unforum

[Ariana]

Meaning of Fundi

[djsampson]

I don't see any problem with an ARG having some religious overtones. I have played ARG's with pagan overtones, ARG's with murderous overtones, disturbing, fictional, weird, and ARG's that push everything from video games (ILB) to ski resorts. So it was only time before religious groups jumped on the bandwagon. I don't care as long as it has a good storyline, which this has so far. There is something that I enjoy about ARG's and its learning about new things and having new perspectives on old things. So play on and we will see were this takes us.

[Wang Guantao]

Im with Sampson on this.

As an arms-wielding atheist, i have no problems with religious overtones in fiction/games. It promotes a certain feeling of good/evil, doom/salvation and what not that you cannot have without it, and thus serves as a quite unique litterary device.

If it all turns into a preaching/antiabortion/abstinance/haveyoufoundjesus type thing (and i doubt that so far) then im out. They will win no converts that way, and im sure they know that.

But as for the theme beign religious is all dandy if you ask me =)

[Phaedra]

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I have no problem with religious imagery/biblical allusions/etc. I think they make for a richer story, and the Bible is so central to Western culture that if you're going to make allusions to the last thousand years of Western civ at all, it's hard to avoid.

My problem is with the idea of an ARG being used to promote a contemporary political or religious agenda; to "market" it, if you will, without disclosing what it's doing. Using a game that requires players to pretend to believe something, that can mobilize enormous amounts of social pressure to pretend to believe so as not to "spoil the game," and in which players become obsessively involved for months at a time to attempt to sway them to an undisclosed belief system seems to tread a line uncomfortably close to subliminal advertising, brainwashing, etc.

And as I've said before, it seems unethical and like an abuse of the player-PM trust relationship.

But it's not the idea of religious imagery/allusions that bothers me -- in fact, religious/mythological allusions tend to get me interested positively in a hurry.

[Wang Guantao]

Hehe welcom to the club Phaedra! =D

That'll be a 5 buck cover charge please...

[VioletNightshade]

On pushing agendas, generally:
Framing this using the question of abortion is extremely loaded. What if the game carries a theme of, say, 'it's better to trust in religion and mysticism than in science and secularism', by for instance portraying Deus City as a hell-on-earth where the name and place of God have been usurped in the name of Korporat power? This is certainly an agenda, one of the fundamentals (pardon the pune) of those who hold said anti-abortionist positions. But it certainly seems a bit more palatable than the other, doesn't it? Or the idea might be that the enlightened scienticians of Deus City are in the right, and the benighted religionists are the ones mucking up our perfect future; who knows at this point? What I'm saying is, this game could be pushing any number of agendas, most of them relatively benign in comparison to the whole abortion debate.

Don't kid yourself. Every story ever told has an agenda to push. The greatest works end up asking more questions than they claim to answer. I find it difficult to believe that the PMs would have the rational faculties to build up this game and interest us in it, yet be aiming for a crude, dogmatic moral like 'BOO! Abortion is BAD!' I have to admit, stumbling into that kind of Religious Reich propaganda as my first ARG experience would fracking infuriate me. But Brackin and cfreak seem like smart guys; the kind who should know better. If the theme of the game is in fact anti-abortionist, I'm sure it will be presented in a thoughtful and subtle manner; and in fact, the scenarios brought up by Imbri at the beginning of this post echo some interesting questions that are rarely given a fair hearing by the pro-abortionist faction. Games like this might be a good way for people who rarely get a full and fair hearing to help others understand their ideas.

Now, admittedly I'm looking in on this as an outsider to the world of ARG. I have not had the sense of being 'immersed in the game', playing fully in character. But to myself, I don't see telling a story with an unexpected ending or a controversial theme to be in itself an abuse of my trust. We're all big boys and girls here. We know things might not turn out the way we expected. ARG is not likely going to change my outlook on Abortion. Even if that ending is not to your personal taste, it may at least force you to confront your own beliefs. I love stories that make me question my assumptions about the world. And if it annoys you to see pro-abortionists branded as evil (in this purely speculative anti-abortion-themed game), well, from the viewpoint of an anti-abortionists we are evil, monstrously so. Once again, the hope is that the game would attempt to show us how we are evil instead of just telling us that we are. I for one am much more impressed with a story that is trying to get me to re-evaluate my fundamental moral beliefs than one that's trying to sell me a product.

