Helldivers 2 players endure sarcastic propaganda that commends their 'undeniable tactical brilliance' after the 'blob' abandons a nearly-won objective for basically no reason

pcgamer.com:

Folks, I think we might've democracy'd a little too close to the sun on this one. In case you've not been keeping up, Helldivers 2 recently introduced the democracy space station (DSS) which, after a brief hiccup where it kept blasting them into low orbit, has mostly served to empower the soldiers of liberty with eagle bombardments and special powers—guided across the galaxy by their vote. The wish for more control over the battlefield is granted, and yet the eagle's claw curls.

See, the latest major order, Operation Spark of Liberty, has ended in «success»—those quotes are Arrowhead's inclusion, not mine. While the major order's conditions have been technically met (to hold Gaellivare while killing 500 million Terminids), you might notice that Gaellivare is currently under automaton control.

This is perhaps the largest case of «mission failed successfully» that Helldivers 2 has encountered so far—and it started with a gambit. In case you're unfamiliar, these are specific objectives provided by Arrowhead Games that allow players to save planets in one fell swoop. As the dispatch at the time read:

«Enemy forces stage their attacks on our planets from an originating planet. Liberating the originating planet ends the enemy attack immediately. In the current operational context, liberating Mastia would end the current Automaton attack on Gaellivare.»

Things looked pretty good initially—Helldivers voted for the station to head over to Mastia, and surely with their help it'd be smashed. They started fighting, tooth and nail, as the democratic space station… uh… slowly drifted back to Gaellivare when Mastia was at around 70% liberation percentage.

This was, from what I can tell, intended to buy the Helldivers some time, shoring up Gaellivare's defences while the actual ground troops stayed on Mastia—but it seems like the hive mind (this is a metaphor, I am not a bug-loving traitor) followed the DSS back to Gaellivare in the same way certain kinds of mould navigate their