and zoomed in parts:
This is the hugest piece I’ve done to this moment, and the number of birds killed with one stone here exceeds all reasonable limits. Have a look!
These are the People.
The word «people» circulates in the Loop with several meanings, all of which stemmed from the same concept. In its narrowest sense, People, with a capital P, is the name that Soldier gave to his people with a reference to his homeland in mind. It is no coincidence that the sector, populated predominantly by the People, is named America — after America, of course. And initially the People were a team, as opposed to the Unhumans (or Inhumnas), and then the Mourtair, who suddenly started pouring into the lands that the People had just begun to recognize as their own. In this meaning, it is «nationality»: a People’s folk must come from a certain area (America), have a humane appearance, and it is very advisable to be of one of the original colors, either RED or BLU.
*In the picture, the characters on the left half and in the center fall under this definition: Maniac, Fritz, Huff, the nameless (yet) drunken master without a nose, Cramp (red-yellow), Jazz(blue-green), Gera (loner) and SeeNo the Blind sniper (loner, dark red). Ranbo, the Rainbowneer is not considered a proud american anymore because he’s a guildsman.
Fork had a difficult life that drifted him towards the PRPL camp, between whom and the RED-BLUs there is a huge ideological gap that, despite the kinship, does not allow the purples to be included in the People. Never.
Then the population dencity accidentally rose up by a couple of tenfolds, unintentionally leading to further fragmentation into smaller teams, varieties, subtypes, but the terminology lived on without updates. In this new-but-not-updated meaning, «People» is synonymous to «pure» and it means that the specified warrior is not a mutant, not a deadmate or — in some disputes with an increased amount of doublespeaking and cherrypicking — not an augment too. Generally, everyone depicted falls under this definition, unless you are of that rare breed who caught the queer pitch from the Guild in the face. Anti-Guild fanatics are VERY not fond of cyborgs being included in the People, because they cunningly rigged their bodies and absolutely vilely attacked the fair gunners with no robotic helper parts. After such a slap in the face, it is impossible to remain brothers. If we count this, then everyone depicted can be from the People, except for the triguard on the far right.
And in the broadest sense, people (men, human...) with a small letter p are all the inhabitants of the Loop without exception. Pure and unhumans, alives and deadmates, mourtaris, cyborgs - all of them, without a shadow of a doubt, consider themselves people, because it’s what they were originally and what they feel remaining being as. In this case, «people» is a state of mind. They might (in theory) transfer the same meaning to other creatures if they could meet them. If the creature is sufficiently humanoid and/or sapient — it is a human person.
As for the colors, the developments have taken a different path here. Initially, there were only BLU and RED, and everything was simple. Too simple. After Collecting (a process where the members of the two original teams of five people, by hook or by crook, included the classes they were lacking, the colors were balanced and both teams resulted in having nine classes), some decided to go further and tried to reconcile the two opposing colors. By that time, teamswitching no longer surprised anyone; turncoats were popping up regularly; it would seem that all that remained was to take the last, tiny step towards happiness, to join hands and set off in search of a way out of the Loop together. There, in the outside world, our employers are waiting for us with wide smiles and even wider opened suitcases full of money. When, at random, the followers of this idea got the purple color mark, they took it as a kind of sign from above and carried the purple word to the rest of the people.
The people didn't like the idea. After all, there are two employers, and each pays for the other to be killed, and besides, the math problem of dividing the money is solved more efficiently when there are less people to get paid. As a result, both BLUs and REDs turned identically hostile towards PURPLs. The persecution continues to this day, and neither side wants peace. Being purple is as good as being a leper.
Fork didn’t have much choice, so now the door back to People is closed for him.
The GRNs and YLWs do not have such a tragic story behind their colors. They are just great specialists in their respective fields, the units that should be distinguished from other People. RED or BLU, if he has certain skills, has the right to go GRN or YLW. This will not rewrite their original RED/BLU alignment.
Within the Guild, such division into colors does not apply.
SeeNo nominally belongs to d-RED, since he formed his own mini-club with TalkNo and HearNo. Their clothes are not a different color, simply a bit dirtier, and the d-RED mark is a formality, for example, to have a designated pin to put on a map. Officially, SeeNo is a member of Loners, does not belong to any team and can, if he wants, join anyone.
As expected, since he can’t see the colors.
Gera is devoid of even the original colored clothes and could not care less about it. Being a loner too, he is hired by both sides from time to time, and works equally (poorly) for everyone.
