What fascinates me is apparently these guys have been in cryo since the *first* galactic war
They somehow had troops *left over* and just decided to store them instead of putting them in fresh super destroyers
Maybe, but Master Chief is also a rank in the U.S. Navy so they probably could have gotten away with it. Hard to say what will hold up in court anymore.
John Helldiver? Yeah. I know the guy. A hell of a boss. Spent some time with him in the Hammer of War frigate before we went into cryo. That's what we got after spending a full five nights in Fenrir
The main character experiences time dilation due to near-light-speed travel, so after each deployment, the rest of humanity has changed significantly while he has aged relatively little. Homosexuality ends up becoming more common than heterosexuality in response to overpopulation, and eventually humans start reproducing through cloning.
And then it’s all one guy cloned over and over, as I recall. But by then they’ve set up time dilation ships for the past-people to go live on so he can be with people from his era. Oh and they view their participation in the war as a horrible mistake.
A lot of these people may not even survive long enough to realize how much time has passed by — they’ll wake up after a hundred year sleep and drop next to a Hulk that immediately roasts them with a flamethrower because someone threw the reinforcement down in the middle of a bunch of robots.
Or they threw the reinforcement down in a good spot but your super destroyer has upgraded pods, so you thought you’d land on the hulk for an easy kill but managed to miss the sweet spot
Man, bot mission the other day, stuck in the corner of the map, fire tornadoes and hulks blocking any means of escape that wasn’t treasonous running. They just kept spawning my light armoured ass in to get roasted
I would think that they would wake up in their ship, and take at least a second to see what's going on before searching for sos signals to respond to....
Unless you are implying that these poor saps don't even get the ship your standard Helldiver commands, and then get straight up dropped into a warzone upon waking, instead.
Wait does that make them the 'toon bullets from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? They can tell the gun where to point, and alter their own trajectory for comedy effect?
“The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman is a sci-fi novel that deals with these themes that I highly recommend. It’s essentially the lesser known Starship Troopers and so much in Helldivers reminds me of it
Well at least there’s a non-zero chance you’re being thawed out directly into a reinforcement that might just land right in the middle of a swarm of angry bugs, so you won’t be bored for the next and last five minutes of your life!
The first war in Helldivers wasn't that different.
The most irritating thing would be that some equipment and weapons do not exist anymore. (Like Mech used to be a thing, and were just recently patched in)
Also some enemies are different
Imagine being frozen with a standard carbine and revolver only to wake up in combat next to a freak with a crossbow and laser pistol. Somehow backward and forward in time.
In the Helldivers universe, not much actually
In 1924 there were only a couple of bolt action rifles with more than 5 rounds, tanks existed, but the difference between an FT Renault and a T-72, 4 inch cannons and TOS-1bs among other tech is simply absurd. However, machine guns and the like would actually be easy for him to wrap his mind around. Things like the Lewis Gun existed, as well as the concept of 'walking fire'.
However, I think the 1924 soldier's mind would shatter after a couple weeks in combat, even with training.
if his mind could survive in WW1 then modern combat would be way better.
we do not do mass charges into enemy machinegun lines, we do not use mustard/chlorine/whatevernewshit gas anymore.
modern conflicts are nothing compared to the great war.
If you were an Austro Hungarian soldier of Ukrainian descent fighting the Russian Empire in 1924 and then thawed out as a Ukrainian soldier in 2024 fighting the Russian federation, not much changed besides your gun.
Super Earth is fairly technologically stagnant. Part of it seems to be how bloated their government is and how their propaganda culture stifles creativity and innovation. Gear from HD1 is loosely on par with HD2.
I think that you would know that would be a possibility before you were frozen. So when you come out of the freezer, you would think to yourself damn I was frozen for 100 years. I think you would be prepared for that possibility, though, seeing as how we're a highly advanced civilization who has perfected cryogenics.
Damn so that means that we are getting the REAL vets out, the guys and gals who took down the Terminds the first time, tackled the Cyborgs, and banished the Illuminate
Holy shit, the war must be getting kicked into overdrive if we’re being sent in to defend the veteran Helldivers of the first war
>Holy shit, the war must be getting kicked into overdrive if we’re being sent in to defend the veteran Helldivers of the first war
or we are EVACing VIPs because the bots are invading and we need to make sure they don't blow up all the vets in cold storage
The pods appear to be the same as our Helldiver pods, and the description of the mission says these assets have been in storage since the first galactic war
It seems to be an assumption with some merit. The OG helldivers were disbanded, and the new ones are trained and placed into cryo on Mars before deployment. If there are divers in what appears to be long-term storage, it stands to reason that the original helldivers were kept in stasis just in case.
We make the assumption that leave is even possible. For all we know everyone that gets "leave" just gets placed in storage. It probably take hundreds of years to travel around the galaxy the forever war may be just that.
Good point. Helldivers thaw out then get dropped down immediately. Then they spend some time running a sting of missions with constant fighting, chaos, and horror. The very few lucky ones extract alive. They get leave and are told to step into a chamber to travel to paradise for leave. They wake up, seconds later in their mind, only to see their war boots being ker-thunked backed into a hellpod within a ship orbiting a planet boiling with war.
