i just now figured out what "alb" means

[Icedfate]

I am now pretty sure, it's short for "albino", a reference to their white skin and cold emotional states.
a google search also says it means a clerical vestemnt, from themlatin "albus" meaning white.

which means that the "albs" are literally the "whites".
white supremacists. . .

and the devs are German.

Godwin's Law strikes again(?)

[400g]

Alb is a german term for Elves. Most germans say 'Elfen' nowadays but Alb(singular, Alben=plural) is still used every now and then.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

Godwin's Law strikes again(?)

Your choice. You could have spared yourself the highly questionable comment on Germans, implying a reference to Germany's history. Connecting a sci-fi fantasy world with real life history and politics on Earth is a bad start for a topic about the Albs, in my opinion.

The devs could have made the Albs blue as a side-effect of consuming Elex.

They claim that all Elex is theirs by right. The Albs are sure that strength alone can save the world, and the weak must be sacrificed for Magalan to survive.

https://elex.fandom.com/wiki/Albs

[Icedfate]

well, that's why i didn't say it outright. i'm not implying that the devs are racist. just that the albs seem to hhave that going on.
I know that present day Germany has nothing to do with the Germany 80 years ag.

I didn't know that Germans also call elves "albs".

it just came up on google search that alb means white. so i'm like. . wow.. the albs are the "whites"

they are kind of like that though. the albs consider themselves superior to the other factions. they have a "fearless leader" known as the hybrid, and they constantly say "all glory to the hybrid". they are militaristic and have no qualms anout killing "lesser" beings or even killing their own people for "failing a mission".

even the separatists have that snooty "i'm better than you" attitude.
this game,does have some heavy subject material in it. I see places while exploring that are bloody and gory and have obviously had terrible things being done to voctims there, with torture implements on the ground.

there is a room in the brothel at the fort that has a chair in it and ropes on the floor in front of it and various tools like buckets and pliers and there are blood stains and gives me an Eli Roth Hostel vibe.

there is some messed up stuff in this game, so i dunno. maybe the devs would make a reference like that.
genocide is a thing in this game.
I apologize to the devs in advance, if that was not their intent

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

I know that present day Germany has nothing to do with the Germany 80 years ag.

You don't know any such thing. White supremacy is alive and well, both in Germany AND the United States. It never went away, it went underground.

Most Americans are ignorant of the eugenics movement here in the United States in the early 20th Century and how the collaboration between eugenicists here and those in Germany played a crucial role in evolving what eventually became the Final Solution. Much of what the Nazis thought and did can be traced to similar thinking AND ACTIONS here in the United States. Eugenics was being implemented in the United States long before Nazi death camps: in the 1920s in California, people in psychiatric institutions were being forcibly sterilized in an attempt to prevent their "bad genes" from infecting the rest of the gene pool.

None of which has anything to do with the game... but it needed to be said aloud.

[Icedfate]

okay, first i'm chastised for suggesting it, then i'm chastised for apologizing. . .i'm confused now.
whatever. i've already played through this game 3 times. maybe i should play something else, if i'm not welcome here.


for clarity. I wasn't calling Germans racist. I was calling the Albs racists.

[400g]

Don't worry Icedfate. I am german and i was in no way offended. Your post was just a simple analysis.
In fact a lot of us germans like these kind of references, so it is possible the devs made it on purpose.

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

White supremacy is a boogie man. It never went away because it only exists in the imagination of people who live in a politics-driven fantasy world.

Trying to oversimplify and dismiss a well known SOCIOLOGICAL issue just makes you sound dangerously stupid. Much worse than failing to learn from history is declaring it a "fantasy" and dismissing it entirely for the sake of personal bliss.

[Icedfate]

i'm not trying to get political, considering World News today.
i am just sharing an opinion. . on a controversial topic.
I suspect this dev are the sort that are not afraid to put controversial subject matter in their games.
the Gothic series technically takes place in a "prison" with the main character getting thrown off a cliff, beaten up and robbed of all his stuff in the opening sequence. then he is accosted by a member if one of the local "gangs" and they try to convince him to that their gang is the best gang and he should join them.

this game actually kind of "rhymes" with that one, in that the same opening sequence is played out where jax gets shot and falls off a cliff, gets robbed, then a representative from the closest "gang" tries to convince him that their gang is the best gang and tries to recruit him.


sometimes the economy in this kind of feels like a prison economy, where you are picking up toilet paper and cigarettes and selling them in the community.
the factions almost feel like gangs.

there are neonazi skinheads in prison. all the male albs, when they take their helmets off, you can see they all have shaved heads. not "bald", "shaved". "shaved head" is a hairstyle.
I don't think it's that much if a stretch to compare the albs to neo nazis.
"glory to the hybrid" is pretty similar to "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥"

this wouldn't be the first video game that exists that has nazis in it,

I realize most Germans want to be remembered for great beer, delicious sausages, schnitzels and sauerbraten (which I ate for dinner last night).

