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Project Moon often has recurring themes through their games; "capitalism is bad" is one, "cycles of violence are a bitch" is another, and, apparently, "cults" is also one of them. And to be clear I don't mean cults as in "group of religious people worshipping an eldritch abomination ready to destroy the world" or whatever video games usually use when they need a stock antagonist. I mean cults as in "group of people united under a single goal and/or ideology who can be driven to anything with the right insentive." So let's look at the cults we've got in Projmoon!

Lobotomy Corporation

The first cult we ever see chronologically is Lobotomy Corporation. I don't mean in the video game Lobotomy Corporation. I mean the very corporation the game takes place in is a cult. And it's presented in such a frog-boiling way that (at least at the time, before Ruina & Limbus came out) most players, me included, completely fell for it.

But first, some context: in-universe, LobCorp is a company that generates energy. And as you can guess from the name, it fucking suuucks. Without going into details, the process to make energy requires much trauma, injuries, and sometimes straight-up human sacrifices. It's a horrible environment and everyone who works in here hates it. While the focus is mostly on the company, the few glimpses we see of the outside world aren't much better; poverty, abandonned children, a fascist government, this is a really fucked up world where everyone is miserable.

Enter Carmen.

Carmen was a person beloved and admired by everyone- which is convenient, because everything you will ever learn about Carmen will be from someone else's pov. You're told the story of a kind idealist who wanted to save the world. She did not hesitate to help the poor, to offer compassion to the weak, to lend a hand to anyone regardless of background. What a great woman! Especially compared to the CEO of the company you see in the game, a bitch who specifically engineered this situation to bring as much suffering as humanly possible. It's easy to understand why everyone admired Carmen, when the baseline for basic human decency is on the fucking floor.

Carmen said that the current situation of the world was utterly unnacceptable. It's not right for everyone to be miserable all the time. Something has to be done! This whole thing has to be fixed! And you think, yes, that's true, this whole thing sucks, let's fix it!!

She also talks a lot of nonsense about human souls and whatnot, but like. I don't know how this universe works. Maybe you CAN save the world by liberating the human soul what do I know. She would know better than I do!

Also she's doing some weird experiments to that end. Someone dies in that experiment, but like, it's someone Carmen & co explicitly tried to stop from participating, so it's just an unfortunate incident. Someone else begs to do the experiment, and dies when he's allowed in, but like, it's not like he was forced to do it, even if he was 8 and really adults should have known better than to let him in. Kinda weird how everyone is just chomping at the bit to do the life-threatening experiments but they're just that passionate for the cause!

And then Carmen dies, and the guy to keep up with her legacy kickstarts the whole game and performs atrocities, but it's so easy to put the blame on him. He must have corrupted her ideals! Carmen herself had good intentions!!

And then you play Library of Ruina and get to see the world outside of Lobcorp, and get to see some more of Carmen through less biased eyes, and it hits you that no girlie was running a fucking cult. I replayed Lobcorp right after playing Cult of the Lamb, and trust me, seeing a kid beg to be sacrificed to the cause made me go ohhh yeah they're not subtle about it.

Cults will absolutely ruin your life- no one is happy in Lobcorp, including the guy trying to uphold Carmen's legacy. But it's sooo easy to fall in. Because Cults prey on legitimate dissatisfaction with the world (here "hey it's fucked up that people die all the time for dumb shit", but real-life cults use the same tactic if with less extreme stuff.) Cults often presents themselves as people who know better/The Truth(tm), which is why you might have a hard time understanding them, but it's fine, normies are just stupid and you too can reach enlightenment if you invest enough time/money in the cult. (See Carmen's whole "the human soul is the solution!" I just went well she knows better! And everyone else too!) And that's how you end up with people who not only give everything they have to the cult, but feel privileged to do so.

But LobCorp is far from the first cult we meet. There are a few in Library of Ruina (the church of the gears come to mind) but for now I want to focus on Limbus Company, and namely

N Corp

Probably the first one Limbus fans thought of when they saw the title of this post, to be honest.

The way N Corp is presented in Limbus is through Sinclair, a guy who attracts every cult in a 50km radius just by existing. Specifically, you see Sinclair gets slowly lured in cult mentality by a classmate who preys on a very legitimate fear: the fear of going through a full body-replacement robot procedure. Much like real cults, except instead of robots it's usually "don't you care about the environement?" or "doesn't it suck that you don't have a job rn?" and then they slowly slip heavier and heavier pills in you until you conclude "yes if I don't have a job rn it's totally because of colored immigrants we should all breed the superior race together to survive."

In canon, Sinclair manages to dodge the cult shit, but it's worth noting that there is a world in the grand multiverse where he does get indoctrined. The difference is that in this world he gets drafted it not by a classmate, but by a full-grown adult who cajoles him by telling him how smart and mature he is for his age, how he is the specialest little boy for knowing better, and how he was destined to do this. Which you might recognize as groomer tactics. Which I don't think are cult-specific, but it's still on the wide long list of "things people do to target a vulnerable population and get them to do whatever you want."

Speaking of! You would never guess what is the defining trait of our third cult!

The Pequod

The Pequod is the name of Ahab's boat- you know, the guy who wants to kill Moby Dick. And yes, it's also a cult in the ProjMoon universe.

The Pequod is a boat made of vulnerable people with no other support system (just like real life cults usually target first!) and its crew follow Ahab. They follow Ahab because she's a charismatic woman, because she promises them wealth and safety, and because, most importantly, Ahab tells them: you don't have to think anymore. I'll tell you what's right and wrong. I'll tell you what you need or don't need to do. You never have to worry about doing the wrong choice ever again, I'll be here to tell you what to do. Which is very much the appeal of cults. You don't need to worry about being a bad person! A bad person is someone who (doesn't believe in god/has sex outside of marriage/whatever) and you're not doing any of that, so you're a good person!

Conclusion

Lobcorp, N corp, and the Pequod are all three different shades of cults, but the point is very clear: You are not immune to cults. It doesn't matter if you're talented like Chesed, smart like Ishmael, strong like Gebura. You can very much fall into cult shit if someone tackles you from the right angle and at the right moment of your life. Beware of people who tell you that it's totally A-OK to commit atrocities and/or sacrifice everything you own for the sake of some nebulous greater good.