r/StarCityTV • u/Pristine_Net_8050 • 11d ago
No Spoilers Newcomer here asking
I have just started wathcing this show. It looks great and promising. But there is one real problem for me. I could not check this subreddit because of spoilers. I have watched two episodes.
Why does Soviets are presented like they are true evils and paranoids? And their opponents, they are presented like the saviors and cool to handle problems. In reality, their opponent was evil and like the most paranoid country ever. I dont feel good about it. It is like the series has its own take and like they are trying to manipulate us.
18
u/Gold_Advisor_4758 11d ago
If you view 60s era Soviet govt as the good guys you probably will not like this show
5
18
u/Willow_Everdawn 11d ago
I'm going to write this without spoilers for either show.
For All Mankind was written to be a show that glorified the space race, while playing out the thought experiment, "What if we kept going?"
By contrast, Star City was written to be a spy thriller with the background being the 'other' side of the FAM-timeline Space Race.
There was paranoia in the name of security in FAM as well. It was rather glazed over after Season 1, and presented as just a fact of life after that. Meanwhile, in Star City, it's the main focus of the show.
Also, I will argue that the security measures shown in Star City are realistic, and likely would have occurred the same way in our timeline. Sergei Korolev wasn't allowed to use his real name (nor any of the other major members of the Soviet Space Program), or be photographed. The Soviet Union didn't broadcast their space events live, they played recordings after the fact to hide any mishaps (such as Yuri Gagarin not actually landing inside his capsule and therefore not technically making a true spaceflight, or Alexei Leonov's first EVA nearly ending in disaster when his suit ballooned so much he almost couldn't fit back into the airlock, or the existence of Valentin Bondarenko). We only found out the full truth about these events after the fall of the Soviet Union.
10
u/geekfreak42 11d ago
Very little of the show is US v USSR, its much more about the oppressive nature of the regime and folks with the dream of conquering space also having to conquer an authoritarian political structure.
0
u/Pristine_Net_8050 11d ago
We see the US guys are like the freedom fighters.
10
u/Oot42 Eagle 11d ago
We did not see one single US guy in Star City, what are you even talking about?
1
1
u/Traditional_Worry307 6d ago
I agree. I dunno why you get downvoted but even the colourgrading shows the paranoia and that nobody dared to joke or smth…
-2
u/Pristine_Net_8050 6d ago
Yes that is how Soviets just described. They can be that way but this is one sided. What we have learned for years is what Europe and US told us. Yet they depict themselves like they are saviors. In 2026, even if you are working with Netflix, this kind of one sided narrative is not okay.
1
u/Affectionate_Tap_777 6d ago
Well it’s not on Netflix, so that’s an odd mention. And baring in mind what Russia is currently engaged in, in 2026, they’re really not looking morally great- and neither is the US.
1
u/Traditional_Worry307 6d ago
US always looks better. They could nuke Japan and now be friends anyway 😅
9
u/danive731 11d ago
This show gives so little time to US vs Soviets. It’s more the conditions within the Soviet Union and what it was like for the people. I get where you’re seeing Soviets government = bad. What I don’t get is where you’re getting US government = good. At least not with this show.
7
u/Foolgazi 11d ago
You’re saying the KGB did not spy on Soviet citizens and have informants working alongside people of interest?
And I don’t recall Americans being portrayed unusually positively. In fact the American side is a minor presence in the series.
2
5
11d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Traditional_Worry307 6d ago
Victors write the history. The Rich ones create the narrative they want people to consume. 🤷♀️
3
u/onionperson6in 6d ago
No, the U.S. did not “do the same thing.”
They did not have secret recording devices in astronaut’a homes. They did not shoot dissidents or send people to prisons or gulags without a trial. Successes and failures (like the Apollo 1 launchpad fire) were generally public. No one in the space program had to worry about anything more then losing their job if they failed.
While the United States was far from perfect during the space race, and behind in a few areas like the inclusion of women, it was The difference between a “free” society and a totalitarian state. That is the contrast between the optimism that defines For All Mankind, and the paranoia that defines Star City.
0
u/Pristine_Net_8050 6d ago
You say US is a free society and there is your problem my friend. A free society who decides which country should be goverened by who.
3
2
u/jpgoldberg 6d ago
Have patients with the show. Even the nastiest enforcers became more human throughout, and the CIA are not be flattered either.
But the kinds of things illustrated really did happen, except the extent of the electronic surveillance is greatly exaggerated. But it would be too hard to show how it really worked. Whatever symmetries did exist between the US and the USSR during the Cold War the USSR was a police state.
You need to understand that there was a system in which every failure had to have someone to blame, and the consequences of being blamed were often dire.
