Washington, D.C. — The administration’s ambitious plan for health pack reform continues to stir up controversy and has divided the nation seemingly down the middle. The proposal includes provisions to provide free health packs not just to lone heroes on world-saving missions, but also to average citizens such as taxi drivers, bartenders, merchants, prostitutes, farmers, security guards, helicopter pilots, priests, and even scientists who stand around forever fiddling with some vague bit of technical equipment without ever actually fixing or activating it.
Some herald the plan to provide health pack benefits to all citizens, and not just to heavily muscled heroic commandos on top-secret missions, as the mark of a more responsible society. Many others feel threatened by the reform, wondering just who will truly benefit and who will be hurt.
“I mean, where does it end?” one gruff, sardonic hero asked while rappelling from a helicopter to the rooftop of a skyscraper that had been seized by a battalion of cloned super-soldiers. “Why should everyone get free health packs? Heroes are the only one who really need them. I’m the one infiltrating this skyscraper, I’m the one who will be clearing its rooms and hallways of heavily armed clone commandos, I’m the one who will be haunted by horrifying visions of a demonic little girl with hair in her face.”
“Looks like they were expecting me,” he muttered grimly, as he landed on the roof and began spraying bullets at attacking enemies. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. You start giving free heath packs to office workers and hot-dog vendors and soon there won’t be any left for me. And I’m the one who needs them.”
“Look, we’re not asking anyone to take health packs away from space marines or reluctant saviors of the human race,” one construction worker said, wearing a hardhat and carrying a lunch pail as he walked back and forth between a construction site and his truck, over and over again. “They clearly need them, what with the overwhelming odds and lack of effective cover systems they encounter. We’re just asking that normal people be given access to health packs too.”
“The average citizen won’t be spearheading an attack on a fascist regime or battling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland,” said another construction worker, who looked and sounded identical to the first. “But we still live and work in those places. We still take damage and lose health, not just from mutated boars or inter-dimensional demons, but often from the very heroes who are purportedly there to save us. ”
He waved his lunch pail at a group of pedestrians walking in circles around the construction site. “Who among us hasn’t taken a stray bullet from a hero’s gun, or been hit by a car the hero was driving, or taken splash damage from a hero’s grenade? Sometimes I even think they hurt us deliberately. That’s why we need health packs.”
Despite conflicting opinions on the matter, the impact of the new plan is sure to be felt by nearly everyone, especially health pack manufacturers such as Heal-U-Kwik Industries, who has been leading the charge in opposing the new health pack legislation.
“As the nation’s largest supplier of health packs, heath kits, heath vials, stimpacks, med-kits, medpaks, syringes, syrettes, healing stations, mediguns, bandages, and painkillers, Heal-U-Kwik Industries stands in direct opposition to this new plan and the damage it will cause,” a Heal-U-Kwik spokesman said.
“We have a hard enough time as it is turning a profit,” he continued. “Our business consists of distributing free health packs throughout war-torn urban environments, and sometimes even to other planets and dimensions, for brave lone heroes to use at no cost to themselves. If we have to provide health packs to absolutely everyone, it will destroy our already poorly thought-out business model.”
Some are quick to point out that many societies have successfully made affordable health benefits available to all of their citizens, such as the underwater city of Rapture, founded by industrialist Andrew Ryan. In addition to various snacks and beverages containing healing properties that are scattered throughout the city, health stations in Rapture can be used, for a small fee, by anyone, be they lone protagonists with shadowy pasts, or insane, mutilated splicers who scream profane gibberish while crab-walking across the ceiling.
“I think the system here works great,” said one of Rapture’s splicers. “I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about topside. I think a society should provide some sort of health pack benefits for its citizens. Here in Rapture, I can use the health stations if I really need to, and I’m profoundly grateful for that. There’s even a way to get around the fee if you’re clever.”
“SEMEN! SEMEN ON EVERYTHING!” she added, scuttling backwards up a wall.
The elite government operative invading the clone-occupied skyscraper isn’t convinced, however, and feels he never will be.
“Next thing you know, all of my enemies will be able to pick up health packs, too, making them much harder to kill. Soon, heroes won’t be able to enjoy the benefits of free, instantly healing health packs because someone else will already have used them.”
“So, next time the country isn’t saved from the threat of evil, mind-controlled clone soldiers, don’t come crying to me.”
