Are Warfare Dynasties Appropriate, Given The Situation In Iraq?

[DataKing]

I find myself in a bit of a moral quandry, and I am wondering what the rest of you think.

As some of you may know, I recently began running an interactive dynasty report: The FOFC Brigade, detailing the exploits of a group of U.S. Marines during World War 2. However, given the current situation in Iraq, I am trying to decide whether or not this sort of thing is appropriate.

Certainly this dynasty report and others that deal with combat (like X-Com, although that certainly has its differences) are intended purely for entertainment. But at the same time, I find myself having difficulty continuing the thread, at least for right now. Is it inappropriate to write about the exploits of a group of fictional Marines fighting against the Japanese, given the fact that there are American and British soldiers fighting in Iraq as you read this?

Your thoughts and feelings on this matter would be most appreciated. Thank you.

[Blade6119]

I voted for appropriate, as i feel many positive arguments for this...one is that the soldiers fighting are fighting for our rights as they did in world war two... The veterans of the pacific war(my grandfather one of them) fought for these rights, and its almost as if we are honouring their bravery and victory with this...My grandfather and I have always been pretty distant, with our only link being history and his war stories as i am a big history buff...this thread is one of the few things we can talk about, as he regularly reads about the exploits of our men...he says it takes him back to all his friends, but it also honors them...so i and my veteran grandfather support this going on. As for Iraq, i do not feel that a historical recreation of WW2 is offensive to the war at all...

DataKing: I know that you recently got hooked on Hearts of Iron(which is a lot of fun, especially when i invaded the caribbean and middle/south america with my canadian forces), but will you stop playing due to the war with iraq...i will assume not, so what is different with this dyansty???

In case you cant tell, I am in full support of continuing

[Godzilla Blitz]

Good question, DK.

I am sure some people will think it's inappropriate to do one a violent dynasty when the war is going on, but they're always free to not read. For many others, the dynasty would provide the same amount of pleasure. I'd say go for it if you feel like it, stop if you don't. I do think it would be appropriate to add a post saying that you don't mean to offend anyone, and ask them not to read if they think the thread is inappropriate.

Personally, it's not so much an appropriate or inappropriate issue. It's more that I struggle with the war, and with the terror, death, and suffering going on in Iraq (on both sides). A violent dynasty, instead of providing a diversion, only reminds me more of the real horror of war.

When you do one of these dynasties, you end up spending a lot of time with it, and you spend a lot of time writing about death and fighting in the game. But for me, anyway, I think I visualize it through some kind of a "Hollywood filter": it's a game, it's fiction, and it's fun. At the end of the day no one gets hurt, and the tension, suspense, and violence are all "make-believe". Not sure if this is healthy or not, but I don't connect the violence and suffering of the game with any real violence and suffering in the world, and for some twisted reason that makes the game a hell of a lot of fun.

But when there's a war going on it's impossible for me to keep a mental separation between the fictional violence in the game and real violence going on in the Iraq war. The last thing I want to do is write about a wayward rocket launch blowing apart a civilian after I've just seen the image of an Iraqi child lying in a bloody heap with the back half of her head missing, or write about some X-COM agent getting his brains blown out after seeing photos of mangled US and Iraqi servicemen lying in the middle of the desert. The connection becomes obvious, and all I feel is nauseous.

[EagleFan]

Great question. I have halted one of my dynasties for now due to this reason. Of course I also had it tied to a sort of alternate reality of the Iraq situation and had the character as a POW and was about to go into some detail of his time as one, as well as some other plot lines that now don't feel right for me personally.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for anyone else to do so, but personally I can't get myself into doing that with everything that is going on. So now it's mainly to a football dynasty, that will be altered now slightly because it reflected the first dynasty as it was a spin-off of it.

[tucker342]

I think it's okay to continue, but if you don't feel like continuing than I completely understand and will gladly look forward to when you decide to start the thread again.

[Katon]

I don't think there's anything intrinsically inappropriate about the idea. On the other hand, if you have trouble writing the dynasty under these circumstances, then that's understandable. I think the key issue really is how comfortable you feel with this. Any of the rest of us can just not read it; you don't have that option. Do as you see fit.

[SplitPersonality1]

That fact that you care about the appropriateness of a dynasty thread says a lot about your character. I commend you for it.

As to whether or not you should continue the dynasty...I personally think it would be just fine. It's probably going to come down to whether you want to keep going or not. As Katon said, if you feel comfortable doing it, go for it.

I like the dynasty, I like your style and you would continue to have at least one avid reader. (probably a lot more, judging from the responses in this thread)


Edited for clarity and spelling errors.

[DataKing]

There have been a lot of great comments and thoughts posted here so far, and I would like to take this opportunity to address them here.

Blade6119: I think it is absolutely great that the thread acted as a connection point between you and your grandfather. As far as Hearts of Iron goes, I think the difference is in the scope of the different games.

Steel Panthers is a game that deals with WW2 on a very micro-level; the units that you are dealing with are individual squads and vehicles, making the entire thing seem a lot more personal.

Hearts of Iron, on the other hand, is a very macro-scale game. The most basic "unit" in the game is an entire division (squadrons and flotillas for naval units), and the game is a world-spanning, strategic one. Because of that, there is a great deal of separation from the combat itself.

Godzilla Blitz: You and I seem to have the exact same issues with the idea of a violent dynasty when there is a real war going on; the fact that the events in the games and the descriptions that it would be necessary to write in turn remind one of real-world events. I am having trouble because the events that I would be writing about remind me too much of things actually going on in Iraq right now.

This is, quite frankly, taking the fun out of the game for me. It is only serving as a rather depressing reminder of things actually going on in Iraq right now. Perhaps this wouldn't be an issue if I had never tuned into CNN, or had kept myself ignorant of the events taking place there now, but that is not the case.

EagleFan: Actually, your "Give Me The Ball" dynasty is what really made me figure out what the problem was for me. I found myself avoiding Steel Panthers and The FOFC Brigade dynasty, but I hadn't really thought to wonder why. Reading the last installment of your thread made me realize why I was avoiding the game and the brigade.

Katon, tucker342: I would like to thank you both for your understanding in all of this. I think you can see where this is headed.

SplitPersonality1: Thank you very much for your comments. They are much appreciated (I don't handle compliments very well ).

As a lot of you have mentioned, it really comes down to whether or not I am comfortable continuing with the FOFC Brigade thread. Unfortunately I am not at all comfortable with it, at least not right now. For me, at least, it is serving as too much of a reminder of the things that are going on in Iraq right now, which in turn is really taking all of the fun out of it for me. My apologies to all of my readers (especially Blade6119's grandfather) and participants. I am certain that this feeling will fade, and I will be able to return to a thread that has tons of entertainment potential, though I do not know how long it will take me to get there.

That being said, please do not consider this discussion closed. I would very much like to hear more thoughts and comments about this topic, and not just those dealing with the FOFC Brigade in particular.

[sterlingice]

That being said, please do not consider this discussion closed. I would very much like to hear more thoughts and comments about this topic, and not just those dealing with the FOFC Brigade in particular.

Get your arse in gear and write about KU

SI