Yu Jing Fluff - Perception, Reality, Desire

Wtf, why you all discriminate against a villains? They are people too! -_-

 

Well, since PS isn't actually employed by CB (IIRC, he's the long-time Greek WarCor and volunteer moderator), I'm going to tag @Bostria and @Interruptor to read this.

 

Warning! The following post is a bit of a rant...if you don't like that kind of stuff or feel offended by it, please don't read it...it's my personal opinion after all, no need to care about it if you don't want to.

Well....I finally received my copy of the Uprising book, I still haven't finished all the JSA backstory yet, but so far, Yu Jing definitely gets branded as the evil idiots in my book...

Not only was the official cause of this event a direct kick in the nut for every Yu Jing player who participated in Strikezone Wotan (It was caused by Yu Jing High Command BOMBARDING a Nomad Torpedo Boat docked on Yu Jing's Baijing Diplomatic Space Station during it's evacuation, which caused the death of all Japanese soldiers who were left behind to cover the evacuation, as well as the Nomad ship...) it was also bloody stupid...at least as far in as I got into the story...so far I didn't find any explanation why they even did bombard that ship!

This is followed by Yu Jing being completely incapable of controling the media and reporters in their own territory (partially caused by foreign spies like Hexadron and Black Hand)....which would be ok, until you realize we are talking about bloody Yu Jing here, who should be experts at exactly that....which results in a media shitstorm about the poor Japanese who get threated badly by Yu Jing, as well as a crapton of warcrimes of Yu Jing against the JSA during the Uprising getting leaked (murdering whole cities, flooding a whole city, and so on...)

So while Yu Jing goes on a mad rampage, murdering every Japanese soldier and civilian in sight (cause the Japanese have been brainwashed by the Kuge to fight to the last man, even the civilians) in all areas where they exist, PanO, Nomads, Haqq defend the Japanese (to hurt Yu Jing and benefit from contracts with JSA) a little every now and then, and even the Tohaa form a pact with them, allowing them access to the human sphere through JSA territory, and in exchange giving advice and trade...

And just before Yu Jing finally crushes all Japanese people ever (their military being vastly superior, at least they gave them that..) O-12 accepts JSA as a seperate nation like the Nomads did way back when, and Yu Jing is forced to leave them alone, partially cause they don't want to be caught between a 3 way war (internal against JSA, in human areas against everyone else, against CA)....

Meanwhile JSA turns into a feudal japan system with the emperor being a godlike entity whom everyone is loyal to, apparently a democracy system below that, a cast like system is reestablished, and all controlled like puppets by the Kuge...resulting in life for the average JSA citizen being just as shitty as before, but at least now they die for their own country, and the Kuge are back in power...

And until the point I am at right now (maybe things will get better explained later in the book) Yu Jing has been shown only as incompetent, constantly outplayed by all other nations and their secret services in literaly every single opportunity presented, with their only good point being their strong military. I didn't find a single paragraph talking about ANYTHING positive about Yu Jing during the Uprising, except maybe that they wanted their people to be equal, unlike the cast system now implemented by the JSA, but that was really it...and of course they were shown as evil brutal oppressors who don't shirk back from murdering civilians, whole cities, and everything in sight, just cause their honour wouldn't allow them otherwise...

All "news flashs" of Yu Jing I saw were about massacres of civilians, and all JSA articles were about the glorious struggle of JSA against the oppressors (mainly from PanO news channels or JSA Propaganda)...



So yeah.....hopefully I still miss the big awesome Yu Jing part where things get explained from their side, and things will work out better...but until now (I think I'm at least halfway through if not more...) this is one giant slap in the face for Yu Jing, and seriously paints them as the incompetend villains that we feared they'd be depicted as....

