Watch the Skies: Ace Diamond GNN Reporter

The following is a guest post by Bradford Hendrickson. Thank you to Bradford for writing The Casual Area’s first guest post!

GNN Reporter Ace Diamond (center, red bow tie) talks with control and the competing Ox News team. (Photo Courtesy of Jacob Sapaugh)

This past Saturday I stepped into the role of “Ace Diamond, Global Journalist” for the Dallas MegaGames’ December 2022 run of Watch the Skies. 

I initially selected media for this game because (1) I had never played the role, (2) from reviews, videos, and my (online) experience of playing Watch the Skies previously, media in this game can be impactful, and (3) since I was running solo I thought it would be easiest.

Traditionally, Watch the Skies involves a printed newspaper circulated approximately every 40 minutes.  Prior to the game, I prepared a Blog both for the atmosphere of the game and as a potential source to update the news: https://hendricksonbj.wixsite.com/diamond . 

By the time gameday arrived, the “base” game was sold out (all countries and one alien team).  Because of dropouts, control had to scratch some of the extra teams and re-arrange, but every team was substantively complete—except media.  There were only 4 players (2 on each of GNN and Ox News).  A drop-in player was on my team for GNN, but she was only able to stay for the first half of the game.

For context, the media in Watch the Skies is essential to each country’s income.  By providing positive stories, it increases a country’s public relations, and in turn their income.  Alternatively, negative stories decreased public relations, and in turn their income. Given the smaller media teams, instead of producing a written paper, we delivered speeches in-between rounds to deliver the news, and could update our Discord channels with news.

Turn 1: When the game began, I was a little lost on what to get from the various countries in terms of reportable news, as the presence of aliens had not yet been revealed to the media.  I had decided to be slightly goofy and salacious with conspiracy theories. I asked world leaders hard hitting questions like: Chocolate or Vanilla? Their opinion on the presence of “reptilian humans” and trying to see if they would slip up and discuss aliens with me (they did not).  As a result, I took the opportunity to keep the Discord “live news feed” updated with pictures and news of the treaties signed by the various teams.  Ultimately, the news provided headlines on standard items: treaties, the winner of the Nobel prize, and the UN’s handling of a famine in Uganda. 

Turn 2: Throughout the first few turns, countries provided “fluff” pieces and generic responses to questions.  I began to tell teams that I would need “scoops” in exchange for positive news.  Several countries outright refused to provide me some secrets or headlines, and I threatened them with bad headlines (and carried through with that threat).  Others understood the dynamic and would feed me good stories. I began to spin headlines in favor of the countries on the “nice” list at the expense of those on the “naughty” list.  Most notably was my favorable coverage of the USA, India, and China at the expense of a trio of allied countries: Japan, France, and Brazil.  Ultimately, this was balanced out by having a second news team, as OxNews drifted towards the teams I ignored, and gave disfavorable news to the USA—at the time, my biggest source of information.

Turn 3: By turn 3, world tensions were simmering.  Countries were extremely protective of their airspaces, and the world had divided into “pro” and “anti” alien camps.  The US, Brazil, and India were actively engaging with aliens, while Russia and France were hostile to the aliens, with the remaining countries remaining neutral.  Also at this point, countries were feeling the impact of negative news, and were becoming frustrated with the media.  Still, many countries would only provide generic “stories” of working together with no details (which is uninteresting) or negative stories of their rival countries (many of which I was not going to publish for those countries on my “nice” list.).  At this point, I was expecting bribes—but no one tried to do so.  

At this point, my partner for GNN had to leave. She had been invaluable covering the UN and providing real diplomatic news while I chased crazier stories. With her leaving, I was very overwhelmed with the amount of stories I was filtering though. Also, this is when sh*t hit the fan. 

Also at this point, I started to become frustrated with the countries.  Because they were discussing alien technologies, the science table had issued a “no press” rule, so I could not speak to them during action phase.  Likewise, the UN had closed doors to the press during their deliberations.  Meanwhile, at the war table, Chief of Defenses would give *no information.*  This left me only the Heads of States and Chiefs of Intelligence (a new position added by the Dallas MegaGames crew) to engage with, and half the Heads of States had shut me out due to bad headlines.  Shortly thereafter, world leaders retreated to a bunker in Antarctica (a separate room), leaving only Chiefs of Intelligence and Defense left in the main room to discuss anything with news.

