Empire is actually quite literal too.
While their organized crime was the normal illegal and semi hidden type through a huge percentage of the galaxy they did also have worlds they literally were the legitimate and direct government for.
Some of the city states in Italy history do fit fairly well to this.
For Ladybird I think due to politics of the/a lead developer. I haven't looked into it and don't know it it is well deserved or silly. Just enough of a thing that I have seen it complained about before.
For Servo I have no clue why someone would downvote over that.
First thing this is all purely personal opinion viewing stuff from outside and as a general interest in world history.
I am an American but I have lived outside the USA for a couple years and no it wasn't on a military base.
So with that said my personal interpretation is that China is still largely the same China as in ancient times and has decided to take several large chunks of both Communism and Capitalism and add those to the far far larger just continuing to do/be the same as they have for thousands of years.
To put it a different way, it is a case of fix what they feel was/is broken and keep doing all the things that work and from their point of view China has kept itself as one of the largest Nations in history for one of the longest times of any country.
So on the bad side you have things like them being willing to be extremely repressive is terms of censorship. Or the oppression of minorities they don't fall in line enough to the central control of the government. Or minimizing stories that damage their reputation like mining issues.
On the good side they seem to be able to at least partially consider long term large scale society value. At least from the point of view of engineering. The USA by comparison seems to exclusively only consider short term value. Often in terms of weeks or a financial quarter and occasionally the few year duration of a presidential or Senate term.
China also seems to care about improving the average life of it's citizens. This is a big deal and probably the most "Communist" thing. However that also goes along with them seemingly not just allowing but being perfectly happy to have some people have truly horrific lives as long as the baseline average is improving.
Full engine swap? Makes it even more ridiculous if so but someone stupid enough to do this seems like the type.
Safety. It improves visibility when pulling out and with backup cameras you lose no visibility pulling in.
I'll gladly take that trade every time.
The only way that might not be true is if your vehicle has an insanely large/long nose. If it does you shouldn't be driving it anyway.
I both lothe this happening and also know that it is often because of an intended safety feature called gray listing.
Basically due to resources cost a lot of spam will only get sent once and real emails will get sent again in exactly this kind of way. So it is a very low bar to pass when the system puts a low but above zero spam risk rating on it.
Yes of course more targeted things like spear phishing try more than once and get past this but bulk market type junk often does get blocked this way.
Well the smallest cat is getting bullied again by the other two. No blood or anything but she is so conflict avoidant and it makes us sad. Otherwise the three are all doing well.
Most of those kids if things like parks and walkable safe cities increase economic health overall but it doesn't go into the specific pocket of a capitalist in a direct way they can see. Plus the general kick the poor attitude from the same group.
I'm shocked nobody has brought this up yet.
I would absolutely be a town citizen in Phineas and Ferb. Ideally the guy who always has a new fun project and the side effects from the kids just drop everything in his lap.
Every benefit of a cartoon world with almost none of the cartoon downsides. Nearly Culture level tech after a few years once the boys grow up to by adults and actually start taking things "seriously" as shown in episodes where they go to the near my future.
The worst people in the world are so bad at being bad that they are consistently kept in check and even rehabilitated by trained animals.
TIE Fighter. Flying as a pilot for the Empire in Star Wars including flying alongside Vader to save the Emperor. Includes getting pulled into a secret society with a cool glowing force tattoo showing your rank in service to the Emperor.
The game never says your name but in the old expanded universe books you are basically the Empire version of Wedge.
Edit - It isn't open world but the limited story does do well at making you feel like you should in the role.
I'll add that the game came with a manual that did have the character name and a back story. Short version is your character was an illegal swoop bike racer on a world that had been in a multi generation war. Includes your father dying. The empire stops it by basically making it impossible to for the two world to even be able to send attacks at each other. Then recruits all the youth that would have fought in their own war and just sends them out to different parts of the empires wars.
Your preexisting flight skills gets you first a mechanic job on a Star Destroyer and then you save a VIP while testing repairs on a TIE Fighter and get pulled in as an actual pilot with a quiet push to get you up the ranks due to your impressive start.
Oh I have lived outside the USA at one point and I'm well aware electricity isn't magic. There were other places too but Guyana most definitely doesn't have a stable power grid.
I'm not going to starve my kids over that kind of stance on cash only either though.
I can't understand why banks are as stupid as they often are. Why would you refuse money from the federal government. What do you think we successfully stole money from the IRS through a direct deposit?
I would love to see a lot of cars like this converted to EV this way. I remember loving this type of vehicle in the past. I specifically had a 1980 Oldsmobile