Re: FPS: Mulder and Scully play laser tag -- X-PHILES WORLD-Season 8 Discussion

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Date Posted: 10:46:54 03/05/00 Sun
Author: c_shantal
Subject: Re: FPS: Mulder and Scully play laser tag
In reply to: hairytoes 's message, "FPS: Mulder and Scully play laser tag" on 23:50:20 03/04/00 Sat

>
Very nice post, hairytoes.

I agree with a lot of what you've said. My son and I played many a game of laser tag when he was growing up. In the house, in the yard - at night, you name it. Many times with some of his friends too. We never had trouble realizing it was ONLY a game.. It was a good way to emphasize or fine tune skills. One had to think, to strategize. To learn from your own "tag" not to repeat mistakes based on the info available. Where was that person and where would he most likey go next, etc. It wasn't about "killing" per se but the processes iinvolved in achieving the "tag". This should be the basis of all these virtual games, right? Or am I just out of touch nowdays? Yes, it's a stress reliever as well, I agree. And in this world where most of us are stressed out to some degree or other, if this is your thing to reduce stress, go for it. Loved your comparison with football agression. Football for geeks! ha! (BTW, for those that would be critical, we played chess as well)

My problem with the Goddess is my confusion. Did she, or did she not leave the virtual simulation and evolve into a sort of artifical intelligence, or AI? It seemed that she did to me. Did she go after Scully simply because Scully was wearing the body suit that sent impulses via the computer (that Ivan and Phoebe, esp. Phoebe COULD control), defining her as simply running on the program as created? If so that goes against what Phoebe said that Maitreya was out of control and running - "feeding off the male aggression". Scully being female and barely having testosterone in her system, certainly not the level of male aggression, I would think it wouldn't be the case. If she had evolved into an AI, then she was thinking independently and recognized Scully as a threat, and so would go after her. And that would explain her acknowledgement of Phoebe through the monitor early in the program and the ending - being able to change herself. And maybe even the original premise of her jumping from Phoebe's computer at home to the new game. If the idea of AI makes any sense why wasn't it even thought of by all these experts? Especially Mulder? Does any of this make any sense?

And why didn't Maitreya kill Mulder the first time? Is this also proof she had evolved into an AI? If she had just been a running program wouldn't she? Or did she reconize him as a "worthy opponent" so gave him another chance? < insert eye-rolling here, pllleeese!>

Something else I need explained to me is the first victim's behavior. Obviously not an amateur, wouldn't he know that Maitreya's appearance in the game, esp. in the males' classic fantasy getup of female domination, alert him to something potentially deadly? Why kneel down and kiss her hand, instead of just blowing her away? His survival was at stake, not his sexual fantasies. Or is that the whole point; men wrapped up in games such as these think with their p*cker instead of their brains? If so, that's absurd to me - and leads right back into the discussion brought up by hairytoes. And absurd Mulder bought into it, especially to the point of endangering his LIFE, and Scully. I don't like seeing Mulder written as sterotyped as these other characters were.

Other nits:
Scully has to be macho-mean to be strong. She has two hands that could just as easily pulled the plug as hold and shoot the huge machine gun.

Why does it take so many shots to score a hit? Is it slyly programed that way to keep the aggressive male in the game, to keep him shooting? He would lose interest
if his shots found their targets more realistically? I would find it frustrating to know I'm aiming allright and not scoring. But then, I don't have any ya-ya's to get out..

I read somewhere the whole point of the episode was that it was a huge parody - all of it. Well, isn't that sloppy writting that most of us had to have that fact explained to us, that we took it seriously and tried to make sense of it?

I've read sci-fi stories about the future of virtual reality and sort of what you described in your "sex-suit" scenario. It's probably not very far-fetched at all as society becomes more and more "alienated" from real personal relationships, due to supposedly a wide variety of reasons. The one story I remember and I'm sorry I can't remember the name of it, dealt with a guy whose job was to investigate deaths caused by the addiciton to such virtual sexual realities. F**ked to death, indeed, literally blowing your mind, and virtually.. I like your idea that Mulder would be right in there on the cutting edge of this new technology. yep, right up his alley.

Mulder to Scully after watching Jade Bue Afterglow ( I would love to know the in-joke on chosing THAT name!) leave the room: "I don't know about you Scully, but I'm feeling a great need to blast the crap out of something." OMG, Mulder said that? To Scully? Had to be a parody. Had to be sarcasm.

My apologies to any of you if you've already hashed all these things out. I'm on my way down to read the posts now!

Chantal
Oh, detoured, thanks again for the picture.

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Replies:

Interesting and good points, HairyToes re. VR...I love all the positive applications! Thanks! nim (NT) -- G-WW, 07:22:01 03/08/00 Wed