Also, my rivals at OxNews beat me to the punch and announced the arrival of aliens (though had no sources to back it up).

Turn 4: This is when everything began to unravel.  Sides had been drawn between the countries; money was tight due to the repeated negative impact; aliens had been announced to the world; and world leaders had begun to retreat to the bunker under Antarctica.   Russia sent military units over US airspace, while France did the same to India.  As fighting broke out, the American President was assassinated (by Russia). In retaliation, the Russian UN delegate was also assassinated.  The simmer tensions had boiled over.

As I began to draft my press release, I looked at the terror track and realized this news would send the game into a death spiral.  At this point I convened with the OxNews team, and together, we decided to mis-report the news to present only positivity. We would both cover up the assassinations, spin everything positive, and do away everything negative.  Countries also realized this aggression was bad, and all the tensions de-escalated from military firepower (at least for a bit).

Turn 5: Countries started to get confused by the news, because we simply were being inaccurate, but were providing positive bonuses to many countries—some had reached the 0 or 1 on the PR scale, meaning their income was effectively turned off. At this point, GNN and OxNews were working together to cover the news. They took science and UN and were responsible for providing benefit for certain countries, while I took the rest and military deployment.  At the same time, aliens were appearing at the UN and answering questions. The aliens then invited both GNN and OxNews to their ship for interviews.  They discussed nuclear de-escalation and promoted peace, but I was not buying what they were selling—mostly because as we walked back into the main room, the entire world had gone mad. Multiple nukes had been detonated at the science convention, the UN held hostage, and the world had been divided into two sides: Anti-alien and pro-alien.  This led to another quick discussion (aka conspiratorial of the head of the medias) where the News players decided to split into two camp: one to cover the anti-alien faction (me/GNN) and the pro-alien factions (OxNews).

Turns 6/7: The action was incredibly hot and heavy. Multiple teams going nuclear and direct hostilities. I began to stop asking questions and just began “live tweeting” observations on the Discord channel. The chaos is almost too much to list, but here were some of the highlights:

• The pro-alien countries (namely India) began stealing many of the world’s nukes to help with the de-escalation of warfare.

• Other countries began to convert their nuclear weapon into “pocket nukes” or “briefcase nukes” for covert strikes against high valued target.

• The United Kingdom became radically terrorists, as they had sent assassins armed with nuclear weapons against the scientists and UN.  Their leader had been captured while aboard the alien ship, but executed instead of being set free.

• France revealed to me that they had learned the aliens were using hologram technology to appear as aliens—but were actually humans. Other countries provided supporting information, and many believed the aliens were, at least in part, humans and could not be trusted. 

• Multiple countries left the UN, leaving only 2-3 delegates there. The delegates were told they could simply begin passing whatever they wanted, but continued to stall out.

Ace Diamond speaks with UK leadership before their eventual heel turn. (Photo Courtesy of Jacob Sapaugh)

As the game spiraled into violence, I wrote my final send-off “Kiss your children, hug your spouse. Prepare for the end. It’s been a pleasure to bring you the news” with a GIF of a saluting Jack Sparrow, fully expecting the nuclear winter to kill us all.

That’s when the ostracized, terrorist UK team whispered me over, asking, “Ace, do you actually distrust the aliens?” Answering affirmatively, a scheme was quickly hatched.

I went to Antarctica, where a lone UK player had been cornered with a “pocket nuke.” Players were attempting to force him to turn over the nuke and surrender. I surreptitiously convinced him to slip the bomb into my pocket.  I then turned to the alien players and offered to allow them to broadcast directly to the world.  Once they took me to their “ship,” I detonated the bomb, ending my role as media (and signaling the end of the game).

The End: It was revealed that the “aliens” were actually humans who had contacted aliens, but knew they would not come to the planet unless we were “prepared” (i.e. peaceful).  

Final Thoughts: I think media is incredibly fun. You have a good overview of the game and can make impacts—especially if you decide to not just be a mouthpiece for countries.  I wish teams had realized the media’s role and bargained more to get better stories, as I do not think it is productive for all the news to be negative and punishing.  The media is incredibly important to the funding of Watch the Skies, and I will never overlook them again.

With that said, I probably will not play media again.  I like having some more agency in my action in the game—hence me becoming part of the anti-alien movement and delivering the final strike to the “aliens”.  That is just my preference, but I think media shoulders a huge burden of providing entertainment, game news, and providing substantive in-game benefits.