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Friday, March 28th, 2003 02:20 am
Gulf War 2 seems designed to induce some kind of pomo media shock.

The presentation style screams reality tv. Raw footage, lots of personal interviews with soldiers, goofy bios, vague and silly mission goals.

The graphics used for news reports all look stolen from real-time strategic simulators. Spinning, rendered views of armaments with the stats listed. Maps with unit icons and cities with rendered flames superimposed. Some of the headlines, too. Civil uprising reported in Basra could be taken directly from Alpha Centauri.

Weirdest of all, CNN keeps talking about the Fedayeen, a militia group that reports directly to Saddam. It isn't a big leap to be reminded of the Fedaykin, the elite fremen shock troops from Dune. The really pomo thing is that 'fedayeen' is not a new word. Given how much Herbet based the fremen on arab/bedouin culture, it is entirely likely that 'fedaykin' is a reference to 'fedayeen'. And that's just too circular.
Friday, March 28th, 2003 03:34 am (UTC)
Speaking of real time strategic sims, I REALLY wish Harpoon 4 would come out already. I've been waiting for years, damnit! Fleet Command was darned fine until they patched it. Sure, it let you change the aircraft weapon loadouts for different types of missions, but on the other hand, aircraft had a habit of getting "stuck" in the middle of the flight deck...