On the other side, if you plan to play JSA, and especially if you are new to Infinity, this is one hell of an awesome read for that faction *lol* They are presented as the smart little underdog that bid its time, secretly outplaying Yu Jing on all fronts, establishing connections to all other factions, preparing until just the right time to finally spring their trap and declare their independence, with talk about extremely high tech developments (some of which sadly lost during the war) which might be a hint at future units....so what you end up with is a underdog faction that will stand its own against Yu Jing in the future (because nobody will find easy pray in a Bushido code nation where every citizen is ready to die for their emperor and has been brainwashed to do so since birth...), full of awesome units, hightech stuff, glorious corporations, and just cool stuff all along really.....sure its all puppeteered by the Kuge in the background and people are less free in some regard than before...but in the end its just like they apparently were threated in Yu Jing, only now they are free and oppress themselves....


Note: Will give an update should the rest of the book contain anything that changes that impression...

Also Asuka Kisaragi is confirmed to be Kuroshi Rider in the Book...with a neat ultra high tech battle arm and ultra high tech adaptable weapon (the scythe) ...

 

Oh also...Japanese now control Japan on Earth, colonies in the Solar System (Mars and so on), some area on Dawn, Paradiso, and in the human sphere/edge...5 areas basically, represented by the 5 rays on the japanese banner....the areas on the Yu Jing twin planets (Shentang) are still controlled by Yu Jing...and life is "hell for those who survived"...so JSA will try to get that area back under their control eventually...cause its their destiny or so...

 

The majority of the book is from the point of view of the Japanese. It's no surprise that the Japanese portray Yu Jing in a bad light.

 

True that, but we were reminded at multiple occasions that we should wait for the books fluff as it would "not paint Yu Jing in such a villainous light" , cause it would make JSA look "Just as bad if not worse", that the other nations would not view Yu Jing as the big evil this time maybe, and so on and so forth....people repeatedly claim that "nobody sees Yu Jing as the villains".........frankly, until the point I read it now, that is not the case, Yu Jing is 95% depicted as the villain here, ridiculously so really...and a really incompetent one at that.

 

I'll have to re-read it, rather than incompetence I saw it as the rest of the Human Sphere ganging up on Yu Jing and spreading propaganda of YJ being incompetent. Basically, 'lets kick them while they're down'.

 

Well I would consider Yu Jings incapability of assassinating a reporter on their own territory (Who apparently did a whole series of episodes on the JSA oppressed topic...which caused PanO to join in on the beating) , or controlling the media leaks of warcrimes and whatnot commited in their own territory as quite incompetent. Murdering whole cities including all civilians doesn't exactly proclaim "professional elite army " either, or "not villain" nation...

The fact that JSA managed to prepare all that they did prepare without the Imperial Service noticing anything about it even though that's their speciality, also shows a lot of incompetence...

And for whatever reason they bombarded their own station with troops and media presence still on it, in the middle of a blockade....also pretty much screams incompetence to me.....

But like I said, not 100% through yet, maybe things get cleared up a bit better.

 

Then I want to cancel my preorder, because I do not play JSA nor I need a book that narrates a conflict to be totally skewed. Also, explain to me HOW is it written from the JSA POV if the Kuge are portrayed as "bad, in control puppeteers", and the Tohaa get a free access point to the Human sphere while Aleph looks.

I will resume what I read just now: "Yu Jing will do a Rogue One ending, blowing his own research station (well, change the name here...), then we get the Kolat moving the Emerald Empire".

Edit: @Yasashii Fuyu can you confirm to me that the book is more or less 50% JSA, 25% Dire Foes and 25% NA2? Because if so, I will cancel my preorder, frankly, JSA couldn't intereset me less, specially with what you describe (a childish and badly thought book sold with the excuse that is "in universe")

Also, I cited your post in the spanish side.

 

Sorry to disappoint, but yeah, that sums it up pretty good, ~50% is JSA, 20-25~ is NA2, and 25-30~ is Dire Foes (I am surprised they put so much detail into that stuff, there is several pages of fluff for each dire foes pack in here..) .

