Isn't that one of the main plot points in Call of Duty: Black Ops? Not to spoil the game, but there is a mission on that base and what they discover is of huge importance.
One of the best video games in terms of story telling.
I also had fun playing it, but Call of Duty is not one of the best games in story telling. I suggest you to try out games like Diso Elysium or Outer Wilds.
I thought the original MW was a bit bland. I honestly only remember Black Ops well, and I would defend it as the only game of the series that would do well as a piece of fiction writing on it's own.
Which did you play first? The original MW campaign was cursed by its own success, because a lot of the story elements that were original at the time of publication became cliches as later games copied and expanded them, and the subversion of expectations doesn't work now that our expectations have changed.
The helicopter crash is a good example. The heroic, patriotic, and slightly comedic Marines go back for a wounded comrade, and then...their entire squad dies in a nuclear blast because they didn't evac quickly enough. Or the plucky SAS seize the only man who can give them the intel they're after, and then...commit a war crime and torture him, which turns out to be pointless when they get the information from another source anyway, so they commit another war crime and execute him in cold blood. The helicopter scene was genuinely shocking at the time, even though tragically killing off your heroes in the middle of the game is widespread today.
I felt the original Modern Warfare was the only Call of Duty that married the horrors of war from the first two games[0] to the Tom Clancy action of the later ones. Black Ops seemed more jingoistic and less willing to make the player uncomfortable, while in later games missions like No Russian that were meant to shock the player didn't combine it with anything philosophically unsettling (like the idea that "no man left behind" might get a much larger number of people killed).
That being said, I think a lot of what I got out of the game was due to where I was in life when I first played it, so it might just be sentiment tinting my memories.
The atomic bomb subplot seemed seemed laughably nonsensical in terms of the narrative and a mediocre example of a tragedy. The characters and relationships weren't built up to the point were it could produce the desired shocking effect in my opinion. They were just about to make an escape... and then what? Keep being random Marine bros, while everything else remains the same?
I recently watched The Last of Us, and I think the 5th episode is a stellar example of what I think makes up a good tragedy.
At the time I played the game, I didn't really pick up on the torture scene—not sure that was the never before seen, brave and shocking portrayal of the realities of the War on Terror that you remembered it as.
My problem with the plot was that it was logically incoherent, completely bonkers, and really ignorant of politics the middle east and Russia in that time period. I guess that's what happens if you don't have the benefit of hindsight.
Black ops was definitely more of a jingoistic Tom-Clancy-type epos, but it was great historical fiction with a narrative that was beautifully spun and made sense. It has a bit of Fight Club mixed with the Rambo movies and the Manchurian candidate. It plays on all the Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation, secret weapons programs, brain washing, sleeper agents, number stations, etc. and manages to create a great atmosphere. It ties in a bunch of famous places and events like the Bay of Pigs. Vorkuta Gulag, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Vietnam, the Rebirth Island chemical weapons facility and Kowloon walled city. The subtle hints and finally the revelation of the twist that Reznov is a figment of your imagination, a demon of revenge implanted into your psyche back in Vorkuta, are perfect. Your own comrades at the CIA are torturing you, because your they have realized you have been brainwashed after you kept sabotaging their attempts to stop the Soviet plan. It seems like you reveal the purpose of the numbers, because you remember the ship that acts as the transmitter, where you then kill Krevchenko, but his dying words reveal that the numbers were really part of the instructions to activate you as a sleeper agent to assassinate Kennedy. I found that ending incredibly satisfying.
Yeah, I agree with that. Specific scenes in MW were amazing and it captured a sense of place very well. The overall plot was so bad that it actually improved my immersion in the game and made me appreciate the writing of individual scenes more, while the more coherent plotlines later in the series are good enough for me to pay attention and be annoyed. I trace that back to the WW2 pedigree of the earlier games, which were vignettes from historical battles, strung together more like a war diary than a novel.
The torture scene was definitely not intended as a big plot point, and the writers likely didn't expect most players to even pay attention to it. I mentioned it because it was a small detail that created a greater sense of realism and moral ambiguity for me. Later games didn't have much moral ambiguity at all.
The reply below explains well how things that were novel at the time are now cliches.
And to be clear I meant the entire MW campaign, from 1 to 3. The story makes little sense as a while. There are many plot holes. But scenes taken in isolation were very powerful. The missions in DC were amazing, the lat stand in Paris, etc.
Black ops wasn't bad on the front of coherent, well told story. It's just that you can see the plot twist coming 10 miles away and the big reveal is a bit ridiculous since you figured it out 2 hours earlier.
