System Shock 2 and Transgender Video Game Discoveries
System Shock 2 and Transgender Video Game Discoveries
CW: Spoilers for System Shock 2, Planescape: Torment & Metroid (who hasn't had Metroid spoiled for them at this point, lol.)
Recently I found out that System Shock 2 is ultimately a game about being a transgender woman which is why it rules. Uh, where does this come from? Glad you asked. Recently when I replayed System Shock 2 this February 2023 I decided out-of-the-blue, on-stream, that SHODAN is someone who imposes this image onto you, turns you into an extension of HER, where you will be subservient to HER, and bend down to HER will, and ultimately I just said to myself "Now, wouldn't this be funny if it turns out she was making you into a woman." and yeah, I went there. System Shock 2 was literally where I started thinking of gender as a construct because how can SHODAN, an AI construct, unmistakably be a 'she' You do not call her anything other than that. The manual for System Shock 1 initially referred to SHODAN as a 'he' or an 'it' but then all of a sudden they were like "NO, SHODAN IS A SHE." and it just stuck with that. Indeed, SHODAN is inherently female. Unmistakably so, and despite (or even because of, honestly) being a megalomaniacal, imposing figure, SHODAN, to me, felt weirdly aspirational in some respects, as frightening as such a prospect would be. I wanted to be made in her image, to an extent!
(If you're sitting at a computer and escaping into a video game, playing this game with a very distinctly female character that flies in the face of all conventions of being "female" then you're like, you know what, huh? And I guess that's where a lot of my thoughts regarding uh, my own gender identity, really just began to make sense, lol.)
Yeah, also just kind of weird how Marie Delacroix (who tries to warn you away from SHODAN), SHODAN herself and your "Bitching Betty" user interface were all voiced by the same person, Terri Brosius, who uh, also voice Viktoria from the Thief games. I mean yeah, I think everyone knows what happens after the first third of the game where it turns out that Janice Polito was an image that she was using to manipulate you, then reveals to you that she is just SHODAN the whole time. This is kind of foreshadowed, to be honest. 'Janice Polito' always talks to you in this very cold, forthright tone of voice, yet early in the game you discover this audio log with the real Janice Polito talking in a voice that's less tinny, a bit more concerned and sympathetic, and where she discovers this "message from an artificial construct that sounds too much like SHODAN" and 'Polito' does become more and more impatient with you as the game goes on.
I think the best way of describing SHODAN is that she's distinctly feminine but also heavily aggrandising and condescending, and someone who alternates heavily between complimenting you for "doing her bidding" but then as soon as you diverge at all, or when there's the slightest suspicion of it, she becomes quite threatening and imposing. The game itself also seems to be very, very interested in these sorts of paradoxes predicated with imposition. The Hybrids, for instance, talk in this tone where they sound deeply tortured but at the same time go on about the "harmony of The Many" and are quite explicitly amalgamations of alien and human entities, where it's clear that the humans are being forced into things they don't want to do. They pleed for you to mercy kill them but at the same time they will charge at you and try to murder you as well. I suppose in a sense it exists sort of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the metaphor just kind of exists as this abstract "other", something that's taking over and subsuming people and their identities and what not, which I think makes a lot of sense with The Many.
(On stream I outright made a joke that SHODAN 'making you in her image' would have an extension to that which is that "she'll make you into a woman" (i.e. force-feminisation) which I thought was just so funny. Then I realised that uh, yeah, actually felt like probing this idea a bit.
SHODAN, a megalomaniacal AI construct, was weirdly aspirational to me in a lot of respects.)
'The Many' is a very interesting antagonist and throughout there's the parallels between the "cold, machines like nature" of SHODAN and the "warm harmony, the splendid flesh" of The Many, but even then it's so weird. The Many outright talks to you in this quiet, whispering, almost seductive tone to you, trying to dig at underlying details, taking objection to you being a cyborg and so forth, and eugh, so much of it is just really creepy come to think of it. But like there's such an invasiveness to it, I feel, because they seem to love guessing at and speculating on aspects of what you're doing, why you're doing certain things, offering up propositions that are meant to dissuade you from your path and so forth. Type of thing where as soon as you think of something, you have someone on the other end trying to impose on you, telling you that you're deeply wrong with everything. Both SHODAN and The Many are at war with each other but then both of them really do seem to love their imposition and invasive practices onto people. Worth mentioning but SHODAN also mentions that "The Many and their creations are an extension of my own, but I will not allow them to disobey me." which is just so goddamn revealing, honestly.
