Nah, it just means Nod's propagandists actually have brains on them.
Ehh.
It means both that they have brains, and that they are being pushed by circumstance to
use those brains. That is to say, that the Green Zones represent a large enough propaganda 'market' that it's worth Nod's time to speak to them, and that the situation in the Green Zones differs enough from a normal Yellow Zone that they need a different propaganda tactic if they want to make any gains.
The point of the omake was to try and get a bit of a broader perspective in the thread (most of what we see in text is very pro-GDI slant which I get the feeling is kind of warping perspectives a bit) and get people to avoid slipping into the mindset that must surely we must be improving things in the Yellow Zones because the numbers and GDI-operated social media say so and people will definitely be grateful.
And I very much want to avoid "it was the result of a few bad eggs" as much as possible, because that's a lazy excuse.
And point out that, you know, decisions sometimes have consequences beyond what you foresaw, especially when you're only looking from a top-down perspective. It's just my extrapolation of a consequence of one of the thread's decisions and running with it.
As long as one doesn't turn it into a unilateral narrative favoring the other side.
GDI is too large as an organization for there to
NOT have been incidents of GDI troops doing some brutal ham-handed 'policing' here and there, because when you recruit and deploy a million soldiers to a war zone, some of 'em are going to be fucked up individuals. That's not me dismissing them as "a few bad eggs," it's very much the reality that in a large enough mass of eggs, some of them will be bad. That's how you even
know such things have happened when operating at the high strategic level as we do... because it would be impossible under human nature for them
not to have happened.
At the same time, Nod is
having to gloss over a lot of stuff to make headway. Notice, for instance, that their argument about how GDI letting Green Zoners participate in GDI elections isn't really directed at the voting Green Zoners, it's directed at Green/Yellow Zoners who
still don't vote in our elections. As of right now, Green Zone populations are only a small fraction of the total Yellow Zone population, and a (less) small fraction of the total Blue Zone population. If the Blue Zones hold around 500 million and the Yellow Zones as a whole hold 1000 million, the Green (that is, GDI-occupied Yellow) Zones hold more like 50-100 million. They are a distinct minority of the population... which means that
no shit they're politically underrepresented. But the argument has to be this speculative "surely GDI would never risk running an election in which Yellow Zoners outnumber Blue Zoners" thing and... I won't say it falls flat, people will buy it... but then, a lot of people in Yellow Zones are accustomed to buying bullshit from Nod.
I like to think that none of us are in the position of deluding ourselves into thinking that Nod cannot adapt and continue to fight a propaganda war against us in the Green Zones. They surely can, and their propaganda will continue to play off of real grievances that we simply cannot address perfectly or address fast enough. Many people in the Yellow Zones are deeply bitter or deeply propagandized, even if we look at only the ones who aren't actively working for Nod.
As long as we don't flip all the way over into thinking that GDI claims to have been a benefit in the Yellow Zones are lies
among ourselves. We are, if nothing else,
sincere and making a concrete enough difference that when we build a new MARV hub or fortress town, Yellow Zoners still flock to it as refugees.