Sigh. More left-wing propaganda from yet another shill in the pocket of Big Mushroom. The simple fact is that sudden, completely unfair death is the best health system in the world. It keeps everyone on their toes, reduces overpopulation in even the busiest open-world sandboxes, and ensures that levelling up remains something for our children to strive for. Today, it’s free health packs. Tomorrow, it’s nothing short of socialised health regeneration, and I think we all know where that path leads. Shame on you for publishing this altruistic tripe.
dude where i live, we have free medpaks for EVERYone and it rox, just because you can beat endbosses without potions doesnt mean everyone can, i bet u wanna keep race restrictions on armor 2 you critter
Hey, if the chainmail bikini fits, wear it. Unless you’re a male dwarf.
Honestly, this is just how Wolfenstein 3D got started.
Typical single-player article. In the modern multi-player world this issue has been largely solved. Everyone has access to health packs and medic care. These are an essential part of an auto-balanced society.
Sure, medpacks for everyone might seem great now, but when we’re trapped in a bunker, being shot by nazi zombies and little jimmy sonofabitch keeps injuring himself with his own grenade launcher and starts stealing YOUR medpacks, who’s going to be laughing? Us, or the terrorists?
SEMEN
SEMEN ON EVERYTHING
Even toast? Might be a bit soggy. I’d suggest some low-fat spreadable margarine instead.
My family and I considered moving to Rapture simply to have easy access to med-kits as my wife suffered large wounds inflicted by antlions at our beach condo. However, the last ride down had already been taken by some jerk with a strange tattoo on his wrist, so we were forced to move back to our condo. My wife still suffers and we will be voting “YES” on Prop 17.
This is the main problem with red shirts of today, First we are healing them then what? Free Ammo? MADNESS!
Hey Joe,
I’m not sure if moving to rapture is a good idea! A friend of mine who was particulary fond of crabwalking on the ceiling in the women’s bathroom tried to use one, but it had been altered! Instead of dispensing the usual gun-wound-mending, burn-injury-removing and rivet-holes-closing substance, it spew out a nasty green liquid that instantly killed him! A word of advice: If one of the medkit-dispensers seems tampered with, don’t use it!
Regards,
Splicer-that-sees-semen-everywhere.
Look, you selfish hero bastards have no idea what it’s like for someone who has to live with a very low polygon count, an extremely limited area to wander randomly within (if not stuck permanently in one spot!), and a really short response tree. Just because you have all the weapons does NOT make you somehow better or more worthy of health packs.
If an appeal to basic empathy won’t work, why not consider exactly how much YOU will benefit from universal health pack reform? People with important subquests will have a better chance of survival, so that YOU can obtain the rewards. Or how about those annoying escort missions? Wouldn’t it make YOUR life easier if the target you’re protecting could heal himself? Think about that for a while.
At the very least, if we as a society don’t even have the common decency to ensure the health and well being of those who may not get as many GPU rendering cycles as the rest of us, we will NEVER get to see the best ending cinematic.
Out Reach is right! If the government just starts handing out medkits all willy-nilly, what’s to stop them from handing out free ammunition? Or firearms? I can’t imagine my children living in a world where every NPC has a government-supplied weapon.
Not even on Mars! they do NOT have a single health pack!
I can personally vouch for the quality of Rapture’s medical industry. Health care as consumer product has led to one of the healthiest populations of any city everywhere.
No one in Rapture has ever died of liver failure, heart failure, kidney disease, colon cancer, and many other common causes of death on the surface.
Now admittedly we still have problems with tumors, early onset Alzheimer’s, Acromegaly, Hysteria, Spontaneous Combustion, Megalomania, Electrocution, Teratophilia, and obsession with the nuances of social philosophy in the middle of a war zone. But at least we don’t have nationalized health care.
People seem to be forgetting the impact this will have on the various doctors and medics.
Sure, free healthpacks for everybody sounds good, but what about the doctors and medics that make a living off of slowly and painfully healing people. Now that everybody is getting free healthpacks, doctors can’t charge you a reasonable amount of money to heal you. Sure, getting shot by a stray rocket that missed it’s target hurts, or getting a nice shock from the local superhero might be nearly life threatening, and a doctor probably can’t cure it, but the unemployment rate is already skyrocketing, and now these doctors and medics won’t have any source of income.
What’s the use in giving free healthpacks to everyone, when everybody is unemployed?