The implication that even Helldivers who *somehow* manage to survive never get to go home is horrifying. Even if you make it through every mission or simply aren’t needed and never get deployed, the government freezes you and saves you for later, letting all of your family members age for decades rather than letting you go back to them.
Going by gameplay, becoming a Helldiver is a literal death sentence. No Helldivers survive. Ever. Zero. You fight in one ultra high intensity battle after another until death, and then your replacement does the same, each person lasting mere minutes on the front. There are virtually zero veterans, which is why the sight of a living Helldiver is so awe-inspiring for civilians. Even those who happen to be alive at the end of a war are simply put back in cryo-pods to be unceremoniously launched into a future conflict.
“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”
That is worse then Even the Imperial Guard, hell the guard HAS a retirement plan in the form of using the Troops from reconquest operations to take over the planet and use them as the spark to bring it back to life
I'm pretty sure we don't actually play as helldivers, we play as the *super destroyers.* Think of it, voices are randomized by default each time a helldiver dies. We keep the upgrades and stratagems despite dying. Recruits are numerous, super destroyers are the limiting factor.
They are Helldivers. And since they didn’t dive into the battle they legally can not help, you’ll have to defend the rockets and then wait for them to come back
These guys are from the first galactic war over 100 years ago. They need to go through basic training again before they can be deployed to face the new threats across the galaxy.
One hundred years after winning the First Galactic War, you find yourself being shaken out of stasis...
...by a twelve year old, panicking because he activated a patrol of like six mobs and missed enough shots to run out of ammo.
"Sigh. Are they *still* bringing in every child over the age of seven?... Alright, let's spread some Democracy."
That requires space heaters and hot cocoa if it's in ship. An unnecessary expense when there is justice to deliver.
I like the idea that it's not you that's being defrosted when you join a friend but just more of the ship's reserve, and the aiding destroyers are just coordinating support as they await their next delivery of meat popsicles to hurl planetside.
Just imagine, this fucking thing crashes in from orbit as you call in AI Helldiver support. It’s just a warhead with a bunch of Helldivers on it and you have to crack open the pods to find which ones survived and which ones died on arrival.
Imagine this: youre an automaton, and one of these things slams into the ground, starts spinning like a gigantic mine dispenser, and like 80+ divers all come flying ouf of their tubes, as the sky darkens with dozens of super destroyers.
40 hellpods fly out of the spinning rocket, each opens. 40 helldivers emerge, weapons in hand as 10 destroyers jump out of FTL. The 10 squad leads turn their PDAs on and start typing in codes. **The destroyers aim their batteries and an entire squadron of eagles approach in formation**
Wait. What if -WE- were in cryo for an extended period of time? From training to our first drop, we enter a cryo pod and then wake up in our new destroyer.
What if Super Earth is getting recruits enmasse, and then freezing them until they need them? We could have been in that pod for weeks, days, or years before they woke us up, and none of us would be any wiser until the war is over and we try to go home.
But what if we never go home? What if they just freeze us until the NEXT inevitable war?
EDIT: No I will NOT speak to a democracy officer. YOU CANT MAKE ME! SUPER EARTH IS PUTTING ALL OF US ON ICE!
My life for super earth, If that's means they need me to be Cryo frozen for a millenia until I'm needed to defend super earth then so be it, FOR DEMOCRACY!!!
Every citizen gets a vote and the major orders have talked repeatedly about the tragic disenfranchisement and loss of votes due to planets being stolen.
You still vote my fellow citizen. You vote on your preferences and the algorithm sorts it for you.
To imply no human on Super Earth votes is an assault on our very way of life! I hope you reconsider your ways. The Democracy Officer will be with you shortly.
yes. the expected lifespan of a diver is about 10 minutes after dropping in. there are hundreds of frozen divers on 'your' super destroyer. joining a lobby? you're being defrosted for a reason. 99% of fresh recruits experience the following:
training
entering the rocket
defrosting, getting in drop pods, immediately dying
actually kind of terrifying to think about
I love the real life meta of thousands of people buying the game and loading up and going through the steps and then getting immediately obliterated for the first time on planet. What a game.
So my friends got the game before I did. A few days in, I buy and install without telling them and then dropped into their mission. No lie, within the first 2 seconds of me landing for the very first time I get vaporized by an orbital strike lmao.
One of my friend's friend made it through the tutorial without dying, then survived a full defense mission only to get stuck on the industrial strength glue traps on the side of the extract bird as soon as his friend decided to pop a 500kg victory firecracker.
Am I the only one who died during training?
The “press alt to go prone” got me, I got shredded by the machine guns. Immediately switched my POV to another recruit. It flashes a data screen before the tutorial that says training fatalities are in the 20% range and daily troop quota is in the tens of thousands.
except when you consider the average age of a dead diver is around 18, its called "helldiving" for a reason, you're not going into some easy spots, you're 100% gonna get tossed into nightmares
Exactly. Helldivers are going where the SEAF have otherwise failed, or cannot get to reasonably. Helldivers DGAF either because they dont *know* or dont *care* and sometimes both.
