Previous review in this series here
I watched Ridley Scott's Alien when I was fifteen, and it scared the hell out of me. The escalating menace of the alien as it matures... the fact that the film makes us actually care about Ripley... and the movie's gloomy sci-fi mise en scene, which turns the ship into a kind of nightmarish double of the bright clean technology of Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey. AVP, in contrast, fails on almost every level. Part of the problem is what the good folks at tvtropes call Conservation of Ninjutsu: whenever you add extra ninjas to a battle, each individual ninja becomes less threatening and more easily killed (ninjutsu is conserved because net ninjutsu does not increase as the number of ninjas increases). Alien only needs one monster to terrorize Ripley and the crew; AVP features dozens of adolescent aliens, most of which are slain by the predators (and there's a conservation of ninjutsu issue for them too--the fact that multiple predators come to fight just means that each individual predator is less awesome). This wouldn't be such a problem if the human characters weren't so dull. The "assembling the team" first act of the movie is pretty terrible, and leaves our couple dozen expedition members sadly underdeveloped (Alien only had seven cast members, not counting the monster, which meant that character deaths actually meant something). The film should've relied more heavily on action movie cliches here, or else limited the team's size, in order to provide some kind of window into who these people are. Instead, I spent the first half hour of the film munching popcorn and hoping these no-personality humans would start dying. I spent the second act of AVP laughing at the film's shitty pseudo-Aztec mythology (not worth explaining), and thinking about the laziness of the main plot motor in Act II. Since the Aztecs were apparently obsessed with powers of ten, the antarctic pyramid reconfigures itself every ten minutes (are those Aztec minutes or Western Europe minutes?), giving the filmmakers an excuse to split up their team into whichever configurations are most convenient. It's kind of like the hidden doors in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, only with aliens who (mercifully) eat most of the gang. Now to be fair, AVP's third act was surprisingly engaging, as the only surviving human and predator team up to escape the pyramid and kill the Big Bad. It felt like a buddy action flick, and it has some pretty cool images, like when the predator makes a spear and shield for the human out of alien body parts. Notably, this is the only interesting relationship in the entire movie. So to sum up: the fundamental problem with AVP is that so little is at stake. Since it's set before Alien, we know that the monsters don't escape and kill everybody. And since we don't care about the characters, we don't care if they die. The only thing AVP's got going for it is that gritty sci-fi aesthetic which still manages to underlie many of the shots.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
True History
I'm reading through Bernal Díaz del Castillo's Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España and, although it's slow reading at times (I'm moving at exactly half my usual speed--not that I obsessively track pages-per-hour or anything...), it's been a lot of fun so far. If you don't speak Spanish, one of the big English publishing houses has a translation that looks pretty classy. If you've got any interest in the conquest of Mexico, the Historia verdadera is a great source, one that will implode many of your preconceptions about the conquest. That's Bernal's goal, in fact: furious with the factual errors in a very influential and eloquent history of the conquest written by Cortés' chaplain, Gómara, Bernal decides to write his own eyewitness account, calling out Gómara's errors every couple of pages. The book's title announces its project: if we want the True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Bernal's our man. I can't write as fancy as Gómara, he tells us again and again, but my lack of rhetorical skill will guarantee you the truth. A debatable claim--but an interesting one.
I've complained elsewhere about the Neil Young narrative of the Conquest--Montezuma's hanging out in his hall of wisdom doing drugs when Cortez the Killer shows up with a chainsaw--and in that post I also mentioned some of the ways that the conflict Spanish vs. Natives begins to fracture as you zoom in further. The Native category splits into the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans, their rivals to the east; the Aztecs in turn were actually a three-way alliance of city-states, with its own history of internal division; likewise, the Tlaxcalans, although they eventually collaborated with Cortés, were divided into pro-Spanish and anti-Spanish factions. Instead of the manichean politics of Us vs. Them, then, we have a series of levels of micropolitics, or fractal politics: the more you zoom in, the more interesting things get.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo testifies to these micropolitical divisions, not only among the natives, but among the Spaniards. I'm at the point in the story right now where Cortés and his men are in Tenochtitlán and have taken Montezuma captive and milked him for all the gold they can get, but things are about to get a lot more complicated: Diego Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, has sent soldiers to capture Cortés and bring him to justice as a rebel (when the real problem, for Velázquez, is that Cortés isn't respecting the chain of command); this posse, led by the WORST CONQUISTADOR EVER Pánfilo de Narváez (the idiot who would get poor Cabeza de Vaca marooned eight years later), will be defeated by the Spanish troops Cortés will pull out of Tenochtitlán, but this weakening of the Tenochtitlán garrison will set in motion a chain of events that will lead to the so-called Noche triste, in which the Aztecs will chase the Spaniards out of their capitol (from a tenochca perspective, of course, there was nothing sad about that night--it was a pretty rousing, if temporary, success).
All that's to say that the history of the conquest of Mexico is not simply about greedy Spaniards against noble Indians (or savage Indians, or nobly savage Indians, or whatever stereotype you want); it's about greedy Spaniards against one another. Bernal describes these micropolitical divisions in great detail, and includes some fascinating information about the way Cortés would hoard gold and distribute it secretly to his supporters, or to win over friends of Diego Velázquez, or to send back to his father in Spain so he could purchase influence on the peninsula. When Montezuma hands over a huge amount of treasure, Cortés skims so much gold off the top that his soldiers only receive 100 pesos each--so little, relative to their high expectations, that many soldiers refuse to accept their pay. When one of the pilots complains openly about Cortés, the conquistador defuses the situation with some mellifluous rhetoric (which is just as hollow, suggests our author, as Gómara's history of the conquest). Bernal, then, paints Cortés as a lying bastard--but, simultaneously, as a second Alexander, a magnificent commander who's doing God's work, and a good-humored, friendly man (it's amazing how many times Bernal describes Cortés as "laughing", even if some of these jokes are a wee bit cruel). Again, fractal complexity: when we zoom in on Cortés, we encounter the same ambiguous mixture of black and white that shows up on other levels (and in ourselves). Compare this portrait to the hagiographies about Cortés in later centuries--our own included--and it's clear to me that Bernal Díaz has found a way to tell the truth about Cortés, to portray his messy humanity. (Montezuma gets similar treatment, although I won't go into any of the details).
So on the one hand, Bernal Díaz tells the truth about micropolitics in the conquest of Mexico--about the messy fractures within each warring camp. Simultaneously, he manages to tell the truth about the complex bonds between the Spaniards and the native peoples they both conquered and led into battle. To begin, he's much more honest about the sexual liaisons between conquistadors and native women; while Cortés doesn't even mention doña Marina, his indigenous translator/mistress, by name, Bernal admits that the two were lovers; he also describes how, almost every time the Spanish made an alliance with a new people group, indigenous leaders sealed the deal by giving royal native women to their new allies (some of these women are ugly; others are "beautiful for an Indian"; others are simply gorgeous). Bernal is just as honest about his own desire for native women: he asks Montezuma himself to "grant me the boon of a beautiful woman", and Montezuma immediately responds that "I will command that a good lass be given to you today; treat her very well, for she is the daughter of an important man". All we know about this woman is her Christian name, doña Francisca, but this small moment speaks volumes about the kinds of bonds that were forged between Spaniards and indigenous women. It's important to note that Bernal isn't just looking for sex, although that's certainly a major motivation (and no doubt these soldiers--like most soldiers through history--raped many women, in New Spain as in the Italian wars in which they had served). I'm talking about the fact that a non-noble, no-name like Bernal Díaz, a "poor soldier", as he describes himself, takes a noble concubine. Is he trying to climb the social ladder? Is his time with "doña Francisca" just an elaborate game of make-believe, in which he can pretend he's the hero in one of the chivalric novels that the conquistadors read and quoted to one another--the valiant knight who gets the girl? In any case, he's using her; and yet this sexual encounter also signals, not just the Spanish desire to dominate indigenous women, but a male Spanish need for indigenous women, a certain messy vulnerability (as in Cortés' dependence upon his lover doña Marina, which granted her vast amounts of power).
