Is The Kestrel a sexist employer?

[Cassie]

While I'm in the hangar, and looking at The Kestrel's initial crew roster, I find that it's very common for all 3 crewmembers to be male. Occasionally there's 1 woman; once have I seen two; and I have NEVER seen three (I'm pretty sure it's possible, just statistically highly unlikely).

To test this, I was in the Hangar, and then switched back and forth between the Kestrel (Layout A) and another Layout/ship, in order to "reroll" The Kestrel's crew.

So, what the hell? I don't like the implication that having female crewmembers is unnatural, or a strange phenomenon that I have to manually customize.

If I had to guess, I would say that there was a Kickstarter Tier that let players insert themselves into the game; that most of these backers were male; that the backers are always correctly gendered by the game (EG if a human named 'Notch' is generated, they're always going to be male); and that the only place where gender is visually apparent, is with humans.

Even if that's the case, I would still really appreciate a 50/50 gender distribution. Come to think of it, I bet this also affects the generation of enemy crew, meaning enemy human crew will almost always be male.

Is anyone else bothered by this, and would like to see it change?

[Christy Kamori]

@Cassandra, you named this forum "Is The Kestral a sexist employer?" YES, we will assume you are a social justice warrior. The reason you keep getting all this negative feedback is because you are missing all of the surrounding context and ideals of the game. This is a science fiction game; not science fantasy. In fact, the game mostly pays its omages to Star Trek, which is a science fiction series. Like I said earlier, women aren't as common in military-related programs as men. Not being sexist, it's just a natural statistic. So it would make sense in the game for the amount of male humans to be higher than women. And like I, and several other people have also said, gender doesn't matter; women are exactly equal to men. Numbers are irrelevant. It's like when companies set a requirement for even small businesses on how many female or non-white employees must be hired. Or when shows or political parties only have members who are women or non-white, just to grab that specific demographic. It shouldn't matter, so long as it doesn't damage or weaken the story/gameplay, which in FTL, it doesn't. You can spend hours zipping across the galaxy, collecting an army of female humans to turn your adventure into an episode of Charlie's Angels, defeat the flagship, and GUESS WHAT?! It will have no impact on the game. Your guns won't fire faster, your luck won't increase, your hope of beating the flagship on its third form will still be crushed under 40,000LBS OF LASER BLASTS, BECAUSE YOU STILL COULDN'T KNOCK OUT ITS ZOLTAN HYPER SHIELDS FAST ENOUGH BECAUSE THE GAME DIDN'T GIVE YOU ANY WEAPON THAT SHOOTS MORE THAN ONE PROJECTILE, AND NONE OF THIS RIGHT NOW HAS TO DO WITH THE TOPIC OF THE FORUM!!! ...*deep breathing* Sorry. I've gotten wiped out at that point way too many times. The point is, the gender of a single race in the game doesn't matter. The fact is, this is still only a science fiction game. It sements itself in reality. And I'm sorry, but reality called and said that different genders exist, and each one is more likely to choose certain carreers. And I'm sorry, again, but there aren't as many women that want to join the military. And in this game, the Federation is pretty much that. And to quote myself from earlier, AGAIN, it's the player who is in control of every action and decision made by the crew. So if you're a woman playing this, essentially, the crew is too. They are the your actions and choices represented by cute, pixelated icons running around on the screen. You're not playing as any one of them specifically (unless it's like a role playing thing). And you are controlling every single one of them individually. So essentially, they are you. When you ask if the Kestral is sexist because more male human sprites are generated, then you're nitpicking. You're not trying to raise a real arguement. You're not trying to challenge the game or the players mentally. You're just trolling us; whether it's intentional or not. There's nothing to be gained by this outside of our on satisfaction of ripping apart bad arguements. People keep saying you're a troll. You keep telling everyone you're not. Well guess what? If people are asking it, and you can't effectively defend your own point, then they are right. You can be a troll unintentionally. And so far, as it stands, you are. Also, PS: THE FIRST LAYOUT OF THE KESTRAL ONLY HAS 3 PEOPLE ON BOARD, SO YOU PHYSICALLY CAN'T HAVE 50% MEN AND WOMEN!! AT LEAST ONE SIDE HAS TO BE UNEQUAL!! And to comment on the "Mantis believes he's a human" event, there's no telling what the context to him is. For all we know, he may have been a human transfered into a Mantis body, or he could have suffered some sort of brain illness or damage, confusing him to belive he's a human. I don't know. It doesn't make it out like he's using it as an annoying Tumbler identity. Or maybe he is, and this is social commentary on it. I don't know; after 100 games of FTL, you've probably encountered stranger events.

