The Philosophy of Mass Effect from a Libertarian Perspective: Introduction & Indoctrination

The video game industry is the youngest of all forms of art. Unfortunately they haven’t received the same kind of universal cultural recognition as novels, movies or music did. Yet its stories, its worlds, its musical compositions and visual artworks are worthy competitors with the best works of literature or cinematography.

An outstanding example of this is the Mass Effect trilogy, published in 2007, 2010 and 2012 by the company BioWare — subsidiary of Electronic Arts. The Mass Effect trilogy, I would argue, is one of the most brilliant science fiction space operas ever since the original trilogy of Star Wars — and in my humble opinion, it overshadows that. Its visual scenery is stunning and outstanding. The characteristic music with its futuristic instruments masterfully captures the infinite vastness of space. Its characters are wonderfully crafted, multidimensional protagonists and antagonists, crewmates and minor characters, who inevitably become dear to the player’s heart throughout the trilogy. The story itself captivates and involves the player, since it is the player’s choices that determine the outcome of virtually every plotline and the life or death of countless characters. And once you finish the trilogy, it leaves you with that kind of emotional void that only the best works of literature can create.

The central element of the story of Mass Effect are the Reapers, a synthetic race with incomprehensible destructive power, machines that return to the galaxy every 50 000 years to slaughter all advanced organic lifeform. The protagonist is Commander Shepard — male or female depending on the player’s choice — a veteran of the human military who is the first to discover the Reapers and goes on to lead the charge against the murderous machines.

In the following I will argue that the main storyline of Mass Effect — the fight against the Reapers — is an allegory for the destructive and evil institution of the State. As the history of the universe of Mass Effect is the eternal struggle between the Reapers and the organic lifeforms, so is human history the tale of the great and ceaseless conflict between Liberty and Power.¹ The organic lifeforms in the world of Mass Effect progress and thrive, build civilizations of wealth and prosperity — and “at the apex of their glory” the Reapers invariably arrive to slaughter them and turn all they built up into ruins and ash. We witness the same story unravel in the history of mankind. Liberty time and time again brings peace and material prosperity everywhere, where it is allowed to thrive. It is however always followed by the expansion of State power and the forces of Power absorb all the wealth, civilization and indeed human lives that the environment of Liberty has created. Power breeds plunder, oppression and war — until the civilization it feeds off of collapses under the weight of the State.

I cannot possibly list all the available examples and evidence of how the story of the Mass Effect trilogy — the struggle against the Reapers who come to “reap” all advanced civilizations at their apex — is an allegory to the grand conflict between Liberty and Power; therefore, the following is an inventory only of the most conspicuous parallels.

But I do not wish to imply that this allegory was created by the authors on purpose. Indeed, far from it. I believe they had no idea about the existence of this parallel in the story they created, and chances are, they would protest against the libertarian view of the State as presented in this essay.

This is how art works. Even the philosopher Socrates noted this curious characteristic of art and artists in his Apology, when he said:

… I went to the poets, those of tragedies and dithyrambs, and the others, in order that there I would catch myself in the act of being more ignorant than they. So I would take up those poems of theirs which it seemed to me they had worked on the most, and I would ask them thoroughly what they meant, so that I might also learn something from them at the same time. I am ashamed to tell you the truth, men; nevertheless, it must be said. Almost everyone present, so to speak, would have spoken better than the poets did about the poetry that they themselves had made. So again, also concerning the poets, I soon recognized that they do not make what they make by wisdom, but by some sort of nature and while inspired, like the diviners and those who deliver aracles. For they too say many noble things, but they know nothing of what they speak. It was apparent to me that the poets are also affected in the same sort of way.

Therefore it is mistaken to believe that such a parallel is invalid and an allegory is non-existent only because the artists themselves didn’t intend it to be there. What fundamentally matters is not the intention of the artist, but the parallels between the work and reality itself.

But I do not wish to leave the question of why the parallel between the Reapers and the State exists unanswered. So after presenting the evidence itself, I will end by explaining the reason why the story by its very nature simply couldn’t have been told without including these elements, and how works of science fiction — to be good works of art — must account not only for the knowledge of natural sciences and the limits imposed by them, but also the truths of social sciences, namely those of praxeology. The beginning

The story of Mass Effect — in short — is as follows.

In 2148 AD mankind discovers on Mars the ruins of an ancient alien civilization that disappeared without a trace. Studying the artifacts of the beings mankind named Protheans, they discover the technology that enables interstellar space travel. As mankind takes a step beyond its solar system, it becomes the member of a vast galactic civilization made up of the countless advanced races of the Milky Way.

