psyron
Banned
Should "False-Flag-Operations"/"False-Flag-Terrorism" be allowed/possible/exist within Elite Dangerous as part of the story line or within special missions?
First, what is a "False-Flag-Operation"?
A "False-Flag-Operation" is an operation planed by a government/group in which an attack on the own people or on own buildings or military units is orchestrated in a way that make the own population believe that another government/group is behind it. Those kind of operations are mainly orchestrated in democratic systems to get the support of the population for an unpopular war against another nation/faction. The goal of those wars could be the access to new resources and/or general control over new territories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
There exist many fictional but also real examples of "False-Flag-Operations".
Let's start with some fictional examples:
1. In Star Wars, Palpatine, Senator from Naboo, makes a conspiracy with the Trade Federation against his own planet. After an initial trade embargo the Trade Federation starts a big invasion of Naboo. This invasion was planned by Palpatine merely to persuade the Republic to vote for a new Chancellor - which he finally becomes himself. After this he creates a "False-Flag-Terror-Attack" on Queen Padmé Amidala which she survives. The "terror attack" is blamed on the separatist movement which Palpatine is funding himself. All this to bring the Republic into war.
To get the whole control over the Republic Palpatine has to get rid of the Jedi Knights. To archive this he creates yet another plot by fighting against a group of Jedis who have become suspicious against Palpatine and who planned to arrest him. He then accuse all Jedis of being traitors and order to eliminate them all by the own soldiers. Under the impression of the "false-terror" and the endless "staged wars" the population and the senate finally accepts that the Republic becomes transformed into an Empire (in the hope the centralized power will put an end to the terror and wars).
Here a nice 10 minutes summary of the quite complex story:
http://vimeo.com/41963839
2. In Star Trek, episode "The Forge"/"Awakening"/"Kir'Shara", the United Earth Embassy "was bombed and badly damaged, killing at least forty-three people – including Admiral Forrest. The bombing was originally blamed on the Syrrannite movement, which the High Command characterized as a terrorist organization. It was later found that the embassy had been bombed by agents of Administrator V'Las, who sought to publicly discredit pacifist movements such as the Syrrannites as part of his plot to launch a preemptive invasion of the Andorian Empire." Yet another example of a "False-Flag-Terror-Operation":
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/United_Earth_Embassy
Now some historical "false-flag-operations":
1. 1933 in Germany Adolf Hitler was close to become very powerful, but there were still many people who were suspicious about Hitler and his followers. This all changed with a single event known today as the "Reichstag-Fire". The German parliament building burned down due to a big fire and Hitler and his followers blamed it on Socialist and Communists. As historians today overall agree on it is very likely that Hitler's followers them self made this "false-flag-operation" to gain power and defeat their inner political enemies. As we know today Adolf Hitler succeeded and Germany became a dictatorship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
2. 1962: "Operation Northwoods was a series of false flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962, but were rejected by the Kennedy administration.[2] The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit perceived acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro. Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated:
The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
3. 1964 in the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" the US accused Vietnam having attacked one of their ships on high sea and shortly after this event the US declared war against Vietnam and invaded it. Today many information points that there has been no attack, that this event was merely a lie, a "false-flag-operation", to have a pretext to start war against Vietnam:
"In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that the Aug 4 attack never happened.":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
4. 1990 prior to the first Iraq war a girl who pretended to be a nurse "stated that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die." In 1992, it was revealed that she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government. Following this, her testimony has largely come to be regarded as wartime propaganda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)
5. 9/11: Still up to this day a slim majority of the people don' think that 9/11 was a false-flag-attack. Nevertheless it has many similarities with the Reichstag-Fire with similar outcomes - restrictions of civil rights and many wars following this event.
And it has to be pointed out that in the time of an occurred false-flag-attack the majority of the people always are deceived by that false-flag-attack (what is exactly the purpose of such an event) and those who recognize it as what it really is are always discredited as "conspiracy theorists". This doesn't of course mean that the inversion of the argument applies in the case of 9/11, but it only shows that the opinion of the majority is not a measure of quality regarding the evaluation of what the truth behind a potential case of false-flag-event is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPtiR4EQ2A
6. 2003: Lie about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction followed by a massive invasion resulting in 1 million dead Iraqis. No WMDs have been found till today.
7. 2013: Lie about Syrian government using chemical weapons against its people. Instead the "rebels" did it with the support of the CIA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbfcceEkn_M
After this little retrospective about what "False-Flag-Operations" look like i would like to bring in some ideas how they could be integrated in ED:
- Accept a secret mission to attack/destroy a colony/space station of the own faction with a big fighter-bomber stolen from an enemy faction (Maybe including a mission to board an enemy ship and to bring it under your control). This event will be televised and will then bring support for a planned war against that enemy faction.
- Accept a mission to steal a spaceship-identification-computer from an enemy spaceship; replace it with your own computer; start a massive attack on unprotected traders. The traders will then think the attack comes from the enemy faction/alliance. In this way you can manipulate/create wars between different factions/alliances.
I have to admit that this idea of "false-flag-operations" might be a bit overloaded for a game like ED. Maybe it would be more appropriate for a game like Civilization.