I hate medkits.
I remember back in the 80’s when all you needed to do when hurt was to walk over a big, floating heart. Those were the days.
I think medkits are great! They let me be a medic without any training whatsoever!
Minor bruise? Medkit.
Broken leg? Medkit.
Head blown off? Medkit.
I even tried doing surgery! That didn’t work out too well, though.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
i don’t see why this is a problem since most heroes nowadays have recharging health. why do they need healthpacks when they can just crouch behind a conveniant knee-high wall for a couple of seconds and completly regenerate?
Quicksilver, that’s just another reason why we need this kind of reform. Gruff, sardonic heroes often get shields and health regeneration powers, but the rest of us are just left in the cold. Just look at my brother: He joined the redshirts a while back and took a bullet in the arm. Six months later, he still doesn’t have all his HP back! He can’t regenerate, and no one is willing to spare him a health pack when all these heroes “need” them more than he does. Is this the kind of treatment our veterans deserve?
Veret: Sorry for your brother and all, but he knew what he was getting into when he signed up. The Redshirts recruitment videos make it very clear that there’s a 99.8% chance of death or injury in the first week of work, and the compensation they get is quite ample- they make more inexplicably floating gold coins in a day than I can collect in a year!
I hear on Panau they have health cabinets at every petrol station, and almost nowhere else.
Fuck all the “regenerative health” bastards. At least some of them are actually getting what they deserve, like our friend Nomad here.
Call me a communist, but I’d like to see the health regeneration ability taken away and make everyone use medkits again. I mean nowadays gruff, sadonic heroes hog to that AS WELL as the medkits. In the good old days it was “first come, first served”, because you had to race other people to the medkit, not like the regenerating health pussies nowadays. I mean look at Mario – have you ever seen Mario regenerate health on his own? No, because he is a fella from the old days.
Goddamn kids.
I agree with this health pack reform. Look at what’s going on in the news these days; heroes are not only given health kits, but also incredibly expensive regenerative nanosuits. And look what they do with them, running around throwing turtles. Not to mention those lucky enough to be born with the silver spoon of bullet-time in their mouth. Meanwhile, my group of lonely survivors has to make do with AI Director based health pack welfare and enormous amounts of pills. Sometimes I have to swallow 3 or 4 bottles of pills a day just to hold me over until I can get my next health kit. Combine this with my job being outsourced to somewhere in the deep south and the rumor that one of my 3 colleagues will be dead tomorrow, my future is looking pretty bleak. This health pack reform may be my only chance of making it to the next safe house.
From a healer’s point of view, the situation in Ferelden is dire. All the free poultices in the world won’t do the people any good until the blight has ended–defeating the darkspawn (which does include healing our fighting men and women!) must be our main concern. After the blight is dealt with, however, I fully support healing those who cannot regenerate.
Regards
Warden-Commander Ellora Surana
You know, what they really should be working on is more effective armor. Yeah, there’s going to be the occasional brush with death, but if you’re making any decent effort to protect yourself, you can save that health for someone who really needs it. I wonder if someone could get a contract to mass-produce Liandri shield belts or UAC combat armor.
It was a MALE Splicer who provided the famous semen line.
God, I need a life.
For the finest healing products in all of New Mombasa, trust:
Optican: Fast, accurate diagnostics or your money back!
No word against you, Warden-Commander, but we at the Chantry of Light must indeed support health reform. As it is written in the chant:
“We shall minister freely to the, the needy, and the CHICKEN TENDERS hearted. For though there may be loose tongues that MUTTON, “Only we are needy! Only unto us apply that herbal POULTRY,and let our wounds be VEALED!” Yet Andrastre in her wisom noted, I shall not have you PUDDING the strong before the weak, but all shall share in my glory, from those deeply wounded to those who have only the most minor CUTLET.”
Thus spoke Andrastre, Prophet of the BAKER.
Poultice! Herbal Poultice! Mutter!
I swear, Sister, you are doing that on purpose. Baker help us!
Damnit, now you have me doing it!
…?
I wish we had health packs. Food helps but it’s not enough!
We’re doctors, people. Not Gods.
Was an fascinating write-up, thank you..
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It’s smart to check out sites with info and many thanks for the discuss that you’ve given. Commonly, I’m really amazed, but etc…
Medkits are useful for putting out fires. Even a simple pill bottle will solve my troubles.
Also, Spy among us.