Let's try analogy.
If I am ever really in command of a battleship, I will certainly use every dirty trick I can to stay alive.
When I am playing battleship, I probably won't, as the person across from me will get mad if I look at his board or hit him with a glass bottle if he sinks my PT boat.
Why? Well, in the former case, when my enemy dies, he's usually dead. If he's not, he's probably a prisoner and not ranking particularly high on the 'priority for human rights' scale, conventions or no.
In the latter case, I probably see this person regularly. He's playing battleship with me, after all. Maybe I drink with him, and share intrests. We talk a lot, and maybe argue a bit too.
The point? In the former case, the war is real, and thus Rules of Engagement are Farcical. In the latter case the war is a farce, and thus the Rules of Engagement are real. I can simply kill the prisoner, but the fellow gamer?
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Let's examine the gut reactions so far.
First, it does not appear to many people an 'accurate' thing to do, given that anonymity is a relatively simple matter in this immensity of nothing that is electronic communication. As any critic would point out, however, ease is not a limiter in war. Real war at least.
Second, it evokes a common gut reaction among many players. A 'common law' concerning gamesmanship so to speak. This is not just something unique to our community, but shared by a variety of different games played in a vast array of different styles.
What does this all ultimately say?
First, we're a community. We argue (and enjoy seeing people argue, as there is never anything good on TV), we talk about drinking, we make jokes and do most of the things an online community does. Even as online communities go we are a shade more chummy. Closer. Could explain all the arguing.
As a community, we are centered around a game called Starfleet Command and all its children, for better or worse. As such, we live with one another in a varying state of (physical) peace before, during, and after each game. To make sure we do nothing worse than threaten and jeer one another, we have formed a set of social rules. Identities even. As any social unit, we remain civil by following those rules.
So why do we have no spying? The consequences. The rule exists. To reject it arbitrarily would in the very least divide the community, and at worst, dissolve it. After all, we've seen the results from previous servers.
Why treat a war game different than war? The consequences. In war a prisioner is, at best, a dog and is treated as such. At worse... well at worse we can debase ourselves in their treatment. An enemy is nothing more than someone whom you must kill, or capture. Treating each other in such a manner would, again, be disruptive to the community at a level I would not like to see. Wars can be manufactured into games, but the wars that spark the game's manufacture are not themselves games.
Topic: 7 & 8 (Read 9512 times)