Visiting a battle site feels a bit like trespassing. The rich sands of Pointe Du Hoc stretched out beyond my feet, pockmarked by trenches and spots carved out for large weaponry, radiating with an invisible richness, like each blade of grass among the specks of sand was a story pushing itself out of the earth and asking to be told. The water beat back along the shore, in rhythm with the breeze, cold despite the bright sun. A looming gray rock cliff stands tall in the water, remniscient of the Allied soldiers who once marched proudly across the beach as they invaded Normandy. History surrounds a visitor to a battlefield, yet most stories will lay dormant, scattered in the waves and waving in the breeze, never to be relived.

This is Pointe Du Hoc as I remember it.

Muir likens exploring a natural space in real life to reading a book. If only it were that easy in the digital world. My first virtual trip to Pointe Du Hoc, France, one of the sites of military action during the Normandy Beach invasion on D-Day, was largely a geometric blur, largely unlike what I remembered of it from when I visited a summer or two ago. My second trip was worse, because Earth was somehow stuck in ground level view, a useless tool for a place with no buildings, and the entire beach was just a flat yellow space with the cliff sharply standing out in the background. I tried to travel around a bit, but the space was incredibly blurred and half-loaded. The photos that others have uploaded to Earth, however, help create a disjointed picture of the place.

Digital exploration, for me, has rarely provided the same experience as actual travel in a place. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of the wind and the total realization of what role you actually play in your environment has never translated to me through a computer screen, where I feel detached from the surroundings. Yes, you can gather the beauty, or the potential for beauty through the screen, but similar to my argument against e-books, there’s nothing like being there and experiencing it firsthand.Also, the lagginess and the loading, however brief, usually add to the disjointed feeling of the digital exploration.

I think even a textual tour can sometimes be more powerful than a digital tour because it conveys the feeling of a place using every sense, and not just one-dimensionally through sight. There are emotions, there are stories, there are connections between the reader and the place that may not be conveyed otherwise. I am not a person who can just stand and look and feel something – I’m really bad at art museums for that reason – I need to be active and involved, and I think that’s why for me digital worlds are not ideal – they don’t give me much to do besides click around and stare.

There’s certainly no harm to exploring a digital world. For those places we may never get to visit in reality, Google Earth and even Second Life are good, if not interesting tools for exploring the area, getting a feel for what it looks like, what being there might be like. But in my eyes, a digital tour does not provide the same experience as visiting or even reading about a place.

(I’ve included some pictures from when I visited to illustrate what the place actually looks like as compared with the GE version)

Google Earth pans into Yellowstone National Park, gliding effortlessly over mountaintops to reveal more mountaintops and finally landing upon an aerial view of a carefully preserved natural space. A click on the tour guide option spins a 360 degree view focusing on Echo Peak, the mountainous range is endless and vast. Each peak connecting to the next with rigid lines, softened by a blanket of snow, white and untouched except by nature, defined by the shadows growing out from underneath and flowing along the banks of the mountains.

Using the scroll bar to zoom in farther to ground level view displays a view of the mountains closer to the human perception. I seem to be covered in a thick layer of snow, right in the middle of two hills that seem to grow from the ground as the satellite view continues to form the curves of the terrain and the green, blue hue of the ground. Far into the distance I can discern more mountain peaks, shrinking as they go into the horizon line. The sky is unbounded, filled with gray-blue clouds, stretching across the screen. Sunshine peaks out from the horizon, light shines through the ominous forms in the sky. This is a sight barely seen by the world. At first, I feel overwhelmed by my immediate surroundings, but examining the image before me lets the elements settle in. The sky, the clouds, the mountains, snow, white, green, blue, all form into one. It is a strange feeling; a combination of tranquility and awe, somewhere between being on top of the world and nestled safely within its hands.

I click on the photos others added to the peaks, struck by the breathtaking images. They show not only the structures shown by Google Earth, but the individual characteristics that give it an identity. The ground the photographer is standing on, the layers of ridges blending as they reach the horizon, with a blue mist fading into the skyline. I can imagine the crisp breeze that comes through every twenty seconds, the serenity of the structures coming over me like a wave of inner peace. While the satellite pan of Echo Peak depicted the scale and vastness of the mountains, these photos truly enhance the features by providing the realistic view of nature. By using both the photos and the tour guide pans of the space, one can easily put together an overall sense of the architecture.

While Google Earth is a great tool to view different places, I also believe that textual visualizations can at times evoke feelings that images are unable to. The words written on a page give the reader the power of their own imagination, while the pixels in a photograph creates a still image. An amazing image will accurately display the area, but text can describe the smell of the trees, the beauty of the snow that glistens under the sun, or the sounds of the breeze tickling the leaves and the wind against ones skin. A good photo can also do these things, but I find that I am never as absorbed in another world when I am looking at an image than when I am reading a passage or book. Google Earth provides a decent representation of these natural spaces, but people are still conscious that they are sitting in a room looking at it on a laptop or an iPad. A textual virtualization has the ability to take one to another realm, many times even beyond reality. It can transport one away from society, and into the heart of nature.

