'Yet the task of documentation, also a path towards truth, is humanising; it humanises the victim, who reclaims their voice and their story. It also rehumanises the executioner. Let them not become an old wretch, floating in their pure ideas; in an evil formalin; in their last lie before the great departure.'
– Rithy Panh, La paix avec les morts, Grasset, Paris, 2020, p. 167 (personal translation).
Travelling from Toronto to Belgrade, Tea Radan, the protagonist of Daša Drndić's Canzone di Guerra (2019), embarks on a profound investigation to understand the traumas of a country slowly rebuilding after the war and torn by the hypocrisies of liberal democracy. In a long recitation, she gives the names of witnesses and authors who have written about Alojzije Stepinac and Ante Pavelić, finally uncovering information that sheds – for her – new light on historical developments in Croatia: 'There was fascism, there was communism and the bugbears of communism. Now, there is, supposedly, none of that, and all the filth of those times has been swept under the carpet. It is here, it is all here, hidden, transformed into democracy, which is not that. Because, for instance, what is now sold as democracy is in fact levelling, in fact it is restriction, a great restriction that threatens a whole lot of small restrictions by the police for everyone who does not submit' [1].
History and memories of the Balkan wars beneath the sighs of The Hague
There is something incisive about Drndić's writing and Tea Radan's personality. She is not a classically trained historian, but a woman in need of answers about her own identity and with an acute desire for justice after the general failure of post-war prosecutions. In her search for the truth, Tea highlights personal affinities with her own family; the lives of individuals are inscribed in the great course of history and tragedy, constantly on the verge of being consumed by political events, wars and disasters. Drndić's approach embraces a vivid national memory, however tamely ignored in the lights of the twenty-first century: it is about discussing a past that does not pass, and finding solace in trying to know what happened. This approach is not unique to Drndić. Literature written after the Balkan conflicts is permeated by this desire for recognition, as is post-genocide literature. Rithy Panh's attempt, after years of artistic creation to assuage the terrible pain inflicted by the Khmer Rouge, is to seek a certain form of reconciliation – to make 'peace with the dead'. In this book, he tries to meet the victims, the executioners and the accomplices, to exorcise the voice of the dead: 'I can neither forget nor remember. But I can live and I want to live,' [2] he wrote.
In a way, Mémoire 0079 addresses similar themes, perhaps without the intimate sharpness that characterises the accounts of those who experienced the horrors of war at first hand. The player is invited to discover the events that shaped the conflict between the United Earth Treaty Organization and the Empire of Ceres. Contrary to what the description might suggest, the title is less a Wikipedia page than a meditation on documents of all kinds, from transcripts of conversations to official speeches, from press articles to historians' analyses, allowing the player to understand different points of view. Beyond the virulent condemnation of the war, the great strength of Mémoire 0079 is that it presents a complex set of truths, reflecting very different perspectives and ideologies. The heroism of the battles between Vega Hawthorne and the Star Phantasma contrasts sharply with the fear felt by the immediate victims of the conflict. As in the literature of genocide, Mémoire 0079 succeeds in highlighting the agency of individuals, their mentalities, their fears and their involvement in the coldly described events.
The crisis of imperial societies
This nuance is handled with great care through the constant interplay of points of view and the variety of writing styles, with Woodaba's passionate outbursts responding to Roxy's cold wistfulness. The conflict between Ceres and the UETO absorbs and mimics phenomena observed and described in many contemporary wars. The Republic – then Empire – of Ceres adopts the colours of the USSR, Ukraine, Nazi Germany and Vietnam. In a way, this chaotic approach actually works, as it underlines the imperialist continuities in modern conflicts, as well as the importance of ideological structures. As a former colony of the UETO, the breath of independence on Ceres is accompanied by neo-colonial permanence, resulting in a strong antipathy towards the former metropole. The following years mirrored the German despair of the interwar period, when the working classes experienced a slow downward spiral after the short-lived successes of the early Weimar Republic.