I was just thinking, just change the location to the Arctic, add a little mystical time travel mumbo jumbo[0] to jump the Nazis forward to the Silver age[1], and you've got yourself a recipe for a fun Superman crossover at the Fortress of Solitude.
Why time jump mumbo jumbo, whan you have real fighting nazis on backyard at current time? They could really use Captain Marvell or anything that can fly!
The original Call of Duty games for PC told WWII history stories very well. I really enjoyed them and it got me interested in learning more about the era.
Unfortunately the MW series of games lost this which I think was a shame. Different goals though than the original franchise I guess.
They really ought to have a series as told from the POV of multiple countries, in the likes of the original series. I would really like to have a historical take on COD from a French resistance perspective. I’m not sure sure that’s fly in todays market. Video games back in the day were a bit off a treat, took 5-10m to start, not something you could whip out your smart phone and play anytime anywhere.
I find it interesting how easily people take evidence at face value. It's incredibly easy to poke holes in the debunking of all this.
1. U-Boats couldn't get through sea ice to Antarctica: what if they were modified? What if the specs for u-boats used to assert this was wrong? What if there was a path through the sea ice that was classified? The list goes on forever
2. SAS men in the region at the time had civilian jobs: Says who? At a glance they're basing this off of civilian contracts with these men's names on them. This is easily faked
3. Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet
Union in the Arctic: Again, says who? Based on documentation provided by the government themselves?
Ultimately it boils down to this:
"Activities that were classified have subsequently been declassified"
Given how much subterfuge and psyops the US government has provably done throughout its history, doctoring and faking declassified documents is something they have assuredly done. There is definitely a long, rich history of destroying documents.
They are not a threat anymore. It is there on the other side of the Moon. Since they stopped receiving orders from Oberkommando, they spend most of their time polishing their Swastikas, and discussing how, based on moon time, really is time for Oktoberfest...
>ABSTRACT. In January-February 1939, a secret German expedition visited Dronning (or Queen) Maud Land,
Antarctica, apparently with the intention inter alia of establishing a base there. Between 1943 and 1945 the British
launched a secret wartime Antarctic operation, code-named Tabarin. Men from the Special Air Services Regiment
(SAS), Britain’s covert forces for operating behind the lines, appeared to be involved. In July and August 1945, after the German surrender, two U-boats arrived in Argentina. Had they been to Antarctica to land Nazi treasure or officials?
>In the southern summer of 1946–1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force. The operation,
code-named Highjump, was classified confidential. In 1958, three nuclear weapons were exploded in the region, as
part of another classified US operation, code-named Argus.
The Nazi base is set in the heart of Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness, with lots of side adventures....
> ""Operation Deep Frost" is a thrilling first-person shooter game set in the desolate, frozen landscape of Antarctica. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's "Mountains of Madness," the game combines the chilling atmosphere of Lovecraftian horror with intense action-packed gameplay. Players embark on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a secret Nazi base hidden within the ancient, otherworldly mountains and uncover the dark secrets that lie within."
The paper says that it was more transparent than later authors would imply:
> There were 11 journalists aboard the Highjump ships.
Among them were the distinguished US war correspondent Lee Van Atta (who was not, as claimed by Goodrick-
Clarke (2002), Chilean), and the science writer of the New
York Times, Walter Sullivan. Between 2 December 1946,
and 22 March 1947, the 11 journalists transmitted 2011
messages totalling 478,338 words to Radio Washington,
for onward transmission to their employers (US Navy
1947). Some of the people on the expedition wrote
books about their experiences (Byrd 1947; Sullivan 1957).
Given the tremendous degree of press coverage, it was
misleading for Choron (date unknown) to state: ‘little
other information was released to the media about the
mission, although most journalists were suspicious of its
true purpose given the huge amount of military hardware
involved.’
Still though, a story like OP's fills a Metal Gear-shaped hole in my heart. It would be awesome to see Kojima return to military fiction with a new IP focusing on a timespan he hasn't played with yet.
So it was done at altitude of over 100 miles. I'm certainly not saying that's a good thing. All I'm saying is that saying it was exploded in the region while technically true is a bit misleading.
At over 100km it was in space. Three nukes were exploded in space, probably at orbital velocity too. The fact that this was over Antarctica was almost inconsequential.
Why at orbital velocity? It's much more efficient to not reach orbital velocity if you just want to explode something at 100km. And an explosion is a momentary thing so there's no need to be in orbit.