[spacys]

Originally posted by Cassandra:

So the human race in FTL is composed entirely of $100 and up Kickstarter backers. Huh.

dont be so nitpicky, it still a game with the focus on reaching the end of the galaxy no matter with whom and which any cost to beat tthe mothership. :]

[slappy_d0]

Originally posted by tuxedo_cat:

@Cassandra, you named this forum "Is The Kestral a sexist employer?" YES, we will assume you are a social justice warrior. The reason you keep getting all this negative feedback is because you are missing all of the surrounding context and ideals of the game. This is a science fiction game; not science fantasy. In fact, the game mostly pays its omages to Star Trek, which is a science fiction series. Like I said earlier, women aren't as common in military-related programs as men. Not being sexist, it's just a natural statistic. So it would make sense in the game for the amount of male humans to be higher than women. And like I, and several other people have also said, gender doesn't matter; women are exactly equal to men. Numbers are irrelevant. It's like when companies set a requirement for even small businesses on how many female or non-white employees must be hired. Or when shows or political parties only have members who are women or non-white, just to grab that specific demographic. It shouldn't matter, so long as it doesn't damage or weaken the story/gameplay, which in FTL, it doesn't. You can spend hours zipping across the galaxy, collecting an army of female humans to turn your adventure into an episode of Charlie's Angels, defeat the flagship, and GUESS WHAT?! It will have no impact on the game. Your guns won't fire faster, your luck won't increase, your hope of beating the flagship on its third form will still be crushed under 40,000LBS OF LASER BLASTS, BECAUSE YOU STILL COULDN'T KNOCK OUT ITS ZOLTAN HYPER SHIELDS FAST ENOUGH BECAUSE THE GAME DIDN'T GIVE YOU ANY WEAPON THAT SHOOTS MORE THAN ONE PROJECTILE, AND NONE OF THIS RIGHT NOW HAS TO DO WITH THE TOPIC OF THE FORUM!!! ...*deep breathing* Sorry. I've gotten wiped out at that point way too many times. The point is, the gender of a single race in the game doesn't matter. The fact is, this is still only a science fiction game. It sements itself in reality. And I'm sorry, but reality called and said that different genders exist, and each one is more likely to choose certain carreers. And I'm sorry, again, but there aren't as many women that want to join the military. And in this game, the Federation is pretty much that. And to quote myself from earlier, AGAIN, it's the player who is in control of every action and decision made by the crew. So if you're a woman playing this, essentially, the crew is too. They are the your actions and choices represented by cute, pixelated icons running around on the screen. You're not playing as any one of them specifically (unless it's like a role playing thing). And you are controlling every single one of them individually. So essentially, they are you. When you ask if the Kestral is sexist because more male human sprites are generated, then you're nitpicking. You're not trying to raise a real arguement. You're not trying to challenge the game or the players mentally. You're just trolling us; whether it's intentional or not. There's nothing to be gained by this outside of our on satisfaction of ripping apart bad arguements. People keep saying you're a troll. You keep telling everyone you're not. Well guess what? If people are asking it, and you can't effectively defend your own point, then they are right. You can be a troll unintentionally. And so far, as it stands, you are. Also, PS: THE FIRST LAYOUT OF THE KESTRAL ONLY HAS 3 PEOPLE ON BOARD, SO YOU PHYSICALLY CAN'T HAVE 50% MEN AND WOMEN!! AT LEAST ONE SIDE HAS TO BE UNEQUAL!! And to comment on the "Mantis believes he's a human" event, there's no telling what the context to him is. For all we know, he may have been a human transfered into a Mantis body, or he could have suffered some sort of brain illness or damage, confusing him to belive he's a human. I don't know. It doesn't make it out like he's using it as an annoying Tumbler identity. Or maybe he is, and this is social commentary on it. I don't know; after 100 games of FTL, you've probably encountered stranger events.

Hot damn, I thought I was having fun feeding the troll.

