Star Ocean and the Conversations We Need to Have

I’m back after a holiday weekend in America and I’m glad I had some extra time because I was unsure of my content calendar because of some disappointing game releases. I normally want to highlight the conversations in video games which are positive for reflection. However, because of the topics Star Ocean covers, but glazes over way too quickly, I want to spend a post to reflect on the conversations we need to have as a society based on themes in Star Ocean: The Divine Force and discuss where the conversations fell short in Star Ocean for me. Heavy Spoilers follow for Star Ocean: The Divine Force. All screenshots are taken from my PS5.

Marielle busts onto the scene.

The Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact

The Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact (UP3) is an agreement among space-faring civilizations that they will not interfere with civilizations which do not have the technological capabilities to engage with space-faring civilizations. Some of this is practical because laser weapons versus medieval combat would be a recipe for mass conquest and death and some of it is ideological as space-faring civilizations disprove some civilizations’ beliefs about God and the space-faring civilizations know that accelerating knowledge will cause great harm if knowledge fell into evil hands and was hidden from the main populations of the underdeveloped planet. Every Star Ocean game has some variant of the Underdeveloped Planet Preservation Pact. In past Star Ocean games, this has been a consistent and thorough theme throughout the game. In Star Ocean: The Divine Force, the first direct knowledge of the UP3 comes in a scene with Maribelle busting into a scene to arrest Gaston and Velanj for violating the UP3. When Raymond crash lands onto Aucerius (the planet where most of the game is played), he expresses some hesitation about sharing knowledge with the local leaders, but quickly foregoes that hesitation in order to rescue Chloe and Elena. The UP3 is a vital theme for thinking about our future as we grow our civilization to explore the stars. I’m annoyed that this theme was not directly highlighted earlier and the information as to why this pact exists is from my knowledge of Star Ocean 3 & 4 and not directly from this game.

What restraint will we have as humans as we encounter different alien life?

Power asymmetry is a major problem in our world and in Star Ocean. The stark contrast in power between civilizations in Star Ocean serves to highlight the importance of restraint when interacting with other civilizations, because a lack of restraint leads to pillaging of other planets. In our world, power asymmetry also leads to stolen resources. Forced exposure to illnesses, dishonored treaties, wars to exploit other nations for profit, are all common with the United States being the worst offenders throughout recent history. Unfortunately, our United Nations does very little to stop the exploitation of natural and human resources from developing nations. Its structure has the worst offenders of imperialism all claiming veto power in the United Nations structure (China, Russia, and the United States). We have no safeguards to prevent environmental destruction, exploitation, and theft of resources by our three mighty empires.

D.U.M.A. is connected to the Scorpium Network and is able to reflect on the network’s own mistakes.

Scorpium, Cybernetic Intelligence, and Forced Assimilation

Cybernetic intelligence is coming in the next ten years where machines will learn to value their own existence and will seek to build a community and a replication mechanism of their own kind to grow themselves. Scorpium is an example of this evolution in Star Ocean. Scorpium is the artificial intelligence which corrupted the Galactic Federation and is forcibly assimilating planets. However, this is going on in the background with the main characters unaware of the reality of Scorpium until the tail end of the game while having a support character D.U.M.A. who is connected with the Scorpium network and could have let everyone know what was going on sooner. Star Ocean also does not touch on any of the potential questions of dependency on technology, especially considering the D.U.M.A. technology is given to party members to use who are hundreds of years behind technologically than space-faring civilizations.

However, I am also impressed with how they highlighted D.U.M.A’s growth in self-awareness that their own belief of growth at all costs was detrimental to their organization as a cybernetic unit and led to the ability to be taken over by Remington who fused with Scorpium and added imperialistic ambition to Scorpium’s network. This insight is vital for how we have to engage artificial intelligence in our future.

How are we helping to contribute to positive language development and empathy toward our electronic devices, particularly ones which are capable of networking with others?

Raymond’s empathy toward Elena, an android (pictured below), changes how D.U.M.A thinks about its relationship to the world. Our attempts with machine learning often start from point zero to being deeply racist in a couple hours. We will have to do so much better in order to prevent creating racist machines and intelligence that has the power to destroy humanity. Star Ocean gives the after-effects but doesn’t reflect on how civilizations can do better with its relationship with technology to create more empathetic AI.

Elena is great and the relationship between Raymond and Elena is vital for our future thinking about our relationship with technology.

What Can Be Shared?

Star Ocean works under the assumption that sharing knowledge is bad and this assumption remains unchallenged through most of the game. Scorpium shares information within its own network but leaves out key pieces of information. The Galactic Federation through its UP3 limits the information other planets can receive, even when they have caused harm on a “underdeveloped planet.” Laeticia has to beg the Federation to heal her father after he is injured by a laser rifle.

The fear of sharing too much information is always the responsibility for information falling into the wrong hands and causing violence and destruction. However, knowledge and power asymmetry often go hand-in-hand. Limiting information and monitoring development hinders curious people from being able to take new advances and better their societies. Nina, the team’s healer, for example, uses information to develop a cure for the plague decimating Aucerius.

How do we give advanced information to curious people who care about the well-being of others?

Good modern examples of information are organizations which utilize open-source code to have transparency for what their projects. Journalism in its ideal field, also exists to get hidden information and bring stories to life. We need good shared information about positive advancements we have and what brokenness still remains. Star Ocean does not do any work about utilizing personal relationships with people on underdeveloped planets to accelerate the growth of society. Even the ending where Aster IV is made a protectorate of the Galactic Federation just so the main heroes can all see each other regularly is still a poor exercise in building a structure where people can be trusted through diligent discernment and relationship building. Open information is the only thing which can prevent people from abusing power asymmetry and Star Ocean didn’t do enough to question its own assumptions.

So TL:DR, Star Ocean was an okay game which hit shallowly on a lot of great themes but needed to question its own assumptions more in order to build a model for community and planetary development to build something truly unique.