It’s a bird’s eye view of mountains, each dotted with a spot of pure whiteness, patched with limestone-green tints that glisten softly. There must be hundreds of them down there, each in a natural tandem. They mold into one another effortlessly, transitioning from snow-capped peak to snow-capped peak. They know each other well.

The mountains know they don’t have to try; their beauty is obvious. As Google Earth’s tour pans up the mountain’s central snow-filled crevice, two steep and jagged walls greet our peripherals. They are stoic, just as the rest of their mountain counterparts, but with an ego: they know they make up the tallest peak, the Mount Everest itself.

They’re so high that they’re snow-filled and pierce the static blue sky. These mountainous walls seem to whisper, “Try me.”

The peak jumps forward on my screen. The look is exhilarating; it’s one that few have seen live. Just scores of jagged, breathtaking structures, nature’s skyscrapers. It overlooks eons and scores and galaxies of mountains, mountains of the small variety and the tall variety that have stitched centuries of human awe and confusion, mountains as jagged and diverse and glorious as the human race.

A pan out, as I scroll with my mouse and occasionally tap my arrow keys to reach maximum height. A feeling of insignificance hits me after noting the rolling field of mountains on my laptop’s computer, their extension into everything as far as the eye can see. I’m small. They’re large, larger in size than the 10 most powerful people running our world. How does that work? Isn’t bigger supposed to be better? Nothing makes sense when you take a look at the land’s vastness, a superiority unseen by most of the world.

I pan upwards and a blob of white-green-purple-black splashes in front of my eyes. It’s steep and continues to make me feel miniscule. I hit the top. A surprising feeling of satisfaction washes over me. Though I did no such thing, I feel as if I climbed a little bit of it. I saw the top of Everest; I saw the precision, the white-spotted beauty of the most famous mountain in the world.

And while the interface makes you feel like you’re there – in the crevices, on the peaks – I’d argue that it doesn’t feel inherently beautiful. That beauty lies in the hundreds of photos in icons lining Google Earth Everest. After all, Google Earth is a 3D map at heart. A map will show the precise details but isn’t meant to evoke beauty as a photo would – it has logistical aesthetics and simulates beauty, but does not have aesthetic values of beauty inherent to a natural wonder, such as quality of light, clouds, live details. I feel every part of the Everest experience – the idea of being small, awe at details of the structure, exhilaration at the peak – but I’m not struck by beauty when panning the area.

Compared to text virtualizations, Google Earth is very helpful in visualizing the space, its purpose and (most importantly) the feeling that runs through us when we see a site. Words can describe a space – just as I’m doing here – but when you really want to see a space, words cannot match up to the jaw-dropping force of images. For example, when I say “the mountaintop seemed to rise, its white-topped glory dominating the other babies in its midst,” you can visualize it, but Google Earth’s interactive 3D maps help you to feel it, too. Though I can’t see the exact way snow is falling on a mountain, I can understand the power of the space and why we’re drawn to it through elements of height and the panning features.

The weather-battered faces of limestone cliffs cover the land while a calm river casually carves its way through the terrain: Preikestolen, Norway is absolutely stunning. I feel as if I have witnessed the power of this landscape simply by viewing it through the pictures of previous travelers. They have littered this virtual land with their photographs of majestic blue skies as they innocently lay on top of the narrow fjord.

Pulpit Rock is a very popular attraction. There are many photographs capturing this landmark during various conditions ranging from overcast to sunny. I keep seeing groups of travelers standing near the edge of the cliff and looking over two thousand feet down into the emerald-blue colored water. This area includes hundreds of miles of trees in a Norwegian boreal forest and a river that seems endless. The pictures covering the land on Google Earth all capture images of a naturally hospitable environment. There are no sudden movements, surprises, or distractions caught by any of the visitors. All of the photographs of the river surrounded by the cliffs have a way of inducing serenity. Now, I feel just as speechless as the rest of the travelers gazing into the beautifully sublime abyss.

Let’s venture into the abyss.

The river is surprisingly flat. It sits as still as the faces of rock surrounding it while clouds move from one side towards the other. If I were on a boat, I would lie down and stare at the sky’s moving panorama. Looking around the area through Google Earth reveals the character of the rock. Their humongous size gives off a feeling of intimidation but the deep green vegetation clings to their steep sides like a newborn baby to its mother: this environment is very nurturing. The absence of distractions allows an explorer to mentally become absorbed into the attractive sites.

With the drag of a mouse Google Earth allows me to easily travel past the river into the depths of Norway’s boreal forest. A few miles away from the edges of tock faces and water reveals a slightly different environment. Images scattered over the map are less numerous. The scenes I do find contain rocky knolls covered in huge stones. Herds of sheep are photographed feeding on the vegetation and innocently moving through the trees like there aren’t any predators in sight. The trees are more vivid and numerous than they were near the river. It’s amazing to see how all the forces within this environment work together to create a tranquil atmosphere.

