Your film is a stark reminder that where we play is not the real world. But, It has connections.

Norse,

The reason why I like this article is because it is deep, Philosophical, intimate, and poignant. And this, out of all that I have read on the subject, would advocate me trying the game (though I will not -because it simply is not my idea of “fun”).

Any great work of art inspires people to think and feel- (the greatest have us encapsulated and partaking in both at the same time) and here in this forum- this game- you and and your article -our ilk- have shown that the concept of calling a war a game or visa-versa has done just that.

I have made no secret of the fact that I detest war and everything to do with it- however, that does not mean that I do not understand the sacrifice that soldiers make -now, then, in the future or all the annals of history. In fact Burbie will tell you at the Mem Day Grey Gamers event I was the one typing in all caps ALL GAVE SOME, SOME GAVE ALL… THIS IS SO WE DON’T FORGET. I guess that is because my family never did have barbeques on Mem Day. We all gathered at the cemetery to put flowers on the graves -graves of our family, graves or our friends’ families and sometimes if we had extra flowers a random person or two.

I mention this because you will know that I take the idea of soldiering seriously. So, serious in fact that I take into account that a soldier is obeying an order when he/she goes to war. In this country it is WE THE PEOPLE -albeit through our elected officials that put them in HARM’S WAY. I suppose with this in mind I often question whether there is ever a truly justifiable reason to put a man’s life on the line. A man’s life has value to me. Those who cannot find value in a man’s life are hoodlums or lack-wit knaves.

But when we think of a soldier and a war, and a man’s death, we tend to think of it as a singular thing… a number, a stat -when, in truth, it is anything but a singular thing. The repercussions of it reverberates through the remaining lives of those touched like rippling waves through the sea of humanity. As John Donne so aptly wrote in his work “Meditation 17″ “No Man is an Island, unto himself… Every man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind…”

You see I am probably more like KrazyFace. I am not daft or blind. I don’t think that willy-nilly all human beings are lovely creatures and that fate will never bring me a lick of bad luck. Actually, I think I would do pretty well at survival -not because I have a gun, but because I have a brain and some common sense. A gun is handy but if you have a brain you can alway set a trap. If you ask me, too many people in this world have guns without having brains and that is what gets humanity into all kinds of trouble.

You know I might even find the aftermath of an apocalypse quite refeshing. The simple honesty of that particular circumstance often seems quite appealing. Like sailing alone around the world. That is sans the fact that Hobbes described life outside the SOCIAL CONTRACT as “Nasty, bruitish and short.” The gun-or-no-gun kind of short. It would be quite likely that a virus would kill you over a fellow human weilding a gun. (How does one shoot a virus?) -but I digress.

A History professior once told me if you look at humanity you see a pattern. Each generation must have its own war. Humanity cannot learn the truth of it from the preceding generations -thus they are condemned to repeat the past, again and again. We forget, you see… We forget for whom the bell tolls…

The ironic thing about this is I’m obsessed with us becoming nothing more than a war-torn shell of our western world. I eat up the idea of survival in this kind of environment. Years before I’d even heard of games like Fallout, I used to imagine it as a child. I’d stand on the tallest hill on the out-skirts of my home town and look down upon it and SEE it. The devastation, the broken lives, homes and people. My home town, nothing more than a place to die. What scares me most about the idea of being stuck in a bleak and broken place we used to call home is the idea of having to kill each other for our own survival.

The UK worries me the most. I’ve seen how other countries and societies seem to come together in times of crisis. The UK however, seems to go the opposite way. It’s almost as if this country is just WAITING for something to give it an excuse to rip itself apart. I’m just gonna get darker here so I’d best shut my yap.