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
- Aristotle
"Fiction is a certain packaging of the truth, or higher truths. Indeed I find that there is more truth in Proust, albeit it is officially fictional, than in the babbling analyses of the New York Times that give us the illusions of understanding what’s going on. Newspapers have officially the right facts, but their interpretations are imaginary – and their choice of facts are arbitrary. They lie with right facts; a novelist says the truth with wrong facts."
- N.N. Taleb
That this story still has such vigor in the public's imagination tells me that if Hitler doesn't have a flying saucer base down there, somebody does.
"The tests were to study the Christofilos effect, which suggested it was possible to defend against Soviet nuclear missiles by exploding a small number of nuclear bombs high over the South Pacific. This would create a disk of electrons over the United States that would fry the electronics on the Soviet warheads as they descended. It was also possible to use the effect to blind Soviet radars, meaning that any Soviet missile-based ABM system would be unable to attack the US counterstrike. "
From Project Argus on Wikipedia - an electron shield to fry missiles is pretty out of the box!
So basically they were thinking of EMPing incoming missiles. Not a bad idea I think but EMPs can be shielded against. Though perhaps the sensors themselves could be blinded as they need to be exposed of course.
During WWII, the US was worried that Japan would invade the US via the Aleutian Island chain, Alaska, and down through Canada. Japan got far enough to invade two small islands in the chain.[1]
After about a year of battles, and about 6,000 deaths, the US and Canada won back control of the Aleutians.
After WWII, the threat was the Soviet Union. The US maintained air bases in the Western Aleutians until 1994, as a defense against the Soviet Union. One of the worst places to be stationed.[1]
Hence the US military's interest in being able to operate near the poles.
55 comments
[ 7.9 ms ] story [ 1052 ms ] threadOne of the best video games in terms of story telling.
The helicopter crash is a good example. The heroic, patriotic, and slightly comedic Marines go back for a wounded comrade, and then...their entire squad dies in a nuclear blast because they didn't evac quickly enough. Or the plucky SAS seize the only man who can give them the intel they're after, and then...commit a war crime and torture him, which turns out to be pointless when they get the information from another source anyway, so they commit another war crime and execute him in cold blood. The helicopter scene was genuinely shocking at the time, even though tragically killing off your heroes in the middle of the game is widespread today.
I felt the original Modern Warfare was the only Call of Duty that married the horrors of war from the first two games[0] to the Tom Clancy action of the later ones. Black Ops seemed more jingoistic and less willing to make the player uncomfortable, while in later games missions like No Russian that were meant to shock the player didn't combine it with anything philosophically unsettling (like the idea that "no man left behind" might get a much larger number of people killed).
That being said, I think a lot of what I got out of the game was due to where I was in life when I first played it, so it might just be sentiment tinting my memories.
[0] We don't mention 3.
The atomic bomb subplot seemed seemed laughably nonsensical in terms of the narrative and a mediocre example of a tragedy. The characters and relationships weren't built up to the point were it could produce the desired shocking effect in my opinion. They were just about to make an escape... and then what? Keep being random Marine bros, while everything else remains the same?
I recently watched The Last of Us, and I think the 5th episode is a stellar example of what I think makes up a good tragedy.
At the time I played the game, I didn't really pick up on the torture scene—not sure that was the never before seen, brave and shocking portrayal of the realities of the War on Terror that you remembered it as.
My problem with the plot was that it was logically incoherent, completely bonkers, and really ignorant of politics the middle east and Russia in that time period. I guess that's what happens if you don't have the benefit of hindsight.
Black ops was definitely more of a jingoistic Tom-Clancy-type epos, but it was great historical fiction with a narrative that was beautifully spun and made sense. It has a bit of Fight Club mixed with the Rambo movies and the Manchurian candidate. It plays on all the Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation, secret weapons programs, brain washing, sleeper agents, number stations, etc. and manages to create a great atmosphere. It ties in a bunch of famous places and events like the Bay of Pigs. Vorkuta Gulag, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Vietnam, the Rebirth Island chemical weapons facility and Kowloon walled city. The subtle hints and finally the revelation of the twist that Reznov is a figment of your imagination, a demon of revenge implanted into your psyche back in Vorkuta, are perfect. Your own comrades at the CIA are torturing you, because your they have realized you have been brainwashed after you kept sabotaging their attempts to stop the Soviet plan. It seems like you reveal the purpose of the numbers, because you remember the ship that acts as the transmitter, where you then kill Krevchenko, but his dying words reveal that the numbers were really part of the instructions to activate you as a sleeper agent to assassinate Kennedy. I found that ending incredibly satisfying.
