• Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Currently I am replaying Deus Ex, a cyberpunk first‐person shooter highly influenced by classic conspiracy theories. I can really appreciate the story as a grown‐up, and there is one particular scene that I had always glossed over until replaying it now…

    Mid‐story spoilers for Deus Ex

    There is one particular character, Walton Simons, who is remarkably two‐faced. When you read the lore (newspapers, e‐mails and such), Simons, being the supposed director of FEMA, comes across as a caring, concerned, and responsible individual who (falsely) reassures the public that scientists are hard at work developing a cure for the latest pandemic, and that while he doesn’t know what is going on he is doing everything that he can to help stop the virus that is taking countless lives.

    The reality is something else…

    In case you are having trouble reading the text:

    Walton Simons: ‘Captain Zhao. The helicopters will be there shortly. They are to be loaded for spraying of the virus. No delays. I want the helicopters operating before sunrise.

    This scene was where I could actually feel my stomach churn, not necessarily due to the character himself, but because I feel like I know individuals who are exactly like this: the unidentified perpetrators of the very atrocities that they publicly declare to be at work reducing.

    It’s possible that this is simply a coincidence (even though the writers of Deus Ex clearly did their homework), but we do have nonfictional examples of U.S. authorities spraying a virus on cities, to which I’ll link outside of this spoiler.


    On a more serious note, how many of us are aware that U.S. authorities tested biological weapons on thousands of unwitting citizens?