Saturday 15 April 2000

Pic of the day: As I came home from a walk around the neighborhood, I saw a ring like a rainbow around the sun. It did not extend all the way round, but was particularly clear on the right side and faded to the left. There was no rain. Only a light gauze of thin white clouds. I hurried to fetch my camera, but this was all I got. Looks more like a faint second sun, like we were in a binary star system. It was so strange and so beautiful, but who will know that now? It's not like most people stop and stare at the sky these days.

I mentioned two days ago that I had bought the game Alpha Centauri (also called "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri", or SMAC among friends). I mentioned this in my entry "whining", but truth to tell this game is not much to whine about. Well, except the unspeakable things it does to your spare time. At least it is not as bad as the original Sid Meier's Civilization, which is the only game I have seen get a reduced score in a games magazine because it was too addictive. They got that one right. I remember one of the first evenings I had it, I was distracted by a strange light on my curtains. I got to my feet and went to the window, and it was the morning sun. I had played all night without noticing. Scary. It's not like that now. Then again, it could be that I have been hardened. A veteran games player. *shudder*

The game is strikingly similar to Civilization, and especially Civ2, in the beginning of the game. But it gradually changes. While the basic principles remain the same, the game takes another direction. This threw me the first time I played. I was not aware of the social engineering factor, and how it subtly influences everything else.

I am convinced that I know where the game developers' sympathy is, among the seven factions. It is a special kick to play Gaia's Stepdaughters, and see the local wildlife spontaneously rise up and kick your competiors' butt. Of course, I had been nice to the planet, planted lots of forest and studied xenobiology like mad. After a while, the critters treated me like their best friend. Woo hoo! :) I never got along that well with the natives in Colonization...

I remember when Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds were designing that program, they were hanging out on the strategy newsgroup and asked us for ideas. And people gave them ideas for free. Hey, having the idols of strategy gaming listen was reward enough for anyone. And it is incredible how many options they were able to pack into the box. Some people wanted autosaves going back to Adam, while others said there should be no savegames at all except when you exit for the night; savegames are for cheaters. So you can setup your game for any of them: The overly cautious can go back to way into the past, while the iron men can play without saves at all.

I only got half an ear for my plea that the game should have an option to do without armed conflict, though. I claimed, and I still honestly believe, that there must be other ways of solving conflict than killing people (who usually are not the ones who made the decisions, but rather a burnt offering for the sins of the mighty). Unless we find other ways, we will never reach Alpha Centauri in the first place.

Sid and Brian kindly implemented a diplomatic victory, so I guess I owed them to buy the game eventually. :) But even the most peaceful faction has to defend itself somewhat. I'd like to hope that we could go for the stars some day and leave our weapons behind.

Despite the Christian calendar rolling over to a new thousand years, it is not as if the Millenium of Christian tradition has arrived. For those completely unfamiliar with this concept, the Millenium is supposed to be a thousand years without the influence of Satan. The fall in Eden remeains a part of continuity, so there is opportunity to sin. But there isn't the pressure to do so, like today. People are to live in a Utopian peace and plenty, where divinely inspired knowledge has changed biology itself: Normal people are supposed to live for centuries, and even predators will behave peacefully.

You know, even a hundred years ago the idea of changing human ageing or the nature of animals seemed like wild dreams, as hopeless as shooting at the moon (as they used to say around here). Today, these things seem like quite real possibilities. Weird, huh? But evil is definitely still afoot. God knows what could happen if we stopped fighting and cheating each other...

Actually, chances are that Alpha Centauri is a rather poor choice of destination. As a binary system, it is less likely to have planets in stable, circular orbit. On the bright side, the last couple years have brought a flood of new star systems to light: The gravity pull of actual planets around other stars are now measured routinely. New telescopes are being designed even as we write, to try to observe the actual planets. An array of relatively inexpensive telescopes on the far side of the moon should be able to pool their images and actually look at an Earth-sized planet around another star. But chances are it won't be Alpha Centauri. And chances are that we will not go there. It would at best be a one-way trip, most probably it would take generations.

I am not sure it would be ethically defensible to commit your unborn offspring to a fate of star-voyaging and hardship on a hostile planet. Then again, I am repeatedly surprised by how people try to commit their children to the parents' dreams. But that's a story in itself.

As it is, I have enjoyed the light of our own yellow sun today. I am still troubled by the bacteria or fungi or whatever that are living and growing in my nose and throat, but I still don't have a fever. My song voice is however even more horrible than usual for the innocent bystander, if any.