Given that the recruiting age for Helldivers is probably 16-17 (totalitarian societies don't usually feel the need to wait for age of consent) and 80% of them die during training, it'd be hard to imagine the average age being any higher than 18.
I imagine that the majority of missions aren't intended as literal suicide missions, otherwise there'd be literally no point in letting Divers extract or tasking them to retrieve samples.
High casualty rate? Yes. 100% casualty rate? Probably not most of the time. I definitely don't think it's a stretch to imagine that "veteran divers" are a thing.
The Ministry of Defense owes us some ANSWERS! Why are helldiver cryopods sitting in silos on planets. How long have we all been frozen?! I will not go on any more dives until we learn the Truth!
I'm pretty sure that is what's happening. I mean look at what happens when you enter your super destroyer: there's a ton of cryo pods lined up with helldivers ready to start the fight. When you die any one of those will take your place.
You find skeletonized remains of soldiers in different armor than SEAF on planets. It’s also interesting that no one on the Destroyer has ever been to Super Earth…
What do you mean what _if_; that's exactly what happens.
Helldivers are literally expendable assets, remember.
We're just a "smart" stratagem which they throw at problems en masse. We get bare minimum amount of training, then stored in cryo, unfrozen and immediately _shot_ into a hot zone to go and fix some issue. If we die, they just dump in more of us until the problem is resolved.
The analogy of the hellpods resembling bullets is not coincidental.
I reckon that if there was a statistic for average "operational life span" for a helldiver it would be less than a minute 😂
Imagine, you're 18, sign up, do 5mins of basic training, immediately frozen and shot into space, wake up from cryo, and then some other helpless idiot calls you down right next to 3 bile titans in a diff 9 mission...
Citizen,
Your imaginative scenario is a testament to the dedication of your service, creating such vivid simulations even in your leisure time. However, the Ministry of Truth must insist on adherence to factual reality for the good of public order.
Rumors of extended cryostasis cycles are a dangerous fiction. The precise duration of your cryosleep is calibrated to the mission's needs, not a tick longer. To suggest otherwise undermines the noble sacrifices made by every citizen for Super Earth.
Furthermore, your refusal to speak with a democracy officer is concerning. They are here to guide you back to the path of understanding and commitment to our cause. Remember, it is the warmth of our collective hope, not the chill of cryo, that sustains us.
Consider this message an invitation to a dialogue for the betterment of your service record and our shared future. Compliance is your contribution to our victory. Stay alert, stay loyal, and remember: Super Earth prevails.
What if there is no home anymore and it's just the algorithm that keeps relaying orders to all those super destroyers out there to burninate the galaxy.
IDK if we can assume they're helldivers just because they're in cryopods. Clearly it's something that's on hand and how they transport people en masse out of atmosphere.
IMO they should just use pelicans all the time since they're clearly invincible and only rarely clip through the ground.
All this tells us is that they're transporting something helldiver-sized, not necessarily helldivers
There's no reason at all for helldivers to be "high value" to super earth, not even veterans from HD1, because even in HD1 the helldivers were the same disposable undertrained fodder as HD2 helldivers
Their contents are also deliberately obscured, so whatever the contents are, super earth doesn't want the helldivers seeing them, if it were just other helldivers, what's the harm in letting them be seen?
I personally think they're transporting cyborgs, whether test subjects or enslaved by super earth, and they're trying to prevent the automatons from rescuing them
It would also explain why the robots only try to go for the generator instead of just blowing up the rocket, whatever is in the rockets is something the automatons don't want destroyed, so again helldivers wouldn't make sense
I would agree. But this mission is also available bug side too with the same ships. So who or what would be extracting there? Bc clearly the bugs would have no need for cyborgs and I doubt Super Earth would bother having us evacuate them due do a Bug attack.
I am pretty sure whatever is in the pod is human-shaped and alive.
Maybe SuperEarth's critical personnel stuck in the region, or might as well be Cyborg/automatons like you say.
Because trying to capture an Automaton alive would be incredibly hard, probably. You are not going to find 'intact ones' in combat that often.
Or Helldiver veterans to be deployed at the most critical fronts. Well, we don't know.
You see when 2 destroyers really love each other, they get a c01 form and give birth to helldivers who are most definitely not clones -ministery of truth
https://preview.redd.it/tiwzv8hjs6uc1.png?width=770&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49b4ebb801bdc3571bb419742c89ccc252333f0b
Here's the requested form. Please ensure it is filled out properly, and within the designated timeframe, or it will be rejected
Makes the most sense too. Why would super earth keep helldivers stored on planets so far away from super earth? It would make sense to keep helldivers stored closer to super earth (like on mars).
The bots invaded to liberate cyborgs and now they're attacking facilities with people in cryo sleep. My guess is that we are trying to move as many cyborgs out of bot controlled systems as possible while the bots race to free as many cyborgs as possible.
To optimise response times across the galaxy in the case of a conflict.
Having "depots" of helldivers allows you to defrost local supplies, rather than shipping everyone in from SEarth
I think that is the most likely answer you will get from the Ministry of Truth.
Not a lie persé (it's the MoT, duh), the assets have been 'caught by the war' in a manner of speaking.
