the serial numbers off for legal protections and safeguarding the game's rating is perfectly understandable, as is telling everyone that asked 'No, they were never literal nazis' when admitting that there had been intentional nazis which were removed would have been its own separate can of worms to deal with.

 

Beyond all that though, direct quote from Positron in the Lore AMAs regarding the 5th Column's total removal (along with any direct reference to Nazi Germany the game had) - 'CYA for release in Germany. Yes we didn’t NEED to go to the extremes that we did, but it made for a great story.'

[Shenanigunner]

9 minutes ago, El D said:

Beyond all that though, direct quote from Positron in the Lore AMAs regarding the 5th Column's total removal (along with any direct reference to Nazi Germany the game had) - 'CYA for release in Germany. Yes we didn’t NEED to go to the extremes that we did, but it made for a great story.'

 

That's my recollection at the time. Not "forced to" but "seemed like a good idea on a global community level." Neither a hard truth nor just gamer lore.

 

[El D]

8 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

That's my recollection at the time. Not "forced to" but "seemed like a good idea on a global community level." Neither a hard truth nor just gamer lore.

 

 

Yeah. It was definitely the best path forward (or at least the path of least resistance) for welcoming the worldwide community of players and negating unnecessary/possibly expensive legal issues for the dev team. Plus they got an in-game storyline out of it (even if it was rather abrupt) so overall a pretty solid win/win/win.

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, El D said:

 

While they might not use literal Nazi symbols or espouse direct Nazi philosophy (which is certainly the best/safe call and an important distinction that comicbook media made pretty regularly at the time)... the 5th Column are directly tied to Nazi Germany. Just take the first paragraph of their background - "Before they were taken over by the Council, The Fifth Column stood as the last remaining threat from World War II, a group of super powered fascists still fighting a war the rest of the world left behind fifty years ago. The Fifth Column has the nefarious distinction of actually triggering the United States' involvement in the war against Nazi Germany. Hitler first sent the covert super team to Paragon City in 1939, tasked with spying on and sabotaging US shipping and naval development." Heck, that's quite literally where the name 5th Column comes from in the group's explicit context as 'continuing to fight WWII after it ended.' They are the 5th Column of the Reich.

There's also the Amerika Korps, the entire dimension of Axis America (in which Nazi Germany won WWII and took over the United States), and the friggin Reichsman. All linked directly to the 5th Column. Sure, they aren't waving around actual swastikas - so technically the game has no explicit nazis - but they're still as close as a Saturday morning cartoon version can get. Which is fine given the role they play as villainous antagonists and given the issues CoH would have faced tossing around any direct symbology. Filing the serial numbers off for legal protections and safeguarding the game's rating is perfectly understandable, as is telling everyone that asked 'No, they were never literal nazis' when admitting that there had been intentional nazis which were removed would have been its own separate can of worms to deal with.

 

Beyond all that though, direct quote from Positron in the Lore AMAs regarding the 5th Column's total removal (along with any direct reference to Nazi Germany the game had) - 'CYA for release in Germany. Yes we didn’t NEED to go to the extremes that we did, but it made for a great story.'

 

I'm not sure where that lore is recorded, I'd love to read a link. Of course "Reichsmann" itself is a kind of throwback too. But I'm going directly on what War Witch told me.  I don't believe there is a massive contradiction there. Fascism, like capitalism or other political ideologies comes in a spectrum of thought so perhaps we might be in danger of overthinking it. We can perhaps allow players to draw their own inference, as we do in so much other RP in this game. As an example, I have a couple of characters who are wedded to Emperor Coles ideals of keeping Praetorian Earth safe at all costs and indeed I ran an entire SG on live known by it's acronym: PISS*

 

Again it's worth repeating - this game gives us what we want it to give us, time and time over. Maybe that's why it's still here.

 

 

_{*Praetorian Imperial Secret Service if you weren't able to work it out for yourselves.}

[El D]

11 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

I'm not sure where that lore is recorded, I'd love to read a link. Of course "Reichsmann" itself is a kind of throwback too. But I'm going directly on what War Witch told me.  I don't believe there is a massive contradiction there. Fascism, like capitalism or other political ideologies comes in a spectrum of thought so perhaps we might be in danger of overthinking it. We can perhaps allow players to draw their own inference, as we do in so much other RP in this game. As an example, I have a couple of characters who are wedded to Emperor Coles ideals of keeping Praetorian Earth safe at all costs and indeed I ran an entire SG on live known by it's acronym: PISS*

 

Again it's worth repeating - this game gives us what we want it to give us, time and time over. Maybe that's why it's still here.

 

 

_{*Praetorian Imperial Secret Service if you weren't able to work it out for yourselves.}

 

Oh yeah, concept-wise it's not a huge contradiction at all. Just a specific subset of the wonderful ideological umbrella that is fascism, so it still totally counts. Apologies if it came across as a gotcha - didn't meant the comment harshly or anything, just that there were/are some hefty actual connections once upon a time (that the game did thoroughly scrub for a few years >.>) and some of which got reinstated later on.

 

RP-wise yeah, it's totally cool to run it however you want. Whatever the label, they're still going to be jackbooted leather-fetishist goons who deserve to get pummeled either way. xD Also that SG acronym is hilarious!

Edited March 5, 2023 by El D

[Scarlet Shocker]

5 hours ago, El D said:

 

Yeah. It was definitely the best path forward (or at least the path of least resistance) for welcoming the worldwide community of players and negating unnecessary/possibly expensive legal issues for the dev team. Plus they got an in-game storyline out of it (even if it was rather abrupt) so overall a pretty solid win/win/win.

 

I think it's also important to remember that Zukunft was one of the best populated servers (we had 4 in the EU pre-merge) and full of German speakers. I did try and engage but my German language is schoolboy and they were busy doing other stuff. So I totally get the decision and it paid of. Until NCSoft decided they didn't need a German CC and that killed the server pretty fast after that. But I doubt that would have been the case if Paragon had raised old wounds unnecessarily.

[Scarlet Shocker]

57 minutes ago, El D said:

 

Oh yeah, concept-wise it's not a huge contradiction at all. Just a specific subset of the wonderful ideological umbrella that is fascism, so it still totally counts. Apologies if it came across as a gotcha - didn't meant the comment harshly or anything, just that there were/are some hefty actual connections once upon a time (that the game did thoroughly scrub for a few years >.>) and some of which got reinstated later on.

 

RP-wise yeah, it's totally cool to run it however you want. Whatever the label, they're still going to be jackbooted leather-fetishist goons who deserve to get pummeled either way. xD Also that SG acronym is hilarious!

All good 👍