History and its role in the Utopian and Dystopian settings.

[Matthew Teutsch]

I really would like some feedback in discussion in this forum about the role of history in some of the games we play and the literature we read. For one of my upcoming classes, I have been reading Utopia, Brave New World, and 1984. The last two works, particularly, have areas that focus on history and its subversion.

In Brave New World, no history survives: literature, art, facts, anything. The population is genetically conceived through ectogenesis and are indoctrinated from birth to follow certain set patterns, without deviation. One never questions what came before, and the characters even show misunderstanding at the words of Shakespeare. One character even laughs during the scene in Romeo and Juliet where Juliet's parents are preparing for her marriage to Paris. One early scene has a controller symbolically wiping history out of space.

In 1984, history is rewritten everyday, depending on the situation, to make the oligarchy look good. The history of this world never existed, an did it did, it becomes subverted almost instantly. The population never questions the rewrites and moves along as if nothing has changed.

Granted, these two novels share multiple similarities when it comes to history, because Huxley taught Orwell and they corresponded.

Now, playing through Mass Effect recently, I've noticed this idea of history popping up again. I've also noticed the caste system that appears in Brave New World, through the genocides and population eradications in Mass Effect. Mass Effect treats history as a cycle that keeps repeating itself. SPOILER ALERT: The reapers, once a civilization reaches its epoch, return and end the civilization. They are machines that act like gods. They control and write the history that the following civilization accepts, with question in the game.

Fallout 3, on the other hand, poses a different idea. Since D.C. has been laid to waist, the history of America has been lost. One of the side quests plays on this idea while you search for historical artifacts for a collector in Rivet City. The facts that the collector garners from these artifacts and other sources are, of course, distorted, but he believes in the ideas anyway. In this case, no ruling class controls the history, it has just been changed through time and circumstance.

When I get to Bioshock, I'll post my thoughts about it.

I know this is a rough idea, or amalgamation of ideas, but I hope to turn it into something feasible soon. Please, if you have any comments or ideas, post them here.

[Erik Hanson]

Of course Orwell and Stalin both said plenty about the control of information (Stalin has a number of good quotes about information and ideas as weapons). I haven't read as much Huxley, but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd had similar thoughts. Modern media theory and marketing owe a lot to socialist thinkers.

But in terms of games or any other fictional world, the history of a setting combines with its present to define a general trajectory (which may in earlier eras have been ascribed as fate). This works both in the player and in utopia-dwellers (NPCs) to create expectations of society and the environment. Both the games you mentioned are good examples of how differing views of the past create different understandings of the present and expectations of the future, both of which provide the basis for the decisions and viewpoints of the Fallout 3 collector and Saren in Mass Effect.

Not sure if those thoughts are helpful, but I absolutely look forward to seeing what you come up with in the end. Keep me posted!

In fact, I'd bet that the introduction of doubt via an unreliable narrator/view or some in-game

[Matthew Teutsch]

But in terms of games or any other fictional world, the history of a setting combines with its present to define a general trajectory (which may in earlier eras have been ascribed as fate). This works both in the player and in utopia-dwellers (NPCs) to create expectations of society and the environment. Both the games you mentioned are good examples of how differing views of the past create different understandings of the present and expectations of the future, both of which provide the basis for the decisions and viewpoints of the Fallout 3 collector and Saren in Mass Effect.

I really want to look at the way these differing views affect the societies and comment on the role of history itself. This appears to be a path that I would follow.

In fact, I'd bet that the introduction of doubt via an unreliable narrator/view or some in-game
This really struck me. While in a game, if the player is the narrator, what would we call him or her? We could say unreliable or, because of the differentiation between players, differing points of view. That would be an interesting path to examine possibly: trying to see what the history of the game says to different players.

I really think Bioshock will have the best correlation to these ideas, when and if I get through it. Bioshock 2, taking place 10 years after the events in Bioshock and having flashbacks to Rapture's beginning, may add even more areas for discussion.

What other works would you possibly suggest looking into?

[Roger Travis]

From an ancient perspective, it might be worth reading Herodotus, along with a book like F Hartog's *The Mirror of Herodotus* or L Kurke's *Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold*. I think these games are playing with our idea of what History is supposed to be, or, to put it another way, our failure in general to distinguish history (an account of events) from History (those events, which we can never actually access). Reconstructing the past has some incredible narrative and psycho-dynamic possibilities--KOTOR springs to mind as one of the games where it's used most powerfully, if not with a lot of nuance.

[Erik Hanson]

Did I really just leave half a sentence hanging there? Shame on me!

I'm not certain what I intended to talk about, but I think that a problematized historical understanding would lead to questions about the past, present and future.

While Roger suggests that KotOR lacks nuance, I think it did a fair-bit better job than a lot of other RPGs that lean on various forms of amnesia to give players a blank slate and sense of mystery as games begin. For a shorter and happier version of KotOR's plot, try The Simpson's "Eternal Moonshine Of The Simpson Mind."

To look in a different direction, you might think about games that let players actually go back in time. Dave Gottlieb did a recent writeup on Chrono Trigger, and he and I discussed a number of other time-shifting games before and after he was done working on it, including Ocarina Of Time and Prince of Persia: Sands Of Time.