In my field we talk a lot about syncretism, the way different religions mesh together (for example: the traditional Western Christmas celebration is a mix of pagan and Christian cultural practices; Latin America is full of more explicitly syncretic traditions like santería). Bernal Díaz talks quite often about religious syncretism--for example, although the Spaniards aren't strong enough yet to destroy Montezuma's idols, they manage to force him to put a cross and a chapel on top of one of the pyramids devoted to the war god Huitchilopochtli--but he also testifies to the cultural syncretism that began with first contact. I'm thinking specifically about military technology. When we think about the conquistadors, we think about guns, horses, and steel; yet there were very few guns with Cortés' troops (he actually had more crossbows than arquebuses!), and a small (but effective) number of horses. Steel, though, wasn't all that decisive an advantage. Bernal says many times that indigenous obsidian blades (jutting out of clubs or lances) cut more effectively than steel. And as for steel armor: despite our stereotypical image of a conquistador in shell armor, Bernal and his fellow soldiers went into battle protected by padded cotton, imitating the preferred armor of the Native Americans. Cotton armor, it seems, gave soldiers more mobility and better protection against native weapons.
This tiny detail, conquistadors wearing the same kind of armor as their indigenous rivals, says a lot to me about cultural syncretism and the complicated bonds between the Spanish and the native peoples they would subjugate. It's similar to other developments in military history, from the irregular military tactics used by North American settlers in imitation of Algonquian soldiers, to the light mobile cavalry that Eastern Europe developed in order to keep pace with Mongol horse archers. And in all of these cases, by adopting the enemy's tactics in order to defeat him, you're implicitly setting up the enemy as your equal. Interesting stuff. And proof that the truth of history isn't always in the big historical movements, but in the microhistory of battlefield tactics, clothing, and sexual liaisons.
Is the Historia verdadera actually true? Is truth in history possible? Count me skeptical. Even if every word in a work of history were completely accurate, how could we ever know? How could we distinguish between our beliefs about the truth and the Truth itself? And if we value Truth as an absolute ideal, aren't we forced to recognize the provisional nature of most of the truths we believe?
All the same, the Historia verdadera is an excellent attempt to tell the truth, one that restores some messy texture to the smooth, pristine Official Histories we've been taught--that the Aztecs were barbarians, or that the Spanish were. Truth is, there's no such thing as a barbarian. He's not beyond the frontiers of our world, but part of our world; and if we could examine his heart with a microscope, we'd see the same messy fractal shades of grey we find in ourselves.
I've complained elsewhere about the Neil Young narrative of the Conquest--Montezuma's hanging out in his hall of wisdom doing drugs when Cortez the Killer shows up with a chainsaw--and in that post I also mentioned some of the ways that the conflict Spanish vs. Natives begins to fracture as you zoom in further. The Native category splits into the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans, their rivals to the east; the Aztecs in turn were actually a three-way alliance of city-states, with its own history of internal division; likewise, the Tlaxcalans, although they eventually collaborated with Cortés, were divided into pro-Spanish and anti-Spanish factions. Instead of the manichean politics of Us vs. Them, then, we have a series of levels of micropolitics, or fractal politics: the more you zoom in, the more interesting things get.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo testifies to these micropolitical divisions, not only among the natives, but among the Spaniards. I'm at the point in the story right now where Cortés and his men are in Tenochtitlán and have taken Montezuma captive and milked him for all the gold they can get, but things are about to get a lot more complicated: Diego Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, has sent soldiers to capture Cortés and bring him to justice as a rebel (when the real problem, for Velázquez, is that Cortés isn't respecting the chain of command); this posse, led by the WORST CONQUISTADOR EVER Pánfilo de Narváez (the idiot who would get poor Cabeza de Vaca marooned eight years later), will be defeated by the Spanish troops Cortés will pull out of Tenochtitlán, but this weakening of the Tenochtitlán garrison will set in motion a chain of events that will lead to the so-called Noche triste, in which the Aztecs will chase the Spaniards out of their capitol (from a tenochca perspective, of course, there was nothing sad about that night--it was a pretty rousing, if temporary, success).
All that's to say that the history of the conquest of Mexico is not simply about greedy Spaniards against noble Indians (or savage Indians, or nobly savage Indians, or whatever stereotype you want); it's about greedy Spaniards against one another. Bernal describes these micropolitical divisions in great detail, and includes some fascinating information about the way Cortés would hoard gold and distribute it secretly to his supporters, or to win over friends of Diego Velázquez, or to send back to his father in Spain so he could purchase influence on the peninsula. When Montezuma hands over a huge amount of treasure, Cortés skims so much gold off the top that his soldiers only receive 100 pesos each--so little, relative to their high expectations, that many soldiers refuse to accept their pay. When one of the pilots complains openly about Cortés, the conquistador defuses the situation with some mellifluous rhetoric (which is just as hollow, suggests our author, as Gómara's history of the conquest). Bernal, then, paints Cortés as a lying bastard--but, simultaneously, as a second Alexander, a magnificent commander who's doing God's work, and a good-humored, friendly man (it's amazing how many times Bernal describes Cortés as "laughing", even if some of these jokes are a wee bit cruel). Again, fractal complexity: when we zoom in on Cortés, we encounter the same ambiguous mixture of black and white that shows up on other levels (and in ourselves). Compare this portrait to the hagiographies about Cortés in later centuries--our own included--and it's clear to me that Bernal Díaz has found a way to tell the truth about Cortés, to portray his messy humanity. (Montezuma gets similar treatment, although I won't go into any of the details).
So on the one hand, Bernal Díaz tells the truth about micropolitics in the conquest of Mexico--about the messy fractures within each warring camp. Simultaneously, he manages to tell the truth about the complex bonds between the Spaniards and the native peoples they both conquered and led into battle. To begin, he's much more honest about the sexual liaisons between conquistadors and native women; while Cortés doesn't even mention doña Marina, his indigenous translator/mistress, by name, Bernal admits that the two were lovers; he also describes how, almost every time the Spanish made an alliance with a new people group, indigenous leaders sealed the deal by giving royal native women to their new allies (some of these women are ugly; others are "beautiful for an Indian"; others are simply gorgeous). Bernal is just as honest about his own desire for native women: he asks Montezuma himself to "grant me the boon of a beautiful woman", and Montezuma immediately responds that "I will command that a good lass be given to you today; treat her very well, for she is the daughter of an important man". All we know about this woman is her Christian name, doña Francisca, but this small moment speaks volumes about the kinds of bonds that were forged between Spaniards and indigenous women. It's important to note that Bernal isn't just looking for sex, although that's certainly a major motivation (and no doubt these soldiers--like most soldiers through history--raped many women, in New Spain as in the Italian wars in which they had served). I'm talking about the fact that a non-noble, no-name like Bernal Díaz, a "poor soldier", as he describes himself, takes a noble concubine. Is he trying to climb the social ladder? Is his time with "doña Francisca" just an elaborate game of make-believe, in which he can pretend he's the hero in one of the chivalric novels that the conquistadors read and quoted to one another--the valiant knight who gets the girl? In any case, he's using her; and yet this sexual encounter also signals, not just the Spanish desire to dominate indigenous women, but a male Spanish need for indigenous women, a certain messy vulnerability (as in Cortés' dependence upon his lover doña Marina, which granted her vast amounts of power).
