The Russian swastika has been sneaked into your graphics and is quite visible!

[Tuuktuuk]

I was playing a terror mission, and suddenly noticed that a tank had what looks like the Russian swastika spray painted on the back of a tank in the scenery.

I then found an old video of a terror mission, with the Russian swastika missing. That means, the symbol has been added to the tank afterwards. As it feels unlikely that you would be supporters of genocides, it looks like someone in your graphics team is playing their own dirty tricks behind your backs.

Could you fix this please? I've got close people who are born in the city of Donetsk and whose extended family lost four apartments soon after the war began in 2014, and seeing a symbol of those forces in a game – something that is supposed to be a nice pastime really feels horrible!

Below a screenshot of what the game looks now and an another one from a Youtube video, how the same tank looked before someone edited your assets.

 

[Komandos]

So it's a letter of the Latin alphabet. The Israeli Army puts such signs on its tanks.

[Tuuktuuk]

Well noticed!

That letter, the letter Z, is used by the fascist forces invading Ukraine, as the symbol of that invasion. It can be seen in _all_ of their tanks. Just like you show in the pictures of other tanks that have their own military markings. You can look for images of tanks of _any_ country in the world, and you will see some symbols with the same idea – to see which army the tank belongs to. And this symbol here does not denote merely the Russia, but what they call "Three-day-long Special Military Operation". It does not mean simply "the Russia", but "the Russia attacking a neighbouring country in search of Lebensraum." And, the game takes place in the 1970's, while the Russian Swastika was taken to military use only in 2022, some 50 years after the events in Xenonauts.

If Israel was really bombarding down complete cities of several hundred thousands of people so that those towns are reduced to mere rubble, of course it would not be okay for a computer game to boast those symbols you've showed. But, Israel is not doing even one percent of the evil that the Russia is doing in Ukraine. So, if Xenonauts was showing those Israeli symbols on that tank, I would be somewhat okay with it.

But, any military symbol used by any horrible power that is actively working against the very basics of humanity would be absolutely unwelcome as an asset of the friendly troops in a game such as Xenonauts. It is crazy that when I'm playing a game where my troops are fighting _for_ humanity, then suddenly in the military equipment of my allies there is a military symbol of the very thing the enemies in that game are doing.

We are talking about a symbol used by the very embodiment of evil on this planet. Yes, it happens to be a letter of the alphabet of many languages, but it is the letter chosen by the most evil country on this planet in order to spread its inhumane values of horror and destruction. Because of this context, when used on a tank or something recognizable as propaganda material in the game's universe, it is not a mere letter of alphabet.

(It also makes it illegal to sell this game in several European countries)

[Komandos]

8 hours ago, Tuuktuuk said:

But, any military symbol used by any horrible power that is actively working against the very basics of humanity would be absolutely unwelcome as an asset of the friendly troops in a game such as Xenonauts. It is crazy that when I'm playing a game where my troops are fighting _for_ humanity, then suddenly in the military equipment of my allies there is a military symbol of the very thing the enemies in that game are doing.

Why did you decide to ban tanks with the Latin letter "Z" right now, when the whole world is looking at Israel and sees Israeli tanks with the symbol "Z"?

[Tuuktuuk]

On 10/26/2023 at 7:29 AM, Komandos said:

Why did you decide to ban tanks with the Latin letter "Z" right now, when the whole world is looking at Israel and sees Israeli tanks with the symbol "Z"?

Could you show a photo of that, if what you're claiming is true?

[Komandos]

[Tuuktuuk]

You sent an image with tanks showing different Hebrew characters, one of them looking like the numeral "2" and one looking kind of like the Half Life logo, a stylished Lambda.

None of these tanks show the latin letter Z. Did you maybe link an incorrect image?

Edited October 28, 2023 by Tuuktuuk

[Komandos]

1, 3,

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, Tuuktuuk said:

You sent an image with tanks showing different Hebrew characters, one of them looking like the numeral "2" and one looking kind of like the Half Life logo, a stylished Lambda.

The Israeli military says that this is the letter "Z" (read the article "tactical symbols on Israeli tanks"). We have no reason not to trust the Israeli army.

[Tuuktuuk]

16 hours ago, Komandos said:

The Israeli military says that this is the letter "Z" (read the article "tactical symbols on Israeli tanks"). We have no reason not to trust the Israeli army.

That is true. If they say so, then it is so.

Now, as the next, we'd still need to figure out why you think that the Israel army's use of that symbol is there for supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The symbol looks very different than in Xenonauts and on the fascists' tanks in Ukraine.

The Russian swastika, shown in Xenonauts, is typically made by painting with spray paint on freehand. Its history is that fascist army's soldiers were first told to draw two horizontal lines over each other, then on the very day when the inhumane invasion began, they were told to connect the upper line's right end to the lower line's left end using one straight line. As all of this was made with free hand, you can always see they are made in haste. It is clear in Xenonauts that the symbol looking like the latin letter "Z" is indeed meant to mean the Russian Swastika, as the two symbols on different sides of the tank's rear are slightly different and intentionally made to look spray-painted.

