Slashdot Mirror
EVE Online CSM and Diplomat Killed in Libyan Consulate Attacks
New submitter overmoderated writes first with news of an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. From the article: "The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on their car, a Libyan official said, as they were rushed from a consular building stormed by militants denouncing a U.S.-made film insulting the Prophet Mohammad."
An anonymous reader adds: "Sean Smith, a.k.a. Vile Rat, an EVE Online CSM member, and diplomat for the GoonFleet corporation, was one of the four killed in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya last night. He was 34. A fundraiser is being organized for his children by the Something Awful forums."
Update: 09/12 21:28 GMT by U L : Ozma from Something Awful mailed in a link to the memorial thread on the SA forums (including details on the memorial fund).
'Nuff said.
rip vile rat.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
He was a "diplomat" in EVE Online. In real life, he did IT work for the consulate -- he wasn't a diplomat nor any particularly wealthy, privileged person. He's just an ordinary guy doing IT work.
...sounds like he was pretty involved in the game.
It also sounds like he was well-loved. Choice notes from the forum thread:
And probably my favorite:
Supercar Gautier:
coding is life
Of course, none of the real-world stuff is as simple as you portray it. Libya started as a very real effort by the general population to overthrow a pretty scummy dictator. There were three options: support the government (thank god we learned our lesson on supporting dictators for some very fuzzy "strategic" goal), do nothing, or support the people fighting the government. We did pretty much the best thing we could have: even the fight by taking out heavy armor and artillery, remove the threat of aerial assault, and let the Libyans sort out the rest. We're seeing the results of the do-nothing approach in Syria: a prolonged war that is getting more violent as time goes on, with more extremist elements joining the fight on both sides.
Libya is a pip-squeak compared to what we're getting in Syria.
I hate to break it to you, but sometimes the best we can do results in a situation that is only somewhat of an improvement over a total catastrophe. And yet, it is still better than to just sit on your ass. What is it with people who think that if something's not perfect, nothing should be done?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It touches something everyone who plays online games wonders about.
How deep is that connection with your friends you know only in a virtual way? Does their impact on the virtual world you played in matter in any sense? Is changing a game world that 300 000 people play in and enjoy a real accomplishment? If he coaches little league or his kids football people would talk about that, even though it impacts a lot less people and is not all that important in the grand scheme of things. Hundreds of thousands of people have been touched, in a small way, by this guy, he was part of their little special society.
It's also strange, how our relationships with friends are changing. My friends who I play online with at least, are more likely to remember the far too many hours we spent trying to kill the first entrance trash in molten core, on the first night there were 40 people on our server who could even get in than some event where people went bar crawling and didn't quite make it home. We raided molten core, other people broke into an abandoned cement factory.
I'm 32, 4 years ago a friend of mine from public school passed away due to brain cancer. I had known him for 23 or 24 years in total (from junior kindergarten until he passed away). We did lots of stuff as kids, riding around parks on a bike, trying to meet girls, failing miserably with girls, we sat around his house and played games, we went to universities, fell in a river at a yearly university party etc. That stuff, when people gave speeches about it at his funeral is something everyone could relate to and laugh about. Including that time we accidentally set fire to our old school, his father sold school equipment and after graduation he was working for his dad and someone botched an installation... Know one really knew (or was inclined to talk about) how he'd spent the last couple of years of his life trying to help organize a guild in a video game. He couldn't be around people IRL a lot of the time due to treatments, but he could log on and help organize 40 or 50 people to get their shit together and have fun. I guess that's important, insofar as having fun is important. But it's not something people in their 40's and 50's and older can really understand or relate to generally.
Eve particularly makes this a story because it's a single world. Whatever my deceased friend accomplished was confined to one server of a cluster of servers of hundreds of thousands or millions of people all doing the same thing, in their own little instances walking past each other. But in Eve, one person can change the world for everyone, good or bad.
Notice how there's no story about the other 3 people who were killed, 2 other staffers and the ambassador. The ambassador is getting lots of coverage on the MSM. That was his 'clique' so to speak, and that will be his mark on the world is as an ambassador trying to manage US business. This was an IT guy, who played games with his friends. There's nothing wrong with that, but how we think about peoples contribution to the world is changing, this poor guy has the unfortunate distinction of getting a lot of press for it, but he's certainly not the first.
When George Lucas or Hironobu Sakaguchi, or Sid Meier pass away people on the outside of their properties (Star Wars/Indiana Jones, Final fantasy, Civilization) will understand them as the creators of those things, even if they never played the games or watched the movies. Game worlds are different, because the people who created the rules of the world, and the people who make the world aren't the same. This guy made part of the world that was created by the people at CCP, and that 300k other people play in. I don't think society has quite figured out how, if at all, it wants to try and recognize that.
It's blowback. From assets used to achieve para-political military aims, then discarded by the would-be puppet masters.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."