I am curious as to what would be the least invasive path, for those that find issue with the presentation of the Duke, to correct the problem they have with the portrayal of the Duke?
For me, the story needs to change two things in order to avoid racial stereotyping:
- The Duke should not personify the "Casino Indian" stereotype.
- Whiteriver should not be "whitewashed" of all Apache history and depicted as being founded by a White settler.
Beyond that, the sky's the limit.
Also, this is something I have to think about when doing it myself. For those here who don't know, I mod the game. If TFP don't voluntarily remove the racial stereotypes, my solution has always been to create a mod which does it.
In fact, I already wrote that mod and released it a while ago. For anyone interested, let me say what the "least invasive path" was
for me.
If you're
not interested,
skip the rest of this post. (I won't blame you.)
Other than the two things above, I wanted to keep everything as close as possible to the existing lore. It would still take place in Navezgane, in or near Apache reservations. The Duke would still be the overlord of the area, and associated with a casino. His followers would still be the Cassadores. Noah would still be a rebel who goes against the Duke's power. Noah would still be associated with Whiteriver.
The Duke would have to be someone who knows how to be a leader, and specifically a leader of people who are armed. That doesn't happen overnight, so he would acquire these skills before the apocalypse. Perhaps someone in law enforcement or the military.
What about the Cassadores? The word is derived from the Spanish word "Cazador," which means "hunter," but is spelled differently. The only matching spelling I could find was the Cassadores from Age of Empires. They are based on the Caçadores, which were elite troops in the Portuguese army in the 1800s onwards, with the Caçadores Especiais being the Portuguese special forces in the 1960s and 1970s.
This dovetailed nicely with what the Duke needs to be. He could be someone of Portuguese descent, who was in the U.S. military before the apocalypse, and the name of his post-apocalyptic army is a nod to his Portuguese heritage and pride in military service.
So what did he do in the military? He probably wouldn't have held too high a rank, because the high-ranking people would have been killed from zombies, combat, or nuclear bombs. But, he would still need to be someone who knew how to order people around. So, I made him a Marine drill instructor.
What about the name "the Duke?" Well, whenever most Americans (especially those who like Westerns) hear "the Duke," they think of John Wayne. So I leaned into that. The story is that some recruits started calling him "the Duke" as a joke, to make fun of his unforgiving, swaggering personality. But rather than be offended, the Duke considered it a badge of honor, and started insisting everyone call him that.
The casino angle was trickier. I ended up going with a story about the first Blood Moon. On that night, the Camp Navajo base was overrun. The Duke managed to survive, leading a handful of soldiers, and regrouped in the nearby ruins of the Twin Arrows Casino. (Both Camp Navajo and the Twin Arrows are real places near Flagstaff.) This did two things to cement the Duke's power: it showed he could successfully lead men to safety, and it eliminated everyone who was of a higher rank than him.
Also, I made the Duke the one who is making the airdrops. This makes sense, since he would be the one with access to airplanes and spare supplies. Military airdrops are also a common way to win the "hearts and minds" of the populace. I added a note from the Duke to airdrop loot, which says "Please accept these supplies as a token of my generosity."
For Whiteriver, I made it clear that it was the capitol city of the White Mountain Apache tribe prior to the apocalypse (as in real life). The reason a lot of non-Native people are there, is because it became a remote place for people to flee the pre-apocalypse war and pre-zombie-virus outbreaks.
Because Noah is the leader of Whiteriver, it would be unrealistic to make him anything but Apache, but I didn't state this outright. There are hints, like the fact that he was a member of Sigma Nu Alpha Gamma when he went to college at the University of Oklahoma.
Noah also needed to be someone people respected and listened to, but needed to contrast the Duke. So, I made him a doctor. (There were other reasons for that which I'll get into.) The backstory is that he moved to Navezgane to combat the (pre-zombie-virus) outbreak, but ended up staying after the first Blood Moon. He is the leader of Whiteriver because the entire White Mountain Apache Tribal Council was eaten.
I didn't put it in my mod, but in late game, I planned to reveal Noah's terrible secret. He actually came to Navezgane to work for Higachi Labs, and ended up playing a part in creating the zombie virus. He's been doing good deeds because of his soul-crushing guilt.
Like The Fun Pimps, I wanted players to choose between them. But I wanted a practical reason for them to do it. So, I thought they should represent two different style of
game mechanics.
The Duke would represent "action" elements, and Noah would represent the "survival" aspects. So, the Duke would have the best armor and weapons; while Noah would have the best tools, food, crops, and medicine (this is partly why he is a doctor). You would ally with whichever one matched your play style.
This affected their alliances with the different traders. At the time, TFP hadn't defined the trader alliances like they are in the game files now, so mine were different. They were based on what each trader specialized in, which was also different than what is in the game now.
Joel specialized in armor, and Hugh specialized in weapons and ammo, so they were both allies of the Duke. Jen specialized in medicine, and Bob specialized in tools, so they were allies of Noah. Rekt was just as much of a jerk then as he is now, so he allied with neither (as Bob does now).
I also made each trader have different amounts of knowledge about the Duke and Noah. Traders which were allies with one of them wouldn't know any real details about the other. For example, if you asked Jen about why the Cassadores have that name, she would answer "I guess the Duke is a fan of Age of Empires III."
But, aside from the trader alliances, this lore works
remarkably well with what is already in the unreleased game files. You could drop this plot in, and
most of the existing dialog in the localization file would work just fine as is.
In terms of the amount of work required, it's not all that much.
If I can do it in my spare time, TFP can do it, and I'm sure they can do it much better than me.