In the prologue of Mass Effect Commander Shepard — the protagonist of the series controlled by the player — visits the planet Eden Prime where a group of researchers have discovered a Prothean artifact. His mission is to secure it and bring it into the Citadel, a vast space station that served as the capital of the galactic government. Upon landing, they see that the peaceful colony where the artifact was discovered is under attack by the Geth, a synthetic race of networked artificial intelligences that lived — up until that point — secluded in their own nebula. The Geth inexplicably came out of their own star system to attack a peaceful human colony, butcher its residents and turn them into zombie-like monstrosities.

The attack — as it turns out — was lead by a long-standing agent of the Citadel Council named Saren, who has apparently gone rogue. He attempted to destroy the unearthed Prothean artifact, along with the whole colony that discovered it. The protagonist, Commander Shepard however manages to fight back, he saves the artifact only to activate it by accident — and have it burn a horrific vision into the mind of the commander. The artifact revealed for Shepard how the Reapers slaughtered the Protheans and warned him of their imminent return.

Commander Shepard returns to the Citadel, presents the evidence of Saren’s betrayal to the Council, and the governing body sends Commander Shepard to retrieve him. Indoctrination

Shepard manages to track down an aide of Saren who relays some crucial information to him. It turns out, she isn’t aiding Saren out of her free will; she was the victim of indoctrination, of brainwashing. With her words:

People are not themselves around Saren. You come to idolize him. Worship him. You would do anything for him. The key is Sovereign. Saren’s flagship. A huge dreadnought of incredible size and extraordinary power.. … The longer you stay abroad the more Saren’s will seems correct. You sit at his feet and smile as his words pour into you.

The indoctrination within Sovereign is a key parallel between the Reapers and the State. Saren’s flagship, Sovereign is itself a Reaper. Its name itself is revealing: Sovereign, that is: the supreme political ruler, the one that wields political power over the masses of slaves and subjects.

Indoctrination is an ever-present element of State power. History supplies an endless list of examples of indoctrination in service of the institution of Power, the State. We don’t need to go back to the Roman Empire or refer to the name of our month of August to cite examples of ruler worship. Just a few decades ago, the masses were thrilled to hear the intoxicating words of the socialist dictators of the 20th century — of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Hitler or Mussolini. It was less than a hundred years ago that under the slogans of social justice and opposition to wealth and income inequality Lenin created a system of the most gargantuan mass slaughter, the omnipotent, totalitarian State with its secret police, death camps and mass murder, putting into practice the ideology of envy and bloodshed. And the brainwashed, indoctrinated masses welcomed this liberation of the demons. Saren was just as much idolized and glorified by his brainwashed servants as the brainwashed servants of statism venerate their political rulers from time immemorial.

To use an illustrative example from my personal life, during my evening walks I often pass by a house whose window presents — right next to the pictures of Mary, mother of Jesus and Jesus Christ himself — a photo of the young Viktor Orbán.

Indoctrination has always been one of the most destructive and the most important weapon of the State. Brainwashing is the means by which the Reapers in Mass Effect and the governments in human history cemented their power and achieved their goal.

The Sovereign — whether we are talking about the Sovereign of Mass Effect or that of our world — cannot rule by relying on its raw power and violence alone. This was lucidly explained by Étienne de La Boétie in his Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, and was emphasized by a host of classical liberal thinkers from David Hume onwards to Ludwig von Mises and libertarians such as Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Every ruler — whether its power stems from conquest or from a democratic vote — requires that the masses of its subjects believe and accept its rule as legitimate. To achieve this is no simple feat, since everything the State does violates those moral rules and principles that we believe to be true, and that we practice in our interactions among one another.

Allow me to elucidate this point. If we barge into a pub armed to the teeth with the intent of violently kidnapping and locking into a cage anyone who dares to harm themselves and others with the consumption and sale of alcohol — for their own good, of course — with the willingness to execute those who disobey our command, we are seen as a heinous, violently insane criminal. Yet when the agents of the State do exactly the same thing under the name of War on Drugs, then wise political leaders protect society from the dangers of addiction and drug abuse.

If we violently attack a shopkeeper or a doctor because he sells certain goods or services without our permission, or charges a price which we deem to be too high, we would be no doubt thought as a mentally ill and dangerous madman who needs to be locked up far away from civilization. Yet when the government does it, we call it consumer protection and price control; indeed, we are convinced that without such violence, unscrupulous profiteers would sell poisoned food and drink products to the hapless consumers.

If I would knock on the door of my neighbor and tell her that from now on, her children must learn what I prescribe, and only by teachers and in places that I allow, otherwise I will use violence to take her children away, people wouldn’t be sure whether they should call the police or the ambulance. Oh, but if our rulers do the same! Then it is called compulsory government education and we say the negligent parents wouldn’t even teach their kids how to read or write, let alone make friends without government violence, and if the government wouldn’t make it mandatory, children would have no chance of learning all those important things!

