Helldivers 2 players have been tasked with building the ‘Democracy Space Station,’ a ‘gigastructure’ of indeterminate firepower that will be aimed by literal democracy
Space stations are rad as hell, and now one of these outposts of the final frontier is becoming Helldivers 2’s latest frontier in audacious, community-driven storytelling. The game’s new major order sees players engaging in the first of a four-part sequence to build the Democracy Space Station. Once built, the community will get to vote on where and how the Democratic Death Star will be deployed.
Maybe the coolest part of the whole deal is that you can actually see the under construction DSS in-game orbiting the planet of Gaellivare. Presumably it will change and grow as players complete the major orders involved in its construction, an exciting development in Helldivers 2’s unique brand of collaborative storytelling. It’s one thing to get those fun lore updates on what Major Orders are accomplishing, quite another to see this striking, quantifiable change in the game.
MAJOR ORDER: The Democracy Space Station has entered the first of four construction phases. Its inspiring, grey-toned hull can already be seen in the orbit of Gaellivare.Once complete, the DSS will be a new strategic-level weapon. It will wield powerful, Helldiver-directed… pic.twitter.com/h3pn3rSd1RSeptember 28, 2024
The first Major Order is to liberate and hold the world of Turing at the end of a five-day countdown—potentially a tall order, but the sheer cool factor on display might be enough to win over the required manpower from the playerbase. The in-universe explanation, according to the official Helldivers 2 account on X, “The Everything App,” is “to allow the Ministry of Science to establish a new, state-of-the-art Xenoentomology Center. The Center will prototype and develop new High-Efficiency Alcubiere Drives, capable of effectively transporting gigastructures like the DSS.” All sounds good to me, though “entomology” is the study of insects, not interstellar propulsion. But what do I know.
As ever, I’m reminded of my 700-hour pandemic dalliance with Destiny 2, and how group effort stuff there just never had Helldivers 2’s cool factor—just running the same activities over and over to fill a global meter. You need a carrot—like a sick as hell skybox of a satellite slowly being built—to really sweeten the deal.
And I’ll be curious to see how the finished battlestation is deployed. “It will wield powerful, Helldiver-directed weaponry to aid in the liberation of its orbited planet,” the major order explains. “Through a cutting-edge voting system, the Helldivers will determine where to deploy the DSS, and when to use its capabilities.” That sounds like a powerful new tool for tackling future Major Orders, but also the sort of thing dedicated players might muck with, swaying the vote in particularly funny or trolling fashion. Though, to be honest, that just sounds like part of the fun to me.
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