[Stargate] The Elephant in the Room

[Mike Wyvill]

My wife and I were the young couple driven away after one event in the 
Steppes in 1983. I took me 20 years to talk her into trying it again. I 
agree with Tora that our game has to be inclusive and flexible enough to 
allow people to explore and grow.

What could we have achieved in those 20 years? What could our children have 
achieved?

Like the tootsie pop, the world may never know.


>From: robert smetek <robertsmetek at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: Barony of Stargate <stargate at lists.ansteorra.org>
>To: Barony of Stargate <stargate at lists.ansteorra.org>
>Subject: Re: [Stargate] The Elephant in the Room
>Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:57:25 -0800 (PST)
>
>   Howdy Y’all,
>
>   As a one trick stick jock, who has done other reenactment groups before 
>this one, the three things that have kept me coming back time and again is 
>the real fighting with fake swords, the fact you can be as authentic as you 
>want to be, and the pursuit of your personal interpretation of the Dream.
>
>   Point #1 – fighting)  I have been in Civil War and WWII reenacting.  
>They are basically a stage plays.  You or your commanding officer choose 
>when you go down.  I have been told “We’re supposed to win this fight but 
>we’re outnumbered so don’t go down to quickly.”  Also, I have seen a whole 
>squad get mowed down by one pistol shot.  Funny to watch but not very 
>realistic.  It’s also the fact that it’s historical reenactment.  I was 
>also in Bamfgaurd at one time.  That was until I blocked my first fireball 
>with a sword and was told I was dead anyway.  If I want magic missiles, 
>I’ll play D&D.  In our combat, when you get hit hard enough to have gone 
>through chain, it’s a hit. You have to practice and sweat to get good at 
>this game.  When I fight, I feel like I’m making a connection to the past.  
>When you win, somebody didn’t hand it to you, you earned it yourself.  Your 
>win was paid for by you with your sweat, tears, pain, and sometimes blood.
>
>   Point #2 – authenticity)  I know I’m going to upset a few people with 
>this one.  Let me start off by stating that authenticity can be hard and 
>expensive.  We strive for authenticity without demanding perfection.  Maybe 
>a newbie doesn’t have a country or year picked out so they go for a generic 
>look for now.  Maybe the dinosaur wears the same garb every time because 
>they have to scrape up loose change just to get in the gate.  We encourage 
>an attempt at to at least cover up things that are to modern.  This loose 
>attitude can be a boon to us.  In Civil War and WWII reenacting, they get 
>as authentic as possible.  I mean really authentic.  One of our Sergeants 
>got demoted for repeatedly wearing his socks on the outside of his pants.  
>It didn’t mater if he was a good leader or not just that he conformed to 
>regulation dress.  On another occasion, a newbie had to buy a new Union 
>uniform because the first set he got was made out of the wrong type of 
>wool.  Those cloths aren’t
>  cheap either.  This may seam laughable but they mean it.  I have met 
>people who we’re driven off because of a groups tireless pursuit of 
>authenticity.  I have witnessed what happens to groups when Authenticity 
>Nazis take over.  If the equivalent happened in the SCA, Kings could take 
>awards away because the person wasn’t dressed properly for their persona.  
>A lot of people think it could never get this bad but remember that the 
>other groups started with loose clothing rules like ours and they slowly 
>got more dictatorial over time.
>
>   Point #3 – the Dream)  Everybody has there own interpretation of what 
>the Dream means to them.  This is as it should be.  It makes your Dream 
>more personal.  For me, the Dream is a connection to the past.  The split 
>second when you forget what time period you are really in.  It happened to 
>me once during a Civil War reenactment.  I got up early one morning to 
>check on our guards.  Being a Sergeant of the color guard, guess who was 
>usually put in charge of our camp guards.  I walked through the perfectly 
>reproduced campsite.  It looked like a lived in museum display.  At the 
>edge of camp, the fog from the nearby field was trying to visit us.  I 
>glanced across the shrouded field  toward the enemy earthworks.  There in 
>the field was a solder.  He glided through the fog.  Moving without 
>movement.  In that second, I was no longer a 16 year old high school 
>student reenacting the Civil War.  In that second, I was Sergeant Smetek of 
>the 13th U.S. Regulars on a mission for Uncle
>  Ab to defend the 13 strips and 34 stars of Old Glory.  It was so 
>beautiful I cried. If I wasn’t run off by Politics and Authenticity Nazis, 
>I might still be on those fields chasing down that one second.  As it is, 
>I'm still looking for that one second in the SCA when I'm no longer a 
>30something office worker but a 30something peasant Samurai fighting to 
>make a name for himself.
>
>    Seeya,
>
>   Tora
>
>
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