Also, they were not visible in the original assets, but where only added to Xenonauts during the war against humanity in Ukraine.

I believe the Israeli symbols are much older than 24th of February 2022, so there really is no connection. Also, Israel only uses that as a tactical symbol, not as a propaganda symbol. For example, there's no way you'd find any of those Israel tactical symbols used as monuments, as is visible on this video.

Also, the Russia is now full of this kind of huge propaganda posters, rallying the people behind the Russian swastika:

The Russia is using this symbol in its propaganda in order to get people behind the idea that Russians should not have any human rights and should simply blindly follow their pravitel. It is a symbol of all the horror the Russia is doing in Ukraine. It is a symbol of bombing hospitals and schools, it is a symbol of blowing up dams to drown human beings belonging to an incorrect ethnicity.

It is a symbol of ethnic cleansing. And a symbol of ethnic cleansing does not belong in a game such as Xenonauts. Even if it is also used as a tactical symbol.

[Tuuktuuk]

Here some more uses of the Russian swastika:

^^ The front of the tank shows the Russian swastika in almost precisely the same way as the Xenonauts asset – and very differently from the reasonably civilized-looking way the Israeli tanks are showing their different tactical symbols in your pictures.

^^ Here's the Russian swastika being used as a part of a military symbol used by some regiments of the Russia's troops

^^ One of the many many posters showing the Russian swastika the Russia's streets. The text means "For Russia! Truth is as we say!"

^^ Children belonging to the Russia's ruling party's youth organization "Young Guard" forming the Russian swastika in a propaganda happening.

You do not see this kind of stuff done by countries that use different Latin letters as mere tactical symbols. The symbol's use in Xenonauts is meant as intentional support of the fascist forces in Ukrainian territory. And is unacceptable.

It simply must go!

[Komandos]

Israeli tank destroys Gaza today

The letter "Z" is just one of the tactical symbols that are applied to armored vehicles by different countries. You use the letter "Z" yourself and do not demand to be banned for it.

 

 

Do you want to ban the entire Latin alphabet?

 

[Tuuktuuk]

On 11/1/2023 at 4:13 PM, Komandos said:

Not interested in banning any letters at all. Just the symbol used for the needs of the genocide against Ukrainians, that happens to look like the Latin letter Z, yes. But the problem is not the letter, the problem is the genocide and all of its promotion material. Such as in the rear of that tank in Xenonauts.

 

[Komandos]

3 hours ago, Tuuktuuk said:

Such as in the rear of that tank in Xenonauts.

You have already been told: the tactical sign "Z" on tanks is used by many armies of the world. At the moment, the tactical "Z" sign on the back of the tank is used by Israel. You can see it in the photos from Gaza.

[Tuuktuuk]

Yes, but we are not talking about a tactical sign. We are talking about a propaganda sign that is /also/ being used as a tactical sign.

We are talking about a horribly inhumanely behaving country that is trying to end the existence of another people. This has been considered a very bad thing since the year 1945. The symbol as used in Xenonauts is not just some tactical symbol. It has clearly been made to look like the Russian propaganda symbol.

 

And it must go.

[Komandos]

,We know how Ukraine supported the UN resolution banning the propaganda of Nazism and fascism.

 

[Komandos]

The game was released in 2014, so the developers basically could not use the symbols of 2022.

[Chris]

On 10/23/2023 at 9:38 PM, Tuuktuuk said:

I was playing a terror mission, and suddenly noticed that a tank had what looks like the Russian swastika spray painted on the back of a tank in the scenery.

I then found an old video of a terror mission, with the Russian swastika missing. That means, the symbol has been added to the tank afterwards. As it feels unlikely that you would be supporters of genocides, it looks like someone in your graphics team is playing their own dirty tricks behind your backs.

Could you fix this please? I've got close people who are born in the city of Donetsk and whose extended family lost four apartments soon after the war began in 2014, and seeing a symbol of those forces in a game – something that is supposed to be a nice pastime really feels horrible!

Below a screenshot of what the game looks now and an another one from a Youtube video, how the same tank looked before someone edited your assets.

 

That does look a bit like a Z, yeah. But it's just coincidence - it's just line detailing on the tank, similar to the Xs on the boxes above. As you say, we'd absolutely not accept having Zs painted deliberately on our tanks given the current meaning of the symbol.

The video you see shows the tank at a different angle, and the sprites are a unique paintover in each angle so I think if you manage to find a video from 2012 showing the tank facing the same way you'll see the Zs are present there too (or if you're on the community edition you can just look in the game files to check).

Plus the artist that painted them was Romanian, and despite being used in some Soviet Maps that vehicle is actually an American Bradley so it'd be weird if the artist drew Zs on that rather than the T-80 sprites we also have in the game.