It's also even more pervasive in audio logs. One such log has this message where one of The many mentions that "we've offered you everything, yet you bite the hand, I don't understand." and various audio logs that detail out grotesque bodily transformations, either with people embracing them or being enamoured by it, or people who horrifically reject what's becoming of them and what not. Bodies and what people do with them, what's imposed onto people are such an extensive part of System Shock 2, up to and including the RPG and state building elements, where you can build up your character any which way you please. Three years of training and you build up some experience but then collecting cyber modules and what not, and you can just easily transfer from a psionics person into a marine guy with an assault rifle who also can hack into turrets to do his bidding and what not.
(See, I think that's just kind of it with trans stuff. Fundamentally it's about introspection, and reconciling with a fundamental part of yourself even in the wake of societal imposition and how bewildering it can be to step outside of those boundaries, both physically and psychologically. Nothing is more pervasive to the transgender experience than that, I feel.)
Anywho, uh.
But god, actually, something I really liked about SHODAN was that she was someone who was totally unfettered in terms of her narcissism. I say "aspirational" but I don't entirely mean that literally, but like every single bit of SHODAN is just aggrandisement, every single line of dialogue always seems to just loop back into her. Any consideration into anyone else loops back to "her extensions" and also just the very specific way that she talks about things - everything about her has to be assertive and punctual. It's uh yeah, kind of scary. But there's something about that which is like, if I project myself onto SHODAN then fundamentally I am kind of confronting a part of myself that is wondering like "Why is there all this fixation I have on being punctual and female?" and what not and like her "giving birth to these creatures." and so forth. Ew, it feels kind of perverse. SHODAN is one of those characters that stuck with me because she is a very good, stark, uncompromising depiction of a totally self-absorbed, very female presence, and something about depictions of such a character really stuck with me. I loved movies like Smithereens (1982) and The Last Seduction (1994) for that reason alone, where you're just watching this portrait of someone totally flying off of the handle with zero reconciliation and you're just watching the consequences of that play out, so naturally I really vibed with SHODAN. Awful, awful, often diabolical, very feminine presences but something about confronting that image felt liberating in a way.
(SHODAN and GLaDOS (from Portal) also share a lot in common, but I ultimately think that GLaDOS is way more emotional and playful while SHODAN is just downright creepy, cold and constantly imposing throughout all of it. GLaDOS felt way more emotional while SHODAN was someone who felt very logistical in terms of what she had to say. Uh yeah, more on that in a minute.)
Honestly, I think part of that really just comes from confronting that sort of dark element of like self-actualisation which is when stuff becomes way too self-absorbed, either in terms of performance or introspection and what not, and SHODAN is like, a giant metaphor for that. Something about her is necessarily a bit discomforting and literally the whole point of SHODAN is that she is "an all-powerful AI construct who has all ethical constraints removed" and just does whatever she pleases, to uh, disastrous results. She lashes out and then some when things don't go her way, but it's all done in this very creepy, very passive-aggressive way where it just kind of gets under your skin after a while. But yeah, something about that, I love depictions of female characters where they are just uncompromisingly evil and despicable and SHODAN is like that and then some - nothing about her really comes off as good at all, and part of why you follow her just seems to be as a way of dealing with another threat entirely. But yeah, if you're introspective, very controlling over everything, that is a pretty good way of exhausting yourself and probably going insane with a lack of reconciliation with anything, and SHODAN is like, very controlling, everything has to be meticulous otherwise drastically bad things will happen.
I found the cyberspace mini-games in System Shock 1 to be kind of interesting, but there is something about the very last level of System Shock 2 which is so fascinating, because you're thrust into this cyberspace where it's "SHODAN's past" and literally it's the very first level of the first game, just that it's kind of broken and off. Like you're staring at this nostalgic vision that just feels out-of-tune for whatever reason. Even then so much of this game stands out on its own from System Shock 1, because it is kind of about a past that Soldier wasn't around to experience. The penultimate level has you "exploring the bowels of The Many" which just are this cluster of nerve cells and sphincters, teeth, all sorts of gross things that just culminate in this "mass of flesh" and so forth, and both levels feel just totally stark in terms of how they contrast each other. They are kind of the logical extensions of what both The Many and SHODAN want and there's something about both of these levels that just feel kind of wrong to me. By the way, also, uh, some of the textures in The Body of the Many were taken from a guy's colonoscopy so uh... you're kind of looking at someone's asshole in this level a lot of the time.