So the Sovereign has a vital need to brainwash its subjects and make them see as virtue what they deem evil and immoral if committed by anyone else. Only by indoctrination and ideology can the Sovereign hide the fact that all it does is unspeakable, immoral, destructive evil. Only through long and thorough brainwashing can the Sovereign make people forget that taxation is indeed theft — the official version of “your money or your life” — that inflation is counterfeiting, that regulation and government intervention into the economy is aggressive violence against peacefully and voluntarily trading people and that redistribution is the fencing of stolen goods.

When Saren’s brainwashed servant is freed for a few lucid moments from under the influence of indoctrination, she says:

The longer you stay on board, the more Saren’s will seems correct.

This requirement of proximity and the length of time spent of board for indoctrination to function is the exact same means by which the State implements its indoctrination and makes sure nobody notices that the Emperor has no clothes: that its apparatus is nothing more than a gang of criminals and thieves venerated by its victims. While in the universe of Mass Effect the victims have to spend time near Reaper-technology to come under its influence, in reality — in a very similar manner — one has to spend time under the direct authoritarian rule of the State for indoctrination to take root in one’s mind.

In other words, one has to literally stay on board of the Sovereign.

This is the role of government education. Unfortunately, it is the content of government education that is usually cited in connection with indoctrination, and indeed — as a t-shirt I once designed says — a government school will never teach the truth about the government. But more importantly than the statist interpretations of historical events and the like, the function of government education is to get subjects used to the dictatorial environment of total subservience and rightlessness in which they are obligated to wholly obey the will and commands of their rulers (who are paid by and the agents of the government). In this environment you cannot drink when you want to, you cannot pee when you want to, you cannot read what interests you, you cannot use your own property the way you want to, you cannot move freely, you are deprived of your freedom to express your will, your choices, your preferences — you are to unconditionally obey and that’s that.

You are not allowed to study the things that interest you and would get you closer to your own values and goals in life. You cannot choose to use your time to learn marketable skills instead, by which you can live an independent life and enter the system of division of labor. Indeed, victims of the government schooling system are slaves who are bound to study whatever and whenever a supreme authority commands them to. They are deprived of all their liberties and instead of following their own will, their own interests and preferences, they have to follow the will, the interests and preferences of those in power.

The main mission of government education is to keep impressionable, young minds under an environment of absolute, totalitarian power and subservience until they get completely used to it, until they are mentally worn down by more than a decade of enslavement and learn to normalize and rationalize it. They learn that oppression by the agents of the State “for their own good” is the normal way of things and punishment follows the disobedience and the criticism of those in power. Their most bothersome habit of thinking about rights, liberty or the question of what would serve their own interests — compared to what they are being coerced to do — finally evaporates and they become thoroughly indoctrinated by the Sovereign.

This is why governments need to force every new generation under their direct rule for more than a decade.

In the world of Mass Effect an extended period of time spent on board of Sovereign indoctrinates people and makes them submissive, docile and controllable. The Sovereigns of our real world use coercion all around the word to make everyone spend the overwhelming majority of their time in their most impressionable years on board of their own institutions. About 18 thousand hours of being directly exposed to authoritarian power will prove to be effective enough of a training for the vast majority of the population to make them forget those habits of mind a free person tends to exercise.

But indoctrination of course wouldn’t be wholly complete without the charming Saren under the command of Sovereign who goes on to whisper alluring words into the ears of those under the influence of Sovereign. This is the role of the intellectuals. They deal the final blow on the mind made to be used to Power. From time immemorial, the rule of the intellectuals has been to spin extravagant justifications and scientifically sounding theories that legitimize the aggrandizement of State power; tales that make the vulnerable victims, unaccustomed to rational thinking about authority, accept that the aggrandizement of State power is, far from being the intensification of their robbery and enslavement, in fact a boon for mankind and civilization, and indeed a vital requirement for their happiness and well-being.

This relationship between the intellectuals and the ruling elite was, in ages past, called the alliance between Throne and Altar, although lately it morphed into Throne and Academia. As the magnificent Murray Rothbard wrote in his Anatomy of the State:

In the present more secular age, the divine right of the State has been supplemented by the invocation of a new god, Science. State rule is now proclaimed as being ultrascientific, as constituting planning by experts. But while “reason” is invoked more than in previous centuries, this is not the true reason of the individual and his exercise of free will; it is still collectivist and determinist, still implying holistic aggregates and coercive manipulation of passive subjects by their rulers.