As in 1920s Germany, social instability in Ceres was exacerbated by the agricultural crisis. Farmers could no longer make a living from their produce, and day labourers could no longer migrate to the cities because of the lack of job prospects in industry. Mémoire 0079 compounded this situation with neo-colonial taxation, which made life unbearable and fuelled a strong hatred for the UETO and the Colonial Defence League, a conglomerate of capitalist interests. This situation led to the development of a fiery propaganda and nationalism, with its own codes, rituals, spectacle society and, slowly, a cult of the leader – combining the genesis of Nazi Germany with that of the USSR and modern Russia. The warmongering of the Empire of Ceres follows the same pattern as that of Nazi society: 'These [aggressive] programmes were not only the mad dream of the ruling clique, but also of the entire former ruling class and of that part of the population that had followed them to the end through the Burgfrieden of the previous conflict' [3]. The same resentment was nourished by parts of Ceres society, whose independence had been nothing more than a hope dashed by capitalist constants, echoing the mistrust of former colonies after the decolonisation process.
The vividness of these themes is undermined, however, by the decision to make capitalism a tangible entity rather than a fundamental principle that interferes with the basic structure of UETO and Ceres. Rather frustratingly, the two factions find themselves in the conflict almost without free will, as it is orchestrated from above. They become cowardly or martyred factions, which somewhat diminishes the magnitude of the atrocities committed during the more violent battles. At times, Mémoire 0079 falls into the trap of appearing conspiratorial, drawing too sharp a distinction between the political and economic spheres rather than showing how they are effectively intertwined. Similarly, the game's discourse is openly critical of American military and economic imperialism, but sometimes too unwieldy in the bipolarisation of its universe. The mention of the non-aligned nations of the UETO, which is too cursory to be handled with finesse, borders on confusionism and erases the complexity of current international relations.
Glasshouses, shitballs and those who remain
These approximations and missteps are perhaps due to the situated point of view of the creators, whose intention was not to present a complex picture of the causes underlying the crises of imperialist societies in the contemporary era, but perhaps simply to highlight the violent horrors of war and systems of domination. While the nuance lost in certain themes can prove problematic and would have deserved to be explored in greater depth, Mémoire 0079 shines through the tactile quality of its characters' experiences. The characters exude sincerity, even though their behaviour has been shaped by the cultural tools of the ruling classes: they are all pathetic in their own way and, when viewed from above, inspire a certain compassion. No one is perfect and no one is entirely forgivable, but there is something important in trying to understand the actions of the various actors in the conflict.
The title's meditations, while occasionally relying on convenient clichés, work by borrowing many traits from the writing of Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). The reference is useful in Vega's rivalry with Ceres' star pilot, but also metatextually to underline a certain defeat of cultural production. Like Canzone di Guerra, Memory 0079 does not rely on didactic summations, but seeks above all to describe. The characters' most intimate introspections are imbued with an anguish that transcends that of the armed conflict, even if it sometimes lapses into simplistic pathos. Nevertheless, the contrast between the propaganda of the United Earth Treaty Organisation Historical Association and the more intimate chronicle of the history of Ceres helps to overcome these shortcomings.
Memory 0079 is driven by a genuine concern for the long-term nature of trauma. It is customary to label certain contemporary periods as 'postwar', but the traces of war always linger in societies and landscapes, while certain structures of domination remain firmly in place. The end of the war merely ushers in a new cycle of crises, which take different forms but still bleed into the surviving societies. The Khmer society and diaspora are still scarred by the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, which continue to be visible on the roadsides. For all her investigation, Tea cannot find definitive answers to her questions; Daša Drndić underlines this observation by ending her novel with a few highlighted words: 'Not the end' [4]. The construction of memories, the writing of history and the path to appeasement are an ongoing struggle.
__________
[1] Daša Drndić, Canzone di Guerra, Istros Books, London, 2022 [2019], p. 77 (tr. Celia Hawkesworth).
[2] Rithy Panh, La paix avec les morts, Grasset, Paris, 2020, p. 170 (personal translation).
[3] Christophe Charle, La Crise des sociétés impériales, Seuil, Paris, 2001, p. 488 (personal translation).
[4] Daša Drndić, op. cit., p. 156.
– Rithy Panh, La paix avec les morts, Grasset, Paris, 2020, p. 167 (personal translation).