In my field we talk a lot about syncretism, the way different religions mesh together (for example: the traditional Western Christmas celebration is a mix of pagan and Christian cultural practices; Latin America is full of more explicitly syncretic traditions like santería). Bernal Díaz talks quite often about religious syncretism--for example, although the Spaniards aren't strong enough yet to destroy Montezuma's idols, they manage to force him to put a cross and a chapel on top of one of the pyramids devoted to the war god Huitchilopochtli--but he also testifies to the cultural syncretism that began with first contact. I'm thinking specifically about military technology. When we think about the conquistadors, we think about guns, horses, and steel; yet there were very few guns with Cortés' troops (he actually had more crossbows than arquebuses!), and a small (but effective) number of horses. Steel, though, wasn't all that decisive an advantage. Bernal says many times that indigenous obsidian blades (jutting out of clubs or lances) cut more effectively than steel. And as for steel armor: despite our stereotypical image of a conquistador in shell armor, Bernal and his fellow soldiers went into battle protected by padded cotton, imitating the preferred armor of the Native Americans. Cotton armor, it seems, gave soldiers more mobility and better protection against native weapons.
This tiny detail, conquistadors wearing the same kind of armor as their indigenous rivals, says a lot to me about cultural syncretism and the complicated bonds between the Spanish and the native peoples they would subjugate. It's similar to other developments in military history, from the irregular military tactics used by North American settlers in imitation of Algonquian soldiers, to the light mobile cavalry that Eastern Europe developed in order to keep pace with Mongol horse archers. And in all of these cases, by adopting the enemy's tactics in order to defeat him, you're implicitly setting up the enemy as your equal. Interesting stuff. And proof that the truth of history isn't always in the big historical movements, but in the microhistory of battlefield tactics, clothing, and sexual liaisons.
Is the Historia verdadera actually true? Is truth in history possible? Count me skeptical. Even if every word in a work of history were completely accurate, how could we ever know? How could we distinguish between our beliefs about the truth and the Truth itself? And if we value Truth as an absolute ideal, aren't we forced to recognize the provisional nature of most of the truths we believe?
All the same, the Historia verdadera is an excellent attempt to tell the truth, one that restores some messy texture to the smooth, pristine Official Histories we've been taught--that the Aztecs were barbarians, or that the Spanish were. Truth is, there's no such thing as a barbarian. He's not beyond the frontiers of our world, but part of our world; and if we could examine his heart with a microscope, we'd see the same messy fractal shades of grey we find in ourselves.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Although I'll be writing about all kinds of things this summer, I want to experiment a little with a new writing format: short reviews of sci-fi movies. As I raid my public library for some of the classics, I'm going to see if I can limit myself to one paragraph on each film.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a fabulous alien-invasion movie, with hardly an ounce of camp (not that there's anything wrong with camp), and model-based special effects that will still look great 50 years from now (while today's CGI movies will just look like Saturday-morning cartoons). The wordless title sequence, which shows alien spores floating through space and descending through Earth's atmosphere, has some amazing, mood-setting music behind it, and the film's sound design, in fact, is spectacular throughout. When Donald Sutherland walks through a French restaurant, the sound of frying pops so hard that you feel like you can smell the food, the creepy tension music hits bass notes so low my TV rumbled out, and the way the pod people scream will haunt you even while the completely silent final credits roll. Beyond the great sound work, the cinematography is just spectacular, with some really gorgeous compositions and excellent work with the light/shadows contrast. It's the kind of cinematography that makes you want to pause your DVD and take a picture. Add in a great cast--Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy (not playing a Spock-like character), a 26-year-old Jeff Goldblum (in what I believe is his first big supporting actor role), and an excellent female lead whose name I can't recall--and Invasion of the Body Snatchers would be a great movie even if it weren't about extraterrestrial invasion. The plot is a sci-fi classic, but this film does something that I haven't run into before: it puts the epicenter of the body-snatching invasion, not in the country, but smack dab in the middle of San Francisco. A rural invasion might possibly be stopped, but in this film it's clear, even before the first human turns, that the aliens can snatch bodies far, far more quickly than they might possibly be destroyed. The hopelessness of the protagonists' struggle just adds more pathos, like in a good zombie movie--except that here, humans who "turn" don't just shuffle around mindlessly, but can actually operate cars and even helicopters. Which brings us to the argument one of the pod people makes to our protagonists (paraphrased): "If you give in, nothing will change. Your memories will transfer. You'll still be you. Except without hate... or love." So while drawing on post-Watergate paranoia (the pod people seem to infiltrate the government more quickly than any other group), Invasion of the Body Snatchers also stakes a (doomed) position against utopian collectivism, and raises some troubling questions about exactly what it means for me to be "me". Good stuff, and I'd highly recommend this movie to anyone with an interest in the genre, in Jeff Goldblum, or in good filmmaking.
Next review in this series here
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a fabulous alien-invasion movie, with hardly an ounce of camp (not that there's anything wrong with camp), and model-based special effects that will still look great 50 years from now (while today's CGI movies will just look like Saturday-morning cartoons). The wordless title sequence, which shows alien spores floating through space and descending through Earth's atmosphere, has some amazing, mood-setting music behind it, and the film's sound design, in fact, is spectacular throughout. When Donald Sutherland walks through a French restaurant, the sound of frying pops so hard that you feel like you can smell the food, the creepy tension music hits bass notes so low my TV rumbled out, and the way the pod people scream will haunt you even while the completely silent final credits roll. Beyond the great sound work, the cinematography is just spectacular, with some really gorgeous compositions and excellent work with the light/shadows contrast. It's the kind of cinematography that makes you want to pause your DVD and take a picture. Add in a great cast--Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy (not playing a Spock-like character), a 26-year-old Jeff Goldblum (in what I believe is his first big supporting actor role), and an excellent female lead whose name I can't recall--and Invasion of the Body Snatchers would be a great movie even if it weren't about extraterrestrial invasion. The plot is a sci-fi classic, but this film does something that I haven't run into before: it puts the epicenter of the body-snatching invasion, not in the country, but smack dab in the middle of San Francisco. A rural invasion might possibly be stopped, but in this film it's clear, even before the first human turns, that the aliens can snatch bodies far, far more quickly than they might possibly be destroyed. The hopelessness of the protagonists' struggle just adds more pathos, like in a good zombie movie--except that here, humans who "turn" don't just shuffle around mindlessly, but can actually operate cars and even helicopters. Which brings us to the argument one of the pod people makes to our protagonists (paraphrased): "If you give in, nothing will change. Your memories will transfer. You'll still be you. Except without hate... or love." So while drawing on post-Watergate paranoia (the pod people seem to infiltrate the government more quickly than any other group), Invasion of the Body Snatchers also stakes a (doomed) position against utopian collectivism, and raises some troubling questions about exactly what it means for me to be "me". Good stuff, and I'd highly recommend this movie to anyone with an interest in the genre, in Jeff Goldblum, or in good filmmaking.
Next review in this series here
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Season Finales
A friend gave me his copy of Oblivion last week, and since then I've been playing around with two characters: a Redguard knight named Redgar and a Dark Elf wizard/swordsman named Elfdar (evidently my sister's lifelong obsession with baby names has not rubbed off on me). I'm kind of done with Redgar right now--Speechcraft is a pretty lame major skill, and I got turned into a vampire, which sucks--but I've tailored Elfdar to my playing preferences: he's got a nice mix of skills in combat (Blade, Block, Light Armor, Acrobatics) and magic (Destruction, Restoration, and Alchemy). Alchemy, in particular, is tons of fun--it means I get to harvest lots of mushrooms when I'm out in the wilderness, and gain levels for mixing potions.
I'll write more about Oblivion later in the summer, but my several dozen hours running around the kingdom of Tamriel have confirmed what I prefer about more primitive RPGs: in games like ADOM, decisions have consequences and death is final. There are no autosaves, and when your character dies even your save file is destroyed. Every corridor or new level could end your game; one of them, eventually, will. In Oblivion, in contrast, your character is as effectively immortal as Mario, and even the worst in-game effects (Vampirism, for example) can be "cured" simply by loading a previous save. Although the game world is gorgeous and incredibly fun to explore, there's a definite lack of pressure. And even though Oblivion opens with an assassination and features an invasion by demonic hordes, the game's mechanics do not effectively treat the theme of mortality.