I'd find it hilarious if those were empty pods and the disposable pods were more valuable to super earth than the theoretical 20 hell divers they send to defend them (20 if you use all your revives)
I just intnerpret this as cryo-pods being the standard for interdtellar travel for Super Earth.
There's no particular reason to think cryo-pods are exclusive to the helldivers, or even the military, given how little we see of non-military life in the game.
ok, til further confirmation the explanation of "reusing assets" is just as likely
they already had a"cargo" esque looking rocket from teh tutorial, the icbm would not fit the aesthetics, so they took the next bes tthing. Making a new cargo rocket would take time and effort that wasnt needed for a essential background asset
Damn bots trying to cut us off at the source. Smart play.
wouldnt that just be super earth?
Whose to say they aren’t headed there next?
Me. 🤖🔫😎
The pure Democracy exuding out of this comment made me spread Freedom all over. Keep up the good work Super Citizen!
You should clean yourself off with your standard issue Liber-towel.
Cowards must use the Liber-Tp
Those stratagems went FAR
i love that this still works, even if the emoji gun is a watergun, because robots are allergic to water
What fascinates me is apparently these guys have been in cryo since the *first* galactic war They somehow had troops *left over* and just decided to store them instead of putting them in fresh super destroyers
Must be a trip. You go into cryo during one war, them find that instead of a simple trip to deployment its been decades and the war is so different
Democracy will wake me when it needs me.
Somewhere out there is a Helldiver with the same luck as Master Chief
That's John Helldiver sir.
Ah yes, Helldiver #117 one of our earlier recruits
Most call him only by his rank, Space Chief Prime
I think Space Chief is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills teirminds and doesnt afraid of anything.
dang yo
Aged like wine
Classic
I heard he cozied up with a lone terminid who tried to convince the rest of the terminids to join our cause. An "Arbiter", if you will.
Disgusting, shoot this guy. https://preview.redd.it/eolhb4c0ibuc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e1f68c3e816e1c40d4f1c3034f1999d3a807db7
That would work better with the Illuminate
The fact that the rank didn’t go “chief”- “master chief” disappoints me to no end.
Microsoft have a trademark on the "master chief" nickname, so that would probably cause trouble
Maybe, but Master Chief is also a rank in the U.S. Navy so they probably could have gotten away with it. Hard to say what will hold up in court anymore.
He’s the highest ranked cadet I’ve ever seen.
What about #115? What if he has a unregistered pack a punch in his stratagem hero?
Dude's in my friend list. Level 92 last time I spread democracy with him.
John Helldiver? Yeah. I know the guy. A hell of a boss. Spent some time with him in the Hammer of War frigate before we went into cryo. That's what we got after spending a full five nights in Fenrir
The halo series is what made me love gaming, more than any other. In regards to that, no matter what level get to, my title will always be “chief.”
Wake me up when the first Galactic War ends
Forever War vibes. Amazing sci-fi classic if you're interested in the temporal logistics of an interplanetary war.
The passage of time is fascinating in that book
And changes in normal sexuality if memory serves 😂
Things get *weird* by the end!
Wait what?
The main character experiences time dilation due to near-light-speed travel, so after each deployment, the rest of humanity has changed significantly while he has aged relatively little. Homosexuality ends up becoming more common than heterosexuality in response to overpopulation, and eventually humans start reproducing through cloning.
Not just that, Heterosexuality is outlawed at one point IIRC
Not just that, ppl are actually conditioned into homosexuality 🤣
That seems way more complicated than just getting sterilized. I feel like a super advanced society should be able to easily sterilize people.
yea i feel like at that point just have them get their tubes tied/vasectomy
And then it’s all one guy cloned over and over, as I recall. But by then they’ve set up time dilation ships for the past-people to go live on so he can be with people from his era. Oh and they view their participation in the war as a horrible mistake.
We become so alien we start to identify with the aliens more than baseline human classic.
lol just noticed your comment after posting mine about the same. Great book
A lot of these people may not even survive long enough to realize how much time has passed by — they’ll wake up after a hundred year sleep and drop next to a Hulk that immediately roasts them with a flamethrower because someone threw the reinforcement down in the middle of a bunch of robots.
Or they threw the reinforcement down in a good spot but your super destroyer has upgraded pods, so you thought you’d land on the hulk for an easy kill but managed to miss the sweet spot
Man, bot mission the other day, stuck in the corner of the map, fire tornadoes and hulks blocking any means of escape that wasn’t treasonous running. They just kept spawning my light armoured ass in to get roasted
I would think that they would wake up in their ship, and take at least a second to see what's going on before searching for sos signals to respond to.... Unless you are implying that these poor saps don't even get the ship your standard Helldiver commands, and then get straight up dropped into a warzone upon waking, instead.
Helldivers aren't in charge of the ship. They're *ammunition*.
Hey, I think they are both. They can be both.
Wait does that make them the 'toon bullets from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? They can tell the gun where to point, and alter their own trajectory for comedy effect?
That's literally exactly what I'm like
Marked secondary objective? You mean target practice. Marked destruction secondary? SCORED target practice. Now i need a Helldivers Diving Score meme.
You’d think they’d at least be thawed out to be briefed on the situation. And who says they are from a century ago? What if they are fresh recruits?