No unit profiles, and some pages with Dire Foes Missions are in there as well. That's basically all you get.

But don't get me wrong, I intend to play JSA, and the book is quite cool if you do so, or play any of the NA2 armies I think, it's jam packed with nice fluff and artworks.

 

Thanks. I just cannot endure badly written propaganda. As for the Dire Foes, I already read back in the day all of the texts, and that was 2 pages each just of text (more or less), that means 10, plus whatever they made for the last two ones. Frankly, I was interested just for NA2, but 40 bucks for 50-80 pages of the book? Not my cup of tea.

 

I think it's actually even more than 2 pages of fluff for each dire foes mission, most likely because the outcome of those dire foes missions has now been decided by fluff (surprise, Yu Jing lost both dire foes missions...).

Also I actually think the fluff isn't "bad propaganda" per se...it's just very JSA focused in the JSA area....like I said, if you actually play JSA or want to, this will get you hyped, a good idea of what the faction is like, and you'll feel cool playing them.....if you are however a Yu Jing player, you'll feel quite annoyed.....which obviously gave me mixed feelings as I want to continue playing both factions .-P

PS: The reason why I can't finish reading it at the moment is cause I'm busy painting the JSA models for a game on saturday :-P

 

Up to p69 is some general info, the overall Uprising description, a chronology of the Uprising (16 pages inc. maps), JSA and the unit descriptions.

p70-105 is the other NA2 forces.

p108-159 is Dire Foes background.

p161-183 is Dire Foes missions.

 

NA2 is 4 armies. 10 pages or so per each one, aside from JSA, which receives double of what the rest does? And the Dire Foes missions are in the webpage ( www.infinitythegame.com/direfoes ), so I don't need those... and it seems they did not include the JSA pack missions.

Plus, there is a limit to how much of a Worf Effect I can take.

 

Those are the old N2 versions of the Dire Foes missions. They've all been re-written.

I don't think the Worf Effect really applies here, JSA didn't 'beat' Yu Jing, they got recognised by O-12 as a separate nation, like the Nomads or Ariadna. Without that, they would have been swatted like a fly.

 

The Worf effect happens when a big, bad character (nation, in this case) is informed as being big, bad and great. Yet never wins, because whatever they face outsmarts/outguns/outwhatever them.

To me, what has been presented is not a Pyrrhic victory for the JSA, but a total failure of objectives for Yu Jing. And if they are so incompetent, how comes they were the 2nd power in the Human Sphere? How comes they "win" yet the JSA gets "reparations" in the form of lands and installations? How comes the Japanese consider their destiny to recover Kuraimori if they hate it there????

I will read a lent copy, if I can, but it better be good to justify me pre-ordering any fluff from CB ever again.

 

I thought I had come to terms with Uprising's treatment of Yu Jing and was ready to move on but wow...I wasn't expecting that. How did Corvus Belli decide to gut the "number 2" faction and turn it into an evil punchbag for the entire human sphere?

Also, almost every pessimist prediction made on this subforum has been right. We've seen the same pattern each time; 1) concerned Yu Jing player makes negative speculation about the state of their faction, 2) They're mocked for being salty and overdramatic, "no use worrying until we find out more", 3) The reality is (at least) as bad as their guesses.

At this point I would have to be naive to have any hopes for the closed battle lists. This is kicking the faction morale while it's down, and it's honestly exhausting my interest in the game.

 

If you're trying to find reasons to dislike the book, nothing I can say is going to change your mind. :(

 

Yeah, I think the problem is like I said...it's a good book if you intend to play JSA or any of the NA2 armies, it's filled to the brim with cool fluff and artwork for these factions (I love the one where Yuriko blows up a floor of a skyscraper), but if you are a Yu Jing player trying to find out what happened, you'll get quite angry or at least won't be very happy with it I'd say.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to suggest someone is going out of their way to dislike something, if they simply dislike it.