I'll write more about Oblivion later in the summer, but my several dozen hours running around the kingdom of Tamriel have confirmed what I prefer about more primitive RPGs: in games like ADOM, decisions have consequences and death is final. There are no autosaves, and when your character dies even your save file is destroyed. Every corridor or new level could end your game; one of them, eventually, will. In Oblivion, in contrast, your character is as effectively immortal as Mario, and even the worst in-game effects (Vampirism, for example) can be "cured" simply by loading a previous save. Although the game world is gorgeous and incredibly fun to explore, there's a definite lack of pressure. And even though Oblivion opens with an assassination and features an invasion by demonic hordes, the game's mechanics do not effectively treat the theme of mortality.
Which brings me to the matter at hand: sitcoms. I've been watching five of them this season, NBC's Thursday lineup and also How I Met Your Mother, and now that the season has ended I want to do a bit of a post mortem. I'll start with the shows I care the least about, and end with my thoughts on Community.
Parks and Recreation: I've complained before about this show, and I can't say that the conclusion of this season has really changed my mind. A few characters have grown on me, others have simply grown more obnoxious. But the real problem here, I think, is the way this show uses the documentary format as a crutch. I mean: we're supposed to believe that a politician would let camera crews film her getting wasted at a bar? That she would let them follow her everywhere? This issue really came to a head for me when, in the second-to-last episode, Leslie went to talk to Bobby Newport about his father's death. "No cameras", says Bobby (or maybe it's the campaign manager)--but the cameras follow Leslie in anyways. The show's a documentary when convenient, and a conventional sitcom with fly-on-the-wall cameras when convenient; the whole setup just ends up feeling lazy. Contrast that to Community, which, in its three documentary episodes, clearly spells out the identities and motives of the people who film. Aside from this fundamental complaint, the season finale was fine, if just a little obvious. I'm not sure I'll stick around next year, though.
The Office: I've enjoyed this season quite a bit (even though it, too, suffers from a lazy documentary format--are we really supposed to believe Dwight and Angela would let the cameramen film their discussion in the hospital about Angela's baby's paternity?) The absence of Michael Scott has been a huge benefit to the show, which is best when the talented ensemble doesn't have all their energy stolen by a raging egomaniac. The fact that this season's major job-related plot arcs end up not pointing anywhere (Dwight isn't promoted; Andy stays manager) is unfortunate, although the show has always been more about relationship arcs, and those have definitely led to some results (especially the Senator/Oscar business in the finale). Ultimately: the last episode was fine, and I still enjoy the show,
but I wonder just how much longer things can or should last.
How I Met Your Mother: This was the season of circularity. The return of Stripper Lily; an episode about Lily's dad that follows the exact arc of the Slapsgiving episode, right down to a fake ad for a terrible boardgame at the end of the episode; the return of the cupcake girl; Ted's third (or fourth?) declaration of love for Robin... and the plot arcs that have actually pointed somewhere--namely, Barney's relationship with the stripper--have been kind of obvious. I mean: when we learned that Ted meets his future wife at Barney's wedding, it was pretty clear that that Barney's bride was going to be Robin, and that the whole Quinn plot was designed to make Barney ready for marriage to the only available regular cast member. I'm sure some viewers were shocked to see Robin in a wedding dress in the finale--but those people need to get genre savvy. Sitcoms are about incest, and Barney was always going to marry within the family. Despite the repetition, and the way HIMYM telegraphs its punches, and the Ted-the-homewrecker finale, it was an enjoyable season, with some nice structurally complex episodes (the house party in Long Island, with three interlocking stories set in three different rooms of the house, was very well designed). And it was a relief to learn that Ted has a baby daughter in 2015, which means he conceives a child before the end of the 2014-2015 season, which means he meets and marries the mother during or before the 2013-2014 season (I'm not seeing a knocked-up subplot--they'll be married when the kid's conceived). And I'm going to go out on a limb here: Robin and Barney will marry, and we the viewers will meet the mother, at the end of next season. Time will tell--but I'll keep watching.
30 Rock: I said some critical things about this show back in February--namely, that Jack has too much control over Liz, and that her relationship with Chriss would flame out. Wrong on two counts: at this point, Jack's personal life is far more messed up, and Liz has made a pretty serious commitment to her boyfriend. It's been a good season, and I'm glad to have been surprised, and to have been reminded just how fabulous this show's writing is. The highlight for me was the Leap Day William episode, with its pitch-perfect parody of a holiday movie, but there are so many brilliant moments in a typical episode that you can't pay tribute to them all. One thing I've realized: 30 Rock, unlike Arrested Development, doesn't rely on the crutch of self-referentiality. I mean, there are certainly inside jokes (Jenna's references to Mickey Rourke, for instance), but these references both point outside the show and stand on their own, and the show tends not to use the kinds of catch phrases that made Arrested so memorable to its fans and so inaccessible to everybody else. Consider the fact that Tracy uses a different nickname for his coworkers every time, or the inventiveness of Kenneth-the-hick gags (which I find mildly offensive--but they never repeat themselves). 30 Rock is simply a solid, well-written show--and, I'll argue, the most consistently high-quality sitcom on television.
Community: Thursday's three-part season finale was pretty spectacular, from an incredible stand-alone homage to videogames, to a plot-heavy heist parody, to an excellent summing-up episode called "Introduction to Finality". It's clear that the show's creators designed this last episode to function as a coda to the show, in case it wasn't renewed. "Introduction to Finality" works very well on that front--so well, in fact, that, even though 13 new episodes will air next year, I consider this episode to have been the true series finale. I'd be happy--and I'm speaking as a huge fan of the show--if this had truly been the end.
Some recent developments in Community have worried me. The show remains excellent, and committed to doing genre parodies in ways that genuinely develop the characters (as opposed to the nihilism of Family Guy); it's still got a lot of heart and inventiveness. But the transition towards Arrested-style self-referentiality has gone too far. When Troy and Abed pretended to run a talk show and sang "Troy and Abed in the mooor-ning!", that was cute, and appropriate for their characters. But now, it seems, every other episode includes some version of that eight-syllable jingle--and no longer just in the bumps, which aren't really canon, but in the main episodes as well. In the videogame episode, as Troy and Abed's characters attack a giant statue of Pierce's father, they sing "Troy and Abed shooting laaaa-va!" Why? How does this serve the characters, or the plot? Why would Abed, a man committed to genre, sing during a videogame? It doesn't make any sense or serve the story--it's simply pandering to the show's fans, and alienating potential viewers.
Which isn't to say that these overly cryptic running gags don't serve a valuable purpose. By keeping the show's fan base engaged they help keep the show alive--Community might not have come back without the deep commitment of its fans--but prolonging the show's life comes at a cost: namely, the betrayal of the show's ideals. "Introduction to Finality" ends with a montage set to a full version of the song that plays during the show's opening credits, in which we see a lot of character development take place. It's a great way to end the season, and reinforces perfectly the themes of the episode: people have changed for the better. Jeff, who once only wanted to sleep with Britta and return to his law firm, now genuinely cares about his friends, enough to sacrifice his career. Good stuff. A fitting conclusion. But then: on a black screen, at the very end of the episode, appears "#sixseasonsandamovie". The show's creators, obviously, want to extend the meme and keep the show on the air--but this decision, I believe, is a betrayal of the episode we've just watched. "Introduction to Finality"? Apparently not.
Here's the thing: not all shows deserve six seasons and a movie. I don't think Community does, although I love the show and will watch it until it's cancelled. It seems to me that Neil Young had it right: It's better to burn out than to fade away. It's better to produce three seasons of quality, non-pandering television than to go any further down the rabbit hole of inside jokes and self-referentiality (which deepens but narrows the show's audience). And it's better to go out on your own terms than to hang around past your prime.
