Sometimes the bad guy is way cooler than the good guy, sometimes you even begin to sympathize with the villain, and good stories have at least a believable enemy for the hero to fight.
What happens when I don’t like the good guys at all, what happens when I love the enemy, what happens if those bad guys are the unholy love child of Satan and Hitler
with Stalin and Pol Pot taking over for education and babysitting.
What happens when I like the Helghast? Am I a Nazi?
Really though the Hellghast Empire is one of the worst examples of nation states. Oppressive, restrictive, fascistic, militaristic, manipulative, propaganda heavy, dismal, cruel, and despotic autocratic nations in (fictional) existence.
Yet their enemies fall flat, are unlikable and despite the games best efforts for me to like them I simply cannot sympathize with them.
The Hellghast were shunned from Earth years ago as refuges from a political coup gone bad. Little more than the remnants of a mining corporation, they were forced to a planet that was not terra-formed and indeed the very atmosphere was poisons.
Resource poor and an arid climate they pushed on and through some internal strife thy formed a government and adapted. Forming a military force to oppose the “Heroic” ISA blockade of their world.
Di spite all the hardship thrown at them the Hellghast manage to survive and thrive, nursing a hatred of their oppressors for generations, building an empire silently in the stars.
Then when they were powerful enough they struck back, taking colonies and outposts from the ISA that had been Hellghast before the exile. Necessarily a war followed and the ISA pushed the Hellghast back to their “home” planet.
Instead of leave it there the ISA invaded and bombed a planet that the Hellghast had come to call home. So after carving out a living on a poisonous dust ball they were invaded by their enemy who put them there in the first place.
Now they fight a war on their home turf, and a bitter war it is with atrocities and massive casualtys taking place on both sides. The soldiers of the ISA approach the wanton destruction as pleasing and just, while the Hellghast attempt to hold onto their homes and lives.
Such is the desperation and conviction of the Hellghast leaders that they nuked their own capital city rather than let it fall into enemy hands.
Why would I root fro the ISA when they are clearly the aggressor and are pushing the Hellghast to the brink of extinction. I like the underdogs, fighting to defend their basic right to survive and thrive in an inhospitable galaxy.
I root for the Hellghast! Even if they are the Nazis is space.
Murf The Gamer 