Frankly, Outcasts were intended to be space Italian mobsters, not Mexican cartels.
Well-dressed, well-spoken, violent only when needed. It was the playerbase of old mod versions that turned them into crooked criminals that are no better than your average Rogue.
The original names been Ishmael for Malta and Madrid for Crete, maybe that helps making a better distinction. There used to be infocards on Malta that referenced to a not small part of the people being catholic, but for some reason this infocard seems to've gone.
The Mediterranean Sea region of Earth is basically the origin of both Maltese and Cretans, so their planets and stations are christened with names from that whole region as the people on the Hispania been from all over that region.
The difference is that when the Hispania was sabotaged, some decided to stay with the wreck and the nearby planet, while others decided to move on. Those that stayed became the Maltese, those that moved on the Cretans.
(08-21-2016, 06:09 PM)Erinyes Wrote: Who randomly decided Malta = Italy, and why?
EUROPE
that is all
I know you're joking, but I'm going to go full Internet and answer seriously.
Malta's geographic closeness to Sicily doesn't make it Italian. The people speak Maltese and English. It's been owned by Spain, France, Britain, at various points. You have the Knights of Malta.
The point is Chris Roberts decided to lump hundreds of Romance languages together and loads of nationalities - and now you end up with weird Italian stereotyping for Outcasts and Corsairs being this bizarre group of pocket racism.
The player factions have not helped.
Hell, culturally, Space-Britain, Space-USA, Space-Canada should be one entity if we're going that far to smother distinctions in allied nations. It's ridiculous Bretonia and Liberty are distinct from each other but loads of southern Europeans are lumped into two offensive "brown people" niche as criminals and parasitic to more "developed" societies. It's like the game was written with Hitler's better known work in one hand and the advice of the KKK in the other.
The same have been done to the Pot-o'-gold-top-of-the-mornin'-to-yer-terrorist-Space-Irish you see in the FL universe.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
(08-21-2016, 06:09 PM)Erinyes Wrote: Where the hell is South America?
In the same place with India, Middle East and Africa.
As for Malta == Italy, I kinda agree that it's actually wrong. Beause Maltese language is a specific version of arabic and have nothing to do with Italian. Once again, everyone has his/her own vision for the simple reason: lack of vanilla information.
And Freelancer is Euro-centric game lorewise, 3 of 5 sleeperships are european. In disco we at least have some Coalition people sneaked into the Sirius, so you have more abilities to RP.
There were christians, muslims and jews coexisting peacefully in Toledo (Spain) for almost 400 years (1085 - 1492) until the latter were expelled.
I like to think The Order chose the name of Toledo to remind people that their fight against Nomads involved every human, no matter their beliefs, House, etc...