At the risk of pulling us back onto the topic that everyone had so neatly manoeuvred away from, I have to say I agree with Soundman. I believe in seeking out peaceful solutions to conflict, but I'm no pacifist. I understand that military activity is sometimes the only viable route to take, but it should rarely be the first choice, and if there are other ways we should be exploring those thoroughly before we take up arms.
I know that this could potentially flare up the whole "should we be simulating war for fun" debate. So my take, very briefly:
Silent Hunter, and other war-based simulations, are entertaining, and maybe that's a little weird, when you think about it. Though like most other people, I'd much prefer the idea of wars being fought in simulation than for real. But this war really happened. Still, I say to myself that it's also educational in that, after spending several ingame hours attempting to escape from a flotilla of alerted destroyers, I think I have a better appreciation at least for the mechanics of what submariners had to face during the period. I'm not going to presume that I understand what they went through, that "I can relate" - but I can say that playing the game has made me think. And by and large I think that's a good thing.
And at its most basic level a game of this type is a challenge: this is your situation; these are your constraints; this is what you want to do. Now find a way to do it within those constraints.
So I'm not for one moment arguing against the simulation itself or the detail it presents. But. There is something about the idea of displaying the detonation of those weapons that I would find a little uncomfortable. Is that inconsistent? Is it irrational to think that way about one specific atrocity in a war of many atrocities? Maybe it is. But somehow, I think that certain events are significant not just for the number of people they killed - as if that's not bad enough - but for what they represent. In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were symbols that the world had changed - there was a new power in the world. War was no longer something that was (in principle at least if rarely in practice) restricted to the battlefield. While civilian casualties had always been inflicted and rationalised, suddenly we're faced with the most powerful weapon ever devised, and it was specifically designed to incinerate huge areas - and therefore huge numbers of people - in one strike. And if Little Boy and Fat Man weren't terrifying enough in themselves, they were the heralds of a new age of fear and brutality. We can argue over whether the detonations over Japan were justified in light of what the Japanese had done, but in the end their significance spread out far beyond the Pacific war and encompassed all of humanity, present and future.
I can't truly rationalise this. I'm maybe being oversensitive or too... what was it? Too 'bleeding-heart'. But no, I think we're better off for holding that particular event as something that is spoken of, but not seen in the game. It should, I think, bring pause. Whatever other reason I think we can offer as to why we choose to amuse ourselves with recreations of horrific situations, I think it's worth holding that particular event in a special place.
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