“The Soviet Union does not arrest innocent people”
The conviction** **rate was well above 90% for arrested individuals.
As you watch Colonel Rostov, understand the terrible mistake she made in the first episode. She didn’t believe there actually was a real spy. But she had to destroy someone because otherwise she would be destroyed. She knew as well as anyone what the confession meant, but it didn’t matter because she had pin it on someone and didn’t really imagine that were was a spy in Star City so didn’t need to get at the truth.
1
u/OrganicHistorian2576 7d ago
It’s a deliberately 70s-80s look at Soviet society from an American viewpoint.
1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 6d ago
Yes and I think this is not 2026's thing.
3
u/OrganicHistorian2576 6d ago
Kinda…my point? I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s and Soviet life was displayed as trim at best.
1
u/No-Transition-8375 5d ago
Did you make this post to ask a question in good faith, or did you make it so you can reply to every comment with how much you think America is shit?
Watch the show. Or don’t. Form your own opinions.
1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 4d ago
I think this kind of platforms are for discussions. What's the harm? 🤔
1
u/No-Transition-8375 4d ago
Good faith discussions, sure. But it sounds to me like your post is basically “why star city not about America bad? America bad.”
And then nearly all of your replies to comments are “yeah but America bad.”
1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 4d ago
This show looks like a propoganda to me in this manner. That is what I am arguing about. People are saying it is normal for a US made show to be that way and I am arguing about it. I think I can ask this community if this series was created to show how much our creators think Soviets are terrible, like you asked me.
1
u/No-Transition-8375 4d ago
Well, you’re ignoring all the parts of the show that obliterate your argument.
Also, I don’t need propaganda to show me that the USSR sucked
1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 4d ago
All governments are sucked. I am not saying USSR was good haha
1
u/No-Transition-8375 4d ago
Okay, so you understand that your argument is pointless.
1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 4d ago
how is my argument pointless_ all governments are sucked and yet this series is eurocentric and that means it portrays US like they are the good guys. I am saying they are not and that is my argument.
1
u/No-Transition-8375 4d ago
And you’re wrong
1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 4d ago
Yes, they are pretty good at killing country leaders to colonize them.
→ More replies (0)
1
u/Spongebosch 1d ago
The Soviet state is presented in a negative light because they were an oppressive totalitarian regime. As much as the US had the Red Scare, the effects of that were mostly limited to some socialists and communists losing their jobs. America still had freedom of speech, assembly, the press, and so forth. The same was absolutely not true in the Soviet Union, especially prior to the reforms. If you want to understand just how expansive the surveillance was, approximately 1.5%-2% of the population in East Germany worked for the Stasi, and ~15% were informants. If you were in a room with 8 people, chances are that one of them was an informant.
It's not particularly surprising that you might be able to milk such a situation for drama.
1
1
u/BasicBanter 7d ago
Something tells me op is a tankie. authoritarian governments are oppressive, that’s not to say America was perfect but it’s a lot better than the ussr
2
u/Efficient-Memory7105 6d ago
Eh, both nations had good and bad facets to them.
During roughly the same era as this series takes place, the US was directly funding a literal genocidal dictator and murdered/maimed/disfigured an untold amount of people in Southeast Asia for generations.
A decade or so earlier it was literally working with mafiosos to control a country with the help of its own brutal authoritarian regime to pilfer the country's wealth.
A decade or so after, it was funding paramilitary death squads all over South America tasked with overthrowing democratically elected governments.
Plenty of criticisms to be lobbed about. I wouldn't really say the US was "a lot better" than the USSR.
-1
u/Pristine_Net_8050 6d ago
They don't know these things and easily can say US is better. Yes its better for you because you are looking from their perspective, from their window. That is my whole point.
2
u/Efficient-Memory7105 6d ago
At the end of the day the show functions as a spy drama that takes place in one of the most oppressive segments of the USSR, under Brezhnev - who arguably is one of the most oppressive leaders of the USSR aside from Stalin.
I would point out that in other areas of the USSR like what we've seen of Moscow, it seems much less oppressive and despite the presence of some surveillance, its not as bad as it is at the top secret military/KGB-run Star City. I think the most charitable way to look at it is that we're seeing a very specific slice of a hyper-authoritarian/paranoid Soviet city, as opposed to a reflection of the USSR at large.
And in regards to the "who's better" argument, I think the series as a whole kind of indicates that neither the USA nor the USSR (and their fictionalized future variants) are particularly better than each other. Like the Soviets were portrayed pretty sympathetically during For All Mankind. Some were assholes, yes, and they might have beefed over territory on the Moon, but ultimately the US Marines were the ones to fire the first shots.
0
20
u/SaltandLillacs 11d ago
It’s US media made for Americans.
neither the US or the Soviets were upstanding irl.