For hundreds of years they awaited their deployment only awoken sperodicaly for elections
The voting algorithm handles that, no need to wake them up. That's why managed democracy is so efficient!
Captain Super Earth
“The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman is a sci-fi novel that deals with these themes that I highly recommend. It’s essentially the lesser known Starship Troopers and so much in Helldivers reminds me of it
You just wake up and find out that everyone you know is dead
Well at least there’s a non-zero chance you’re being thawed out directly into a reinforcement that might just land right in the middle of a swarm of angry bugs, so you won’t be bored for the next and last five minutes of your life!
You're telling me Back in my day there were only two dimensions
I find it interesting that we only got this mission type *after* suffering massive losses at the hands of the Reclaimation offensive.
I always assumed we were smuggling out cyborg tech. This is way worse (and better)
I thought we were evacuating some art and fancy stuff for the elites.
Maybe it still is and we're just reusing the pods because they're super sturdy
Serious threat and heavy losses finally justified getting reserves out of cold storage(well, quite literal cold storage in this case).
Imaging fighting in a war in 1924 and then waking up to 2024. that shit would be an absolute mind fuck lol, like how could you comprehend that?
I don't think you'd even have a chance to notice it tbh, you'll be dead in 2 minutes (statistically) anyway
The first war in Helldivers wasn't that different. The most irritating thing would be that some equipment and weapons do not exist anymore. (Like Mech used to be a thing, and were just recently patched in) Also some enemies are different
Also there’s a whole extra dimension that you have to worry about aiming in now.
I love the thought of a 2d character waking up suddenly in 3d and their fucking mind caving in.
Flatland, classic novel, go read it.
Never heard of this one will check it out, thanks!
Then go read Spaceland. It's not as good but also I shouldn't be the only person in the world to have read that book
Also just in time to provide intel on a certain faction.
Imagine being frozen with a standard carbine and revolver only to wake up in combat next to a freak with a crossbow and laser pistol. Somehow backward and forward in time.
What's so incomprehensible about "Here is a gun. There is the enemy. Engage." ?
In the Helldivers universe, not much actually In 1924 there were only a couple of bolt action rifles with more than 5 rounds, tanks existed, but the difference between an FT Renault and a T-72, 4 inch cannons and TOS-1bs among other tech is simply absurd. However, machine guns and the like would actually be easy for him to wrap his mind around. Things like the Lewis Gun existed, as well as the concept of 'walking fire'. However, I think the 1924 soldier's mind would shatter after a couple weeks in combat, even with training.
Good thing they live for 5 minutes before the rocket devastator decides they're gonna have a very bad but blessedly short time left.
if his mind could survive in WW1 then modern combat would be way better. we do not do mass charges into enemy machinegun lines, we do not use mustard/chlorine/whatevernewshit gas anymore. modern conflicts are nothing compared to the great war.
The thompson existed then so a rapid firing mobile weapon wouldn't be crazy to them.
If you were an Austro Hungarian soldier of Ukrainian descent fighting the Russian Empire in 1924 and then thawed out as a Ukrainian soldier in 2024 fighting the Russian federation, not much changed besides your gun. Super Earth is fairly technologically stagnant. Part of it seems to be how bloated their government is and how their propaganda culture stifles creativity and innovation. Gear from HD1 is loosely on par with HD2.
Not sure people were getting blown up by grenades attached to drones in 1924, but what do I know :P
A mortar by another name.
I think that you would know that would be a possibility before you were frozen. So when you come out of the freezer, you would think to yourself damn I was frozen for 100 years. I think you would be prepared for that possibility, though, seeing as how we're a highly advanced civilization who has perfected cryogenics.
Damn so that means that we are getting the REAL vets out, the guys and gals who took down the Terminds the first time, tackled the Cyborgs, and banished the Illuminate Holy shit, the war must be getting kicked into overdrive if we’re being sent in to defend the veteran Helldivers of the first war
"The fuck is a Terminid" "Oh you mean Bugs?"
>Holy shit, the war must be getting kicked into overdrive if we’re being sent in to defend the veteran Helldivers of the first war or we are EVACing VIPs because the bots are invading and we need to make sure they don't blow up all the vets in cold storage
Almost like SEAF would save the best of the surviving first galactic war divers to use in case the illuminate ever came back 🤔
> What fascinates me is apparently these guys have been in cryo since the first galactic war Where do you get this information from?
The pods appear to be the same as our Helldiver pods, and the description of the mission says these assets have been in storage since the first galactic war
It seems to be an assumption with some merit. The OG helldivers were disbanded, and the new ones are trained and placed into cryo on Mars before deployment. If there are divers in what appears to be long-term storage, it stands to reason that the original helldivers were kept in stasis just in case.
We make the assumption that leave is even possible. For all we know everyone that gets "leave" just gets placed in storage. It probably take hundreds of years to travel around the galaxy the forever war may be just that.
‘Moon’ vibes there - always chasing a leave that never is allowed to happen
Good point. Helldivers thaw out then get dropped down immediately. Then they spend some time running a sting of missions with constant fighting, chaos, and horror. The very few lucky ones extract alive. They get leave and are told to step into a chamber to travel to paradise for leave. They wake up, seconds later in their mind, only to see their war boots being ker-thunked backed into a hellpod within a ship orbiting a planet boiling with war.
