| Tuesday, January
28, 2003
I don't usually promote games
contests, but this is one you might find interesting: Would-be
bounty hunters and intergalactic traders now have the opportunity to enter
the Freelancer Sneak Preview contest for a chance to win one of 30 coveted
Freelancer playable discs. Microsoft and Digital Anvil are allowing
gamers to sign up today and throughout the weekend at the official site, http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/
, or at the ever-loyal Freelancer fan site, Lancer's Reactor, http://www.lancersreactor.com/
. This
work-in-progress sneak preview CD features an exclusive look into the
entire game more than a month before Freelancer hits store shelves.
Winners will be selected via a random drawing from all entries. For
complete contest information, official rules and to sign up for the
chance to win, head over to the official Freelancer site. Set
in the outer reaches of the planetary system, Freelancer combines the
action of 3-D space combat, the exploration of a dynamic, living universe
and trading in a rich galactic economy, where players' decisions drive the
adventure. Slated for U.S. release in March 2003 and developed by
Digital Anvil, the epic adventure challenges players to determine their
own reputations and choose their own distinctive styles of play. Players
can choose to act like bounty hunters, traders, pirates or explorers for
different gameplay experiences. The open-ended style of gameplay gives
gamers a choice between following a linear storyline or determining how
the story will unfold. The multiplayer component enables players
around the globe with their own servers to fly missions or explore space
together. An enhanced mouse and keyboard interface simulates the realistic
feel of flying a spaceship while making the game accessible to a wide
range of gamers. For more information about Freelancer, visit the official
site at http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/
. This will be
Microsoft's answer to Earth & Beyond, which I liked a lot at first and
got bored with after a couple of weeks: just not enough to do, and the
story line involved too much sitting around while ships went from one
place to another. It was the closest thing to the old Privateer I know of,
and for a while Earth & Beyond got me hooked away from Everquest, but
as I said, eventually it got boring. But Privateer is the
game I remember as fondly as any I ever played, and I'm sort of looking
forward to what Microsoft will do with this. Big space
exploration/trading/fighting games have always interested me, and
Microsoft has a very good gaming team. Asheron's Call never weaned me away
from Everquest, but I don't say it couldn't have if I hadn't already got a
fair amount of time invested in Everquest. Also I built up some
friendships on line that greatly enhance the Everquest play and Asheron's
Call tends to emphasize these strange hierarchical relationships... It's a
bit odd: I gather that Asheron's Call is more fun at higher levels than at
lower, while Everquest tends to have some really neat quests for
newcomers. Anyway, Freelancer promises to be interesting.
Not that I have much time for any kind of games lately. Books to finish,
this place to keep up, columns to write, puppy to train, world to keep up
with. They don't make as many hours in the day as they used to.
Just Before the State of The Union
The market is way down again. We are at a choice point: a
competent empire will now act in an entirely different way from a
competent republic. What we do in the next few weeks regarding Iraq may
have a lot of impact on our future: may even be irrevocable. It's not
quite too late to restore the republic, but that doesn't look like what
we're planning on, and in fact I doubt many in Washington have any notion
of what a republic of self-governing communities with limited federal
government means. The concept has been pretty well lost. It's also lost
among the teachers in our schools, so unless a lot of people do a lot of
reading on their own, the republic is history. The problem
with empire is that it's pretty hard for it to be federal. There's a lot
of talk about diversity, but those are cultural patterns, not regional
autonomies, and loyalties have to be pretty direct to the central imperium
and its bureaucracy. Lese majeste becomes the real crime, and it is a
crime because it diminishes the loyalty of the citizenry to the state.
Empires can be glorious: in fact, they had better be, because there's not
a lot of reason for loyalty and patriotism without the trappings of
imperial glory. Parades, the tramp of the regiments
that never die, the glory of the flag rising above foreign lands, the
might of soldiers whose back no enemy ever saw: this is the stuff of
empire, and it's pretty heady stuff, too. And of
course most people who want imperial government don't think in those
terms. They want what they think is justice for senior citizens, and think
of "seniors" rather than elders of North Carolina of California
or Montana, assuming that being "senior" is more important than
where one lives and the culture one grew up with. But of men we know, and
of the gods we suspect, that by their fundamental nature they rule
wherever they can; and that applies to bureaucracies as well as to any
other structure. And pretty soon what set out as a quest for justice for
some group ends up as oppressive regulation for all. For the strong do as
they will, and the weak suffer what they must, and that applies as much to
levels of government as to relations between Athens and her empire... But
it's too nice a day to think like this. El Nino flaked out on us: in
Studio City we are having 70 to 80 degree sunny days, not even the dry
Santa Ana winds at the moment, while the east coast is in the grip of
global warming. Bob Thompson told me it got up to 14 degrees F the other
day at his place. And I really do need to get back to work.
But first some mail to post... The
State Of The Union It is the most solemn
state event the United States has, a speech from the throne, written under
the direction of the most powerful man in the world.
Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States.
He came to tell us: shall we have republic or empire. There wasn't a
lot of doubt before. There is none now.
The State of The Union message has been given, and apparently the
answer
is:
The President has chosen to show us the path of glory, to the cheers of
the Senate and People of the United States. And the cheers of the
generals, and of the troops, whose acclaim he needs to bring it off.
We will be a compassionate empire, to make whole the broken parts of
the world, to protect the weak and make humble the proud; we will carry
liberty across the world on the points of our bayonets.
Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!
It's easy to be cynical about that, but do not forget that Napoleon
Bonaparte had the biggest funeral procession of any human being in
history, and look at his tomb today. Look at the tomb of Augustus in Rome,
magnificent in its ruins. The statue of Augustus stands in many strange
places, but it stands, 2000 years after he decreed that all the world
should be taxed.
We shall follow the paths of glory abroad, and of compassion in the
United States. And do so while lowering taxes: which is in fact about the
only way it can be done. If it works this way as it did when Reagan (and
Kennedy before him) cut
taxes, income will rise: and this time Bush has some handle on spending
priorities.
As to hydrogen economy research, about time. It is not enough, of
course, since there are no hydrogen wells; but if we have the technology
to use hydrogen as a mobile fuel, we will need hydrogen wells, and those
must be either nuclear or space solar; nothing else can supply
enough.
And we are deploying Strategic Defense: a policy that Possony,
Pournelle, and Graham set in motion over twenty years ago. Once we begin
down that path it is hard to stop: and since Strategic Defense requires
that we dominate space, and space dominance requires routine access to
space, that is another road worth traveling. And it leads inevitably to
the Moon and the planets. If we build solar power satellites we will have
a Moon Colony built on third shifts and weekends; and from there to the
planets, and thence to the stars.
Farewell to the Republic. Hail the new Empire, of America; perhaps of
Man.
Ave! Ave Imperator!
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