collapsedsquid
Fightin the deep state aliens with Q cell
Nah, that’s more 90s. These days the Program is the deep state.
Though really, it’s kind of interesting how, without changing the basic premise one whit (a loose conspiracy of clued in G-men fight and cover up Lovecraftian horrors) the politics of the new edition read as drastically different just from the choice of antagonists to focus on. (though the premise clearly does impose certain outer bounds).
Like, in the ‘90s edition the major villains were on one hand the literal deep state/MAJESTIC 12, high placed military, security and government officials who had sold out their country to aliens in exchange for advanced technology and worldly power, and on the other the Cult of Transcendence, a labyrinth conspiracy of cults centered in Stockholm with the goal of guiding humanity down the road of decadence, depravity and nihilism. With smaller threats being things like ‘A small immigrant community’s bizarre sect of Christianity is actually an evil cult whose rituals require child abuse”, “A small ethnic group in SE Asia the CIA found super-useful as proxies during ‘Nam are actually partially inhuman cannibals” and “This one indigenous nation in Alaska are doing so well because they’ve been Deep One hybrids since literally forever”.
Whereas in the new edition the most heavily foregrounded threat by far is March Technologies - dangerous sets of private magnates and retired officials eager to use the government secrets they walked away with to make themselves rich and powerful, regardless of the damage and danger exploiting the pilfered material causes, with zero care for collateral damage except if it might personally bite them in the ass. And then the new threats in Labyrinth are things like “a extraordinarily exclusive fertility service for the rich and famous breeding a new in- and super- human ruling class for humanity” and “An all-American non--denominational church whose founder takes the ‘soul-crushing marriage’ thing literally and teaches every member a daily ritual to grant themselves good luck by leeching their wife’s will to live away”.
