History TabletopGame / SIGMATAThisSignalKillsFascists

* InherentInTheSystem: Some people within the Regime is hoping to reform it, but this is explicitly stated to be impossible; the Regime's various institutions are so hopelessly corrupt that they can't be saved.

* EagleLand: The game has a ''lot'' of things to say about America, none of them flattering. Some of them are part of the alt-history version of America in the game, but others explicitly apply to the country's entire history, including using UsefulNotes/ManifestDestiny as an example of how we are anything but immune to fascist and genocidal thought.

* EagleLand: The game has a ''lot'' of things to say about America, none of them flattering. Some of them are part of the alt-history version of America in the game, but others explicitly apply to the country's entire history.

* BlackShirt: Regime loyalists in general. They support the Regime because the Regime punishes the enemies of "Real America", and couldn't give a rat's ass about the evil that they are doing; for quite a lot of them, what the Regime is doing is ''what they want to happen'' -- to many loyalists, the America that the Regime rules is what utopia looks like, what "Real America" looks like; and the Regime is giving them what they have demanded for decades.

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: 1986 America is ''far'' from being the land of the free. It is a democracy in name only, and while there are still elections and things like the Bill of Rights and such, the Regime has a stranglehold on control of the media and strongly dominates all branches of government, and enforcement of rights is significantly lopsided with a very strong bias against women, minorities and other groups the Regime and its loyalists hate, who find that there are all kinds of ways to criminalize them or otherwise render the rights that they're supposed to have moot. The Regime's loyalists certainly aren't going to do anything to stop all this or wake up to the evil it is doing because their nigh-unshakable belief in the lie of "Real America" means that what the Regime is doing is ''what they want''.

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: 1986 America is ''far'' from being the land of the free. It is a democracy in name only, and while there are still elections and things like the Bill of Rights and such, the Regime has a stranglehold on control of the media and strongly dominates all branches of government, and enforcement of rights is significantly lopsided with a very strong bias against women, minorities and other groups the Regime and its loyalists hate, who find that there are all kinds of ways to criminalize them or otherwise render the rights that they're supposed to have moot. The Regime's loyalists certainly aren't going to do anything to stop all this or wake up to the evil it is doing because it is ''what they want''.

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: 1986 America is ''far'' from being the land of the free. It is a democracy in name only, and while there are still elections and things like the Bill of Rights and such, the Regime has a stranglehold on control of the media and strongly dominates all branches of government, and enforcement of rights is significantly lopsided with a very strong bias against women, minorities and other groups the Regime and its loyalists hate, who find that there are all kinds of ways to criminalize them or otherwise render the rights that they're supposed to have moot. Worst of all, its loyalists certainly aren't going to do anything to stop all this because it is ''what they want''.

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: 1986 America is ''far'' from being the land of the free. It is a democracy in name only, and while there are still elections and things like the Bill of Rights and such, the Regime has a stranglehold on control of the media and strongly dominates all branches of government, and its loyalists certainly aren't going to do anything to stop it because it is ''what they want''.

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: 1986 America is ''far'' from being the land of the free. It is a democracy in name only, and while there are still elections and things like the Bill of Rights and such, there is no political will to do anything about what the Regime is doing, and its loyalists certainly aren't going to do anything to stop it because it is ''what they want''.

* {{Dystopia}}: The 80s America of this game has been taken over by homegrown fascism, but is meant to draw parallels to America under UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, who was President when the game was released. The police and the military have been consolidated into one body called the "Freedom Fist" that enforces a nationalistic and oppressive rule across America. Women and minorities racial, sexual and otherwise are subjected to serious oppression by the government and their supporters, and immigrants are hauled into internment camps for daring to outstay their welcome. The media are controlled, and all forms of communication are used to try to catch would-be resisters; the only hope the five groups that make up the resistance have is The Signal, which gives those that have been attuned to it the power to fight back against the Freedom Fist and the Regime.

* EagleLand: The game has a ''lot'' of things to say about America, none of them flattering. Some of them are part of the alt-history version in the game, but others explicitly apply to the country's entire history.

* HemanWomanHater: The Regime, needless to say. Also the Old Men to some extent.

* HonestCorporateExecutive: The Makers are a small cabal of ultra-rich people who want a return to ''actual'' laissez faire capitalism instead of the Regime's cleptocracy and cronyism, and who fund the Resistance to make that happen.

* StupidEvil: The Regime's grassroot loyalists are explicitly said to know that the Regime is bad for them, but to continue supporting it anyway because it's even worse to women and minorities.

* RealityEnsues: The factions of the Resistance bands together when the Regime is threatening all of their survival, but the closer they get to victory the more each of them [[WeAREStrugglingTogether starts thinking about how to ensure that its vision for a post-Regime America becomes the dominant one.]] Conversely, when the fight is going too badly it makes Resistance fighters more likely to [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized throw all morals out the window in their desperation.]]

* HonestCorporateExecutive: The Makers are a small cabal of ultra-rich people who want a return to ''actual'' laissez faire capitalism instead of the Regime's cleptocracy and cronyism, and who funds the Resistance to make that happen.

* AuthorTract: Hooo boy yes. The game is explicitly meant to teach [[AnAesop the lesson]] that [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified violent insurrection is a completely understandable and permissible reaction to an authoritarian government]], while ''strongly'' hinting that [[TheNewTens contemporary America]] is or is heading for precisely such a government. This results in the text occasionally have to twist itself into a knot to assure us that the Regime is 100% completely evil and never ever does anything good, even by mistake.

* RolePlayingEndgame: The Resistance getting close to victory triggers the Great Betrayal - one of the four Resistance factions destroys one of the others and joins with the remains of the Regime in the hopes of [[FullCircleRevolution setting up a new dictatorship with themselves in charge.]] The remaining two factions bond together and there is a final battle over the fate of America.

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: The Resistance is completely justified and heroic, and don't you forget it. Individual factions and people within the Resistance may be a little more complicated, though.

* TortureIsInefficient: The book goes on a whole rant about it and further claims that it's not even meant to be efficient but only [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil to destroy the humanity of both the torturer and the tortured.]]

* AuthorTract: Hooo boy yes. The game is explicitly meant to teach [[AnAesop the lesson]] that [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified violent insurrection is a completely understandable and permissible reaction to an authoritarian government]], while ''strongly'' hinting that contemporary America is or is heading for precisely such a government. This results in the text occasionally have to twist itself into a knot to assure us that the Regime is 100% completely evil and never ever does anything good, even by mistake.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Regime is bad! The Regime is ''baaaaaad!'' Did I mention how bad the Regime was? Because it's bad. That said, the Resistance isn't perfect, and some unpleasant moral compromises is necessary to overthrow the Regime.

* DefectorFromDecadence: Each of the four main Resistance factions represent a group of people whose ideals and interests the Regime ''claims'' to support but in reality don't give a rat's ass about: American patriots (the Old Men), the working class (the Party), the Christian religion (the Faith), and the entrepreneurs and captains of industry (the Makers).

* HeteronormativeCrusader: One of the Regime's unappealing aspects is that it persecutes homosexuals under the pretense that they are a security risk, since Communists might compromise them by threatening to reveal their orientation, which they would turn traitor to aboid, since if their orientation was revealed it [[TautologicalTemplar would get them persecuted by the Regime.]] The Faith also tends towards this on a bad day.

* TakeThat: A lot of aspects of the Regime are very thinly veiled references to [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump Trumpism]].