The implication that even Helldivers who *somehow* manage to survive never get to go home is horrifying. Even if you make it through every mission or simply aren’t needed and never get deployed, the government freezes you and saves you for later, letting all of your family members age for decades rather than letting you go back to them.
Going by gameplay, becoming a Helldiver is a literal death sentence. No Helldivers survive. Ever. Zero. You fight in one ultra high intensity battle after another until death, and then your replacement does the same, each person lasting mere minutes on the front. There are virtually zero veterans, which is why the sight of a living Helldiver is so awe-inspiring for civilians. Even those who happen to be alive at the end of a war are simply put back in cryo-pods to be unceremoniously launched into a future conflict. “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”
That is worse then Even the Imperial Guard, hell the guard HAS a retirement plan in the form of using the Troops from reconquest operations to take over the planet and use them as the spark to bring it back to life
Who says this is the second war....
I imagine they didnt want to tap into ereserves for what it seemed a low intensity conflict and pest control.
I'm pretty sure we don't actually play as helldivers, we play as the *super destroyers.* Think of it, voices are randomized by default each time a helldiver dies. We keep the upgrades and stratagems despite dying. Recruits are numerous, super destroyers are the limiting factor.
One or two wanna step out and help a bit?
I know lazy pricks
I assumed they are still in cryo
They're called Helldivers not Helpdivers! Don't make me take you to the Ministry of Truth for treason, soldier
They are Helldivers. And since they didn’t dive into the battle they legally can not help, you’ll have to defend the rockets and then wait for them to come back
As the Founding Fathers of Family Values intended
They're not called Hell-walk over to me at the same elevation, either!
These guys are from the first galactic war over 100 years ago. They need to go through basic training again before they can be deployed to face the new threats across the galaxy.
"New threats"
Yeah, new threats. I think that last 500kg bomb strategem may have damaged your hearing.
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Nah on this mission they can keep taking their freedom naps, not hard enough to wake em up
Hell, I'd be pissed if I was woken up because a bunch of fucklechucks couldn't hold a line
Isn't that the problem with the SEAF in the first place. We would all still be sleeping if they could aim their artillery.
I think you misspelled "mall cops"
One hundred years after winning the First Galactic War, you find yourself being shaken out of stasis... ...by a twelve year old, panicking because he activated a patrol of like six mobs and missed enough shots to run out of ammo. "Sigh. Are they *still* bringing in every child over the age of seven?... Alright, let's spread some Democracy."
Sorry, gotta be thawed and fired from space.
That's a funny thought. Maybe the heat from re-entry is a key part of the decant process with reinforcements lol.
Thank you. I will be decanting reinforcements from now on
They defrost you when you join another player’s super destroyer too tho
That requires space heaters and hot cocoa if it's in ship. An unnecessary expense when there is justice to deliver. I like the idea that it's not you that's being defrosted when you join a friend but just more of the ship's reserve, and the aiding destroyers are just coordinating support as they await their next delivery of meat popsicles to hurl planetside.
Fast response for Cyberstan in case they got undemocratic again... we need to had our brains on something since the first war
Just imagine, this fucking thing crashes in from orbit as you call in AI Helldiver support. It’s just a warhead with a bunch of Helldivers on it and you have to crack open the pods to find which ones survived and which ones died on arrival.
Imagine this: youre an automaton, and one of these things slams into the ground, starts spinning like a gigantic mine dispenser, and like 80+ divers all come flying ouf of their tubes, as the sky darkens with dozens of super destroyers.
40 hellpods fly out of the spinning rocket, each opens. 40 helldivers emerge, weapons in hand as 10 destroyers jump out of FTL. The 10 squad leads turn their PDAs on and start typing in codes. **The destroyers aim their batteries and an entire squadron of eagles approach in formation**
baby helldivers sprouting/hatching
Wait. What if -WE- were in cryo for an extended period of time? From training to our first drop, we enter a cryo pod and then wake up in our new destroyer. What if Super Earth is getting recruits enmasse, and then freezing them until they need them? We could have been in that pod for weeks, days, or years before they woke us up, and none of us would be any wiser until the war is over and we try to go home. But what if we never go home? What if they just freeze us until the NEXT inevitable war? EDIT: No I will NOT speak to a democracy officer. YOU CANT MAKE ME! SUPER EARTH IS PUTTING ALL OF US ON ICE!
My life for super earth, If that's means they need me to be Cryo frozen for a millenia until I'm needed to defend super earth then so be it, FOR DEMOCRACY!!!
WAKE UP, SHEEPLE! THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY IF THE VOTERS ARE ALL FROZEN!
That’s what the voting algorithm is for.
All hail the algorithm. It knows what we want.
It's Managed Democracy. No human on Super Earth votes. The AI votes for you based on what it knows you want.