[Matthew Teutsch]

I think, after going through a few novels, I'm going to focus on the presentation of history, and its function, in Utopian/Dystopian games. Right now, I am in a class on modernist Utopian and Dystopian literature in England and Europe. After reading We, Brave New World, Last and First Men, and 1984, I see fertile ground for correlations between recent games, at least ones that I am familiar with, and this topic. Granted, Bioshock draws heavily from Orwell and Rand.

Right now, I'm looking into the use of history in Fallout 3, possibly Bioshock (since I still haven't finished the thing), and Mass Effect. The last game would really benefit my discussion; however, I am not sure how I would bring it into a discussion of Utopian ideals. The interplanetary cosmopolitan aspect may work.

I'll try to check out some of the games you mentioned, when I have some time. I'll probably be able to over the holidays. If you want to look at a few of the ideas I garnered from We, you can check out the response I wrote for class. This all relates well to Pound's Cantos too, which I am struggling through as we speak.

The Simpsons' episode is a good one. Over the past year, I do not know how many times my DVR recorded it in syndication.

[Roger Travis]

Matthew Teutsch said:

Right now, I'm looking into the use of history in Fallout 3, possibly Bioshock (since I still haven't finished the thing), and Mass Effect. The last game would really benefit my discussion; however, I am not sure how I would bring it into a discussion of Utopian ideals. The interplanetary cosmopolitan aspect may work.

Matthew, which sense of history do you mean here? If you're talking about accounts of events, as opposed to actual events, there are some fascinating things to be done with Herodotus and other imaginative historians, I think.

[Matthew Teutsch]

Matthew, which sense of history do you mean here? If you're talking about accounts of events, as opposed to actual events, there are some fascinating things to be done with Herodotus and other imaginative historians, I think.
I really just want to examine our view of history as a whole. In We, the historical context appears created for the work. The same to a certain extent, goes for the other texts I mention. One of the main ideas I am interested in is whether these works view history as a linear, teleological, form, or they have a more cyclic nature.

Along with this, I want to examine the role of history in these texts, especially Fallout's construction of an altered American history to help the inhabitants explain the world around them. Still, at this point, I am formulating definite ideas.

[Roger Travis]

Matthew Teutsch said:

I really just want to examine our view of history as a whole. In We, the historical context appears created for the work. The same to a certain extent, goes for the other texts I mention. One of the main ideas I am interested in is whether these works view history as a linear, teleological, form, or they have a more cyclic nature.
Along with this, I want to examine the role of history in these texts, especially Fallout's construction of an altered American history to help the inhabitants explain the world around them. Still, at this point, I am formulating definite ideas.

Seems to me like you're really talking about our view of the past, then, and how different artists formulate it. I certainly don't know of anything good on games from that perspective. Anyone else?

[Matthew Teutsch]

That is partly it, and that is definitely what I want to do for a larger project. Here though, I am really interested in the various ways that history is presented in Utopias or Dystopias. It appears, at least based on my readings so far and at least during the time period that the novels were written, that dystopias have a sort of cyclic view of history. Of course, I have not read every work in this area yet. For my research in class, I have been pointed towards Spengler and Toynbee, who I haven't looked at yet.

At this time, I just want to draw preliminary comparisons between the dystopias produced during the early and mid-twentieth century and ones being produced today. Moving the discussion a little from the path we have been traveling, how do you view history in Fallout 3? I do not necessarily mean the purpose of history within the game; instead, I mean as a process: linear or cyclic. It may behoove me, if I want to look at Fallout, to play the earlier games in the series.

[Matthew Teutsch]

The focus of my presentation has changed slightly. Below, you will find my proposal. I'm concerned with the mythologizing of the player's character in these games. Right now, does anyone know of any articles or books that would benefit my research for the presentation in a few weeks? Thanks.

The Dystopian Lineage: Player as Mythic Character During the early to mid part of the twentieth century, dystopias served as commentary on the political and scientific happenings of the time. Culminating in George Orwell’s 1984, the dystopias from Zamyatin, Huxley, Stapledon, and Burdekin owe part of their conceptions to Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. Today, the ideas and thoughts presented in Spengler and the novels can be found in the interactive worlds of Fallout 3, Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Assassin’s Creed. Two of Spengler’s main ideas that can be traced through these works focus on the cyclic nature of history and the construction of myths. Spengler argues that historical periods act as 1,000 year cycles. Within these cycles, each civilization goes through specific religious periods that begin with myths. These new myths originate, as Spengler contends, “at the beginning of an awakening spirituality. It is the first formative act of that spirituality” (399). I argue that the characters that the player embodies in the games mentioned above serve as this new myth, specifically in Fallout 3. In this game, the character acts as a savior and takes on a mythological aura as evidenced through the radio broadcast and interaction with other characters throughout the world. The cyclic nature of history can be seen in Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed. For this presentation, I will examine the constructions of myths in eh works above and hopefully, in the future, I will expand it to examine the social and political commentary found in the games in relation to the novels.