The increasing use of scientific jargon has permitted the State’s intellectuals to weave obscurantist apologia for State rule that would have only met with derision by the populace of a simpler age. A robber who justified his theft by saying that he really helped his victims, by his spending giving a boost to retail trade, would find few converts; but when this theory is clothed in Keynesian equations and impressive references to the “multiplier effect,” it unfortunately carries more conviction. And so the assault on common sense proceeds, each age performing the task in its own ways.

So the intellectuals busy themselves fabricating various “scientific” theories about why the rule of the State is beneficial and useful, and in return, the Sovereign:

is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige. For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part.

Note in this regard that Saren also thought that he and all those who support the Reapers will similarly be “handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform” for the Reapers, namely, they will get to keep their lives.

This secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus is most often a teaching position. Teachers therefore viciously oppose the liberty of the youth, for they know that the only reason they can enjoy a career of lecturing is that governments force children into their classes. Indeed, through compulsory school attendance laws intellectuals are given the opportunity to lecture about how government is a magnificent originator of all good things, and they will readily do so, for they will know that without State violence against children— as Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote:

[they] might be out of work and may have to try [their] hands at the mechanics of gas pump operation instead of concerning [themselves] with such pressing problems as alienation, equity, exploitation, the deconstruction of gender and sex roles, or the culture of the Eskimos, the Hopis and the Zulus.

Even those intellectuals who teach subjects unrelated to the social sciences and political philosophy will be eager to support the State for this reason.

But the theories of the court intellectuals are always backward rationalizations. If we look at the timeline of events, the subjects encounter government coercion first: first they are forced into the institutions of the State, and only after — or inside them — do they encounter those theories that attempt to justify the coercion committed against them.

Returning to the story of Mass Effect, after Commander Shepard acquires crucial information about indoctrination, he travels to the planer Virmire to search for Saren. During his mission on Virmire he encounters and talks with Sovereign. Their conversation contributes not one, but two pieces of evidence to our hypothesis that the Reapers are an allegory to the State. Sovereign says:

The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory they are extinguished. The protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them — the legacy of my kind.

And when asked why did the Reapers construct the mass relays that facilitate interstellar travel and leave them for other races to discover and use, Sovereign answers:

Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your civilization develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.

Two separate phenomena appear in these few sentences, and they need to be examined separately. One of them is the cycle of civilizations.

Footnotes

1. On looking at history as the great conflict between Liberty and Power see among others: Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State. This view was best described by Murray N. Rothbard in the preface to his Conceived in Liberty:

   My own basic perspective on the history of man, and a fortiori on the history of the United States, is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power, a conflict, by the way, which was seen with crystal clarity by the American revolutionaries of the eighteenth century.

   I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity.

   Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life. But liberty has always been threatened by the encroachments of power, power which seeks to suppress, control, cripple, tax, and exploit the fruits of liberty and production. Power, then, the enemy of liberty, is consequently the enemy of all the other goods and fruits of civilization that mankind holds dear. And power is almost always centered in and focused on that central repository of power and violence: the state.

   With Albert Jay Nock, the twentieth century American political philosopher, I see history as centrally a race and conflict between “social power” — the productive consequence of voluntary interactions among men — and state power. In those eras of history when liberty — social power — has managed to race ahead of state power and control, the country and even mankind have flourished. In those eras when state power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines.

   Indeed, this view of history predates Rothbard and Nock by at least a century. As the great historian of classical liberalism, Ralph Raico notes, “this liberal analysis of the conflict of classes … [was] a perspective that was widespread in [classical] liberal circles in the first decades of the nineteenth century.” As Raico quotes a prominent proponent of this approach, Adolphe Blanqui, writing in 1837:

   In all the revolutions, there have been but two parties confronting each other; that of the people who wish to live by their own labor, and that of those who would live by the labor of others. . . . Patricians and plebeians, slaves and freemen, guelphs and ghibellines, red roses and white roses, cavaliers and roundheads, liberals, and serviles [in Spain], are only varieties of the same species.

   . . . So, in one country, the fruit of labor is taken from the workman by taxes, under pretence of the welfare of the state; in another, by privileges, declaring labor a royal concession, and making one pay dearly for the right to devote himself to it. The same abuse is reproduced under forms more indirect, but not less oppressive, when, by means of custom-duties, the state shares with the privileged industries the benefits of the taxes imposed on non-privileged classes.” (Raico, R. (2012). Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School. Auburn, Ala: LvMI.)

   It was this classical liberal analysis of history that was taken over and perverted by Marx, who went on to equate the relationship of a non-aggressive employment contract between an entrepreneur and an employee with the relationship between “freeman and slave”. ↩