What Happened to The Government and Military in METRO? - Metro Lore

in 2013 Russia fought in the last war in 2013 Russia lost along with everyone else the war of 2013 would come to an end with nuclear fire burning Russia's cities and a radiating its landscape what remains as a lawless Wasteland populated by Warlords or pretending to be more right than the other so the question must be asked what happened to the double-headed eagle in its Army the upholders of Law and civility what happened to the government and the military this is focusing on the Metro games but I'll also be discussing the books as well especially in parts of the game's lack information although many things from books can be reasonably assumed to be true in the games the two mediums do Branch off from each other quite a bit by the third entry in both Series so I'll make it clear which medium I'm drawing the information from each time and what I believe to be information exclusive to one medium that would not cross over to the other I will also make it clear and needless to say this video will also contain spoilers for all of the games and books except for the Metro Universe books so let's begin where it all began the Metro the Moscow Metro System was built with a dual purpose to transport people all throughout the city and to act as one giant fallout shelter during a nuclear war alongside the Metro there's Metro too in the games it's not quite clear where Metro 2 starts and ends but in the books Metro 2 is a secret complex of Metro lines next to and possibly intersecting with the regular Metro it's meant exclusively for high-level members of government when the world ended in 2013 there was a significant number of military personnel in the Metro quite obvious from the fact that it was a huge fallout shelter and all the military equipment present in the metro in fact the Army was responsible for overseeing the evacuation into the metro and subsequent sealing of it during the nuclear strikes so then where was the government well the first clued any sort of government we have is this quote from the books the United system of government disintegrated and the Metro was transformed from a complex object of civil defense a huge full-led shelter into a multitude of stations I'm connected by a single power and was plunged into chaos and Anarchy no such information seems to be present in the games however this can easily be assumed to have happened in the game universe so it seems there was a unified Metro Government for a short period of time but it did disintegrate I don't think this government was very official either it is mentioned in the first book that the ministry of defense was near the entrance to the metro and a few of the generals made it to safety so this Metro Government was most likely just those Military Officers and lower level politicians that the system of governance fell to as the higher levels of government would either be in Metro 2 or somewhere else in the aftermath of this Metro government's collapse many different factions and groups would emerge with the military forces split between them many giving up their life as soldiers and settling down in one of the many stations Sasha's father in Metro 2034 being a good example of this he was a military commander when the world ended afterwards he commanded his station supported by his soldiers that stayed loyal to him even when he was overthrown by communist revolutionaries the major factions however would be built on military power and knowledge although most of these former servicemen would be fighting against each other as many of the major powers in the Metro are opposed to each other but some of these factions hold more legitimacy than others the fourth Reich is obviously the furthest cry from pre-war Russia given Russia's history with Germany it's very unlikely many servicemen will be part of it evident in its size and military power it's only comprised of three stations and by the end of Metro 2035 those three stations have been flooded with the inhabitants scattered so it's entirely possible it's dissolved as an organization after this point then there's the red line the largest faction in the Metro they follow the structure of Soviet Russia the thought that this would mean they have some sort of legitimacy would be false while many people including plenty of servicemen would make up the red line seeing it as a rebirth of the Soviet Russia they would have lived in only a few decades ago the red line is still a new world government not a continuation of an old one as it neither has the authority afforded from the previous Russian government nor the Democratic authority of the Metro let alone the country to be considered an official government third we have hanza many may think they're what remains of the government as they are most likely the most powerful faction in the Metro their society while much more free marketed isn't too dissimilar from pre-war Russia they have a functioning military and it's mentioned in the books they even have Spetsnaz units however Hans is still not even close to an official government it was simply a society that was built around the merchants That Grew rich in the post-war Metro they may seem more friendly than the red line or the Reich but that is simply because conflict is bad for business even the soldiers while many of them likely being former Army are merely mercenaries they've all but given up their allegiance to the government in favor of hanza unlike the next faction the Spartan order an incredibly small military force composed of the most elite soldiers in the entire metro it remains neutral politically focusing its efforts on eliminating dangers to the Metro founded and commanded by Colonel Miller a giu Spetsnaz officer before the war it's very likely most of its founding members were Special Forces it may not act as a government however as shown in Exodus Colonel Miller founded as a continuation of the Spetsnaz and treats it as an official unit when addressing what he believes to be the government so while