[Phaedra]

Fair point, but I still think that if that's what they're doing, they have an obligation to disclose it.

Most corporate games disclose what they're promoting fairly early on. And a product is generally a far less ambiguous thing than a viewpoint.

[dv8]

This is a bit off-topic, but it relates to the story theme.

I read a book called "The Chronoliths" a whiles back, and this reminded me of it. Here's a link to a short synopsis.

http://www.ebookmall.com/ebooks/chronoliths-wilson-ebooks.htm

Basically, the conquerer from future sends those chronoliths back to the past, making his "inevitable" victories come true through the fact that people believe it will happen and start joining his side.

[Wang Guantao]

Hehe sure does sound like what's happening to our UTD guys ^^

[ABPositive]

I too would be disappointed if this was to further a certain agenda, but at the same time, the plot that could come from it would be intriguing. Either way, I'm glad to finally be able to get in on an ARG at the (near) start... as opposed to in the middle with ILB and just now reading the sammeeee saga.


One other thought though, it seems a pretty easy leap to compare the future DefenseCorp to the way our current US government is being run (or at least seen as being run). At the same time though, religion is a fundimental (heh) backbone of the administration currently in power.

If this might be a political allegory, what if we're wrong in the 'religion v. science' idea of an angle, and really the Bracklin group is using religion as an organization point only? Far fetched, but the analogy is sound.

-AB+

[Nescirian]

Deus city, like many dystopias, uses science as a religion.
Both sides are religious in their own way.

[VioletNightshade]

The name 'Deus City' suggests that these people think of themselves as Gods. Meddling in the past can make you feel that way. In addition, if Brackin isn't completely off his rocker, it's possible that the Shadow People at least have had access to various times in the past other than our own. The people of Deus City are literally playing God.

[Forgery]

This is competly off topic but so's this thread, so I'll post it here.

I went to the Cinema yesterday and saw a fil called Deja Vu. It's got Denziel Washington in it. There are moments where they are in a control room watching the past with the ability to interact with it and well, some of those scenes in the control room just seemed like it so easily could have been another video from AB in the control room like at the start of this game. It was just funny, the characters seemed to resemble some of our guys. Quiet a good film as well.

Pointless, irrelevant, oh well =)

Forg

[morelaak]

I just started posting on deuscity.com yesterday. you know, the usual stuff, started to get into the swing of deeper meaning statements...

was pretty low on the agents list, didn't expect to really get anywhere with it very quickly. decided to trust Theo over Foo, introduced myself here on unforums with a slightly longwinded post on karma and the relation between black and white in the ying yang. ended up staying up all night investigating and getting up to date... and replied on deus with some references to George Orwell's 1984, and his use of Big Brother. Finally, i logged out and went to class.

I come back this evening, and my prestige had jumped from 14 to 40, my credits had more than doubled, and Brother Theo now trusted me.

Amazed that i had managed to somehow garner Theo's trust at the same time as move to the 10th highest agent after Foo, i decide to look around Theo's blog some more.

I don't know how, but somehow i missed his video.
this could spoil a really good book for you, so if you haven't read George Orwell's 1984, i've spoiler'd my hypothesis:

[James Stone]

This appeared to be the only post for spec so I hope this is in the correct place. I have just read VioletNightshade's post about his interaction with Father Beck and I have to disagree with VN that there is nothig in it. He has mentioned that "In the last incarnation you came 11 hours and 35 minutes earlier" and "Instead a new path must be taken in each temporal incarnation, and a new causality produced each time". This made me immediately think of the original broadcast received by the UTD team. I am now convinced that originally the broadcast was 1 week ahead in time and that this time around Foo has managed to shift things in his favour.

I also think that since there is very little information on beliefs and ideas coming from Theo that the game is taking us in a "faced with multiple flawed systems will people actively follow the unknown?" direction, or words to that effect