TV shows, like RPG characters, like real people, die. The goal shouldn't be simply to extend life as long as possible (say, via Redgar's vampirism); the goal is to live well, to live the good life. To do things you're proud of, regardless of whether you'll be remembered for them.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
History of the Chichimec Nation: Part III
Previously: the poet-king Nezahualcóyotl, after conquering North America, began preparing to conquer the Inca. Before unleashing his armies, however, a Japanese caravel made contact with the New World.
I'm working on my final seminar paper today, for an English class about Sir Philip Sidney. It's an exciting project: I'm looking at the way two 16th/17th-century Englishmen anthologize Spanish poetry and exploration accounts (if that doesn't sound very exciting, I forgive you). One of my authors is Richard Hakluyt, who I've written about before; the other is Abraham Fraunce, author of The Arcadian Rhetorike, which catalogs a huge series of literary figures and tropes, and provides examples in Greek, Latin, English, Italian, French, and Spanish. The volume is introduced by a crazy schizophrenic hexalingual poem, of which I'll share the first two lines:
During the war, the remaining 15 civilizations make contact with me. One civ is of special interest to me: Catherine of Russia, one of the most militaristic, evil leaders in the game (not that I'm in any position to judge). She's already destroyed the Spanish, beating me to the punch, so I plan on striking her first, capturing Madrid, and establishing a solid base in Europe to facilitate further conquests. Madrid's a great place to start for other reasons, too. First, of course, the concept of grand historical vengeance. Second: it's the Buddhist holy city, and that means tons and tons of pilgrimage money. As is usual on this map, the Old World is majority Buddhist (Isabella of Spain usually founds Buddhism, and then floods the map with missionaries):
It's at this moment, while continuing to funnel new troops to Madrid, that Julius Caesar declares war on me. His knights briefly besiege Madrid, but are dispatched by my infantry (despite having brought along only one pikeman); I then advance eastward from Iberia, sacking the city of Ravenna and laying siege to Rome itself. The political situation of Europe is a big complicated right now: much earlier in the game, the Germans conquered Paris, and the French only survived thanks to colonies in Scotland and Ireland (they've just planted a new one in Nova Scotia, on my home turf). So currently, my Old World holdings share borders with two leaders, Caesar and Frederick the Great. If Frederick joins Caesar in this war, I'll be hard pressed to hold both their armies off; if Catherine jumps in too, I just might lose Madrid again. Fortunately, though, Frederick seems to like me well enough to stay neutral. I'll thank him for the favor when I capture his cities in another 100 years or so.
After several turns of siege work, Rome's defenses are down and I'm able to rush in and capture the Eternal City. As you can see from the screenshot to the right, Caesar's been building a lot of wonders: Chichen Itza (bottom of the screen), the Colossus of Rhodes (bottom left), the Taj Mahal (top, hiding behind my musketman), and others that I can't quite make out. The loss of Rome will cripple Caesar, and I'm faced with the question of whether I want to try to knock him out of the game right now. As you can see to the left of the shot, I've got naval superiority in the Mediterranean, and I'm sending waves of new frigates into action. The difficulty with pressing east to knock out the Romans is that it extends my border with Germany. The prudent thing might be to end this war on highly favorable terms, then hit German-controlled Paris, and expand eastward across the whole continent. In any case, I'll leave England and France alone for now--the AI is terrible at amphibious assaults, and I don't think either Elizabeth or Louis XVI would be interested in joining the bloodbath I'm unleashing across Europe.
I'm working on my final seminar paper today, for an English class about Sir Philip Sidney. It's an exciting project: I'm looking at the way two 16th/17th-century Englishmen anthologize Spanish poetry and exploration accounts (if that doesn't sound very exciting, I forgive you). One of my authors is Richard Hakluyt, who I've written about before; the other is Abraham Fraunce, author of The Arcadian Rhetorike, which catalogs a huge series of literary figures and tropes, and provides examples in Greek, Latin, English, Italian, French, and Spanish. The volume is introduced by a crazy schizophrenic hexalingual poem, of which I'll share the first two lines:
Voi, pia nympha, tuum, quem tolse la morte, Philippus,The backbone of these lines is Latin, but if you've studied any other Romance languages you may be surprised at the presence of "Voi" (Italian), "la morte" (French), or "palabras" (Spanish). As the poem continues, we learn that all the words and fragments of poems that Fraunce collects in his Arcadian Rhetorike are actually tribute to Mary Sidney, Philip's sister, in memory of his death. The craziness of this anthology, its schizophrenic nature, actually makes a whole lot of sense: all nations are bringing their best cultural products (whether they want to bring them or not--Fraunce didn't have to get permission from the authors he cites) and laying them before the surviving Sidneys. When we consider that Philip died in battle against the Spanish, and that the introductory poem rhymes "Philippus" with "Iberus", and when we realize that the anthology was published in the year of the Spanish Armada, and that the Spanish poem that Abraham Fraunce cites most frequently, Juan Boscán's Leandro, tells the story of Leander's failed attempt to cross the Hellespont, everything starts to come together: The Arcadian Rhetorike is, among other things, a political statement, and an expression of the epistemological mercantilism that Ralph Bauer talks about. Other nations' raw materials are brought into England, refined, and Englished. Citing a Spanish poet (or explorer), then, isn't necessarily a respectful gesture. It can also be a way to exercise control over foreign enemies.
Aedentem llenas caelesti melle palabras
* * *
Speaking of which: I prepare a small Armada, fill it with high-quality infantry, and prepare to declare treacherous war against the Inca, my brothers in the faith. You can see, to the north of Machu Picchu, a stack of Incan workers, building a plantation; I land right on the hill and capture all of them. The war against the Inca goes according to plan. He has a lot more troops than I thought, but with catapults to soften up his cities and Macemen to go in for the kill, my technological edge and production advantage are just too much for Huayna Capac to resist.
 |
| The Fall of Cuzco |
During the war, the remaining 15 civilizations make contact with me. One civ is of special interest to me: Catherine of Russia, one of the most militaristic, evil leaders in the game (not that I'm in any position to judge). She's already destroyed the Spanish, beating me to the punch, so I plan on striking her first, capturing Madrid, and establishing a solid base in Europe to facilitate further conquests. Madrid's a great place to start for other reasons, too. First, of course, the concept of grand historical vengeance. Second: it's the Buddhist holy city, and that means tons and tons of pilgrimage money. As is usual on this map, the Old World is majority Buddhist (Isabella of Spain usually founds Buddhism, and then floods the map with missionaries): |
| The Old World |
 |
| The Chichimec Armada |
There are two things the AI in this game is pretty terrible at (well, a lot more than two). First, tech trading. By making a beeline for Education and then trading aggressively, I'm able to achieve tech parity with the Old World in a dozen turns. Second, map trading. By making solid map trades with the civs who visit me, I'm able to prove that the world is round without ever leaving the Western Hemisphere. This gives me +1 movement to all ships, which means my Armada will be able to shuttle troops to the Old World much more efficiently.
 |
| New World Conquistadors |
After investing heavily in espionage, I'm able to see exactly how many troops Catherine has in her cities. It's a big stack of good units, but my trebuchets and catapults will batter her army into submission before the macemen ride in for the kill. I make landfall, knock down her city defenses, and easily take Madrid before she's able to send any reinforcements. When Ghengis Khan opens up a new front on Catherine's eastern border, I'm able to force her to the negotiation table. In another couple dozen turns, though, she will likely declare war on me again. Madrid is just too lucrative, and Catherine just too vengeful, for us to establish any lasting peace.
