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Star WorldS Star Worlds Freedom VerSuS Control in online GameWorldS William Sims Bainbridge uniVerSity oF miChiGan PreSS Ann Arbor Copyright © 2016 by William Sims Bainbridge All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2019 2018 2017 2016 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Bainbridge, William Sims, author. Title: Star worlds : freedom versus control in online gameworlds / William Sims Bainbridge. Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2017. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016023984| isbn 9780472073283 (hardback) | isbn 9780472053285 (paperback) | isbn 9780472122417 (e- book) Subjects: LCSH: Internet games— Social aspects. | Fantasy games— Social aspects. | Shared virtual environments— Social aspects. | Human-c omputer interaction. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture. | COMPUTERS / Virtual Worlds. | TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects. Classification: LCC gv1469.17.s63 b354 2017 | DDC 794.8— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023984 To my grandchildren, Julia Bainbridge and Luca Bainbridge, wishing they may live long and prosper! Preface This is an exploration of four complex and beautiful virtual worlds: Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Trek Online, and the Star Trek community in Second Life. The first three are generally called “massively multiplayer online games,” but they are far more than mere playthings. Rather, they are simulations of the real human future as many people wish it will be and thus are expressions of fundamental human desires. Both Star Wars and Star Trek are set among the stars and thus depict in- terstellar travel and galactic civilizations. Yet at present humanity lacks the means for mere interplanetary travel. In December 1972, I stood on a Flor- ida beach in the after- midnight darkness to watch the launch of Apollo 17, the last human flight to the Moon. That was the same year in which the United States ended major research programs that had been intended to develop nuclear-p owered launch vehicles, and hope for progress shifted to the hybrid of chemical rocket and aircraft prosaically called space shuttle, which now also has been canceled. Recalling that the Roman Empire never colonized the Americas, I have hope that a new wave of actual space flight development will begin sometime, but how soon I cannot predict. Yet the stars in the two popular science fiction mythologies represent something other than naturally occurring nuclear fusion reactions, being metaphors for all forms of hope. In 1976, the research that had sent me to view the last launch to the Moon and had earned me my doctorate in sociology from Harvard Univer- sity was published as The Spaceflight Revolution. That was fundamentally a book of history, considered in the light of theory, charting the development of the space flight social movement in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States. My 2015 book The Meaning and Value of Spaceflight charts the diversity of ideas people have about the space program, as reflected in a myriad of public opinion surveys. Both projects adhere closely to exact facts and standard social science research methods. This book is no less rigorous, yet its focus is not mundanity but imagination. Star Wars is a form of heroic fantasy that blurs the distinction between viii preface science and magic, while Star Trek is more logical and closer to the tradi- tions of science fiction literature. Yet each in its own way is extremely opti- mistic. Both imagine that individual human lives can have universal sig- nificance. Both assert that the present era exists long before the end of history. Both postulate a wide range of opportunities that our species can explore, in real life as well as in imaginative fiction. Neither may get all the details correct, but each serves well as inspiration if not prediction. Massively multiplayer online role- playing games, and the technically similar virtual worlds that lack ludic structures, can be viewed as inhabited computer simulations. They allow people to experience environments and events that do not exist, and in so doing to think in new ways about reality. Thus the star worlds described here are tools for considering the actual social world, including culture, economy, and human interaction. Specifi- cally, they capture some of the contrasts in normal life: freedom versus control, cooperation versus conflict, success versus failure. The star worlds are also early manifestations of online commerce and community and thus afford vantage points from which to study human- computer interaction. Born in the final third of the twentieth century, Star Wars and Star Trek can perhaps serve the twenty- first century as guiding stars. Contents [1] Galaxies Far, Far Away 1 [2] Free Will 27 [3] Living on Tatooine 53 [4] Homes among the Stars 78 [5] A Long Time Ago 107 [6] Companions 132 [7] To Boldly Go 157 [8] The Foundry 186 [9] Second Trek 211 [10] Star Life 238 Notes 265 Glossary 281 Index 291