not an official government he remains a semi-official military unit given it was founded by an officer and likely many more soldiers and as far as we know has never been refuted as such by any higher authority as we see in the book while the order is not part of the same chain of command as polis it still holds Authority and much respect there which brings us to the next faction polus another technically neutral faction it makes up the central most Stations of the metro and can be considered the highest Authority in the Metro at least publicly known the information about polis and the games is quite limited we know they have some sort of council but that's as far as we go with governance the books however provide plenty of insight into the government of polis as previously mentioned the ministry of defense was near a Metro entrance more specifically polis so quite a number of servicemen from the ministry including a few generals made it to the Metro before the world ended add on top of that all of the soldiers already in polis and any others that would flock to polish after the collapse of the government throughout the rest of the metro and you have the single largest remaining remnant of the Russian army in the Metro and maybe some people from other branches that have become de facto soldiers it's said that originally the military ruled over polis and it's not exactly clear whether this was part of the Unified Government or not but in polis at least people didn't like the military rule and eventually a council was formed half of it consisting of Military Officers and the other half consisting of the brahmanas who are made up of librarians Scholars scientists and the like that essentially act as a civilian government to balance out the military so the remaining Russian army in Poland still holds power and they are still the Russian army or at least the closest thing they can be to it in 2033 they prominently display the coat of arms the two-headed eagle on their equipment and as tattoos there's quite a number of them as well as they serve as the Defense Force of polis assisted somewhat by the Spartan order and they obviously have legitimacy considering the surviving generals and no doubt other soldiers so even though they do still actively recruit in the Metro they are an as official as possible continuation of the Russian army this information I feel can be taken as true to the game universe as well because it would give more explanation as to how polar stays neutral because while they may not be the strongest faction in the Metro they're DM near it considering they have a sizable force of Veteran Soldiers with equipment to match a stable economy and would most likely be backed by the order and even more experienced military faction even if any faction could win against polis the number of casualties sustained from such an invasion would make it appear at Victory Now we move on to the most secretive faction in the Metro the invisible watches or unseen observers they're called a few things through the different translations the invisible watches if they are to be believed are what's left of the government we get quite a bit of information about them in the books but not so much in the games however both mediums differ in the information presented in the books The Invisible watches seem to be led by a man named basilov of course it's hard to verify anything about the invisible watches as true because all of the information is given by basilov he explains the invisible watches are the remnants of the government and have been controlling all of the events throughout the Metro including the main factions of the Metro for the purpose of keeping the population controlled which is in part helped by the radio Jam as they operate around the city when artium inquires about the rumors of the government evacuating to bunkers in the urals because throughout the books many rumors of government bunkers and the Euros are talked about including tunnels that lead to these bunkers basilov's response is that the invisible watches never intended to leave but rather are Shepherds that must hurt the people however I think best love is almost completely full of it really the only reason the invisible watches are not in the Euros is because they are not the government or at least they are not the government they make themselves out to be the first major giveaway is the fact that best love just walks around the Metro freely if he was the president of Russia or someone else high up he would be recognized but he isn't no one knows who he is he says he was a politician before the war but it was obviously a much lower level position it is possible he isn't the leader but rather just the one responsible for dealing with outside matters yet it's never indicated as such the bunker they occupy is also not in Metro too but rather the regular Metro and while it was originally a Soviet bunker by the time of the war it was under private ownership they don't even reside in a government facility that whole speech that basilov gives to us you know about how he loves the people and how their purpose is to Shepherd them is just a lie they aren't in the Euros because none of them were high enough up in the government to go there best love only pretends as though they choose to be in Moscow because he is trying to convince archiem of their righteousness in the games they use the same sort of Lies but this time with Colonel Miller they told him that they were receiving orders from high command at Mount yamantown as I'll explain later we know this to be a lie if they were really the surviving high command they could reveal themselves as such not pretend to be receiving orders from somewhere else so in in both instances we see the invisible watches lie a lot especially about their level of authority whether the invisible Watchers can claim legitimacy to being the government is Up For Debate I would argue that they are too low level and fail to act in a way that would warrant them being considered the real government in actuality