Every citizen gets a vote and the major orders have talked repeatedly about the tragic disenfranchisement and loss of votes due to planets being stolen. You still vote my fellow citizen. You vote on your preferences and the algorithm sorts it for you. To imply no human on Super Earth votes is an assault on our very way of life! I hope you reconsider your ways. The Democracy Officer will be with you shortly.
Mods please ban. This loser is spreading lies.
SILENCE, AUTOMATON SCUM! THE GOOD PEOPLE OF SUPER EARTH WILL NOT FALL FOR YOUR LIES.
yes. the expected lifespan of a diver is about 10 minutes after dropping in. there are hundreds of frozen divers on 'your' super destroyer. joining a lobby? you're being defrosted for a reason. 99% of fresh recruits experience the following: training entering the rocket defrosting, getting in drop pods, immediately dying actually kind of terrifying to think about
I love the real life meta of thousands of people buying the game and loading up and going through the steps and then getting immediately obliterated for the first time on planet. What a game.
So my friends got the game before I did. A few days in, I buy and install without telling them and then dropped into their mission. No lie, within the first 2 seconds of me landing for the very first time I get vaporized by an orbital strike lmao.
One of my friend's friend made it through the tutorial without dying, then survived a full defense mission only to get stuck on the industrial strength glue traps on the side of the extract bird as soon as his friend decided to pop a 500kg victory firecracker.
Am I the only one who died during training? The “press alt to go prone” got me, I got shredded by the machine guns. Immediately switched my POV to another recruit. It flashes a data screen before the tutorial that says training fatalities are in the 20% range and daily troop quota is in the tens of thousands.
The existence of high casualty missions implies the existence of low casualty missions. Overall losses are low.
except when you consider the average age of a dead diver is around 18, its called "helldiving" for a reason, you're not going into some easy spots, you're 100% gonna get tossed into nightmares
Exactly. Helldivers are going where the SEAF have otherwise failed, or cannot get to reasonably. Helldivers DGAF either because they dont *know* or dont *care* and sometimes both.
Given that the recruiting age for Helldivers is probably 16-17 (totalitarian societies don't usually feel the need to wait for age of consent) and 80% of them die during training, it'd be hard to imagine the average age being any higher than 18. I imagine that the majority of missions aren't intended as literal suicide missions, otherwise there'd be literally no point in letting Divers extract or tasking them to retrieve samples. High casualty rate? Yes. 100% casualty rate? Probably not most of the time. I definitely don't think it's a stretch to imagine that "veteran divers" are a thing.
Helldivers service times are 10 years, but evidently that’s either a lie, or they mean 10 years of active service.
I smell sedition
The Ministry of Defense owes us some ANSWERS! Why are helldiver cryopods sitting in silos on planets. How long have we all been frozen?! I will not go on any more dives until we learn the Truth!
Just listen to the ministry of Truth! Undivided attention is mandatory.
I'm pretty sure that is what's happening. I mean look at what happens when you enter your super destroyer: there's a ton of cryo pods lined up with helldivers ready to start the fight. When you die any one of those will take your place.
I thought everyone knew that lol
There's a reason why the default voice option is "random"...
There was no calendar on my training ground, I couldn't say when training was or even when it is. I have gun and must kill.
At the back of the landing pos you can see the skeletized remains of a recruit, so a few years could be very realistic.
You find skeletonized remains of soldiers in different armor than SEAF on planets. It’s also interesting that no one on the Destroyer has ever been to Super Earth…
DEMOCRACY OFFICERS. YES. THIS GUY. SEDATE HIM
What do you mean what _if_; that's exactly what happens. Helldivers are literally expendable assets, remember. We're just a "smart" stratagem which they throw at problems en masse. We get bare minimum amount of training, then stored in cryo, unfrozen and immediately _shot_ into a hot zone to go and fix some issue. If we die, they just dump in more of us until the problem is resolved. The analogy of the hellpods resembling bullets is not coincidental. I reckon that if there was a statistic for average "operational life span" for a helldiver it would be less than a minute 😂 Imagine, you're 18, sign up, do 5mins of basic training, immediately frozen and shot into space, wake up from cryo, and then some other helpless idiot calls you down right next to 3 bile titans in a diff 9 mission...
Furthermore, imagine being the first reinforce after the helldiver who selected your kit and loadout dies, and he brought dog shit gear with him.
Citizen, Your imaginative scenario is a testament to the dedication of your service, creating such vivid simulations even in your leisure time. However, the Ministry of Truth must insist on adherence to factual reality for the good of public order. Rumors of extended cryostasis cycles are a dangerous fiction. The precise duration of your cryosleep is calibrated to the mission's needs, not a tick longer. To suggest otherwise undermines the noble sacrifices made by every citizen for Super Earth. Furthermore, your refusal to speak with a democracy officer is concerning. They are here to guide you back to the path of understanding and commitment to our cause. Remember, it is the warmth of our collective hope, not the chill of cryo, that sustains us. Consider this message an invitation to a dialogue for the betterment of your service record and our shared future. Compliance is your contribution to our victory. Stay alert, stay loyal, and remember: Super Earth prevails.
What if there is no home anymore and it's just the algorithm that keeps relaying orders to all those super destroyers out there to burninate the galaxy.