The ending to System Shock 2 has you finally resisting SHODAN's imposition, but what's so revealing about it is how SHODAN personally sees what you're doing as being a betrayal, despite the fact that uh... what was she doing again? Anyway, so SHODAN is like "You will join me and I will make you more complete." and Soldier responds "Nah." before blasting her in the face with his pistol, causing her world to collapse, and yeah. Everything is back to normal but then.... a fragment of SHODAN still exists, possessing Rebecca Siddons and she remarks "Don't you like my new look?" before she seemingly possesses the screen and starts laughing to herself and then uh.... System Shock 3, which, in 2022, was revealed to just be officially dead after a lot of speculation. Which is kind of a bummer, but you know. Just speculate on what's happening. Maybe SHODAN is out there changing people to fit her image at this very moment. It could be happening to your son. Or yours. Or yours. OR YOURS [points finger directly at you.]
Anyway, so themes of imposition clearly abound a whole bunch, but I actually think there's something more fundamental to me which I think Aline Crumb described about her husband Robert in the 1995 documentary Crumb, which is like "You'd think this person would rather exist as a brain in a jar than someone with a body." and uh yeah, there is a lot of fun you can have thinking of yourself as like an artificial intelligence construct and SHODAN was paradoxically kind of liberating in a lot of respects. Here you are just sitting at a computer playing this 1999 video game thinking "God, this resonates with me a lot." then you figure out that "Maybe it's because I'm a girl on a computer, and I vibe with this game a lot, yeah." and uh, yeah. Now you know. However, fundamentally I'm not some Internet essence or an abstract energy but just kind of a person, honestly. Bringing this back into reality for a bit, uh yeah. So it turns out that I was a girl on the computer the entire time. Horray for me! Lot of trans stuff kind of feels like you're chasing down a speculative version of yourself, but then it does become more and more real to you as it goes on. And it feels great! (even despite everything else.)
Appendix - Perfect Dark, Tomb Raider, RPG Games, Female Video Game Characters and Being Trans
Probably a more obvious thing with regards to projecting trans feelings onto video games tends to be the fantasy of like playing a game with a female character in them. One time back in 2009-ish, I remember getting so much crap from people for constantly playing Zoey in Left 4 Dead and people speculating on why exactly I did that, but I've always kind of had a thing with games centred around female characters. Claire Redfield and Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil games were obvious examples too, but I remember having a very strong affinity for the Tomb Raider games as a child and just thinking that there was something very thrilling about playing as Lara Croft. When your eyes are just glued to a CRT screen, basically nobody knows what is going on in your head, but something that always confused me were like these feelings like "men playing as women characters because they think they're very attractive, that they fancy them." which I don't think was what my fixation on it was. But yeah, something about that deeper introspection and just thinking "What the hell, this rules." sort of thing really did kick off with me, and was something that I've seen people do with video games of uh... embarrassing video game discoveries. Sometimes that also did make me feel so discomforted with the feelings that it did inspire in me but sometimes it felt really good, and I guess it was just a process of freeing my mind and understanding what it really was all about.
(Lara Croft might be a bougie English woman, but dammit, she was aspirational. Nevermind what Germaine Greer had to say about her being "an embodiment of male fantasies." That's not how I saw her at all, lol. But yeah, I experienced the same thing with like the sort of guilt imposed on transgender women when they're into portrayals of lesbians, a very common thread really comes from imposition that masquerades itself like it's a critique of it, without considering what someone's attachment or enjoyment really derives from, lol. Maybe the introspection I have with it runs way deeper or much differently than what you're trying to imply with me! Societal standards have it so you can dabble in but not outright embrace femininity for some weird reason. Some people don't like that and find that insulting [but then that's just prejudices for ya, indit.])
