There aren't any new ways for me to distinguish the game's diegetic racism from its potentially funky resonance at the level of a designed object. Thoroughly detailing racist organisations in-game (which in turn, I find, do racism in a straightforward, incomplete and unchallenging way, given how ambiguous race concerns would be with a mentally inferiour species) does not really address my question. I think my question has gotten what it's going to get here, though, and I'm happy to leave it, but I'll probably keep defending it as a valid question if it gets dismissed or attacked with a hand wave.
There also aren't any other ways (or at least I don't intend to try to find them) to counter the assertion that bonuses without penalites is 'reverse racism,' an assertion many have made and none have actually attempted to defend or explain except Reaver. I don't think lack of equivalence in every respect connotes racism; I leave that to the hysterical witchhunting types. Equality in respect of physical makeup is relevant in the game world for combat and such, but I think it would not impact overall socioeconomic status a ton, just as it doesn't (or wouldn't, I'd aver) in the real world. Equality in terms of cognitive function is quite another matter, at least if we're talking about advancement, earning potential, sophisticated self-governance, etc. If there's a way around trolls and orks being hosed as a people because of inability to compete on a large scale with 'smarter' metahumans, I haven't heard it.
Now, in-game, that's a perfectly fine and interesting thing to pose. I've already stated that my discomfort with it comes more from the fact that metahumans erupt from humanity (and sure, if they're 'other species under thousands of years of genetic cover' or whatever this is circumvented somewhat, but I don't love that version--and I don't think it's absolute fact, given that magic is an incomprehensible x-factor at work), and this whole thing happens in a very near future, in a world that's ours+Gibson+some Tolkein. Too close to home for me. I think it's icky to have a species that so closely resembles slavers' description of slaves not that long ago. That's all. Not leveling a grand judgment.
The ork fluff thing doesn't raise the same alarm for me. Dying early sucks. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's living conditions, maybe both and more. It sucks. I'm not weirded out by life sucking. Maybe they'd be discriminated against for it, maybe not; you could certainly see some heartless companies thrilling at the prospect of employees that didn't have to be fired or released with pension because right when they start to decline they just *die.* I don't think the game, or any art, owes it to anyone to be nice. Brutality and unfairness are facts. But being mentally inequivalent has always, always been the chief rationale of jingoism, of racist policy, of slavery, of the worst discrimination. Building it in is rough for me to stomach. I can't help but be nervous about a race of strength-monkeys with a lower IQ ceiling (and I still presume lower average) being around, typically, to supply the game muscle. I don't judge the game for it, or its players for it, it just reads like a conspicuously tidy omission from the history record to me, and my eye keeps coming to it.
But maybe I'm seeing the implications of the mechanic wrong, which is why I started the thread. Mechanically, it all makes sense, and stripped of ultimate consequence it's fine. Just trying to follow through to the worldwide ramifications of it.
I also find it interesting that there's more perk in the sexual identity talk than in the racism talk, and I don't know if it's because we're jaded or we think it's mostly solved or what, but 'solved' is not what I'd call it.
It's cool if no one else thinks it's worth thinking about. It's also cool if you keep talking about me in the 3rd person like I'm not in the room. And everyone loves being called pointless. Keep it up!
