The captain is dead

I'm a bit of a gamer. Not fanatical, but interested and involved. So this midweek post is a bit of a diversion.

Carlson uses the metaphor of being on a ship where the captain disappeared and the crew went mad, to the great peril of the passengers. This is, coincidentally, the backstory of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Alpha Centauri is a 4x game. For those of you not familiar with gaming terminology, those 4 are eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. You lead a faction attempting to colonize a new planet. Over the course of the game, you must develop new technologies, explore an unknown planet, develop resources, manage your population, negotiate with rivals, and sometimes go to war with them.

The backstory is that a colony ship was sent to Alpha Centauri with the passengers in cryogenic sleep. Just days before they were due to land, the leaders wake up, and someone (no one knows who) murdered the captain. Now, instead of having one clear leader, they have seven leaders with wildly differing ideologies and priorities. These immediately fall to squabbling, and upon reaching their destination, establish seven different colonies spread across the planet.

So, yes, that is literally all the connection this has to our reading selection, but it's a fun game, and I didn't have any other ideas for a midweek post.

Sid Meier also created the Civilization games, which take place on Earth over the course of human history. Practically speaking, Alpha Centauri is Civilization 2.5. It was released between 2 and 3, and uses many of the same mechanics. Honestly, I think Alpha Centauri is, in many ways, a better game than a lot of the Civilization games. Because the developers were using entirely fictional characters instead of historical leaders, they could give them much more clearly defined personalities, and define the factions' preferences and behaviors in ways you couldn't talking about real historical societies (at least, not without offending someone).

Since the game is now 20 years old, it is available very cheaply. If you have any interest in turn-based strategy games, it's worth checking out.

Catch up with you Saturday to talk about Chapter 1.