Detroit: Become Human (2020)
Choices matter
Detroit: Become Human
By Quantic Dream
Released on Steam in June 2020
I finally feel like writing again. I finished a poetry manuscript last spring, which is now languishing in the slush piles of various contests, awaiting the statistically inevitable rejection. But my drive to produce more largely fizzled out with back-to-back musicals, negotiating the logistics of quitting my day job, election despair, Thanksgiving travel, pneumonia, learning about my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis on my forty-second birthday…
Yesterday I thought of a few good lines in the shower and puttered around on a Google doc for an hour or so. Nothing of note came of it, but the ritual of sitting on the couch and banging out words on my iPad felt comforting.
So did my recent runthrough of Detroit: Become Human. Jess is a huge fan of the game and, mindful of my natant parsimony, bought me a copy on Steam. She looked over my shoulder as I played, eager to see how I navigated the branching narrative. This is a “choices matter” game as much as it is a lightly interactive film about android liberation. Having only seen one ending, I can’t quite parse out what it ultimately has to say about revolution, the efficacy of respectability versus direct action, the radical flank effect, the power of corporations, and the intractability of the state. Without delving too deep into spoilers, my tactics softened over the course of my playthrough as I sought to gain public support. But higher esteem didn’t lead to a satisfactory conclusion.
After the credits rolled, Jess and I talked a lot about the utility of science fiction: how it provides a forum in which we can isolate and explore contemporary issues and injustices. But it feels weird when those stories are set in our world—rather than, like, a space station in the Delta Quadrant—where real people are perpetually fighting to be recognized as human, while the aggrieved in power cosplay as minoritized groups in order to further expand their financial and political dominance. Detroit: Become Human is a defanged dystopia where all bigotry is consolidated, singularly focused on one community. Reality is so much shittier.
Yesterday I wrote, “As if any poem of mine could stoke a revolution.” It’s not a great line and likely won’t make the cut, but there’s no denying its truth. I know my writing isn’t particularly liberatory, but it’s not disengaged, either. One fine day my poems about being trans, recovering a lost girlhood, and just existing as the child of Southeast Asian immigrants will find their way into the world. With poetry (clearly not with prose anymore), I’m still trying to play the game of traditional publishing, sending my work to literary magazines in an effort to build enough clout for some book publisher to take notice. The last two poems that came out were more personal meditations than anything, but the next two, slated to be published in June, delve into my politicized identities and generational trauma. Apparently there’s a market for that sort of thing—even if I’m only going to be paid with contributor copies.