The torture scene was definitely not intended as a big plot point, and the writers likely didn't expect most players to even pay attention to it. I mentioned it because it was a small detail that created a greater sense of realism and moral ambiguity for me. Later games didn't have much moral ambiguity at all.
And to be clear I meant the entire MW campaign, from 1 to 3. The story makes little sense as a while. There are many plot holes. But scenes taken in isolation were very powerful. The missions in DC were amazing, the lat stand in Paris, etc.
Black ops wasn't bad on the front of coherent, well told story. It's just that you can see the plot twist coming 10 miles away and the big reveal is a bit ridiculous since you figured it out 2 hours earlier.
---
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Solitude#Original_...
Unfortunately the MW series of games lost this which I think was a shame. Different goals though than the original franchise I guess.
They really ought to have a series as told from the POV of multiple countries, in the likes of the original series. I would really like to have a historical take on COD from a French resistance perspective. I’m not sure sure that’s fly in todays market. Video games back in the day were a bit off a treat, took 5-10m to start, not something you could whip out your smart phone and play anytime anywhere.
Nonetheless fascinating reading.
I have no idea what use I'll put it to, but I'm stealing that.
1. U-Boats couldn't get through sea ice to Antarctica: what if they were modified? What if the specs for u-boats used to assert this was wrong? What if there was a path through the sea ice that was classified? The list goes on forever
2. SAS men in the region at the time had civilian jobs: Says who? At a glance they're basing this off of civilian contracts with these men's names on them. This is easily faked
3. Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet Union in the Arctic: Again, says who? Based on documentation provided by the government themselves?
Ultimately it boils down to this:
"Activities that were classified have subsequently been declassified"
Given how much subterfuge and psyops the US government has provably done throughout its history, doctoring and faking declassified documents is something they have assuredly done. There is definitely a long, rich history of destroying documents.
;-)
Hello Jerry.
>In the southern summer of 1946–1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force. The operation, code-named Highjump, was classified confidential. In 1958, three nuclear weapons were exploded in the region, as part of another classified US operation, code-named Argus.
I want to play this video game.
> ""Operation Deep Frost" is a thrilling first-person shooter game set in the desolate, frozen landscape of Antarctica. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's "Mountains of Madness," the game combines the chilling atmosphere of Lovecraftian horror with intense action-packed gameplay. Players embark on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a secret Nazi base hidden within the ancient, otherworldly mountains and uncover the dark secrets that lie within."
> There were 11 journalists aboard the Highjump ships. Among them were the distinguished US war correspondent Lee Van Atta (who was not, as claimed by Goodrick- Clarke (2002), Chilean), and the science writer of the New York Times, Walter Sullivan. Between 2 December 1946, and 22 March 1947, the 11 journalists transmitted 2011 messages totalling 478,338 words to Radio Washington, for onward transmission to their employers (US Navy 1947). Some of the people on the expedition wrote books about their experiences (Byrd 1947; Sullivan 1957). Given the tremendous degree of press coverage, it was misleading for Choron (date unknown) to state: ‘little other information was released to the media about the mission, although most journalists were suspicious of its true purpose given the huge amount of military hardware involved.’
Still though, a story like OP's fills a Metal Gear-shaped hole in my heart. It would be awesome to see Kojima return to military fiction with a new IP focusing on a timespan he hasn't played with yet.
So it was done at altitude of over 100 miles. I'm certainly not saying that's a good thing. All I'm saying is that saying it was exploded in the region while technically true is a bit misleading.
Due to ex. gravity, whether it’s at altitude or not is a bit of a nit
- Aristotle
"Fiction is a certain packaging of the truth, or higher truths. Indeed I find that there is more truth in Proust, albeit it is officially fictional, than in the babbling analyses of the New York Times that give us the illusions of understanding what’s going on. Newspapers have officially the right facts, but their interpretations are imaginary – and their choice of facts are arbitrary. They lie with right facts; a novelist says the truth with wrong facts."
- N.N. Taleb
That this story still has such vigor in the public's imagination tells me that if Hitler doesn't have a flying saucer base down there, somebody does.
From Project Argus on Wikipedia - an electron shield to fry missiles is pretty out of the box!
After WWII, the threat was the Soviet Union. The US maintained air bases in the Western Aleutians until 1994, as a defense against the Soviet Union. One of the worst places to be stationed.[1] Hence the US military's interest in being able to operate near the poles.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_campaign
[2] https://archive.org/details/Pvt.SNAFU.IntheAleutians