The funny thing is that as satirical as Super Earth is there have been far worse regimes in real life. Every man woman and child seems adequately fed and cared for, all while the SEAF and Helldivers both are adequately armed and provided with high quality armamants, ordinance, and other materiel on a scale far beyond even Earth's entire population currently. Realistically the quality of life of the average person is as high as the average first worlder today, and on a galactic scale easily dwarfing the entire population of every human to have ever lived up until now, probably by several factors of 10. Plus with how militaristic Super Earth is, with every civilian being provided a state-issued rifle at 16 (a rifle powerful enough to reliably kill a Helldiver in full armor, not to mention) implies a shocking degree of trust between the government and its populace. There is also nothing stating that other weapons such as Liberators can't be privately owned by a civilian. Super Earth isn't real, obviously. But the fact the federation has stayed unified implies they are doing something right. Surveillance and a powerful military can only get you so far when the citizenry still outnumbers your government personel by several factors of 10, and you're arming them. Hell, some of the armors' descriptions even mention the armors being issued to or purchaseable by civilians. The more I think about Super Earth the more I realize arrowhead is kind of retarded and just threw everything they thought was 'bad' into a melting pot (but still appeasing daddy Sony by making Super Earth racially diverse and in support of gay marriage). Just goes to show you really can't parody something you hate.
...Now it's gotten me thinking, what if instead they made Helldivers (the game) into an in-universe propaganda advert where the battles players fight aren't quite accurate to what it is really like out there. Super Earth likes to depict four men thwarting entire enemy campaigns but through small lore details the cracks of how awful things really are can be seen by players interested in the small details. Every 'on-screen' death represents millions. One devastator effortlessly destroyed by some stray liberator fire represents a murderous 9 foot tall walking tank of solid steel shrugging off small arms fire as enlisted teenagers desperately try to stop its advance with their peashooter rifles.
Edit: oh an I guess Super Earth's people, children included work like 12 hours a day, every day but there is also an enormous (galactic, even) war going on that existentially threatens the whole of humanity. So probably not as impactful an idea as Arrowhead thought it would be. Not to mention how automation has naturally improved and that there are safety warnings plastered on absolutely everything, implying there are actually good safety standards in place.
