Helldivers 2 has players excited about the chance of a rogue fourth faction after Super Earth declares a 'War on Dissidence'
Helldivers 2's latest Major Order has players in a bit of a tizzy, because it's putting the latent paranoia of Super Earth and High Command front-and-centre of its very own War on Terror. Super Earth has declared a new "War on Dissidence," after declaring that "the expanded Center for Citizen Surveillance and Safety has found dissident activity on every Super Earth planet, save Super Earth itself."
Arrowhead's writers always do a great job of selling such purges, and the signs of dissidence are no exception:
"The indicators are clear: extended breaks; prolonged eye contact with authority figures; use of slang; avoiding eye contact with authority figures. These acts of disloyalty endanger all citizens—as tragically proved by recent attacks.
"The Government has declared a new war: the War on Dissidence. All domestic territories are officially designated as warzones. Curfews are in place. Military surveillance satellites have been turned inward to scan for dissident threats."
As well as this, High Command has ordered construction of "a massive, Mega City-sized Center for the Containment of Dissidence on Afoyay Bay." This mega jail is the focus of the Major Order, with the Helldivers ordered to liberate Afoyay Bay: which will take some doing, because it's currently surrounded with Illuminate-controlled planets.
Which may well be the whole point. Helldiver WandererSonOfWar asks "Are we making Guantanamo Bay?" WingAggravating6584 has the only correct response: "Super Guantanamo Bay. Larger than greater LA."
New major order, super earth has officially declared war on dissidents from r/Helldivers
The obvious gags aside, the newly discovered presence of dissidents has players wondering whether the game is moving towards a fourth faction, and even possibly adding a PvP element (Helldivers 2 has friendly fire, but no PvP mode). The setup would seem to be obvious: some sort of rogue Helldivers faction, possibly controlled by the Illuminate, that goes around screwing up the real Helldivers.
That also contains the delicious possibility that Helldivers may all think they're on the right side of the fight, even when they're doing the bidding of evil commie space aliens. This is of course just speculation, but this is also how Helldivers 2 tends to tease things, and the game hasn't had a truly major addition since the Illuminate themselves. Should the Helldivers manage to liberate Afoyay Bay, we'll presumably get a much better idea of where this is all going.
Elsewhere in the game, Helldivers 2 players recently exercised their democratic rights by choosing to re-name a destroyed-then-rebuilt city called York Supreme as New York Supreme. Unfortunately, however, they chose this nonsense over the far superior choice of "Bernard." Maybe High Command is right: round up everyone who voted for New York Supreme!