Warp Scrammed

Welcome to the tenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s banter leans a little, OK a lot, on the academic side. It comes to us from xiphos83 of A Misguided Adventurer, who asks the following:

Victor Davis Hanson argues that western culture, comprising of ideals such as freedom, debate, capitalism, and consensual government, are what make western society so successful at waging war. These ideologies create a warrior who’s direct participation in government, ability to think freely, and desire to remain free, fights harder and is willing to suffer more than his conscripted foe. Though a military must remain a structured oligarchy to fight a war effectively, why in a world where military conflict is as familiar as breathing are there so few alliances that embrace these ideologies when governing their members?

Two thoughts here: One, where does the idea that alliances don’t embrace these ideologies come from and is it accurate. And two, does it make sense to compare real world geo-political societies to in-game organizational structures.

First, I’ll admit that my exposure to life in an alliance is limited, but from what I can see from those experiences, and from reading and listening to the experiences of others, I don’t see a rejection or avoidance of freedom, or debate, or consensual government in Eve. There may be specific cases you can point at, but I question the implication that most alliances don’t employ/embrace the concepts of freedom, debate, consensual government, and capitalism (i.e. aquiring personal wealth). Maybe they don’t trumpet it from the rooftops, but I’m sure the most of them live it.

The very fact that it’s a game played by people of their own choice, and using their own money to pay to play, makes avoiding or denying those concepts difficult, if not foolhardy, if you want a successful alliance. People are paying to play, and play implies enjoying your game time. If you don’t run an alliance (or corporation) such that the majority of the members are getting satisfaction from their play time, you won’t have many members for long. How can you know what’s needed to meet the players’ needs if you don’t open up lines of discussion and communication? Members won’t be much help if they can’t pursue their own financial gain so they can bring the ships, modules, taxes, etc needed for the alliance goals. Players not comfortable with the alliance goals won’t readily contribute and be active, if they remain in the alliance at all.

Comparing western geo-poliltical societies to in-game organizations is an apples to oranges comparison, at best. Societies are comprised of people who generally are born into the society, and have limited, if any, ability to choose an alternate society to live in, while alliances in Eve are populated by players who have chosen the alliance (perhaps indirectly through their corporation) and can move or drop out easily. Societies are comprised of vastly more individuals than alliances in Eve. Western societies require a representative democracy system where people choose a local representative to exress their interests to the society leadership, but Eve alliances are much closer to a direct democracy where members can state their opinions directly to alliance leadership (although perhaps through one level via their corporate leadership). Individuals in society might have to wait years to use their vote to get a change in leadership or policy, but in Eve pressure from alliance membership can promote change much more rapidly.

Western societies can play the ideology card (i.e. defending freedom)  when facing foes militarily, but this would be preposterous in Eve (except in specific roll-play situations). In Eve alliances are generally imperial in nature – it is the nature of the game to be so and acquiring new territory by force of arms is what many players want. Western societies are not (generally) out to conquer new territory by force of arms, and their populace would likely reject any suggestion to do so.

So it’s really not a good comparison to look at alliances in Eve and western societies and look for ideological similarities. However to say that western ideologies are not present in Eve alliances is also wrong because the organizational structures for players in Eve combined with the voluntary contribution and participation of those players makes recognizing and employing those ideals almost unavoidable.

Here are the blog banter 10 participants so far:

1. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility – “A government of the Capsuleer, by the Capsuleer and for the Capsuleer…”
2. A Mule in Eve – Culture and Choice