Travelling from Toronto to Belgrade, Tea Radan, the protagonist of Daša Drndić's Canzone di Guerra (2019), embarks on a profound investigation to understand the traumas of a country slowly rebuilding after the war and torn by the hypocrisies of liberal democracy. In a long recitation, she gives the names of witnesses and authors who have written about Alojzije Stepinac and Ante Pavelić, finally uncovering information that sheds – for her – new light on historical developments in Croatia: 'There was fascism, there was communism and the bugbears of communism. Now, there is, supposedly, none of that, and all the filth of those times has been swept under the carpet. It is here, it is all here, hidden, transformed into democracy, which is not that. Because, for instance, what is now sold as democracy is in fact levelling, in fact it is restriction, a great restriction that threatens a whole lot of small restrictions by the police for everyone who does not submit' [1].
History and memories of the Balkan wars beneath the sighs of The Hague
There is something incisive about Drndić's writing and Tea Radan's personality. She is not a classically trained historian, but a woman in need of answers about her own identity and with an acute desire for justice after the general failure of post-war prosecutions. In her search for the truth, Tea highlights personal affinities with her own family; the lives of individuals are inscribed in the great course of history and tragedy, constantly on the verge of being consumed by political events, wars and disasters. Drndić's approach embraces a vivid national memory, however tamely ignored in the lights of the twenty-first century: it is about discussing a past that does not pass, and finding solace in trying to know what happened. This approach is not unique to Drndić. Literature written after the Balkan conflicts is permeated by this desire for recognition, as is post-genocide literature. Rithy Panh's attempt, after years of artistic creation to assuage the terrible pain inflicted by the Khmer Rouge, is to seek a certain form of reconciliation – to make 'peace with the dead'. In this book, he tries to meet the victims, the executioners and the accomplices, to exorcise the voice of the dead: 'I can neither forget nor remember. But I can live and I want to live,' [2] he wrote.
In a way, Mémoire 0079 addresses similar themes, perhaps without the intimate sharpness that characterises the accounts of those who experienced the horrors of war at first hand. The player is invited to discover the events that shaped the conflict between the United Earth Treaty Organization and the Empire of Ceres. Contrary to what the description might suggest, the title is less a Wikipedia page than a meditation on documents of all kinds, from transcripts of conversations to official speeches, from press articles to historians' analyses, allowing the player to understand different points of view. Beyond the virulent condemnation of the war, the great strength of Mémoire 0079 is that it presents a complex set of truths, reflecting very different perspectives and ideologies. The heroism of the battles between Vega Hawthorne and the Star Phantasma contrasts sharply with the fear felt by the immediate victims of the conflict. As in the literature of genocide, Mémoire 0079 succeeds in highlighting the agency of individuals, their mentalities, their fears and their involvement in the coldly described events.
The crisis of imperial societies
This nuance is handled with great care through the constant interplay of points of view and the variety of writing styles, with Woodaba's passionate outbursts responding to Roxy's cold wistfulness. The conflict between Ceres and the UETO absorbs and mimics phenomena observed and described in many contemporary wars. The Republic – then Empire – of Ceres adopts the colours of the USSR, Ukraine, Nazi Germany and Vietnam. In a way, this chaotic approach actually works, as it underlines the imperialist continuities in modern conflicts, as well as the importance of ideological structures. As a former colony of the UETO, the breath of independence on Ceres is accompanied by neo-colonial permanence, resulting in a strong antipathy towards the former metropole. The following years mirrored the German despair of the interwar period, when the working classes experienced a slow downward spiral after the short-lived successes of the early Weimar Republic.
As in 1920s Germany, social instability in Ceres was exacerbated by the agricultural crisis. Farmers could no longer make a living from their produce, and day labourers could no longer migrate to the cities because of the lack of job prospects in industry. Mémoire 0079 compounded this situation with neo-colonial taxation, which made life unbearable and fuelled a strong hatred for the UETO and the Colonial Defence League, a conglomerate of capitalist interests. This situation led to the development of a fiery propaganda and nationalism, with its own codes, rituals, spectacle society and, slowly, a cult of the leader – combining the genesis of Nazi Germany with that of the USSR and modern Russia. The warmongering of the Empire of Ceres follows the same pattern as that of Nazi society: 'These [aggressive] programmes were not only the mad dream of the ruling clique, but also of the entire former ruling class and of that part of the population that had followed them to the end through the Burgfrieden of the previous conflict' [3]. The same resentment was nourished by parts of Ceres society, whose independence had been nothing more than a hope dashed by capitalist constants, echoing the mistrust of former colonies after the decolonisation process.