It's at this moment, while continuing to funnel new troops to Madrid, that Julius Caesar declares war on me. His knights briefly besiege Madrid, but are dispatched by my infantry (despite having brought along only one pikeman); I then advance eastward from Iberia, sacking the city of Ravenna and laying siege to Rome itself. The political situation of Europe is a big complicated right now: much earlier in the game, the Germans conquered Paris, and the French only survived thanks to colonies in Scotland and Ireland (they've just planted a new one in Nova Scotia, on my home turf). So currently, my Old World holdings share borders with two leaders, Caesar and Frederick the Great. If Frederick joins Caesar in this war, I'll be hard pressed to hold both their armies off; if Catherine jumps in too, I just might lose Madrid again. Fortunately, though, Frederick seems to like me well enough to stay neutral. I'll thank him for the favor when I capture his cities in another 100 years or so.  |
| The Siege of Rome |
After several turns of siege work, Rome's defenses are down and I'm able to rush in and capture the Eternal City. As you can see from the screenshot to the right, Caesar's been building a lot of wonders: Chichen Itza (bottom of the screen), the Colossus of Rhodes (bottom left), the Taj Mahal (top, hiding behind my musketman), and others that I can't quite make out. The loss of Rome will cripple Caesar, and I'm faced with the question of whether I want to try to knock him out of the game right now. As you can see to the left of the shot, I've got naval superiority in the Mediterranean, and I'm sending waves of new frigates into action. The difficulty with pressing east to knock out the Romans is that it extends my border with Germany. The prudent thing might be to end this war on highly favorable terms, then hit German-controlled Paris, and expand eastward across the whole continent. In any case, I'll leave England and France alone for now--the AI is terrible at amphibious assaults, and I don't think either Elizabeth or Louis XVI would be interested in joining the bloodbath I'm unleashing across Europe.
So at this point, things are looking pretty amazing for the Chichimec Nation. I've been able to achieve tech parity, and although Hatshepshut is producing more science than me, I still won the race to Liberalism (which gives you a free tech, and is a huge ego boost). More than that: since I'm running a Mercantilistic Republic, each of my cities gets a free specialist citizen who produces free science. Although running a trans-oceanic empire is costly, my science isn't really suffering. The only slightly worrisome thing now is that, with 15 AIs, diplomacy can be a bit annoying. The Chinese, for example, declared war on me out of the blue, even though we're on opposite sides of the globe. I won't be able to make peace with them until I defeat their invasion force, which is either marching west through Eurasia, or sailing east across the Pacific.
In either case, I'm not too worried. The important thing is to defend the homeland (the horses I found in Iberia will help), and then declare peace that I might more effectively wage war on Europe. Some day, when all this fighting is over and I reign supreme over the globe, I'll make sure to put Russian and Roman poets in my world lit anthologies.
In either case, I'm not too worried. The important thing is to defend the homeland (the horses I found in Iberia will help), and then declare peace that I might more effectively wage war on Europe. Some day, when all this fighting is over and I reign supreme over the globe, I'll make sure to put Russian and Roman poets in my world lit anthologies.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
History of the Chichimec Nation: Part II
Previously: Nezahualcóyotl, the poet-king of Texcoco, discovered monotheism, founded Judaism, and captured the ancient city of Washington to gain sole control of North America.
I'm working on final projects this week, including one on the play Antígona by the Peruvian theater collective Yuyachkani (their name in Quechua means "I am your thought"). It's a retelling of the Antigone myth, which was first staged by Sophocles a long, long time ago. Yuyachkani's Antígona was written in 1999, and responds to the violent struggle between the maoist guerrilla group Sendero luminoso (the Shining Path) and government paramilitary forces, who, as in many Latin American countries, used brutal force to respond to a national security threat. And Sendero was a legitimate threat: an organization built on rejection of democratic processes, committed to assassinate collaborators with the government, fanatically and dogmatically convinced that only Chinese-style communism could bring justice to the Peruvian highlands. It's some messed up history, and the Antigone myth, which is about a civil war between two brothers who end up killing one another, is an appropriate way for Yuyachkani to talk, not only about the history, but about how to remember the history. It's a play about how we remember the dead--and whether we should remember the wicked.
The play ends with Antígona's sister, Ismene, opening a box which contains the death-mask of Polinices, her brother. Polinices is dead, but he's not exactly a victim: he's the brother who led a host of Argive soldiers to the walls of Thebes, in order to destroy and "drink the blood" of his native city. So how ought Ismene to remember her brother, who's also her enemy? If masks are metaphors for memory, what ought she to do with her brother's mask?
She takes the mask, raises it high above her head, and smashes it to the ground. What, exactly, does this gesture signify? I'm not sure yet (but have six days to figure it out). Levinas says that humans have an absolute duty to the face--that recognizing the faces of other people is a pre-rational moral necessity. So what does it mean to smash the face of the brother-enemy? Ismene's next gestures are easier to understand: she covers the fragments with a cloth, and then pours sand from the box onto the shroud in a fine curtain, which is a kind of veil. As she pours, she slowly moves the box so that its shadow completely obscures her face. It's a gorgeous theatrical moment--but what exactly does it express? If Antígona is an allegory for Peru, to which ideas do the corporal movements of Ismene point?
After conquering Washington and destroying the US, my only rivals are poorly-organized bands of barbarians (you can see some of them to the right, advancing on Texcoco; my troops are waiting in the forest). I block the threat, and then quickly expand across North America. As I expand my economy slows down, so I research Code of Laws to build Sacrificial Altars, which reduce maintenance costs for cities. I switch government type to Caste System, which, when coupled with the fact that I'm a Republic, gives me an incredible amount of flexibility: instead of sending my citizens to work in mines, I can have them become merchants, scientists, and artists, and I earn extra research for each specialist. This setup won't be enough to keep me on track with the Old World, but I shouldn't be too far behind when we finally make contact with the Europeans.
While poking around the Caribbean with my galleys and sending Jaguar Warriors to explore South America, I get some unexpected news: "The Spanish civilization has been destroyed!!!" This ruins my plans for grand metahistorical revenge--one of the other European civs has beaten my Chichimecs to the punch--but it also gives me more flexibility. I will, eventually, cross the ocean and conquer Europe, but I no longer feel the need to make the Spanish my first victims.
All the same, the Inca, I decide, must be destroyed. I decide to tech up to Macemen, and, thanks to the fact that I'm a Republic with a Caste System, I'm able to turn huge chunks of my population into scientists. One of the rewards for running a specialist economy is that Great People are born, like the Great Prophet to my right (to whom the game has randomly assigned the name "Moses". Awesome!) I can use these GPs for various special powers (I had to sacrifice one to build the Temple of Solomon), but I can also have them just "settle" in a city, giving me more boring but potentially more cumulatively useful bonuses. Each settled Great Person also gives me the Republic science bonus, so Texcoco is rapidly becoming a science powerhouse.
I send my Jaguar Warriors to explore South America, while continuing to advance towards Machinery. I'm feeling pretty good about things: Thucydides says I'm the most cultured civ in the world, I've got around 500 years of game time before the Europeans show up, and I've got enough of a technological edge over Huayna Capac that I'll be able to take him down pretty easily once I start the war. (I'll actually fight a series of short wars, each time capturing a city and then forcing the Inca to give me their technology for peace; I know that's kind of mean, but it's that kind of world). And then, all of a sudden:
In the year 900AD, a caravel comes within sight of the West Coast of North America.
I'm surprised, shocked even, to be discovered so quickly. It turns out that Tokugawa is Genghis' vassal, which is a bit worrying; even worse, though, is the fact that I'm already very far behind them in tech. There's one note of encouragement, though: Genghis' score (a combination of population, tech, wonders, and a few other factors) is only 30 points or so above my own, and Tokugawa is ranked lower than me. I always knew I'd be less advanced, technologically speaking, than whoever discovered me--but I'm very happy to see that, by other metrics, I'm about equal with at least two of the fourteen Old World civs.
I trade some tech with Genghis (I've got two things he doesn't have; he has around eight techs I want) and sign an open border agreement to keep him friendly (the Mongolians tend to be a bit aggressive). Perhaps, eventually, the Mongols will join me in a grand war against Europe? Tokugawa isn't interested in making any deals right now. True to history, in this game the Japanese don't really break their isolationism until the Middle Ages/Renaissance. I can't deny, though, that I'm grateful they discovered me--and that they put me in contact with their friendlier feudal lord.
