I always wondered about hostile human groups

[mumia]

Not just about this game, but for everything that ueses them, for example zombie flicks, Walking Dead, Last of Us, etc

So how do they come to be? They're always hostile towards the protagonist(s), that means I assume that they're hostile towards all outsiders. But then how is their group formed , how do they get new members? They pass down a message from command to everyone: "Today don't kill anyone, recruit them instead, because we're low on manpower"?" Or what:?

I think the existence of these groups make no sense at all unless they materialize from thin air, which of course they do in this case, Entertrainers incorporate them into their products merrily, without even stopping to think about it.

[Elensar]

Law and order of civilized society keeps people in check. Withought that this happens. happens everywhere, in real life as well, disaster happens the first thing to happen is looting followed by assaults and rapes and murders.

People suck, it's just the way humans are.

FIghting for limited food/medicine etc, it becomes quite terrible fairly quickly.

[xpl01t]

That is actually the right question!
I was wondering the same thing: you have a space station populated with civilians. Disaster happened - everyone is desperate and trying to survive by looting everyting that's left. What really confuses the %$*t out of me is how come no one noticed a big spaceship and never assumes that a new person on board might be here to rescue at least some of suvirvors? I've seen many desperate people in my real life, but I've never seen this kind of irrational behavior.

[Vahnkiljoy]

I forget who explains it but it gets explained to you, it's the fear, fear can make sane people do insane things and smart people do incredibly stupid things.

[Elensar]

Once order breaks down so does logic.

[Koranis]

Originally posted by blTb:

That is actually the right question!
I was wondering the same thing: you have a space station populated with civilians. Disaster happened - everyone is desperate and trying to survive by looting everyting that's left. What really confuses the %$*t out of me is how come no one noticed a big spaceship and never assumes that a new person on board might be here to rescue at least some of suvirvors? I've seen many desperate people in my real life, but I've never seen this kind of irrational behavior.

None knows about the ship because you need comms for that and those are locked.

It takes some time but eventually a certain group will find out that Torrens is nearby and will try to board it. Or at least that is their intention.

[Cable Salad]

Originally posted by mumia:

Not just about this game, but for everything that ueses them, for example zombie flicks, Walking Dead, Last of Us, etc

So how do they come to be? They're always hostile towards the protagonist(s), that means I assume that they're hostile towards all outsiders. But then how is their group formed , how do they get new members? They pass down a message from command to everyone: "Today don't kill anyone, recruit them instead, because we're low on manpower"?" Or what:?

I think the existence of these groups make no sense at all unless they materialize from thin air, which of course they do in this case, Entertrainers incorporate them into their products merrily, without even stopping to think about it.

Great question. Since it's a rather complex topic I don't think there is a short answer.

As Elensar correctly pointed out people tend to suck, especially when there are no consequences for misbehavior (as seen in the internet). Humanity has a history of screwing each other up, especially if they have advantages over the others (numbers, better gear/weapons etc.) so I'm not very surprised to see that happening in games, too. His reply is probably the shortest possible answer to your question.

In games or serials this is mainly for gameplay or storytelling purposes, so you don't get bored of fighting the same enemies over and over again, or to add some tension and make the "world" feel more dangerous. Sadly in Alien Isolation I feel like the devs overdid the whole "some people are dangerous" thing, though. Sevastopol doesn't seem like it's inhabited by a vast majority of criminally inclined people, lunatics, serial killers, convicts or murderers, so it doesn't really make sense for them attacking you, especially when considering you're not competing with them for resources, you're armed, too, hell you can even be their ticket out of this mess and there is a friggin' alien in the vicinity that is butchering people all the time. It might make sense for them to attack if they're thinking there is a murdere on board but honestly, I doubt any man would be afraid of a (more or less handsome) woman and I doubt even more that their initial thought would be "Aww sheet, what if that gurl ova there is teh murderah? Let's better shoot her immediately!" The point where groups knew there is an alien stalking around yet still shot me on sight killed a lot of the immerson, since it's so silly and doesn't make any sense. Think about it: There's an apex predator hunting each and every single one of you and the first thing that comes to your mind is firing your gun at the very next human you encounter. I think most people, even malicious ones would be rather glad seening another human face in that situation, instead.

But back to the topic. Another good question would be: "What would you do in such a world?"

[xpl01t]

Definitely not what the game devs suggest. Killing the entire population of a spaceship only reduces your chances of survival: especially since most of the people left on board are not just civilians, but stationary staff (doctors, technicians, maintenance etc.)

Much better approach would've been to emphasize on androids-gone-wrong situation and make people more careful and friendly. The best example is how medical bay was executed: scared doctor is hidin out in his office, trying to avoid the dangers surrounding him. When he sees you, he does his best to help you with meds for your injured friend, but fear and human nature is manifested by him trying to exploit this situation to get out of there.

[Elensar]

The Doctor doesn't "do his best to help you" He needs you to do the dirty work of getting the keycard and passcode so he can escape himself, that's the only reason he "helps you", not only that if you listen to the various recordings he is a junkie that swallows more medication himself than he gives his patients so he probably wouldn't be capable to helping Taylor anyway.

It's cool to see though, your "idealistic" view of how people should behave does happen in these situations as well... unfortunatly those are the first people to die and be taken advantage off by the ones with no morals.

Logically yes they should all work togeather, reality is they backstab each other and as a result less people survive. It's a sad reflection on real humans though... it's just how people are, and the ones who aren't don't survive.

[mumia]

The logic in the game is that they stash up rations, and try to wait until help comes. Killing anyone who would steal their stash. But then they go ahead and shoot at you who is clearly flaunting an off-ship uniform.


And in any situation they might be killing a person who knows the locatoin of food for 1000 people

[y tho]

One thing I don't get in this particular game is the gigantic alpha-predator that's attracted to noise isn't exactly a secret to the people on the station, so why they have this suicidal tendency to shoot and yell at you so quickly when you come along (and why you have no way to be like 'shh') is a bit confusing at first.

Then I realized they're mostly treated as bait by the game design to get the alien (and working joes) into the same rooms as you more consistently, which is juuuust a touch grim.

[RexPowerColt]

well in this universe its all about coporation and nobody cares about people, every crew is expandable and everybody knows it. life isnt to much worth in alien universe. in such a dystopic world authors or storytellers just focus around the question of, how the characters change and why. and spoiler: not to much needed to change even long trained methods of social interaction. just take a look in the news today

[Cable Salad]

Originally posted by mumia:

The logic in the game is that they stash up rations, and try to wait until help comes. Killing anyone who would steal their stash. But then they go ahead and shoot at you who is clearly flaunting an off-ship uniform.


And in any situation they might be killing a person who knows the locatoin of food for 1000 people

It's still puzzling why they're shooting you on sight especially when considering you're just one person while most of them are a pack. You pose no real threat to them or their shtty stash. Then, you're clearly a stranger and unless you magically terleported on board, it's very likely you could be their ticket off this station. Quite frankly, with a monstrosity hunting all humans in the vicinity I'd rather leave sooner than later. It makes more sense asking the stranger how she got here and if there's a way off the station rather than firing bullets in her direction, killing off any possibility of cooperation and drawing the creature's attention. Both things greatly diminish your chances of survival so every guy with half a brain would not attack everyone and his dog on sight.