Another good example was back in 2016/2017 when I was just obsessed with the N64 game Perfect Dark and just playing that so much, thinking about how cool the character Joanna Dark was, but then so many of these games were kind of made to be inspired by Lara Croft of like a "badass female protagonist" and what not. Perfect Dark is kind of just what happens if you take Goldeneye and made it just a bit better, set it in the future (of 2023 A.D.) and asks the critical question of "What if you played as a girl with a gun?" but there was also something about Joanna Dark and like facing off against corporate conspiracies and her sassy, sure-fire attitude and the respect that she commanded from people that really resonated with me. Really, I think just exploring the Carrington Institute or the level Chicago: Streets where you get harassed and hit on by random guys, who you can also punch out, did stick out to me. Perfect Dark also contains very pervasive cyberpunk elements and, on its hardest difficulty, it is extremely hard and then some, so of course this game was something I was into. Was something of a masochist with games that are extremely difficult. Somehow I'm going to get to the other end of it, even if it's going to destroy my patience and my brain.
"All you need to make a movie [video game] is a girl and a gun." - Jean-Luc Goddard
But yeah, sort of does solidify some things, honestly. Another thing was that I remember in Skyrim that I got so discomforted playing a male character that I just restarted the game and played as a female character instead (for some reason), and the same with games like Fallout: New Vegas where I just thought it was cool to do that. By then I just outright decided "You know what, I'm going to play as a woman character anytime I ever start up any RPG game that allows me to." Deus Ex has a mod where you can play as a female J.C. Denton, but also where the female voice lines and the character model were made separate, so you can kind of play the game i.e. with a female character model and a male voice or vice versa, and get kind of creative with it. Saints Row 2 has it so that you have a gender slider so you can make your character out to be super androgynous, which was abandoned in the later games, although you also can freely change the sex of your character at will for the hell of it. (somehow where it works in an instant, as opposed to real-life where it takes literally years for that to take full effect, lol.)
Another one that I feel like mentioning is how the 1999 RPG game Planescape: Torment is fundamentally an extremely trans game, centring around this immortal amnesiac who "goes through all this torment and suffering, tries to reconcile with his past, and moreover, all the past iterations of himself and who he is and what not" that I thought really stood out to me, but I guess also it's a game where it basically demands a whole lot of heavy introspection and just thinking about the character you're playing as and the things that they've done, how they remain very speculative and what not. Literally you're told that "you've committed this unspeakable atrocity." but you don't really find out about what it is, and also being called The Nameless One, but the whole game is about how you reconcile with these sorts of aspects. Particularly what did resonate with me was just the whole aspect of collecting memories and things suddenly, spontaneously coming back to you - constantly having to deal with the ramifications of it. In the game's good ending - you're condemned to hell, but the thing is that you're now very prepared to fight that battle. Plus, I also did definitely project myself quite heavily onto Fall-From-Grace (succubus) and Annah-of-the-Shadows (sassy, sardonic Scottish woman) when playing that game, so yeah. A lot of transgender introspection does tend to run on metaphor more often than not, honestly, at least it's pervasive with how I've experienced it.
Ravages, scars, lost memories and reconciliation and discovery of who you are, however painful but essential that process might be. Extremely trans, if you ask me!
Should probably just end this by saying that it's not just playing female characters but rather the personal introspection that surrounds it all, which I guess runs in with the complex processes with regards to reconciling with being a transgender person basically. People sometimes tend to ignore that and am also not entirely the biggest fan of like "Fallout: New Vegas turning people trans" but I guess I do understand where the sentiment does come from. Wouldn't for the life of me say that video games "made me trans" but I guess thinking about where my attachment to them really was, definitely did do a lot to help understand my feelings surrounding them. I dunno, things are always weirdly gendered but you've got to reconcile with that rather than going scorched earth all over it. But yeah, I guess there's something weird about early transition stuff where it can seem very speculative so people attach themselves to anything that can at least, vaguely, articulate feelings that seem inexplicable to them. I suppose also someone might have discovered they were trans playing through 1986's Metroid for the first time and it's shocking twist that you were a chick the whole time. Probably the best metaphor there is to be had about it, to be honest. Uh, free yourself from imposition and find out what you want. It will make you feel a lot better even if the process is harrowing at first. See, I'm at a state with it (after years of murderous introspection) where I'm just way more expressive and open with it!
COMING SOON - MY WRITE-UP ON THIEF: THE DARK PROJECT AND THIEF II: THE METAL AGE (semi-related to this piece!)
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