The vividness of these themes is undermined, however, by the decision to make capitalism a tangible entity rather than a fundamental principle that interferes with the basic structure of UETO and Ceres. Rather frustratingly, the two factions find themselves in the conflict almost without free will, as it is orchestrated from above. They become cowardly or martyred factions, which somewhat diminishes the magnitude of the atrocities committed during the more violent battles. At times, Mémoire 0079 falls into the trap of appearing conspiratorial, drawing too sharp a distinction between the political and economic spheres rather than showing how they are effectively intertwined. Similarly, the game's discourse is openly critical of American military and economic imperialism, but sometimes too unwieldy in the bipolarisation of its universe. The mention of the non-aligned nations of the UETO, which is too cursory to be handled with finesse, borders on confusionism and erases the complexity of current international relations.
Glasshouses, shitballs and those who remain
These approximations and missteps are perhaps due to the situated point of view of the creators, whose intention was not to present a complex picture of the causes underlying the crises of imperialist societies in the contemporary era, but perhaps simply to highlight the violent horrors of war and systems of domination. While the nuance lost in certain themes can prove problematic and would have deserved to be explored in greater depth, Mémoire 0079 shines through the tactile quality of its characters' experiences. The characters exude sincerity, even though their behaviour has been shaped by the cultural tools of the ruling classes: they are all pathetic in their own way and, when viewed from above, inspire a certain compassion. No one is perfect and no one is entirely forgivable, but there is something important in trying to understand the actions of the various actors in the conflict.
The title's meditations, while occasionally relying on convenient clichés, work by borrowing many traits from the writing of Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). The reference is useful in Vega's rivalry with Ceres' star pilot, but also metatextually to underline a certain defeat of cultural production. Like Canzone di Guerra, Memory 0079 does not rely on didactic summations, but seeks above all to describe. The characters' most intimate introspections are imbued with an anguish that transcends that of the armed conflict, even if it sometimes lapses into simplistic pathos. Nevertheless, the contrast between the propaganda of the United Earth Treaty Organisation Historical Association and the more intimate chronicle of the history of Ceres helps to overcome these shortcomings.
Memory 0079 is driven by a genuine concern for the long-term nature of trauma. It is customary to label certain contemporary periods as 'postwar', but the traces of war always linger in societies and landscapes, while certain structures of domination remain firmly in place. The end of the war merely ushers in a new cycle of crises, which take different forms but still bleed into the surviving societies. The Khmer society and diaspora are still scarred by the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, which continue to be visible on the roadsides. For all her investigation, Tea cannot find definitive answers to her questions; Daša Drndić underlines this observation by ending her novel with a few highlighted words: 'Not the end' [4]. The construction of memories, the writing of history and the path to appeasement are an ongoing struggle.
__________
[1] Daša Drndić, Canzone di Guerra, Istros Books, London, 2022 [2019], p. 77 (tr. Celia Hawkesworth).
[2] Rithy Panh, La paix avec les morts, Grasset, Paris, 2020, p. 170 (personal translation).
[3] Christophe Charle, La Crise des sociétés impériales, Seuil, Paris, 2001, p. 488 (personal translation).
[4] Daša Drndić, op. cit., p. 156.
2 Comments
@Squigglydot: First of all, thank you again for this game and your kind words!
On the nuance, I felt like the individual entries were good – I think you can indeed take pride in your writing style –, but failed to completely match the breadth of themes you wanted to explore in this game. As I said, there's a very interesting shifts in scopes, showing wars from an administrative and political perspective before being more personal. But individuals here are often exemplifying broad groups in society. There's the scientist, there's the average civilian, the journalist, the soldier, etc. It's fine, but it's a bit formulaic in this type of fiction. I think some bits are not committing entirely to the anecdotal aspect of your portrayal of war, when it wouldn't be a problem in my opinion, on the contrary.
