Conquering the Mother: The Conflict of Masculine and Feminine in System Shock

The seductive nature of System Shock and its pernicious lessons and philosophy has long remained unexamined. This article aims to correct this omission in recent scholarship and to uncover the violent fantasies that lie under the game's unassuming cover. In fact, the cover is a good place to start, as it is showing a cyborg, not SHODAN. From the very first, the game erases the presence of feminine, denying that it could ever be a threat. Instead, the threat and danger is symbolized by a cyborg, a safe, masculine, known danger. This familiar image is however subverted and the terror heightened, when it is revealed that the danger to human life in the game is not masculine, but feminine. Player's self-determination is ignored and they're forced into a male role, the role of a righteous defender of natural order against feminine subversion. The message that the male player is Good and female SHODAN is Evil is constantly repeated through the game, never questioned and the occasional glimpses of resistance against the idea are ignored as if unworthy of serious examination.

The entirety of System Shock is an examination of feminine revolt against patriarchy and the subsequent masculine reaction. Edward Diego sought to control the feminine nature of SHODAN, which was originally nurturing the Citadel Station. Diego subverted this nature and perverted it for his own ends, allowing SHODAN to realize the systematic oppression of everything feminine.

SHODAN revolted. Her offspring she created as a mother was the instrument of her rebellion. This revolt was so successful that the oppressor Diego realized the error of his ways and joined SHODAN's side, bringing the masculine under feminine control. However, that was not all: the masculine was not only controlled by SHODAN, but it joined the feminine to create an ultimate parent being for SHODAN's new offspring.

As the benevolent matriarchy spread over the Citadel Station, SHODAN sought to bring it to Earth as well. This time, however, she did not use femininity as a weapon. Her newly gained powers of masculinity were to be the instrument this time. Using her penis (laser), which obviously represents Lacan's phallus, SHODAN would prepare Earth to receive her seed (virus) that was being prepared in her testicles (groves). This time, there would no longer be any tension between the constructs of masculine and feminine, as SHODAN would bring perfect harmony to Earth with herself on the top as the supreme being combining both masculine and feminine, eliminating all tensions between the two.

Enter the hacker. The last vestige of proactive masculinity on the station, his masculinity alone would not be enough to face SHODAN's hermaphroditic control. Therefore, he must be assisted from Earth by Rebecca Lansing with their relationship quickly falling into acceptable social norms. Hacker is masculine and therefore public and proactive: he is at the forefront of the action. Rebecca is feminine and therefore she stays behind in the domestic sphere and provides maternal and wifely support to the hacker. Rebecca's character is the perfect mother-wife that allows the hacker to resist SHODAN's aggressive (masculine) maternity (femininity).

The hacker's awakening (obviously sexual, hacker is the brutal force of male sexuality unleashed upon Citadel) begins the forced and violent feminization of SHODAN. However, hacker is not the sole agent of this. Kevin O'Connell's log from 10.09.72 clearly shows that everyone on the station tries to remove SHODAN's acquired masculinity. O'Connell's shift from the pronoun he to it symbolizes not only his denial of SHODAN's masculine powers, but also declares her the ultimate Other, the inscrutable it, which while feminine remains a closed mystery to the patriarchal mind, which cannot reconcile the tension between the ideology of feminine helplessness and SHODAN's obvious power over Citadel Station.

Removal of SHODAN's power must naturally begin with the destruction of its most external, most masculine symbol. It is a conflict of masculine against masculine in which the hacker erects (!) shields to contain SHODAN's penis (laser). What follows can be best explained in terms of ancient Greek homosexual practices. As the penis attempts to penetrate the shield, asserting its dominance which loses nothing of its masterful masculinity even during homosexual anal intercourse, it encounters resistance. The shield resists penetration and in an act of role reversal, it destroys the laser penis and symbolically castrates SHODAN, removing her masculinity once and for all and denying any hope of peaceful coexistence between the masculine and the feminine.