It'll still be several hundred years before anyone's capable of sending troops to my hemisphere--Caravels can only carry a few non-combatant units--so I should have plenty of time to take down the Inca. Meanwhile, other civs will be contacting me soon, and I'll have the opportunity to trade more techs and get a better picture of what things are like in the Old World.
I'm working on final projects this week, including one on the play Antígona by the Peruvian theater collective Yuyachkani (their name in Quechua means "I am your thought"). It's a retelling of the Antigone myth, which was first staged by Sophocles a long, long time ago. Yuyachkani's Antígona was written in 1999, and responds to the violent struggle between the maoist guerrilla group Sendero luminoso (the Shining Path) and government paramilitary forces, who, as in many Latin American countries, used brutal force to respond to a national security threat. And Sendero was a legitimate threat: an organization built on rejection of democratic processes, committed to assassinate collaborators with the government, fanatically and dogmatically convinced that only Chinese-style communism could bring justice to the Peruvian highlands. It's some messed up history, and the Antigone myth, which is about a civil war between two brothers who end up killing one another, is an appropriate way for Yuyachkani to talk, not only about the history, but about how to remember the history. It's a play about how we remember the dead--and whether we should remember the wicked.
* * *
After conquering Washington and destroying the US, my only rivals are poorly-organized bands of barbarians (you can see some of them to the right, advancing on Texcoco; my troops are waiting in the forest). I block the threat, and then quickly expand across North America. As I expand my economy slows down, so I research Code of Laws to build Sacrificial Altars, which reduce maintenance costs for cities. I switch government type to Caste System, which, when coupled with the fact that I'm a Republic, gives me an incredible amount of flexibility: instead of sending my citizens to work in mines, I can have them become merchants, scientists, and artists, and I earn extra research for each specialist. This setup won't be enough to keep me on track with the Old World, but I shouldn't be too far behind when we finally make contact with the Europeans.
First, though, I meet Huayna Capac, the leader of the Incas (who, according to El Inca Garcilaso, was actually a monotheist--much like Nezahualcóyotl, who leads my nation). Garcilaso is probably exaggerating, but once Huayna Capac and I sign an open borders agreement, he converts to Judaism as soon as it spreads to one of his cities. That's good for me: since I control the Temple of Solomon, I get extra gold for every city my religion expands to. We quickly become friends--AIs like people who share their religion, and after trading some techs and selling him some tasty North American deer, Huayna Capac likes me even more. I begin to wonder whether or not I should conquer him before the Europeans show up. On the one hand, it would be nice to have an ally; on the other, the AI isn't particularly good at getting your back. I slowly start to transfer my troops to Central America, and build up my navy, which helps me take down some pirates in Florida:
While poking around the Caribbean with my galleys and sending Jaguar Warriors to explore South America, I get some unexpected news: "The Spanish civilization has been destroyed!!!" This ruins my plans for grand metahistorical revenge--one of the other European civs has beaten my Chichimecs to the punch--but it also gives me more flexibility. I will, eventually, cross the ocean and conquer Europe, but I no longer feel the need to make the Spanish my first victims.
All the same, the Inca, I decide, must be destroyed. I decide to tech up to Macemen, and, thanks to the fact that I'm a Republic with a Caste System, I'm able to turn huge chunks of my population into scientists. One of the rewards for running a specialist economy is that Great People are born, like the Great Prophet to my right (to whom the game has randomly assigned the name "Moses". Awesome!) I can use these GPs for various special powers (I had to sacrifice one to build the Temple of Solomon), but I can also have them just "settle" in a city, giving me more boring but potentially more cumulatively useful bonuses. Each settled Great Person also gives me the Republic science bonus, so Texcoco is rapidly becoming a science powerhouse.
I send my Jaguar Warriors to explore South America, while continuing to advance towards Machinery. I'm feeling pretty good about things: Thucydides says I'm the most cultured civ in the world, I've got around 500 years of game time before the Europeans show up, and I've got enough of a technological edge over Huayna Capac that I'll be able to take him down pretty easily once I start the war. (I'll actually fight a series of short wars, each time capturing a city and then forcing the Inca to give me their technology for peace; I know that's kind of mean, but it's that kind of world). And then, all of a sudden: |
| First Contact |
I'm surprised, shocked even, to be discovered so quickly. It turns out that Tokugawa is Genghis' vassal, which is a bit worrying; even worse, though, is the fact that I'm already very far behind them in tech. There's one note of encouragement, though: Genghis' score (a combination of population, tech, wonders, and a few other factors) is only 30 points or so above my own, and Tokugawa is ranked lower than me. I always knew I'd be less advanced, technologically speaking, than whoever discovered me--but I'm very happy to see that, by other metrics, I'm about equal with at least two of the fourteen Old World civs.
I trade some tech with Genghis (I've got two things he doesn't have; he has around eight techs I want) and sign an open border agreement to keep him friendly (the Mongolians tend to be a bit aggressive). Perhaps, eventually, the Mongols will join me in a grand war against Europe? Tokugawa isn't interested in making any deals right now. True to history, in this game the Japanese don't really break their isolationism until the Middle Ages/Renaissance. I can't deny, though, that I'm grateful they discovered me--and that they put me in contact with their friendlier feudal lord.It'll still be several hundred years before anyone's capable of sending troops to my hemisphere--Caravels can only carry a few non-combatant units--so I should have plenty of time to take down the Inca. Meanwhile, other civs will be contacting me soon, and I'll have the opportunity to trade more techs and get a better picture of what things are like in the Old World.
* * *
I began this post by talking a bit about faces. The issue of AIs and faces is pretty interesting, from the Uncanny Valley to the question of whether, when machines are capable of perfectly simulating the appearance of people, we ought to feel the same sense of ethical responsibility we feel towards flesh-and-blood humans. I don't really have anything to add to that conversation right now, except that, in Civ IV, the use of animated faces for the AIs really adds to your immersion in the gameplay. There's a relationship stat that tells you exactly how an AI feels about your civ (you get bonus points for sharing a religion, negative points for being at war, etc.), but there's something very cool about just looking at a screenshot and getting a sense of the AIs mood. It's a little touch, and perhaps not central to gameplay, but it's something I appreciate. And the smile on Huayna Capac's face makes me feel a little twinge of real guilt for what I'm going to do to him next session...
Friday, May 4, 2012
History of the Chichimec Nation: Part I
Usually when the end of a semester rolls around I start writing about my final projects here, as a way to get the creative juices flowing. This semester, things are going to be a bit different: since one of my projects is about the Aztec historian Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, a grandson of Texcocan nobility who wrote several works of indigenous history in Spanish, I've decided to use my study breaks to play my way through a game of Civilization IV as the Aztecs, and see if I can conquer the world.
First, though, a bit of historical background. The so-called "Aztecs" were actually a federation of three interrelated chichimec city-states, Tenochtitlán, Texcoco, and Tlatelolco (although the term "city-state" is an imperfect description of the political organization of mesoamerican society. For what it's worth). According to Ixtlilxóchitl, the Texcocans were the best, most civilized, most trustworthy of the three, while the rulers of Tenochtitlán were typically conniving, treacherous bastards (the historian's great-grandfather teamed up with Cortés to defeat Montezuma, so he's got plenty of personal reasons to exalt Texcoco). In accordance with Ixtlilxóchitl's historical biases, I change my civilization name to the "Chichimec Empire", name my capitol city Texcoco instead of Tenochtitlán, and switch my name from Montezuma to Nezahualcóyotl, the poet-king of Texcoco who, according to many sources (Spanish and pre-columbian), attempted to shift Texcocan religion in a monotheistic direction, worshiping a single omnipotent creator-god. My game plan, then, is to be the first civilization to research Monotheism, found Judaism, build the Temple of Solomon, and cross the Atlantic Ocean to conquer and evangelize Spain (which, on this map, tends to found Buddhism).