the fate of the real government is much more Grim in the Metro the fate of the actual government seems to be shown as explored in the books the Kremlin was formerly housed the highest level of government is quite mysterious the stalkers talk about how the Kremlin is still standing yet rather than it being a persevering symbol of Russia it's a haunting reminder of the Dead City they say that the Americans didn't use nuclear weapons on it but rather biological ones experimental even in 2033 the Stars still shine entrancing people in it mystically pulling them towards his doors never to be seen again even aseom collapses at the mere site of the them hence why the stalkers have rules to always go in pairs but we soon find out the horrifying explanation behind this when artium accompanied by Miller and a squad of Rangers make their way into Metro 2 eventually coming upon the station directly beneath the kremlin's walls they find the cause of the hypnotic pole initially it makes artium lose Consciousness hastily woken up he says it a gigantic living mass of sludge with its immense psychic power the sludge makes many of the Rangers willfully walk into it where they are completely digested before eventually Miller lights it on fire allowing them to escape while it Retreats back down into its lair this is likely what remains of the government if it's not already obvious this biomass is the result of the bio weapons used by America on the Kremlin as we see from its depiction in the book it just completely consumes any organic material and presumably grows from it so when the Kremlin was hit with this bio weapon during the war it consumed everyone that was in the Kremlin and anyone that was evacuating into Metro too hence why Metro 2 is completely empty now it's not guaranteed that this biomass consumed the executive branch of the government at the very top but it did consume anyone in Moscow with access to Metro 2. in the games however it's similar but different at the same time the journey to the station underneath the Kremlin is the penultimate event of the book is replaced with the capturing of D6 in the first game but still at D6 we encounter some sort of biomass it doesn't have the psychic abilities of its novel counterpart but it's still intelligent enough to know that artium and the other rangers are a threat but the really interesting part is that in the second game we can walk past the Kremlin with no ill effects you may think this is because the Kremlin creature doesn't exist in the game Universe in actuality it seems to be the opposite the pages of artium's Journal that can be found in this Mission very much describe the creature encountered in the books and artium also recounts how the order purged the creature with fire hence why the psychic effect of the Kremlin is no longer present again you may be saying it's just a mix-up between the games and books possible but the idea given off from the novel was that the Rangers only hurt the creature with the fire whereas here it's been completely eradicated and in D6 Miller mentions how they'll have to finish clearing out the biomass from the facility so I think what makes a lot of sense here is that the biomass under the Kremlin either split into two or just grew bigger as we see in the game it's more like a big humor just clinging to the walls of D6 whereas in the books it's more like a living liquid so I think in the game Universe once the biomass consumed everyone in the Kremlin and it started to grow it probably began growing outwards and as more people were drawn into the Kremlin and eaten by the creature it eventually made its way to D6 which connects to Metro 2. once there it ate everyone stationed at that bunker and then started feeding off the reactor the only problem with this theory is that the D6 biomass doesn't have the psychic powers which is why I think it makes more sense if this biomass split off from the other one and has now lost the psychic ability as it now relies on the reactor for food not drawing in prey but enough about the biomass the main point is just that it consumed the people in the Kremlin whomever that may actually be and in the games also consumed everyone in D6 which considering its purpose of being a missile controller and survival bunker connected to Metro 2 this was probably the destination for anyone trying to escape the Kremlin during the war regardless of whether anyone actually made it from the Kremlin to D6 it would have already had people stationed there given it would have been an active facility and just underneath a city there would be many soldiers scientists miscelliers and other workers present in the bunker during the war so it's possible this is where the Metro Government was and when the biomass took over the facility this may have been why the government fell apart as its leaders were killed of course for this to work they would have to communicate with the stations over long distances so maybe D6 could control the PA systems for the Metro and speaking of miscellias we do know what happened to them mostly there's a few encountered in the books and some people blame them for the war we also hear talk of some in the spiderland DLC for last Light from these Snippets of information it seems that a few misleers survived as any silos that might directly hit would survive the war and there were also all connected to the Metro so that covers everything surviving or not surviving in the Moscow Metro but Russia is a big place and there's more information out there to go through if we want the full picture in the novels we hear from Radio operators that were on the air just after the war they detailed that there were plenty of submarines still out in the water when the war happened some of them saw no point in continuing the war While others fired their missiles in Revenge then we hear of a tank crew that managed to make it out of the city and settle down thanks to it being a new model that had radiation shielding it's quite possible there were more of these tanks to make it out as well artium