Tag Archives: Tolkien

We all have. Place of choice, in some cases we have many. For horror it is the Nostromo, for Fantasy it is Lothlorien, for action it is whereever the action is you watched in a game or in a movie. So when I saw ‘How Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Franchise Subverts the Sci-Fi Genre’ I was puzzled. This translates to ‘undermine the power and authority of fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes’ from these we see that Guerrilla did more than the right thing. They offered a side of sci-fi that was new, unique and appreciated by millions of fans. The Gamerant article also gives us “Most notably, it blends futuristic elements with primitive ones to produce a unique new aesthetic. Additionally, instead of looking to the stars and imagining a future where the problems of humanity are solved by taking to the stars, it instead plants its feet firmly on Earth and imagines a future where humans instead try to solve the planet’s ecological problems.” It is a view, one that is shining with science fiction, in addition we see “The appeal of this dream is easy to understand, as Earth, as beautiful as it is, has finite resources which would seem to be incapable of continuously supporting a growing population. Furthermore, humankind’s time on Earth has resulted in ecological disasters from deforestation, warfare, commercial farming, and mining, to name but a few harmful human activities.” It is true and it also gives us a new setting, science fiction not as a setting of the future we desire, but as a setting it show us the flaws of realism. We can look at so many other games, but the larger stage is that we are destroying the world we live in and whilst we see President Biden play the Khashoggi card (as that would guarantee cheaper oil), the reality is that squandering oil will be the death of millions, and we did it to ourselves. Instead of embracing a future where we could exist better and longer, we seem to adhere to the Twitter vibe attacking Elon Musk and the setting of Fake accounts was never and is never properly addressed and the media is every bit as guilty on that part. 

We see media subverting reality whilst politicians, trolls, fake prophets buy clicks to forward their agenda. Kwork made millions on this, and consider that a firm offers 100.000 visits visitors for $20. OK, they offer more access, so it is not more twitter alone. But this setting shows that there is more and Twenvy offers 5,000 Twitter Followers Every Month for a mere $69 a week unless you want the ‘200 Twitter Accounts Sending You Traffic’ it will be more then, and that doesn’t require fake accounts, so where do these +6487 accounts come from? Explain please. I found a simple one in under a minute and there are thousands out there. Al making a buck out of Twitter. How do these connect? It fits the bill of major social changes, pretentious social changes that affect us all. We are given “Social media bots and Russian trolls promoted discord and spread false information about vaccines on Twitter to sow division and distribute malicious content, according to new research led by the George Washington University. Using tactics similar to those at work during the 2016 United States presidential election, these Twitter accounts entered into vaccine debates months before U.S. election season was underway.” What no one is considering, which accounts wee used and how long they remained active, there are no time lines and here we get back to the Horizons series. The story is all about a time line. From Zero Dark to Forbidden West we are shown a world consumed by greed, technology driven and pushed beyond its limits. In the games (both) Ted Faro, his greed, recklessness and lack of foresight led to the extinction of all life on Earth via an advanced military platform, also known as the Faro Plague, whose design and development he personally conceived and oversaw. A stage that was part of the story and never dug in too deep (it was not needed for the story) yet it is a reality that I shown in our world today, greed overarches common sense. Self-repudiation is ignored for what some call the comfort of the people, it does not give us the the part where self-repudiation halts automated revenue and slows down greed. A similar side is seen in security and as such we are given one part that is ignored. Science fiction tend to push outward, Guerrilla took it into a new direction and pushed it within us, pushed it towards the reality of today. It is science fiction and it could be seen as a new direction of science fiction. There was a reason Soylent Green was so good. I remember creating a prequel 3-5 years ago. In that version Chris Hemsworth played William R. Simonson when he was still young. The prequel still based on Make Room! Make Room! (By Harry Harrison) but the premise also looks at where we are almost now and that is the part, not realism but near realism and that is the part that Guerrilla got right. Not the technology of the old ones, but the mindset of the old ones and there we have a much larger stage. Guerrilla never subverted the science fiction genre, they added a branch, a branch that already existed and is now becoming a major branch in that tree of representation. The realisation how our dystopian future is based on our flawed screwed up self. I would call it a version that is true and real, but has enough fiction to make it a wondrous trip, fiction that is based on science. Star Trek might have preceded the mobile phone and the iPad, but the reality was that it was the people that drive it and as such we should ask the hard questions. Why is the media avoiding the fake accounts of Twitter, why are politicians using click farms to proceed their own agenda’s? Because they can and that is the premise of any dystopian future, it comes because nothing was done to prevent it. Perhaps Guerrilla is one of the best teachers of all, showing our flaws and showing that there is a price for everything. They aren’t alone, but their following is one of the largest at present and in that world size matters, it always has.