Hatrack River - NY Times Cites Ender's Game Influence in Military Training
NY Times Cites Ender's Game Influence in Military Training
April 4, 2003
One notion involves a scenario quite literally torn from the pages of a science fiction
novel, in which a virtual training system becomes the actual means of waging war. Ender's
Game, a cult classic by Orson Scott Card, tells the story of a group of young soldiers battling
aliens in a video game. In the end, they emerge to find that their victory has saved humankind,
and that it was not a game.
"Ender's Game has had a lot of influence on our thinking," said Michael Macedonia,
director of the Army's simulation technology center in Orlando, Fla., which plans to build a
virtual Afghanistan that could host hundreds of thousands of networked computers. "The intent
is to build a simulation that allows people to play in that world for months or years, participate in
different types of roles and see consequences of their decisions."
[NY Times: Technology, April 3, 2003, "More Than Just a Game, but How Close to Reality? By
Amy Harmon]
http://www.hatrack.com/news-reviews/news/2003-04-04.shtml
