TITLES: 2032
The Sun is eclipsed into red mist, dark HELGHAN DROPSHIPS pass overhead. Their searchlights spread across a scorchen earth below. There had been better days..

Hidden in darkness, away from view, three RESISTENCE fighters NORSE, TENCHU and BURBIE slowly make their way through the wreckage. At the corner of his eye, Norse spots a HELGHAN SNIPER perched high upon a rooftop.

NORSE
EVERYBODY DOWN..

They dive for cover as the Crack of GUNFIRE erupts.

(Such an awesome movie, wasn’t it?)

Oh, sorry, wrong forum.

You do bring up a point about Sony introducing a more mature element to Home; this certainly isn’t a space I’d bring the kiddies to. Now, when CP turns into the My Little Pony show, then yes, they can come back. Because we’ll be busy wiring the Gamer’s Lounge.

and who are you kidding Norse? you helped me strap the semtex all around CP! then we stole that mustang from the ford dealership behind the big screen, made our getaway, and hit the trigger. those poor Helghan tourists just happened to be in the way. hope we didn’t start something…

Then Lockwood could turn it into an ongoing game on the outskirts of the Sodium Space where an old mansion would fit perfectly. And we could have costumes! Glorious costumes!

the above said in humour to lighten up the mood.

For many years, my friend and I debated the morality of the atomic bombs that ended the war. To me, they were the ultimate immoral action, especially the second one. There was no need to obliterate Nagasaki. To my friend, the bombs had saved the lives of his entire family — they were all in the camps, down to very young children. We finally agreed not to discuss the subject.

Then came September 11, 2001. We both work on the National Mall in DC, and we could see the smoke from the Pentagon from our offices. That day was the most surreal and terrifying I ever hope to experience. Even now, our conversations often drift to our memories of it, and how it changed our lives.

Once the emotional dust had cleared, my friend and I enrolled in night school Japanese classes. For my friend, it was an act of coming to grips with the culture he had been raised to hate, an acknowledgement that, while individuals may be guilty of atrocity, entire cultures are not. We both suck at Japanese, but we have never regretted the decision.

Wildly off-topic, I guess, but seeing the ruined Plaza last night reminded me of this, especially after hearing Keara’s comments. I don’t like the idea that games can teach us to hate indiscriminately, labeling an entire race as worthy of extermination, and make it into living-room fun.

At least the Helghast are a fictional species. The games that really creep me out are the ones that make it fun to replay real wars, throwing cardboard, stereotyped enemies up as targets for children. This is wrong, in ways I should not have to explain.

Hey, Norse! Don’t… give… Nos… ideas.

Now, that said — yes, humanity is a bestial species with a remarkably thin veneer of civility stretched over it. Just look at what’s happening in Egypt right now. But I think we also, paradoxically, have the capability and indeed the right to enjoy works of art produced from such events — because that art itself can be an anti-war statement.

Would you decry Delacroix for “La Liberté guidant le peuple”, for instance, because of the grisly imagery it contains? Or enjoy it for what it symbolizes?

For me, personally, I don’t care if the next Central Plaza makeover is a My Little Pony invasion. I’m personally enjoying the tremendous artistry that went into making the space so remarkably immersive.

(Olivia and I were actually joking about a “My Little Pony Killzone” Central Plaza. Camo Pony. Kevlar Pony. Pony amphibious assault. Ponies ransacking buildings and trampling humans. Yes.)

CP/Killzone Lesson to Learn
I have an elderly neighbor, Takako, who survived the Atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki. She was 14 years old at that time. It may have saved her life -- at that time she and the other teenagers were being trained with pointed sticks to defend their homes against the impending invasion by the Allied forces. (But that’s a story for another time). She described to me the aftermath -- walking dazed through areas that had become unrecognizable, the sky that had turned brown, the fires and smoke with the outlines of the wreckage in the haze, the dead and dying in the streets, the fear that the planes would return with more bombs. Her descriptions tally very closely with others I heard from friends who survived the blitz in London by taking shelter in the underground stations and then emerging to struggle through the chaos of destruction, the German friend who survived the fire-bombing of Dresden, and others who told me, “You Yanks don’t know what it is to be a kid trying to stay alive in the middle of a target zone!”

The only thing we knew about the atmosphere of destruction in WWII was the John Wayne movies that made it all look glorious and patriotic. And Mash even managed to make the Korean War look funny as well as tragic. It wasn’t until the first “TV war” (a war with television coverage), the Viet Nam conflict, that the atmosphere of being inside a war was suddenly in our living rooms. And the viewers recoiled in horror as pictures of firefights (and body bags coming off the military transport planes) brought it closer to home. Suddenly the streets were full of protesters, “Hell NO, We Won’t Go!”.

Now, something revolutionary has happened: virtual reality has introduced the experience of being inside a war zone as non-combatants. Many of us in CP are wandering around like Takako did in Nagasaki. We are not playing the game -- we were not given an assignment to fight or gather ammo. We just stumbled in out of curiosity to see CP. And then it hits us: Can’t you smell the air in CP? Don’t you want to run when you see that searchlight combing the ruins for survivors? Isn’t it great to reassure yourself that those snipers cannot really kill you? But you are inside a war as a civilian. You walk over dead bodies, you see the splits in the ground with the smoke coming up. It is a simulation of a reality that almost none of us have had to experience in real life -- yet. It makes you ask when will the lesson be learned that humans need to learn how to live together in peace.

It *is* intellectually a bit odd to actually revel in a denuded Central Plaza. I think it has to do with the fact that we know the programmers, at any time, can click a mouse and turn it back into the temperature-controlled Macross City that we all know and love. Since there are no repercussions, as such, we’re free to enjoy the carnage.

To me, it’s the level of detail that’s astonishing; it’s the first time I’ve been in a Home space — not just a minigame like Siren Hospital, but an entire space — that felt immersive. Here’s hoping we see more of this sort of detail in future spaces.