Do you remember the TNG episode with the Ktarian mind game? One by one, the Enterprise crew was taken over by the seemingly harmless and fun game. Everybody played it. It was insidious, treacherous and highly addictive. Seemingly innocent as it was, it nearly delivered the Enterprise into the waiting hands of the Ktarians. It was only due to the heroic actions of a certain Academy cadet that life on the Enterprise eventually returned to normal.
Real life also has its Ktarian mind games. One of them in particular is the subject of this blog (or rant, if you want to call it that). I have become aware recently of the dangers of this new game, and unlike the Ktarian mind game, the dangers are not only apparent to me, but also to the addicts of the game. But those who are addicted are not convinced that they will succumb to the dangers -- they believe that the game doesn't have as big an influence on their lives as I think it does.
And yet, even though it seems perfectly harmless and altogether fun, just like the Ktarian mind game, it is really insidious and addictive. Those who have fallen under its spell have a hard time thinking about anything else. Entire conversations get stranded as the people I talk with are so engrossed in their game that they forget to talk to me. The posting count throughout the fleet drops drastically, as infected and addicted members decide that writing stories is one thing, but living them is another one entirely. After all, why settle for a world which consists of words and paragraphs, when you can settle for something much, much more real? Why imagine that you're a Starfleet officer, when you can actually be one? All you have to do is join The Game and simply become a member of Starfleet.
Just like the Enterprise in the Star Trek episode, Frontier Fleet is in great peril. And just like young cadet Crusher, I'm beginning to feel more and more alone. Everywhere I look, I see people who are completely absorbed by The Game. Remember when Frontier Fleet used to be our escape from reality? It is an escape no longer. Instead of writing posts, people now actually transport themselves into outer space to watch their home town from orbit. Instead of coming up with stories, people now fly all over the world. Instead of writing about adventures, people now actually experience them.
The Game offers a kind of freedom that Frontier Fleet can never offer. It offers an escape from reality in a way that can never be matched by even the most wonderful of posts. It becomes painfully clear to those of us left behind that Frontier Fleet lacks something... Something that answers to the fundamental urge of the human mind to leave the old world and move on to the next... The urge to seek out new possibilities.
And so we stay behind. We watch as more and more of our members get sucked into the new world that has opened itself up to them and is calling to them. I cannot deny that it is calling me, too, but -- like Odysseus having himself tied to the mast of his ship in order to withstand the call of the Sirens -- I stubbornly refuse to give in to The Game. I hold on to what makes Frontier Fleet unique: the writing. Unlike people who are trapped in The Game, we in Frontier Fleet are forced to keep imagining. In order to write quality posts, we need our imagination.
Armed with my imagination and a word processor, all I need to create a world of my own is inspiration. But inspiration hasn't graced us all with her presence much, lately. The Game calls with its sweet voice of seduction, and invites us all to join up. It promises the end of all the long, painful searches for inspiration, and shows us a world where everything we want is right at our fingertips -- in The Game, achieving something you want is far easier than in Frontier Fleet, because it requires less inspiration.
Charmed by the sweet promises of The Game, we become distracted. Distracted minds, sadly, cannot easily reach out to inspiration. Distracted by The Game, their inspiration leaves them, and they feel they cannot write posts any more. Without any inspiration to guide them to post, they go to the place where they know they can turn their wishes into reality with relative ease: they turn to The Game.
Like the Ktarian mind game on Star Trek, there seems no stopping it. But maybe it is time for those left behind to fight, despite the odds against us. Frontier Fleet has its own rewards and its own strengths that are not shared by The Game. Flying around the world is fun, but it doesn't compare to the feeling you get when you have written a superb post, or when you read a post that makes you want to read and write more. Vast as the world of The Game may be, it can never match the quality and the beauty of the world we can create while writing. No matter how many prims you put together, you will never be able to express and create feelings or worlds as well as you can with words.
Don't let the worlds and the stories we create become lost. Fight the addiction, and win back the inspiration you thought you lost. For in the end, there can never be any substitute for the creative power of words.
