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warspite1 -> RE: What if... (1/10/2022 7:52:00 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Lobster
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ORIGINAL: warspite1
fairy tale
These two words. Cinderella wasn't real. Slitherine/Matrix has a boatload of counterfactual games. It's a huge money making industry. [;)]
One of my favorite counterfactual settings is Steampunk. Some of that can be awemsome looking.
warspite1
Nice picture [:)]
You’ve brought up Matrix Games, and I think that brilliantly serves to underline what I’ve been saying in my earlier posts. Each of us finds different things interesting and entertaining.
Take WITE2 or WITP-AE. The player of these games will, as a rule, expect a good degree of historical accuracy incorporated into the game. A player of Matrix World In Flames or Strategic Command will be less concerned with this. There are plenty of games in between. These are all games designed for either side to win, though what win means depends on the game and what it sets out to achieve (and the lack of historical rigidity thus employed). None of the approaches taken are right or wrong; they are war games – and it’s just horses for courses in terms of what one considers an acceptable trade-off and what is fun and entertaining to play (ever seen a forum after a new game comes out, and the discussions on what should and shouldn’t be allowed [:)])?
As far as the You Tube video you posted, the situation is similar. There are historical counterfactuals, and there are fairy tales (and various examples in between). What one finds entertaining and interesting will differ from person to person. Personally, when I saw the question, “What if the US had joined the Axis?” I was immediately on notice about what I may expect. However, I was intrigued by what was being suggested and so gave the video a look.
Why should this be lumped in the fairy tale bucket? Well because, as already explained, little to no effort was actually made to understand why what happened in WWII happened. There was no effort taken to understand the personalities involved – not just the leaders, but the general populace. There was no effort made to understand the economic, diplomatic, and geo-political factors in play.
In short, there was no effort made to make this an interesting, thought-provoking piece. It was just a total and utter waste of time and effort. A poster above described it as pro-Nasi porn, but it wasn’t even that (except for perhaps Germany won the space race). Look at what Hitler and Germany settled for getting out of this ‘war’ having lost millions on the Eastern Front.
If we are to expect to believe that Hitler, Churchill and FDR could have acted as they did in the video, then where exactly is the ‘interest’? Where is the ‘entertainment’? I don’t know – but like with Matrix games, its horses for courses and as you said, your mileage may vary.
I am not sure I’ve seen anything Steam Punk (does Sucker Punch count?). If so then I enjoyed that film that seemed to have a sort of WWI-type background at one point. I also very much enjoyed Wonder Woman, set against a WWI background. But do you know what? These were fantasy films. They weren’t written by someone attempting to explore what could have happened in WWI in real life if…..
As for Cinderella, I took my little cruisers to see the live action re-make in 2015. It was a fairy tale. I loved the film every bit as much as my little girls. Make believe people in a make believe world, with make believe creatures doing make believe things – just as a fairy tale should be. But make believe people (I say again, it can’t have been Churchill declaring war on the US or FDR happily dropping Nukes on the Soviets to aid Hitler’s war with the USSR) in a real world setting with make believe economics and doing make believe things? Not so much.
But I’m pleased you got something out of it.
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