Different Strings

This one is going to involve a bit of set up. As most anyone who reads this thing knows, its purpose is Liberty, which is meant in its broadest sense. The primary subject matter can be almost anything that strikes my fancy or amuses me, but usually centers around what I call the Three G's -- God, Games, and Government. They are all connected and in each I seek to advance human liberty.

Okay that being the case, people who read this blog also know that I play a game called Star Wars Galaxies, and I've posted a few times on it. It's an MMORPG, and those games are well, different. In those games you wear a second skin, so in some ways you become another being in another universe, and in another sense you simply are wearing a different skin with your own, or slightly modified for internet psyche shift, self inside doing cool stuff in another, fully graphically realized in pixels, reality.

In Star Wars Galaxies, the reality is Star Wars. It was the best game I have ever played. Partly because it was Star Wars, a story that has near religious significance to me; partly because of the incredible depth and breadth of the game, and while tremendously flawed, the flaws were forgivable by many people, due to the other amazing things about the game; and three, and perhaps the most important part, a community had developed in this environment, a virtual community of real people using a virtual reality to spend time together adventuring, crafting, buying and selling, partying, and of course fighting with all sorts of things including each other -- this community was a thing that well, whatever it was it was amazing.

Anyway one dark day, the 15th of November 2005, a date that shall be remembered in infamy to all players of the game.

That was the day that the producers of the game, Lucas Arts and Sony Online Entertainment, decided to change the game in such terrible, drastic way that an untold but very large amount, let's say at least 100,000 out of a possible 250,000 players quit the game en masse.

No one knows how many actually stopped subscribing, but at least that many people quit playing, and moved on to other games like WoW and City of Heroes, the two I tried and still play to this day.

This event pretty much propelled my internet writing habit as a rather passionate troll on the SWG Forum boards and others, passionately advocating that they roll back the publish, hoping that would bring the game and my friends back. I wasn't about to quit, nope, I was gonna stick this thing out because I still had friends who played, I am crazy stubborn about somethings, and well, I loved my characters and it was still Star Wars. I am still there and will continue to write about it when I feel like it.

Okay, now here is where we are going. I have, after getting involved in the online debate, made friends with people in the MMO industry and they have told me things, and lots has been made public, the only thing I can surely distill is this was decided by the suits against anyone closer to the scene's better judgment.

Those two suits are John Smedley and Jim Ward. They were the two who made the decision to destroy worlds.

Both had been declared enemy that dark day long ago in November. They F'ed up MY GAME, and for that they deserve a fate worse than, well...you know. Games are a sure sign that we are children of a very cool God since he made us able to build worlds in our minds we call our games. God, that's cool.

Anyone who destroys that must be declared anathema, and cast out. Of course that would make me a really bad Christian and although remain a really bad Christian, long ago I of course forgave them both.

But they are still technically my enemies in gaming. However, a while back Jim Ward quit the biz, and I prayed he didn't quit because he or a loved one was ill, and I must admit that yes, bad Christian that I am, that he somehow got canned for the NGE.

Nope. Turns out he was preparing to run for Congress.

And um. Seems he's at the very least, an economic conservative. So he is now, the enemy of my enemy.

Plus he said something I find VERY interesting:

"It's time politicians who just want to be politicians got out of the way and let people who have run businesses, created jobs and made decisions they've had to live with, go to Washington and straighten out this mess," according to the election site for Ward, who resigned from LucastArts early last year. "I've got that skill set along with the ability to make the right kind of change. I hope you'll agree."

...made decisions they've had to live with....? hmmmmm.

But I wouldn't even care if he meant that, not if I didn't actually agree with him on policy issues. But I checked out his website, cited in the kotaku article, and if he means what he says, I'm very interested in seeing what else he has to say:

I have over 25 years of business experience and I know that Arizona’s future depends on the right kind of change. Change that actually simplifies the ever-increasing complexity of our federal government, particularly our tax code. Change that limits the growing federal intrusion into our state, freeing us to be dynamic and innovative so that we can create solutions to our own problems without bureaucrats in Washington telling us what to do. Change that prevents government from coming between all of us and our freedoms so that we can build the best solutions for education on a local basis, determine the best options for our health care directly with our physician, maintain the right to cast a secret ballot in our own workplace and make fiscally responsible decisions so that we don’t mortgage the future of our children.

Okay, that sounds good. If it turns out he is truly a man who believes in economic liberty and states rights as implied above, I am going to have to support him. The enemy we both fight, if he is the real deal, is more important that any virtual reality I could take part in. It's the REAL game we play, and we must do such things when the Red Dragon of socialism stands before us, threatening to scorch and burn and devour everything beautiful about freedom, individuality, and loving thy neighbor as a joyful responsibility.

So as I thought about this, I am reminded about how we all, so different, sometimes simply not liking one another at all, or the things we have even done to each other, when something threatens us all, we must join together and fight the damn thing, and we can sort our shit out later.

Different Strings
by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

Who's come to slay the dragon?
Come to watch him fall?
Making arrows out of pointed words,
Giant killers at the call?
Too much fuss and bother,
Too much contradiction and confusion.
Peel away the mystery,
Here's a clue to some real motivation.

Chorus
All there really is,
The two of us
And we both know why we've come along.
Nothing to explain,
It's a part of us
To be found within a song.

What happened to our innocence,
Did it go out of style?
Along with our naivete
No longer a child.
Different eyes see different things,
Different hearts beat on different strings.
But there are times
For you and me, when all such things agree.

Is it totally evil of me to secretly hope he is a mad social conservative and thus, I have to STILL be against him?

Yeah. Damn.