finds the writing of a woman that was trapped outside during the war and she noticed that there was a tank rolling through the city days after the war possible this could be the same tank or another hell it's even possible there was some sort of command structure remaining on the surface for a short while but Metro Exodus gives us the only first-hand look outside of Moscow in it we can see the fate of the surviving military and government we can see in Sam's story that at least one sub crew has survived building a settlement around the submarine and they talk of an elite Bandit group that used to terrorize the others until those other Bandits combined forces to eliminate them this Elite group possessed high-tech military equipment and exceptional training at least one character suggests they were former Spetsnaz however even this bandit-ridden landscape with only one Safe Haven this is the best scenario we see everywhere else we look there's nothing but death and lawlessness in Novus abuse we see that an entire military unit ozcom survived mostly intact in the city's Metro yet still all that's left by the time we arrive is Bones the society that survived in the Metro governed by the military could only survive in the highly irradiated City because of an anti-radiation drug that was manufactured before the war so when it began to run out the citizens started rioting and the military started killing the rioters all the while the military command tried to leave while gassing all soldiers and civilians still remaining in the Metro in the end everyone's saved for a single boy was killed mere weeks before the crew of the Aurora reached the city in the Caspian all that's left of the intelligence facility Caspian one are skeletons although they held on as long as they could the facility would break down causing gas to flood into it killing everyone who refused to abandon their posts now the Caspian is filled with nothing but Bandits and we see in the vulgar that some of the bandits are wearing military uniforms this is likely from the Naval facility nearby and it's probably indicative of the largest situation most of the people we encounter in the game are Bandits and given that military personnel would combat experience are better prepared to survive it's possible a decent chunk of these Bandits were former military yet that's only a small taste of the evil that would be found in the post-apocalyptic Russia many people talked about the Ural bunkers hoping to find Transmissions from them believing there to be a way to travel to them from the metro in Exodus we finally see at least one of these bunkers in Mount yamantown Ark as we approach the facility we see many many vehicles sitting outside some just skeletons left from the war others holding luggage and suppliers from people that have journeyed to mount Yemen Town many tanks and apcs among them apart from the actual military vehicles it's likely the vast majority of people that came to the mountain were military given the nature of the message that contains the coordinates to it but of course once we enter the facility we see the horrible truth the government in fact never made it to Mount yamantau the facility was still under construction When The War happened meaning the food stores weren't filled this led the civilian construction workers and the military Communications officers to broadcast messages on the radio calling people through the mountain upon which they would eat them making everyone in the bunker cannibals props to this one guy that decided to go doomgan everyone for it but considering the population of the bunker at multiple thousands it's unlikely he or the Aurora crew made a dent in their numbers but considering they did at least kill the communications officers the inflow of people may stop now obviously there's a level of irony here the government built this bunker with the intention of withstanding nuclear war but all it was used for was killing more people in fact given how many surviving military personnel would have come here this bunker has killed a significant number of the remaining military and post-war Russia potentially crippling any attempt there would be by the military to regain control of the country but still we don't know what happened to the actual government given Dimitri gokowsky and foray's opposition to War and the recent events involving Russia it's likely we won't see the Russian government depicted in any of the future Metro material but I still find it weird that the government isn't shown in yamanteau maybe it was something to do with getting it released in Russia but having the government itself turn into cannibals works a lot better they're the ones who ordered the construction of the bunker so it's more fitting they're the ones to Suffer Without food rather than some random construction workers that happened to be there so while I don't think it very likely given just the lack of any confirmation as to the government's fate it's entirely possible they could still be out there somewhere after all the eurobunkers are always referred to as such Bonkers plural so maybe there's others and in the books the bunkers aren't even visited so anything could have happened to them so overall the entirety of Russia's military that hasn't resorted to savagery is either dead or broken up with the only exceptions being the Army Remnant in polis and the Spartan order given that the submarine and vladder vostok is either destroyed or in America by 2036. the government's fate is also unknown but Russia is a big place and we won't know the fate of either of these organizations until we explore the country further so until then all we can do is wait [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: The Omega Initiative

Views: 391,518

Keywords: Metro: 2033, Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, Metro Last Light, Metro: Exodus, Metro Exodus, Metro: Redux, Metro Redux, Metro Lore, Russian Army

Id: Rz7L-UuvWeQ

Length: 24min 52sec (1492 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2023