Nevertheless, your thoughts?
First, what is a "False-Flag-Operation"?
A "False-Flag-Operation" is an operation planed by a government/group in which an attack on the own people or on own buildings or military units is orchestrated in a way that make the own population believe that another government/group is behind it. Those kind of operations are mainly orchestrated in democratic systems to get the support of the population for an unpopular war against another nation/faction. The goal of those wars could be the access to new resources and/or general control over new territories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
There exist many fictional but also real examples of "False-Flag-Operations".
Let's start with some fictional examples:
1. In Star Wars, Palpatine, Senator from Naboo, makes a conspiracy with the Trade Federation against his own planet. After an initial trade embargo the Trade Federation starts a big invasion of Naboo. This invasion was planned by Palpatine merely to persuade the Republic to vote for a new Chancellor - which he finally becomes himself. After this he creates a "False-Flag-Terror-Attack" on Queen Padmé Amidala which she survives. The "terror attack" is blamed on the separatist movement which Palpatine is funding himself. All this to bring the Republic into war.
To get the whole control over the Republic Palpatine has to get rid of the Jedi Knights. To archive this he creates yet another plot by fighting against a group of Jedis who have become suspicious against Palpatine and who planned to arrest him. He then accuse all Jedis of being traitors and order to eliminate them all by the own soldiers. Under the impression of the "false-terror" and the endless "staged wars" the population and the senate finally accepts that the Republic becomes transformed into an Empire (in the hope the centralized power will put an end to the terror and wars).
Here a nice 10 minutes summary of the quite complex story:
http://vimeo.com/41963839
2. In Star Trek, episode "The Forge"/"Awakening"/"Kir'Shara", the United Earth Embassy "was bombed and badly damaged, killing at least forty-three people – including Admiral Forrest. The bombing was originally blamed on the Syrrannite movement, which the High Command characterized as a terrorist organization. It was later found that the embassy had been bombed by agents of Administrator V'Las, who sought to publicly discredit pacifist movements such as the Syrrannites as part of his plot to launch a preemptive invasion of the Andorian Empire." Yet another example of a "False-Flag-Terror-Operation":
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/United_Earth_Embassy
Now some historical "false-flag-operations":
1. 1933 in Germany Adolf Hitler was close to become very powerful, but there were still many people who were suspicious about Hitler and his followers. This all changed with a single event known today as the "Reichstag-Fire". The German parliament building burned down due to a big fire and Hitler and his followers blamed it on Socialist and Communists. As historians today overall agree on it is very likely that Hitler's followers them self made this "false-flag-operation" to gain power and defeat their inner political enemies. As we know today Adolf Hitler succeeded and Germany became a dictatorship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
2. 1962: "Operation Northwoods was a series of false flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962, but were rejected by the Kennedy administration.[2] The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit perceived acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro. Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated:
The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
3. 1964 in the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" the US accused Vietnam having attacked one of their ships on high sea and shortly after this event the US declared war against Vietnam and invaded it. Today many information points that there has been no attack, that this event was merely a lie, a "false-flag-operation", to have a pretext to start war against Vietnam:
"In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that the Aug 4 attack never happened.":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
4. 1990 prior to the first Iraq war a girl who pretended to be a nurse "stated that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die." In 1992, it was revealed that she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government. Following this, her testimony has largely come to be regarded as wartime propaganda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)
5. 9/11: Still up to this day a slim majority of the people don' think that 9/11 was a false-flag-attack. Nevertheless it has many similarities with the Reichstag-Fire with similar outcomes - restrictions of civil rights and many wars following this event.
And it has to be pointed out that in the time of an occurred false-flag-attack the majority of the people always are deceived by that false-flag-attack (what is exactly the purpose of such an event) and those who recognize it as what it really is are always discredited as "conspiracy theorists". This doesn't of course mean that the inversion of the argument applies in the case of 9/11, but it only shows that the opinion of the majority is not a measure of quality regarding the evaluation of what the truth behind a potential case of false-flag-event is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPtiR4EQ2A
6. 2003: Lie about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction followed by a massive invasion resulting in 1 million dead Iraqis. No WMDs have been found till today.
7. 2013: Lie about Syrian government using chemical weapons against its people. Instead the "rebels" did it with the support of the CIA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbfcceEkn_M
After this little retrospective about what "False-Flag-Operations" look like i would like to bring in some ideas how they could be integrated in ED:
- Accept a secret mission to attack/destroy a colony/space station of the own faction with a big fighter-bomber stolen from an enemy faction (Maybe including a mission to board an enemy ship and to bring it under your control). This event will be televised and will then bring support for a planned war against that enemy faction.
- Accept a mission to steal a spaceship-identification-computer from an enemy spaceship; replace it with your own computer; start a massive attack on unprotected traders. The traders will then think the attack comes from the enemy faction/alliance. In this way you can manipulate/create wars between different factions/alliances.
I have to admit that this idea of "false-flag-operations" might be a bit overloaded for a game like ED. Maybe it would be more appropriate for a game like Civilization.
Nevertheless, your thoughts?
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