#478

The thing that sets Halo apart from every other shooter ever produced is the actively moral and speculatively historical context the setting grants your inhabitance. They capitalized powerfully on this as they built their galaxy and its beyonds, wisely using books as the true foundation-stones. Halo runs so deep as to be profound; the accomplishments of Karen Traviss and Greg Bear in the space by themselves mark Halo fiction as essential learnings, in my opinion. I am saying please, for yourself--read their Halo trilogies. Eric Nylund is, of course, the Godfather of Halo--he wrote a genius book under the wire, and the world was improved. His subsequent contributions are also excellent, especially his biography of Vice Admiral Preston Jeremiah Cole, which was a tall fucking order and turned out to be more dope than I could have imagined.

The strength of the hook--the clean and simple moral situation which underpins every action you take--is that humanity is under threat of species genocide, and the technologically advanced beings who wish to enact that genocide are doing so on the basis of their faith. So, holy war was declared on all human persons, and whole worlds are being murdered and destroyed--their very crusts basted in fiery plasma till they are lifeless marbles. Our own Terra is under threat, and every innocent life it supports as well as its physical surface. This lets me pull the trigger without the feeling that accompanies me through most other shooters--that I not only could, but should be doing something else.*

Now, you play as a bioweapon produced at terriffying, manifold costs, encased in the most advanced piece of technology ever built by human hands, aided by an AI so powerful it is unclear exactly what her limitations might be, and all this was designed to put down insurgencies on human colonies, protecting the hegemony of the military wing of a single world government.

Well, they might have retconned the AI part a little bit. Not relevant.

So, the moral lines break along two pretty distinct, uh, perforations. Plus, war is always a complex morass of moving pieces, events interrelating, moral tensions stretching and warping at scale, and all for the highest stakes--it's why we play so many games modeled around war. The heart fairly leaps to the throat even at the concept.

The reason I bring this up is since existential threats brought about by our own machinations and behaviors don't seem to register in a way that leads us to chaging those behaviors, now would be a pretty convenient time for an exo-threat to manifest, so that, like in Halo, all peoples of every color and creed can shelve their shitty stupid ugly BULLSHIT and PULL TOGETHER for like TWENTY CONSECUTIVE GOD DAMN MINUTES so we can NOT GO EXTINCT.

Just an idle thought. Not even that invested, honestly. Shit goes extinct all the time; we're not special.

Here is a little thing I made for that humanities class, not so involved as that Marcus Aurelius "interview".

*

I often think of the Flavian Amphitheater, which I have had the great privilege of visiting in person and assessing firsthand—to have been made small by it and the weight of time and death it ensconces. It is reasonable that I should so often have cause to reminisce, since in the course of my daily life I frequently must drive past a similar man-made monument—indeed, one which takes some trouble to emulate the Colosseum: Michigan Stadium.

Due to my inborn nature, I have through care and diligence managed to avoid entering Michigan Stadium itself. Had the Flavian Amphitheater been in working order—that is to say, had it been an operational organ of state propaganda with no special historical significance—I would have avoided it as well. The scent of blood does nothing for me. Being surrounded by roaring crowds, intent on the consumption of transmitted glory, actively distresses me. Therefore the purposes of the buildings and my own are crossed—the State, in the case of Rome, and the Institute, in the case of the University of Michigan, wishes to increase its prestige through appealing to the popular appeal inherent in violent spectacle and asserted dominance, and I would like for the State, and the Institution, to apply the allocated resources for the material betterment of its protectorates instead.

Of course, I understand that my position disregards the acumen that statesmanship dictates to itself due to the pressure of a simple truth: power is maintained through visibility, and prestige has a mass psychological effect that supports and justifies that power. However much I might personally detest it and many of its corollary effects (notably, a culture of drunkenness and normalized sexual assault, to put it bluntly) the prestige that Michigan Stadium and the games played and won within it by its sports teams grants the university prestige, which translates to immediate fiscal benefit (ticket sales, apparel, etc.) and related benefits (alumni donations, corporate sponsorships, political influence) both for the institution and the city it occupies, and supports the academic endeavors it performs which I do consider worthwhile. The economic benefits of the stadium’s spectacles alone make them, in a sense, indispensable. 

