Ministry of Truth Literature Department Report - 2347-10-27

The Life and Times of Johnathan S.E. Helldiver was reported to the Ministry of Truth by citizen K. Johnson on the date of 2347-10-25.

The following text contains the final chapter of the book, which is currently being investigated for treason.

J. Helldiver ThoughtLog - 2313-08-29.

Courtesy of ThoughtLog Inc. Remember, thought-crimes kill!

It's finally happening, today is the day I finally live up to my name! Right this very moment I'm boarding the ship that'll take me to the training facilities on Mars!

There are so many people going up there with me, everybody seems so excited!

This place is incredible! I almost can't believe I'm really up here, wearing this armor, and better yet, the real General Brasch is training me!

I admit, it's been rough, life-threatening even, I don't think I've ever been this exhausted in my life, but it'll all be worth it when I get out there and help spread managed democracy to the galaxy!

Terminid. My blood boils just hearing the name. Thank goodness I already killed the beast, and all it took was a few shots from my pistol. I must really be good at this!

There are more of them, but none of them can defeat the incredible power of democracy. For Super Earth!

At last, I'm done with training, I'm one of them, the best of the best, the Helldivers!

To wear this cape is an honor, and one I finally know I can live up to. If General Brasch himself says I've already done more to spread democracy than anyone he's seen before, I'm certain I can keep it up!

COLD COLD WHY IS IT SO COLD I CHANGED MY MIND PLEASE LET ME OUT SWEET LIBERTY IT'S FREEZING IN HERE PLEASE

Interview with Death Captain Ryan Johnson - 2345-02-10.

Q: Do you remember ever meeting a 'Johnathan S.E. Helldiver'?

John Helldiver? I think I remember seeing that name once, it was a few years back now...

It was a mission on Hellmire. The planet had a habit of living up to its name, I've probably lost more men to the heat and the fire tornados than to the bugs themselves. Good men.

That mission was the worst one I'd had in a long time. Everywhere we turned there was an impenitrable wall of bugs, and I was the last of the squad that had first been sent down there still standing.

I had just watched someone get dragged kicking and screaming into one of those nasty bug holes. She died a hero, called an Eagle from inside and took the nest out with her.

With how things were going though, we couldn't afford to be down a Diver. I turned, ran for cover, punched in the code, and called for reinforcements.

J. Helldiver ThoughtLog - 2342-11-30

Courtesy of ThoughtLog Inc. We thank you for your service, Helldiver!

COLD COld cold. Wait, no, actually pretty warm!

There's a little screen here saying 'Welcome to Hellmire.' I guess I'm already right in the action! Alright! I'm so excited!

I grab my weapons, put on a suitably heroic pose, and as my pod opens, and I rise into battle, I yell out "FOR SUPER EA-"

...

Warning: No mental activity detected. Shutting down automatically in 3. 2. 1.

Interview with Death Captain Ryan Johnson, continued - 2345-02-10.

Q: And that was when you met him?

Yeah. It was a sorry sight. The pod lands, and the poor fellow comes out, decked in standard issue rookie gear, yelling.

He couldn't even finish a sentence before the Titan got to him. He was barely there long enough for me to get his name.

But still, we needed the manpower, so I did what I had to, put the code in again, and called for more reinforcements.

Ministry of Truth Final Verdict

After deliberation, The Life and Times of Johnathan S.E. Helldiver has been declared guilty of treason, and is to be submitted to the MoT Historical Accuracy Council for revision.

Citizen K. Johnson is to be rewarded for her diligence with a payment of 10 Super Credits, as well as a letter of thanks signed by the Ministry of Truth.

Former Death Captain R. Johnson and author H. Helldiver are to be reported to their local democracy officers for the crimes of insufficient patriotism for the former, and literary treason as well as unauthorized access of military records for the latter.

J. Helldiver is to be awarded a posthumous Defender of Liberty Star for outstanding patriotism and remarkable service, and a public memorial service is to occur in one month's time, viewing of which will be mandatory for all citizens outside of the military.

Author Commentary

The Life and Times of Johnathan S.E. Helldiver was originally written on 2024-03-18, and further edited from 2024-10-27 to 2024-10-31 by Echo.

Author commentary also written by Echo from 2024-10-28 to 2024-10-31.

I still remember, the day I wrote this originally, the idea basically popped into my head fully formed right after I woke up. Not literally everything about the final result, but the core concept of a biography of a Helldiver that gets cut short as soon as they're deployed, which is also under review for treason by Super Earth.

I did basically write the whole story in one draft, in an hour or two as soon as I got the chance, but I remember being really happy with it when I was done.

There are bits I'm less happy with, like it feels as though the story spends too long recounting the Helldivers 2 tutorial mission, but then on the other hand I think the length of time spent with John makes it more impactful when he just suddenly dies?

There are some bits I left a bit vague in the story itself, or that I just insinuated instead of spelling out.

For instance, H. Helldiver is both the author of the book, and a relative of John, I'm thinking a sibling. They were both about the same age when John joined the Helldivers, but by the time John is finally deployed H. is ~29 years older, at least in terms of lived experience and age of body, due to John spending those years frozen in cryo-stasis.

K. Johnson is someone important to Death Caption Ryan Johnson. Whether by blood or marriage I don't know. The idea is that Ryan was given a copy of the book prior to the release date as thanks for his part in it, K. read the book, and took the realities it described to be lies, distributed for treasonous purposes or something, and reported it to the MoT. She was basically given $10 and a thank you note in exchange for handing her husband/close family member over to the feds.

Also, I would like to mention that the version of this story displayed on this site is significantly edited from the original version. Here is a link to the original version as a markdown file, if you're interested.

Some of the changes were to better fit HTML conventions and accessability. For instance in the original version the "Final Verdict" section at the end used a second top level header, because it looked better when I was writing it in markdown. Also, the ThoughtLog text used code elements for a monospace font, again because it looked better in markdown. I changed those to use a CSS class that gave them the monospace font while otherwise being regular p elements.

I also changed the government agency reviewing the book from one I made up (the "Super Earth Democratic Literature Review Council") to the Ministry of Truth, which does exist canonically, and seemed like a better fit. The "Literature Department", and "Historical Accuracy Council" are things I made up, but I thought it would make sense for Super Earth's government to have a whole mess of departments and councils and divisions like that.

I got rid of one line towards the beginning where John is like "Thank Liberty I only had to be 13 to join" because of this bit I was going to include in the main Author Commentary:

"I also feel like I might've gone just a little over the top in regards to the semi-comedic dystopia kinda thing going on? Specifically with the bit about John only having to be 13 to join the army. I might actually just remove that line, it doesn't really add anything, just feels out of place, like the author just threw it in somewhere to emphasize the dystopia-ness, which is really the case."

I also added a bit at the end about viewing the memorial service for J. Helldiver being mandatory for non-military citizens, and also the entire existence of K. Johnson.

I get the feeling I may have gone a little too in-depth for this commentary thing. Like, this is almost as long if not longer than the story itself. I imagine I probably didn't need to explain everything that wasn't clearly spelled out, or list in detail every single change made from the original version.

Anyway, thank you for reading all of that! This is the first thing I've ever written that I remember being really happy with, and I guess I just really wanted to write about it some.