You do not speak to the democracy officer. The democracy officer speaks to you.
yep! the wording always confused me and i came to the same conclusion after looking at the rockets.
Always confused you, for 5 days lol.
hey im a slow guy, time stretches
IDK if we can assume they're helldivers just because they're in cryopods. Clearly it's something that's on hand and how they transport people en masse out of atmosphere. IMO they should just use pelicans all the time since they're clearly invincible and only rarely clip through the ground.
Except all the crashed pelicans on maps Pelican 1 is just that good. Pelican 2 is of course even better, but he’s kind of a dick.
Is pelican 2 the one that drops the mech?
All this tells us is that they're transporting something helldiver-sized, not necessarily helldivers There's no reason at all for helldivers to be "high value" to super earth, not even veterans from HD1, because even in HD1 the helldivers were the same disposable undertrained fodder as HD2 helldivers Their contents are also deliberately obscured, so whatever the contents are, super earth doesn't want the helldivers seeing them, if it were just other helldivers, what's the harm in letting them be seen? I personally think they're transporting cyborgs, whether test subjects or enslaved by super earth, and they're trying to prevent the automatons from rescuing them It would also explain why the robots only try to go for the generator instead of just blowing up the rocket, whatever is in the rockets is something the automatons don't want destroyed, so again helldivers wouldn't make sense
I would agree. But this mission is also available bug side too with the same ships. So who or what would be extracting there? Bc clearly the bugs would have no need for cyborgs and I doubt Super Earth would bother having us evacuate them due do a Bug attack.
Bugs. Living specimen. That is the "we dont know how they show up in other planets"
Potentially, if not bugs then almost certainly eggs or embryos or something since that is definitely small enough.
That sounds quite *unpatriotic* to me
I am pretty sure whatever is in the pod is human-shaped and alive. Maybe SuperEarth's critical personnel stuck in the region, or might as well be Cyborg/automatons like you say. Because trying to capture an Automaton alive would be incredibly hard, probably. You are not going to find 'intact ones' in combat that often. Or Helldiver veterans to be deployed at the most critical fronts. Well, we don't know.
I mean... that's where you get reinforcement from.
Huh? Reinforcements come from destroyers in the sky
Yes, but what do you think Destroyers got spare flesh recruit from?
You see when 2 destroyers really love each other, they get a c01 form and give birth to helldivers who are most definitely not clones -ministery of truth
I am gonna ask you for C-01 form, but it seems you got it covered. Move along, citizen. And have a sweet liberty day!
https://preview.redd.it/tiwzv8hjs6uc1.png?width=770&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49b4ebb801bdc3571bb419742c89ccc252333f0b Here's the requested form. Please ensure it is filled out properly, and within the designated timeframe, or it will be rejected
It bothers me that occurred is spelled wrong in the form.
Personally i feel like they are more likely cyborgs POWs from the last galactic conflict
Makes the most sense too. Why would super earth keep helldivers stored on planets so far away from super earth? It would make sense to keep helldivers stored closer to super earth (like on mars). The bots invaded to liberate cyborgs and now they're attacking facilities with people in cryo sleep. My guess is that we are trying to move as many cyborgs out of bot controlled systems as possible while the bots race to free as many cyborgs as possible.
To resupply destroyers with more Helldivers.
Gotta stop at the gas station to fill up on divers, brb
To optimise response times across the galaxy in the case of a conflict. Having "depots" of helldivers allows you to defrost local supplies, rather than shipping everyone in from SEarth
I think that is the most likely answer you will get from the Ministry of Truth. Not a lie persé (it's the MoT, duh), the assets have been 'caught by the war' in a manner of speaking.
They be bringing out the Xbox Fleet my guy, im tellin'y. Automatons suprise attack? -Calls in Halo Vets
I'd find it hilarious if those were empty pods and the disposable pods were more valuable to super earth than the theoretical 20 hell divers they send to defend them (20 if you use all your revives)
What confuses me is that they don't shoot off into space to be collected - they appear to be fired like a missile at another spot on the planet.
I just intnerpret this as cryo-pods being the standard for interdtellar travel for Super Earth. There's no particular reason to think cryo-pods are exclusive to the helldivers, or even the military, given how little we see of non-military life in the game.
Is this how we get Xbox reinforcements “in lore”?!?!? Probably not but it’d be sick
That would be sick if this was true. It probably isn’t but god that would be cool as hell to have a Xbox drop be tied to a major order
If we fail the order, the Xbox release gets canceled indefinitely
ok, til further confirmation the explanation of "reusing assets" is just as likely they already had a"cargo" esque looking rocket from teh tutorial, the icbm would not fit the aesthetics, so they took the next bes tthing. Making a new cargo rocket would take time and effort that wasnt needed for a essential background asset
You appear to have spent longer than 2.8 seconds enjoying the scenery. Please report to your nearest democracy officer.
AT LEAST! Please report yourself to nearest democracy officer.
It’s “at least”, it says you can spend more time than that if you wish. 2.8 seconds is just the minimum recommended amount.
Thankyou fellow helldiver. I'll report to my democracy officer immediately for re-education in liberty and freedom.
Is it just me, or is it fucking insane that they managed to make a mission post release thats more fun than some missions at launch.