Thread by @JumpOvertheAge

Playing the Star Citizen "freefly" A Thread - Initially amazed by the corporate future the game so luxuriously projects without self-awareness. Wandering around endless waiting rooms, watched by corporate security and listening to endless adverts feels deeply insidious.

Took a train to the spaceport. Looking out across a vast field of containers in a Burtynsky-esque anthropocene landscape, while beside me a racing jet quietly purrs for my attention on a show stand certainly has a sense of realism that borders on the perverse.

Accidentally took a train to some corp HQ that was deeply ugly, all gold statues and anthracite geometry. I have to admit that I expected SC to be a power fantasy, an aspirational future sandbox, not this slick, metal edged reflection of our own time, robbed of any humanity.

Spent a long time on a half-broken train ride to the edge of the city that wouldn't let me off at any station. A vast sun dropped behind the towers as I cycled endlessly on an empty metro like some lost tourist. The scale of the city is incredibly oppressive.

When I finally arrived at the city edge it was dark and my ship inaccessible due to a bug. So I wandered out into the night, as a dust storm rolled in, eager to put as much ground between me and the insidious corp city as possible. A poor escape plan.

As the sun rose on the alien desert I fell through the edge of a rock and then through the planet itself, and was treated to glimpse of the entirely galaxy before death, and then, even worse, waking up again in the airless habitation deep in that unsettling city.

The idea that this game is the holodeck dream is bizarre to me. Yes, it has a verisimilitude that is unreal, and a scale that is terrifying even in small fragments, but it also feels so oppressive and limited by the horizon of corporate capitalism. Interested to explore more.

Managed to load up a ship that was so vast it took me 10 minutes to find the entrance. Inside is an impressive living space, complete with weyland yutani canteen, presumably to discuss the missing bonus situation.

Reached orbit in another industrial ship. Live the fantasy of being an Alien crew member: corporate overlords, impounding rules and all the tedious elevator rides you could ever want. Both repulsed and attracted. But sure that RSi doesn't just want my money, it wants my life.