It would have been worthwhile for Rome, as well. Despite its cost in blood, the psychological effect on a Roman citizen in simply entering the Colosseum—a piece of engineering entirely unprecedented in world history, in sight of a lavish viewing box in which the emperor himself could be seen and therefore shared amongst the community and tied to the event itself, witnessing feats of bloodsport on a scale that could not be rivaled—would be enormous. To view an event in the Flavian Arena would be to acknowledge one’s rightful position at the zenith of civilization.

Basic functional knowledge of the engineering at play would only heighten this sense of particularity, of being among those of a select, of transmitted glory. To see all three Greek orders on display when approaching the structure from the outside, heralded by the huge imperial statue and showcasing more statuary within the arches and above the main entrance. The organizational skill and foresight that went into the design of the seating, from crowd control to ventilation, would be evident merely from finding one’s seat and later leaving the Flavian Arena, even for a first-time attendee. To see the velarium raise and retract, the production of fresh beasts and fighters from the hidden hypogeum almost as if by magic, the thrill of a mock battle reproducing a national victory, the punitive release of a public execution—every element, every instance, every moment highlighting the power and glory of Rome. 

Similarly, knowing that Michigan Stadium is the highest-capacity and largest stadium in the United States, and even the Western Hemisphere, and ranking third worldwide, would be a point of pride and awe to any member of a stadium-filling crowd. Such a crowd would be clad head to toe to match the colors prominent in the stadium’s façade and interior, as well as across much of campus—the maize and the blue—and at various points during any given event, a song will be sung in adulation of victors, and their valiant qualities, which is understood to compass all those sporting the aforementioned colors, in celebration of a feat of physicality performed on the high-tech plastic turf of the field below, starting with the teams entering the field of play for all the world armored like gladiators to do ritualized combat. On top of all of this, before one enters the stadium, one can take in rows of arches realized in brick, which, while lacking statuary, evoke the Flavian Arena itself. 

This last point of special interest. American Neoclassicism has ever sought to borrow the grandeur of Ancient Rome and the refinement of Ancient Greece in the architectural spheres, to marry them whenever possible and to add a native touch of bleached minimalism, perhaps to do with our puritanical roots, which have proven to be so deep-sunken. In the spheres of domestic and foreign policy, too, we have emulated Greece and Rome in form and function—distinct confederations which make up a union sometimes so uneasy it must go to war with itself, and a global empire founded on military protections over economic interests fueling cultural exports. The mass psychological effect our buildings and our institutions have produced qualities in American life and political affect which could very aptly grant us the title of New Romans. And like the Ancient Romans, despite the diversity which has always been our strength, despite our great administrative abilities and renowned military power, we seem to lack that most enviable quality of Ancient Egypt: stability. Conflict, corruption, and the threat of tyranny are endemic, and it may be that we are headed towards a national collapse. 

It may be that this raising of monuments to reify ourselves, to see ourselves as somehow elevated and glorified by public violence and tribal dominance, does not after all, despite the short-terms gains, have quite the long-term effects that we should seek from our institutions and our public affairs. 

*

Guess this piece sort of pinpoints me geographically, after all this time spent standing just over to the side of that information. Whatever. Who even cares. I don't even know why I put so much effort into remaining amorphous and oblique, except that I am inclined to think of effort as virtuous and anonymity as not only safe, but courteous. I mean like who cares where we live. This is internet; we ought truck only in concepts, ideas, information; all the meatspace shit can stay in meatspace. I have always felt this way, and have resented very, very much all the importing of absolutely eschewable nonsense from physical space. It's a good reference point, and it's a good topic--but it, itself, need not exert its cruel gravities here. 

Though of course it does, and has so long that there is probably no going back. 

Eh, there's never any going back anywhere. Take a deep breath: you're not gonna take that particular one again till the universe resets and comes back around. Every moment on this merry-go-round of  existence is a brass ring you have to wait an eternity to seize again.

--JL

*like, me personally? I don't give a fuck if terrorists are doing shit in Las Vegas, or if they're doing shit in Eastern Europe, or wherever the fuck the producer of the game says terrorists come from and what they do where is terrorism or what. That's not my problem now and I don't want to make it my virtual problem, either. I don't care what mercenaries do in a desert because superpowers want to make sure petroleum flows, but we call it something else. I mean I care, but I don't want to devote my leisure time to simulating it. What is the victory in this wretched context? We get the same world we live in now, except now I have murdered hundreds and hundreds of people in its name. Wow. Fucking aspirational.