Bundschuh: Terrorists or not?

[Proselyte]

That might be by far one of the most unhinged takes ever mentioned on this entire forum, and I'm not sure at this point how we can possibly step even lower than this.

The world just isn't that simple, I'm sorry to say. I wish it were.

But a question like this was bound to touch on people's beliefs about the legitimacy of violence as political expression, and in an era like ours in real life, you'll get deeply varied opinions. Sometimes they get recycled into in-game opinions (in better or worse form) because Freelancer isn't shy about real world influences - it's half the game's personality, so people roll with that (for better or worse). Nobody's out here advocating for real violence against real people in this thread. They might if you ask them in a different context, but, that's life.

So, the question itself.

I don't know. Definitionally, sure, they are terrorists, but it is a definition coming from the perspective that political violence is an illegitimate tool for change. I really want to believe in that, but, an illegitimate government would use that same argument as our supposedly legitimate ones. Are the Galactic Empire terrorists in Star Wars? The Rebel Alliance would definitely qualify. Does that make them lesser, or evil? Star Wars doesn't seem to want you to think so, versus the evil inherent in the Empire. Even when Andor (best Star Wars media made in decades) dives into showing all the dirt and blood and muck of running a revolution, it's still shown as necessary, because the Empire is just that bad.

Is Star Wars then advocating political violence? I doubt it. Does that mean all definitional terrorists must be admirable rebels? No, the Xenos are gleeful about the mass murder they cause in comparison. It isn't the same spirit at all between them.

Freelancer, to the common reader, seems to lean more towards showing the Bundschuh as the admirable rebel type than the gleeful-about-slaughtering-infidels type.

So, I said no, in spirit. Putting them under the same label that the Xenos instead would wear proudly simply feels wrong, even if the Bundschuh's enemies would shout from the rooftops that it's right. They sure do lots of political violence, but it's of a less indiscriminate and bloodthirsty character than more out and out terrorists like the Maquis, who at this point would happily go Reign of Terror on Gallia if they could manage to, I'm sure. The (NPC) Bundschuh's work, far as I can tell, is very discriminate.

So in trying to wield the word "terrorist" in some way that matters from an outside perspective, I don't think so.