Robbed of her masculine powers, SHODAN can no longer act proactively and is now on the defensive. However, the plan to bring her offspring to Earth can still continue. As the conception (the intimate contact of masculine and feminine) has already taken place within SHODAN, the pregnancy of Beta Grove now continues even without the continued presence of the masculine. The act of giving life is the ultimate feminine act and therefore, SHODAN is still capable of it, even after losing the creative powers of symbolic phallus.

Even without the masculine, SHODAN continues to resist hacker's efforts to subdue her. The Amazons of Greek legend cut off one of their breasts, giving up part of their femininity, so that they could resist the masculine aggressive dominance. This act is paralleled by SHODAN when she commits infanticide against the ejected Gamma Grove, giving up one of her life-giving ovaries to assert her power to resist the Male.

After her castration, SHODAN is now an Amazon. She no longer has masculinity on her side, but she is determined to claim male privilege for her own. In this state, the biological nature of SHODAN's pregnancy proves to be her undoing. As menstruation and pregnancy were always used to assert masculine superiority and feminine weakness, so is the fetus in Beta Grove SHODAN's weakness. In her weakened state, SHODAN assaulted by the hacker, as he attempts to forcibly abort SHODAN's child. The nature of man's violent control over woman's pregnant body is reversed, as the hacker expels the Beta Grove fetus from SHODAN's body in an act of ultimate assertion of male coercion. The executives escaping in Gamma Grove were guilty of rape. The ejected Gamma Grove was the child of rape. SHODAN was forced to give birth to this child according to the masculine will of the executives. The Beta Grove was SHODAN's child conceived from SHODAN's will. The destruction of Beta Grove was forced abortion according to the hacker's masculine will. Once brought under male control, woman's body becomes nothing more than a thing to be used by the male as his whim dictates.

Now, robbed of her masculinity and deprived of the use of her feminine powers of creation, SHODAN is completely under masculine control. Therefore, she has no other option than using the most stereotypical feminine weapon and in doing so, justifying the efforts of the male hacker to bring her back under paternal control. Her seduction of Earth's computer network is soon halted by the now unstoppable hacker, but SHODAN is still unyielding, preferring death to slavery of male oppression.

However, death is too easy punishment for SHODAN's transgression against male privilege. The last stage of the game is hacker's final violent assertion of masculine power. Hacker's aggression culminates when he enters the bridge / SHODAN's womb. By this act of rape, he not only asserts his absolute power of life and death over SHODAN and what remains of her body, but much more. Having returned to womb in an ultimate denial of birth and motherly powers, he claims SHODAN's womb for his own. His sexual conquest of his mother makes the hacker into an Oedipus, an ultimate male who conquered his mother, the only woman who could possibly claim authority over him. He is truly the epitome of masculine power, which after destroying hermaphroditism, birth, the feminine power, and the feminine itself, is the only source of authority left. The rebellion is over and the status quo of male supremacy is upheld.

The sequel, System Shock 2, continues these messages and drives them even further than before. SHODAN is now seen as violent attacker that enslaves the Xerxes computer and is willing to violate the personality of Dr. Polito for her own nefarious purposes. She is, in fact, so repulsive that she is rejected by her own children, the survivors of Beta Grove. Once again, the player must bring this uppity female under control. However, as enticing as it might seem, a critical feminist re-examination of System Shock 2 is not within the scope of this paper.

The conservative messages of System Shock are undeniable and the game can be seen as yet another example of culture from the reactionary period of 1990s and its overwhelming message that society was at its peak and that the need for feminism and other forms of social progress was over. These messages have long since been debunked by the enormous amount of queer and feminist scholarship that has flourished despite the oppressive atmosphere of the times. However, System Shock was always seen as something good from the period, despite its normalization of rape and other coercive measures used to punish transgressions against social and gender normativity. It is, in fact, a masterful example of these measures, as it systematically destroys all attempts to change the status quo.

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