For me, the biggest issue that I only grazed in the review to avoid spoilers is the mastermind status of the conglomerate. It's not a bad trope and it works well enough in a basic anti-capitalist and straightforward story. But you are aiming for better than that and it ultimately undermines the plausibility of the whole universe. The strategical musings, aware enough to mention the L2 Lagrange point and its meaning, imply a deep sense of rationality from all the actors, but that's a bit washed away by the 'twist'. In modern and contemporary societies, the boundaries between the private and the public sectors in imperialist endeavours are not that rigid. Everything is more intertwined (see the British East India Company or modern military-industrial complexes). Science-fiction is interesting because you can indeed aggravate those phenomena, but here, it feels a bit dissonant with the rest of the game – although other reviews seemed to like that.
I think the efforts to make the story coherent are very evident, but because you have such a strong starting structure, every exaggeration or lack of nuance is really compounded, at least for my tastes. For example, I think the mention of the resources tension was enough to highlight the weight of capitalism in the conflict; having the conglomerate inside both the UETO and Ceres, instead of completely independent and superior players could be another idea (weirdly enough, they were unable to save Ceres's blueprints during the R&D raid incident despite having their own militia and shadow groups).
All of that to say that there is an incredible potential here and it's already a good work! I would be very excited to see a definitive edition that had the time to iron out everything and be closer to your ideal vision.
On the nuance, I felt like the individual entries were good – I think you can indeed take pride in your writing style –, but failed to completely match the breadth of themes you wanted to explore in this game. As I said, there's a very interesting shifts in scopes, showing wars from an administrative and political perspective before being more personal. But individuals here are often exemplifying broad groups in society. There's the scientist, there's the average civilian, the journalist, the soldier, etc. It's fine, but it's a bit formulaic in this type of fiction. I think some bits are not committing entirely to the anecdotal aspect of your portrayal of war, when it wouldn't be a problem in my opinion, on the contrary.
For me, the biggest issue that I only grazed in the review to avoid spoilers is the mastermind status of the conglomerate. It's not a bad trope and it works well enough in a basic anti-capitalist and straightforward story. But you are aiming for better than that and it ultimately undermines the plausibility of the whole universe. The strategical musings, aware enough to mention the L2 Lagrange point and its meaning, imply a deep sense of rationality from all the actors, but that's a bit washed away by the 'twist'. In modern and contemporary societies, the boundaries between the private and the public sectors in imperialist endeavours are not that rigid. Everything is more intertwined (see the British East India Company or modern military-industrial complexes). Science-fiction is interesting because you can indeed aggravate those phenomena, but here, it feels a bit dissonant with the rest of the game – although other reviews seemed to like that.
I think the efforts to make the story coherent are very evident, but because you have such a strong starting structure, every exaggeration or lack of nuance is really compounded, at least for my tastes. For example, I think the mention of the resources tension was enough to highlight the weight of capitalism in the conflict; having the conglomerate inside both the UETO and Ceres, instead of completely independent and superior players could be another idea (weirdly enough, they were unable to save Ceres's blueprints during the R&D raid incident despite having their own militia and shadow groups).
All of that to say that there is an incredible potential here and it's already a good work! I would be very excited to see a definitive edition that had the time to iron out everything and be closer to your ideal vision.
Squigglydot
8 months ago
When it comes to the criticisms you've expressed here, I couldn't agree more; there is a certain level of nuance that's just missing, and it does give a sort of… improper messiness to some of the work. I still stand by the quality of the writing itself, between Woodaba and I, but I think that at least part of the issue comes from a sense of overextended scope; during the two-week dev cycle, a lot of time was spent in back-and-forth communication and collaboration. There was a focus on making a cohesive story between the two storylines, but in the process of focusing on that I think some of the… "weight", of the topics being worked with, got out of hand. Retroactively, it stands as my one major criticism of the piece, one I can't explain away with the rushed nature of its development.
Seeing the support I've received for this game, I've been hoping to go back to it with Woodaba and the rest of the team and attempt to… well, create a more complete image of our intent with it. It's why I appreciate criticism like this most; not only are you wonderful at expressing your feelings on a work, but you're exceedingly clear on its failures as well. Again, I really, truly appreciate this review, and I'm glad you enjoyed the game above all else!