[Sleeper Service]

Just selected the Kestrel a couple of times and yes, mostly dudes there. From what I can tell the game does indeed spawn less ladies because of how the names are distibuted, well, there definately are less lady names in the files, especially regarding kick starter names:

<!-- Copyright (c) 2012 by Subset Games. All rights reserved -->


<nameList race="human" sex="male">
<name>Kirby</name>
<name>Ma Fan</name>
<name>Jon</name>
<name>Bjorn</name>
<name>Justin</name>
<name>Matt</name>
<name>Oni</name>
<name>Jack</name>
<name>Markus</name>
<name>Adnan</name>
<name>Hector</name>
<name>Liu Jun</name>
<name>Jose</name>
<name>Liam</name>
<name>Eoin</name>
<name>Markel</name>
<name>Nathan</name>
<name>Tomas</name>
<name>Filip</name>
<name>Nikola</name>
<name>Maxim</name>
<name>Artyom</name>
<name>Mikhail</name>
<name>Tai Yi</name>
<name>Junpeng</name>
<name>Steven</name>
<name>Ferry</name>
<name>Sem</name>
<name>Tee Lek</name>
<name>Matthieu</name>
<name>King</name>
<name>Graffin</name>
<name>Hutz</name>
<name>Atreyu</name>
<name>Bryan</name>
<name>Zas</name>
<name>Bigby</name>
</nameList>

<nameList race="human" sex="female">
<name>T'ten</name>
<name>Layla</name>
<name>Jill</name>
<name>Alison</name>
<name>Lexie</name>
<name>Aki</name>
<name>Maria</name>
<name>Lauren</name>
<name>Elizabeth</name>
<name>Nazia</name>
<name>Emily</name>
<name>Willow</name>
<name>Xin Xin</name>
<name>Felicity</name>
<name>Ariel</name>
<name>Aisha</name>
<name>Manon</name>
<name>Emma</name>
<name>Sophia</name>
<name>Rebekah</name>
<name>Lisandra</name>
<name>Pipaluk</name>
<name>Lana</name>
<name>Noemi</name>
<name>Valeriya</name>
<name>Gracie</name>
</nameList>

<!-- Kickstarter name list start -->
<!-- Missing:
$100
Chase Cagle

$500
Steve Swink

-->

<nameList race="human" sex="female">
<name>Beth</name>
<name>Debbie</name>
<name>Kara</name>
</nameList>


<nameList race="human" sex="male">
<name>Alex Rigopulos</name>
<name short="Mort">Mortraven</name>
<name>Notch</name>
<name>Steven</name>
<name short="WaiShing">Wai-Shing</name>
<name>Kadreal</name>
<name>Starger</name>
<name>Andrew Fenn</name>
<name>Mr Buga</name>
<name>Borman</name>
<name>Scott Kletzkin</name>
<name>Fleischy</name>
<name>Joel</name>
<name>Shelton</name>
<name>Tach</name>
<name>Logan Johnson</name>
<name>Enzo Martin</name>
<name>Jax</name>
<name>Jeff Baars</name>
<name>Ohm</name>
<name>Ihlay Caris</name>
<name>Gumpo</name>
<name>Zerimar</name>
<name>Bomfy M</name>
<name>Nekose</name>
<name>Scoops</name>
<name>Remo</name>
<name>Berko</name>
<name>Jorlack</name>
<name>Hassifa</name>
<name short="Magmar">Magmaros</name>
<name>Butters</name> <!-- not sure -->
<name>Josh Cubbin</name>
<name>Vitas Varnas</name>
<name>Monsvik</name>
<name>Grozoly</name>
<name>Sean O'Regan</name>
<name>Tom Banks</name>
<name>Nikmi</name>
<name>Mullett</name>
<name>Vivimord</name>
<name>Craig Dolan</name>
<name>Dre Kozar</name>
<name>Nick Lanng</name>
<name>Giles</name>
<name>CY Heng</name>
<name short="Narth">Narthollis</name>
<name short="Schultze">Norwyn Schultze</name>
<name short="Chriz">Christoph Z</name>
<name>Bruce Geryk</name>
<name>Chris Phillips</name>
<name>Mikael Olofsson</name>
<name>James Pomeroy</name>
<name>Mike Weston</name>
<name>Jason Bovee</name>
<name>Xemu</name>
<name>Nick Breckon</name>
<name>Kapalka</name>
<name>Stick</name>
<name>Roper</name>
<name short="Frederic">Frederick</name>
<name>Henrik Aasted</name>
<name>Firedihm</name>
<name>Triko</name>
<name short="Mara">Maradine</name>
<name short="Swamps">Swampson</name> <!--Shortens to Swamps. Messaged -->
<name>Arries</name>
<name>Elnubnub</name>
<name>Ken</name>
<name>Randy Walker</name>
<name>Declan</name>
<name>Luaan Ti</name>
<name>Kirkner</name>
<name>Lombard</name>
<name>Feras</name>
<name>Yeoz</name>
<name>Ryan Maniscalco</name>
<name>GM Faux</name>
<name>O. Williams</name>
<name>Yevon Si</name>
<name>Johnny Maloney</name>
<name>Will</name>
<name>Maxwell</name>
<name>Thomas Bloch</name>
<name>Rynhart</name>
<name>Cremity</name>
<name>AJ Hager</name>
<name>Stephen Eckman</name>
<name>Jan Magne</name>
<name>Jack Shirai</name>
<name>Julian Rafn</name>
<name>Markand</name>
<name>Steven Dengler</name>
<name>Nelis</name>
<name>Chris Malott</name>
<name>Davion</name>
<name>Jon Caldwell</name>
<name>Kusy</name>
<name>Lagardi</name>
<name>Vincent</name>
<name>Kevin Fish</name>
<name>Turing</name>
<name>Stelly</name>
<name>Teldarin</name>
</nameList>