There are, however, several obstacles in my path. And that vicious Canadian bear, which is about to eat my scout, is the least of my problems. First, since I'm playing on a high difficulty setting, all AIs build and research slightly faster than me. Second, the AIs in the Old World will be able to trade techs, meaning that, when we make contact, they will have superior military technology. I'll be able to equalize eventually (the AI isn't very good at trading techs, or fighting wars, or really much of anything), but getting even won't be easy. My goal is for the gap between me and the Old World to be as narrow as possible when the first European caravel hits my shores.
And that means they need to be my shores, as soon as possible. I make contact with the Americans, and immediately begin scheming ways to take them down. I send a few warriors to poke around their borders, while continuing to race my way to Monotheism. Luckily, a scout runs into some friendly villagers who teach me Masonry, a prerequisite tech for Monotheism (don't ask me why...). I've saved 30 or so turns of work, and easily found Judaism before anyone else. I convert immediately--since the Aztecs Chichimecs are "Spiritual", I can switch between religions and government types without any penalty. I looooove "Spiritual" civs, and honestly think it's one of the best civilization attributes. So after converting to Judaism, and adopting "Organized Religion" as a government trait, I immediately hammer out two wonders: Stonehenge and the Pyramids. Shiny...
Stonehenge means that all new cities will start with a Monument, which means their boundaries will spread more quickly. Since I want to fill North America with cities, this will be quite helpful. But the Pyramids are much, much more important. They unlock four new government types, some of which usually aren't accessible until the late game (Police State, for example, which boosts military production, or Representation, which gives extra science for "Great People").
In the last few turns before my Pyramids finish, I'm terrified every time I hit the "End Turn" button. Wonders are serious investments, and I would hate to feel like I've wasted the time. But thanks to the wonders of forced labor (yes, I'm aware of the irony of a Jewish civ building the pyramids with slaves), the Pyramids go up without a hitch. Honestly, I think I was probably scared of nothing--I had a substantial head start on these two wonders. But there are 15 civs in the Old World, and when you can't tell what they're up to, you get a bit paranoid.
Meanwhile, my warrior has caught the Americans with their pants down, so to speak: an unescorted American worker, building a farm on the border of US territory, just one tile away from my Texcocan warrior. I can't believe my good luck--if I can capture this warrior, I'll cripple American development and speed up my own. I open up diplomacy with Roosevelt, tell him "your head would look good on a stick", and send the warrior in, capturing his worker and getting a good look at Washington, where the Americans have several warriors of their own. I'm worried they'll simply recapture the worker next turn, so I destroy it, initiating a scorched-earth campaign that will last for the next several thousand years of game time.
Although they send a group of warriors and archers to strike Texcoco, I slaughter their army in the open terrain north of the Rio Grande (you can see them at the top middle of the screenshot to the right). I tech up to Jaguar Warriors, my unique unit, and manage to muscle through Roosevelt's defenses, losing many warriors in the process. But that's okay, since having a large standing army slows down your economy, and now, having taken Washington and eliminated the Americans from the game, the only enemies left in North America are the barbarian spearmen who poke timidly around my borders. I stop producing Jaguar Warriors and start building a Settler; I switch from Police State to Representation; and, when a great prophet is born in Texcoco, I use him to build Solomon's Temple, which will help spread Judaism to the new cities I'm about to found in North America.
First, though, a bit of historical background. The so-called "Aztecs" were actually a federation of three interrelated chichimec city-states, Tenochtitlán, Texcoco, and Tlatelolco (although the term "city-state" is an imperfect description of the political organization of mesoamerican society. For what it's worth). According to Ixtlilxóchitl, the Texcocans were the best, most civilized, most trustworthy of the three, while the rulers of Tenochtitlán were typically conniving, treacherous bastards (the historian's great-grandfather teamed up with Cortés to defeat Montezuma, so he's got plenty of personal reasons to exalt Texcoco). In accordance with Ixtlilxóchitl's historical biases, I change my civilization name to the "Chichimec Empire", name my capitol city Texcoco instead of Tenochtitlán, and switch my name from Montezuma to Nezahualcóyotl, the poet-king of Texcoco who, according to many sources (Spanish and pre-columbian), attempted to shift Texcocan religion in a monotheistic direction, worshiping a single omnipotent creator-god. My game plan, then, is to be the first civilization to research Monotheism, found Judaism, build the Temple of Solomon, and cross the Atlantic Ocean to conquer and evangelize Spain (which, on this map, tends to found Buddhism).
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| Why does it always have to be bears? |
And that means they need to be my shores, as soon as possible. I make contact with the Americans, and immediately begin scheming ways to take them down. I send a few warriors to poke around their borders, while continuing to race my way to Monotheism. Luckily, a scout runs into some friendly villagers who teach me Masonry, a prerequisite tech for Monotheism (don't ask me why...). I've saved 30 or so turns of work, and easily found Judaism before anyone else. I convert immediately--since the 
Stonehenge means that all new cities will start with a Monument, which means their boundaries will spread more quickly. Since I want to fill North America with cities, this will be quite helpful. But the Pyramids are much, much more important. They unlock four new government types, some of which usually aren't accessible until the late game (Police State, for example, which boosts military production, or Representation, which gives extra science for "Great People"). 
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| Temptation |
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| The Siege of Washington |
As soon as war begins, I become a Police State, cranking out hordes of warriors. Since I'm an "Aggressive" civ and I've built a barracks, my warriors are very flexible--I can choose between a wide range of upgrades for each fresh unit. I'm unable to take Washington quickly, though, and the Americans manage to research Archery and pump out a few archers, who gain massive bonuses while defending cities. I settle down for a long siege, positioning my warriors to block every useful tile. The Americans have no production, no growth, almost no research.
Although they send a group of warriors and archers to strike Texcoco, I slaughter their army in the open terrain north of the Rio Grande (you can see them at the top middle of the screenshot to the right). I tech up to Jaguar Warriors, my unique unit, and manage to muscle through Roosevelt's defenses, losing many warriors in the process. But that's okay, since having a large standing army slows down your economy, and now, having taken Washington and eliminated the Americans from the game, the only enemies left in North America are the barbarian spearmen who poke timidly around my borders. I stop producing Jaguar Warriors and start building a Settler; I switch from Police State to Representation; and, when a great prophet is born in Texcoco, I use him to build Solomon's Temple, which will help spread Judaism to the new cities I'm about to found in North America.
* * *
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| Men of Maize |
I've tended to be pretty skeptical about the move from 2D graphics (Civ III, Heroes III, Starcraft) to 3D (Civ IV, Heroes IV, Starcraft II). Gameplay's the important thing, right? Aren't pretty visuals a distraction from a game's core? I'm not so sure I believe that anymore. If computer games are fundamentally about exploring and playing around with space, as I've realized recently, then 3D environments aren't necessarily eye candy. Civ IV's gameplay is, fundamentally, two-dimensional (unlike the much earlier Alpha Centauri, in which water levels rise and fall as global climate changes), but the three-dimensionality of its graphics actually adds quite a bit to your sense of immersion. Check this out: with a single flick of your mouse wheel or tracking pad, you can zoom from this...
to this...
to this:
From a close-up that shows every single building in Texcoco, to a shot of almost all of Central America, to the entire globe (complete with Alaska, the Great Lakes, and stars in the background), in less than a second. It's not quite the same level of interactivity that you get with Google Earth, but it's pretty damn close. And the result of this 3D engine is that you really feel like you're playing around with a planet--building mines and farms, chopping down forests, deploying armies.
I realize that's not the biggest deal in the world, and it's not even the most exciting thing I've learned today (Mesoamerican metaphors about pottery, it turns out, are really fascinating--the potter "teaches the clay to lie". Awesome, right?) But this interactivity is a big part of the reason Civ IV is so addictive, and helps explain why I'll be spending the next several weeks or months sharing the story of Nezahualcóatl's conquest of an imaginary world. Interspersed with other stuff, of course. But if our calling in this world is to pay attention to things, blogging intermittently about a civilization-building computer game can't be entirely without value. Right?
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