What was earth/military society like before the invasion in Doom?

[invictius]

I think the books mentioned Doomguy being court-martialed for not shooting civilians. Also, with all the military supplies from the UAC, it's safe to say that the majority of the world is policed by private security.

I wonder if earth before the invasion was a dystopia? Was there a space program beyond our solar system?

[Maes]

That's what I wondered too, eons ago.

[Janus3003]

The concepts of privately owned armies/police make me think of cyberpunk. Add space travel to the mix, and now I'm thinking of Blade Runner.

Fun fact: Doom is part of the Blade Runner universe, and Doomguy is a replicant. It would certainly explain his abilities, and my theory is supported by the fact that he's seen things you people wouldn't believe. Fiery skies over the horizon of Deimos. He watched blue keys make the room dark at the Phobos Base. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.

[SYS]

I do like the dystopian cyber punk conceptualization. I think it's more in the vein of Shadowrun in regards to Mega Corporations having extraterritoriality free reign globally and the appearance of magic. UAC has a complete monopoly of interplanetary space and colonized Mars. Only employees with top clearances are privy to being stationed on the Mars colonies where the most closely guarded projects & experiments are carried out. Hell is unleashed and all the world burns along with the megacorps.

EDIT: Monopoly

[printz]

I think it was a mostly normal, habitable world. All the more to make it tragic that it fell so easily to the Doom invasion.

[Cupboard]

Probably a patchwork of fascist autocracies that allow business cartels/oligarchies to operate with impunity. If the UAC has such massive amounts of capital, production rates, and research potential, they will undoubtedly have a lot of government contracts, leading to wide-scale corruption. I bet the US government (or whatever the most powerful military nation is on Earth) has a lot of stock and shareholding in the UAC, otherwise they would not defend their labs with marine personnel.