Is Starbound potentially racist?

haha that's actually very interesting, I think we should keep an eye out for the other lores yet

 

You people do realize that racism is favortism within the same species... Right?
I think you mean zenophobia... Bias against other sentient species.

Of course there will be zenophobia, so long as there are different species.
And there will be racism so long as my tail feathers look better than yours

 

Isn't saying the Apex is the smartest race, technically a racist comment? . Yeah I think when OP uses the word bias it's more appropriate, racism is believing one race is superior to another.

That aside, I like some of the points the OP is bringing up, makes for some good discussion. I don't think the devs intentionally made it that way, in fact I don't think they really gave it to much thought. I think since we know what being human already is, all of the problems our race has is a given. Therefore maybe they didn't feel the need to capitalize on it and they just went on autopilot and made a disaster scenario. Plus all the good stories are taken from the other races . Of course, like a few of the posts are saying, we don't know the whole story yet so maybe it was the humans fault in the end? This adds something interesting to the narrative, it's almost as if the theme of the game is redemption and by playing it and discovering new things our characters become "enlightened". Depending on how we play the game with our characters will determine whether or not the race we are playing as has truly learned from their mistakes.

I am being overly analytical though, just thought it was a fun thing to ponder about

 

All the species have their flaws, I don't really see how this is anything other than a plot point.

 

I agree. Just because the human introduction is destruction by an outside force doesn't mean humans didn't have problems. The introductions are just that, introductions. I'm sure the nasty, backstabby nature of humans will become clear in time.

 

Or maybe the Avian government doesn't want the general public to have access to high technology for control reasons?

 

Human planet gets destroyed by tentacles... DAMMIT JAPAN.

 

Well the reason for this peaceful society and such is because its different. The idea is we've gotten to a stage where there is one culture, hopefully no religions (probably still have deists) and a world empire. Theres no reason to war with each other anymore because there is nothing to fight over. Whereas if you look at the present day, there are a myriad of cultures, government, religions (both peaceful and hateful) and ideals. Due to this, we have conflict, there is no overarching government dividing up resources, no unifying religion or lackthereof. Take away all that separates the countries, all that separates the people and you have no reason to fight each other.

The Apex demonstrates what happens if you do all of this but then assume a very controlling totalitarian government, one not based on capitalism or socialism, but complete control over the populous. Something that could easily happen to the humans given that they've already built the fundamentals. The Avians are a primitive race, hence it isn't racist to depict their society as such. Its already been mentioned that they are religious and zealous and so it only follows that the reason for leaving their planet is zealotry.

Each Race is doing something different, (I can bet you any money the Novakids will have some retarded ass reason that just defies all logic), if all races were to leave their planet due to the evil of their own species there wouldn't be anything refreshing about them. They'd just be humans with different skins.

 

Hard to say. The different species are referred to as races, so it isn't unusual to say that you're "racist" for disliking one.

 

I actually found it more interesting that humans fled because of something else. Real life is already full of "we're a bad case of fleas" and "the planet will survive us" and the idea that we eventually overcame our constant in-bickering to get along and have some sort of epoch of progress and peace is neat. I mean, you flee on a starship with FTL; of course it's in the future and science-fiction related. All the story is fair game, considering the setting.

The happy beginning is more optimistic for humans than it is "racist" (especially since it's somewhat implied that humanity is mostly getting along), and I took it as a "one day we rise above this" rather than some sort of propaganda. I guess we won't know until we see everyone automatically treat humans better despite the potential for speciesism to exist.

 

Yea, they are smartest yet end up with cameras in their cupboards and perfect setting for 1984 and Planet of Apes crossover.
What I already said is that all races have their good and bad sides.

People, also, no need to get dissapointed just because humans don't pollute the crud out of their home planet or something, you know, in a world where terraforming and other goods like that are invented that shouldn't be a big deal to solve such issues.

 

"Get your hands off my RFLP sequencer you damn dirty ape"

 

Quote me if I'm wrong, but I think the term 'racism' came from the human classification 'Race', rather than the biological classification 'Race'. So, although it would technically be "correct", using the term racism for the biological classification 'Race' would just make things a lot more confusing.

-shrug-

As for me, based on this information above...

No, I don't think it's racist.

 

Racism at it's finest.

This Thread is super silly.

 

Taking into account that this thread's about species-ism (and should probably be renamed to reflect that, no matter the fact that it's not a word), I think it may be, at least with the unfinished information we have now that is by no means final. As-in it seems like "humans are victims, aliens are both victims and guilty." If that's the case, I think that should be changed.

Edit: It originally said "humans are perfect, aliens have problems". Changed to better reflect the meaning.

 

I like the OP mostly because I remain unsatisfied by the Human intro. I don't think it is racist, however.

Perhaps Chucklefish went with the unexpected tentacle eruption, because war-torn smog-blanketed dystopian hell-hole is overdone. Or perhaps Ozymandias' tentacle monster is responsible, and it really was the result of a Human.

 

i thought exact the opposite...
while florans are vicious murderers, avians sacrifice everyone and apex are totalitarian, humans were pacific, living their pacific life in a pacific planet and didn't have anythign to do with their planet's destruction...
WE ARE SO LAME!
it's almost racism against ourselves

 

Humans could have been responsible for the tentacles. Dark rituals, accident of science, ticking off the wrong alien race, etc. I still say they are taking a Star Trek view of humanity prior tentacle which I like.

 

This is what really bothered me. Humans taking the attack, having to rush to the Normandy, scan the worlds of the Milky Way for War Assets and Cash. Oh wait, it's that other game.

 

Yes, Starbound is totally racist.

(No, rofl.) I mean, the intros aren't meant to give you a load of backstory on the races, just the reason they're leaving their planet. Sure, humans are perfectly capable of destroying things on their own and that could be reason enough for them to gradually flee, but we wanted to give humans a reason to flee Earth en masse. Also we wanted tentacle planets.