So we can't be certain that the names are what really determine the gender of spawned crew, but if it is, then modding in more female names could probably equalize lady/dude spawn rate. I'll have a look at this.

To me this certainly quallifies as kind of... I don't know, ethically sketchy? I mean the lore of this game is delibertaly super vague on everything, so that the player creates the world in his/her imaginateion. But the dominace of dudes aboard ships still implies to me that the ladies don't have the same place in this world. I struggle with calling this sexist, cause the term got so supercharged with all this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ going on in the gamer scene, but yeah, it is sexist and I can see that ladies might not feel well represented in the game.

[a razor named qualia]

Then ladies, stop being so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ precious.

[Sleeper Service]

The game is no longer in development, so it is unlikely that this will be changed officially. But yeah, a mod can fix that game behaviour.[www.ftlgame.com]

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by tuxedo_cat:

And to comment on the "Mantis believes he's a human" event, there's no telling what the context to him is. For all we know, he may have been a human transfered into a Mantis body, or he could have suffered some sort of brain illness or damage, confusing him to belive he's a human. I don't know. It doesn't make it out like he's using it as an annoying Tumbler identity. Or maybe he is, and this is social commentary on it. I don't know; after 100 games of FTL, you've probably encountered stranger events.

oh yea, marginalize the mantis because he suffers from body dysphoria. he's brain damaged because of his human lifestye, is it?

i'm only teasing, but what you said can actually be very inflamitory to people who do not follow a "traditional" lifestyle.

[Lezz]

you know you can change your crew's name, gender and appereance, right?

[Krebsig]

Congratulations on discovering perhaps the most important issue of all time forever in every aspect of life, death and the universe. And now, please do something productive with your life - like learning to focus on important matters and not be offended by every little detail that might disturb your blissful ivory tower bubble.

Originally posted by Lezz - Mighty Nr.49098:

you know you can change your crew's name, gender and appereance, right?

But then you can't be offended anymore and can't generate trollish discussions. What a pity!

[S.P.Ghost]

A couple of crews i played with had randomely spawned Females so i fail to see your point. Most pointless thread ever.

[Just Jeff]

Originally posted by Cassandra:

While I'm in the hangar, and looking at The Kestrel's initial crew roster, I find that it's very common for all 3 crewmembers to be male. Occasionally there's 1 woman; once have I seen two; and I have NEVER seen three (I'm pretty sure it's possible, just statistically highly unlikely).

To test this, I was in the Hangar, and then switched back and forth between the Kestrel (Layout A) and another Layout/ship, in order to "reroll" The Kestrel's crew.

So, what the hell? I don't like the implication that having female crewmembers is unnatural, or a strange phenomenon that I have to manually customize.

If I had to guess, I would say that there was a Kickstarter Tier that let players insert themselves into the game; that most of these backers were male; that the backers are always correctly gendered by the game (EG if a human named 'Notch' is generated, they're always going to be male); and that the only place where gender is visually apparent, is with humans.

Even if that's the case, I would still really appreciate a 50/50 gender distribution. Come to think of it, I bet this also affects the generation of enemy crew, meaning enemy human crew will almost always be male.

Is anyone else bothered by this, and would like to see it change?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0

[Just Jeff]

Originally posted by S.P.Ghost:

A couple of crews i played with had randomely spawned Females so i fail to see your point. Most pointless thread ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0

[Jago]

Yes kestral is sexist

[Just Jeff]

Originally posted by echoslamisop:

Yes kestral is sexist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGJR4ju6DVY
U DESERVE IT!
NO WAIT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0

[Shin]

A mountain out far,
Traveling there a molehill,
Never accept surrender.