I accept that I could be totally wrong and it's just a coincidence.

it's just that word "albs", it bothered me for so long.
because their like "okay here we are, we reject elex, we want to go back to medieval viking ways, so we call ourselves the beserkers"
"here we are, we don't want any rules, or laws, we do what we want, we are the outlaws"
"here we are, rejecting the corruption of elex, while empracing technology and the grand plan of our god calaan, we are the clerics"
"here we are, superior in every way, we consume elex for power, we are cold, emotionless, efficient, and white, we are . . the albs"

and every one of those made sense except "alb", like what is "alb"? is it a nonsense word made up to represent an alien language, like in rick and morty, they make up random alien words like shmoopydoop and gazorazorpfield?
or does "alb" mean something? was it short for something?

and the fact that it "could" be short for "albus" which mean white, and how the game present all the factions as morally grey but goes out of it's way to paint the albs as "the bad guys", leads me to believe that the albs represent White Supremacy

[VulcanTourist]

You may be right that they chose to have a Nazi analog. The game is otherwise ALL ABOUT ethical issues and the ethical choices the player and NPCs make. Why is it so unbelievable that they might have done so?

However, careful making assumptions about people who choose to shave their heads: it's not always a statement of fashion or anything else. Sometimes it's just a convenience. I started shaving it all off when I was 30, for no purpose other than a pragmatic one to finish what nature started and save money on pointless barber visits. It didn't MEAN anything beyond that I'm frugal and pragmatic and completely lacking pretense.

[Icedfate]

of course, the alb might just be shaving their heads so their helmets fit. I don't assume every guy i see walking down the street with a shaved head is a nazi.

i merely pointed out that their shaved heads was a deliberate choice. they didn't just "lose their hair" from eating elex.
actual, i got that whole "shaved head" vs "bald" spiel from Spongebob, lol.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:

White supremacy is alive and well, both in Germany AND the United States. It never went away, it went underground.

That is utter nonsense. Please avoid such a political discourse in a Steam game forum.

Originally posted by Icedfate:

so i'm like. . wow.. the albs are the "whites"

they are kind of like that though. the albs consider themselves superior to the other factions.

Well, there is nothing wrong with that. Unless one blends sci-fi fantasy game lore with Earth politics/history.

[Icedfate]

the albs are also committing genocide. they kidnap people and kill them by feeding their bodies into the converters to extract more elex to consume

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

the albs are also committing genocide. they kidnap people and kill them by feeding their bodies into the converters to extract more elex to consume

Ummm, no.

The converters harvest Elex from the ground, since it spreads throughout Magalan. The Albs forcefully try to turn captured humans into Albs, feeding them Elex at the risk of creating a mutant instead.

[Icedfate]

well, maybe i have misinterpreted that all these years. when the other characters talk about it, they make it sounds loke the albs are killing people. but since the game never actually shows what the albs are doimg to people. . .

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

well, maybe i have misinterpreted that all these years. when the other characters talk about it, they make it sounds loke the albs are killing people. but since the game never actually shows what the albs are doimg to people. . .

They ARE killing people. There's an Alb note you can find in the game that that is an order to sacrifice their own people to Converters to recover the elex in their bodies. The game also refers repeatedly in conversations to people being harvested dead OR ALIVE in Converters. They also happen to create new "recruits" by force-feeding elex to people and inducting the ones that survive the process, and there are notes to be found in the game that describe the early pre-Alb origin of that process. They do the latter of necessity since presumably they are sterile and cannot breed, but their primary goal is "all elex to the Hybrid" and they will pursue that goal to the point of extracting it from living beings if necessary.

Isn't it interesting that the same delusional person who says that white supremacism doesn't exist and is "utter nonsense" also appears to be defending the Albs against a charge of genocide?