The game is set in an island nation called Yara. Yara is very clearly meant to be a stand-in for Cuba. The reserve history of Yara goes something like this. Yara underwent a war of liberation. I don't remember if they explicitly say that it was to overthrow Yanqui colonialism but it seems to be implied. This is similar to what happened in Cuba. But from here, the world veers into the realm of alternate timelines.
This war of liberation results in someone called Anton Castillo becoming the sole dictator of Yara. Yara is under American blockade (like Cuba). Yara has developed a drug that stops cancer cells from metastasising. Cuba has also made some progress against cancer coincidentally. Thia drug is Yara's chief export. The problem is that it is produced by using a poisonous fertiliser on tobacco plantations. (Cuba is also heavily reliant on its tobacco export.) So Anton Castillo's regime forces the poor to work on the fields despite the deleterious effects of this poisonous fertilizer. They also perform brutal human experimentation on the underpriviliged. Yara sells this drug to everyone except the US because the US has embargoed them.
So you play as a guerilla who is a member of a liberation movement trying to overthrow Castillo. You are supposed to form a coalition with other guerilla groups to achieve this end. There isn't much ideology to these movements. Sometimes they talk about the important of free elections but that's it.
My question is... why? Why do all this? Why not just let me liberate Yara from Yanquis and their stooges which would be far less confusing?
that is a problem in general with western (or westernized) works, taking out the political core of revolutionary movements so they don't accidentally boost the morale of said groups in real life, be it they anarchists, communists or any kind of left nationalism, or at least instigate a little critical thinking on their consumers, so they focus mostly on aesthetics or just portraying then as bandits.
on FC6 u have a revolutionary group clearly aesthetically inspired by caribbean revolutionary groups like the sandinists and m-26-7, and that is it... during the game it is not discussed what kind of society they are trying to build next, for whom and how, just some liberal democracy lango throw around of free elections as if that is what democracy is all about and shooting big bad totalitarian government, not to mention that spanglish language that is fucking plain racism imo
i've been watching The Expanse recently, in the show there is a group that based on the symbol i assume they are from anarchist orientation, but the whole revolutionary core is taken out, and it is reduced to a shadowy organization that turns to piracy and sort of a death cult after following the charismatic yet megalomaniac leader
another example i can think rn is the Scoiatel from The Witcher, they are supposed to be a anti-racism organization with elfs, dwarfs and halflings as militants, but they are portrayed as common bandits or elf supremacists
edit: another paragraph
of said groups mentioned earlier, the number one threat in real life that no work of fiction even dares to portray even in the gray area, only as absolute evil, is the communists. i respect the anarchist comrades but truth be told, they aren't much a threat to status quo on real life, so they pop up here and there (like OPA from the expanse, and the anarchist spider man), the communists are mostly not mentioned at all, and when to so, as the absolute evil, like the game Homefront Revolution, where the one and only DRPK takes over the world or something like that
All good points for the most part, so do yourself a huge favor and read the books that The Expanse is based on. I'm a diehard fan of both the series and the books, even with their differences, and the questions you seem to have about the OPA (among other things) will be answered in reading them, for sure.
Oh, and the "anarchist" Spider-Man is an amalgam of Brit-punk, to be clear. ๐ค๐ค๐ผ
They aren't very different in the books. Some are ok, most are very tribal, some are just deranged cultists who srtike the Earth and kill the poor when the rich escape anyways. Their only decent sounding organization which might be socialist is barely mentioned and handwaved as extremists (apparently more extremist that the guys kiling billions with asteroids). Ultimately they all become the Spacing Guild and most just lick Duarte boot.
Frankly, that's kinda the point: no one is squeaky clean, and every faction/demographic is a slight variation on the same self-centered scheme, after the layers are peeled back. Humanity itself is the squealing, tantrum-prone problem, slithering through the void in a race against itself in a futile attempt to outpace existential consequences of its actions as a species. ๐คท๐ผโโ๏ธ
Fully outsourced space capitalism.
one day i will read it, can't deny that the show portray then that way