Although I am not physically in the environment, a few tools in Google Earth allow me to gather important information about the space. The first tool I used was the photo layer. The second was the “street view” option combined with geographic information at the bottom of the screen (location and land elevation). If I were physically in Preikestolen, it would nearly be impossible for me to cover as much area as I did through the software. I viewed miles of terrain with the software’s “street level” view which gave me a general sense of the geography of the land. I then added the photo layer and saw the actual land through pictures that were left on the map by people who had been to the location. These tools worked together to give me a real sense of what travelers experienced when they went there.

A textual visualization is very good at describing an area but it may not capture the feeling of being in the area the same way a digital space can. One example of this is the Pulpit Rock location mentioned earlier. I could describe the color of the limestone, tree patterns, and distance of the river through text. With the Google Earth software however, I can see the landscape through the lenses of cameras that were already in that location. If my curiosity impels me to look closer into the river, I am not restrained by what might have been written. I can move deeper into the river with the software and examine the area much more.

Orange County, Calif. has always been a place with special meanings to me. I still remember the tall peach tree my parents planted in the backyard of our house, the turtle shaped sandbox my cousin and I used to play in and the community swimming pool where my grandma often practiced the freestyle stroke. 14 years later, I have returned to the neighborhood I lived in as a child. This time via Google Earth.

Typing the address of our old house in the search bar, I see the screen zoom in on the deep blue sphere that represents Earth. The screen continues to zoom in, and soon I can no longer see the entirety of the globe. When I arrive at my old home address, everything appears two-D, so flat and deformed that I barely recognize the place. If not because of the high contrast in lighting caused by the sun, I would not even know my current location is California. Thankfully, a few seconds later the street scene and buildings become three-D, and during their two-D to three-D transformation process, memories stream through my mind.

The neighborhood my parents and I lived in is called Granada Park, located in a small, quiet community and with gates in the front and back. Starting from the back side of our old house, I moved along the brick walls that separate Granada Park from the rest of the community. The walls are in slightly different shades of yellowish brown, which reflect the neighborhood’s age. After all, it’s been 14 years since I left here, and Google Earth indicates that these pictures of Granada Park were taken in 2009. But even after such a long time, Granada Park’s beauty is still perceivable. Following the brown walls, I come to the entrance gates. The thin tree on the right of the gates catches my attention with the purple blossoms on its swirly twigs right away. It is not the most breathtaking beauty, yet it sure is something a person would appreciate. The tree stood next to the wooden sign saying “Granada Park,” as if it is greeting anyone who visits.

Google Earth shows a blue mid-size sedan entering Grenada Park through the front gates. It reminds me of a familiar scene. Back when I was six or seven years old, I saw my parent wave at the security guard from our car many times per day, asking for permission to enter or leave the neighborhood. Security is highly prioritized, so there are watchmen on both sides of the neighborhood. I try to take a look inside Granada Park by clicking on one of the houses. However, Google Earth wouldn’t zoom in, perhaps because it did not have access to the interior view of the neighborhood.

Since Google Earth lacks information about the actual houses, I used Google Images to complement the information I’ve already gathered via the software. Among the countless pictures, a photo of a house in Granada Park looks fairly similar to my old home, with a huge garage and a small wrought iron fence gate on its left. This discovery makes me believe that I have arrived at the last stop of my journey. This was my house, my home. If viewable in Google Earth, there would be a marker placed on the red brick roof indicating my old home address.

Digital media have allowed me to complete this traveling in a short span of time. The experience is positive for sure. I don’t need to spend any money, just some clicking and typing, to get to a place on the other side of the country. Like what Amber Case said, the shortest distance between two points in today’s world is not a straight line, but the overlap of the two points made possible by advanced technology. Digital media have finally transformed us all into cyborgs.

I am digitally standing in the summit of Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan, and one Japan’s “Three Holy Mountains.” The view is breathtaking. I am on the edge of a massive crater in the surface of the top of mountain. It looks like the bottom of an enormous lake, drained of all water. The steep, jagged edges in the earth are smooth brown, growing increasingly darker as they grow deeper into the mountain’s core. Patches of melting snow are dispersed throughout the tremendous pit, leaving wet shadows of past hydration. The sun is hitting one side of the crater so that the brown slate is illuminated, like an opening in the heavens casting light down on a patch of the earth. I am standing in the shadow of a cloud.

I look around the edge. The ground is lithic and uneven. It is covered in small rocks, pebbles, and dirt. The surface of the mountain around the huge crater is hilly and undulating, but flat enough to walk on. It stretches on for miles.

And then I look beyond. The view of the ground from the summit is sublime. I am at the highest point in Japan. The snow-covered edges of the rigged mountain side glisten with solitude. I am high up in the clouds but can see patches of the earth where there are breaks in the billowing white vapor. The earth’s surface is miles and miles away and goes on for as far as my eyes can see. I am too high up to make out details, but I see stretches of land and foliage. Everything is covered in a white, hazy blanket of mist, generating an angelic feeling of immaculacy and transcendence.

It is a celestial but humbling place. The world is virtually at my feet yet I feel nothing but small, miniscule, insignificant. I feel like one of many, but at the same time, alone and afraid. The world is so much more than me, too much to take in, too much to comprehend. Atop this mountain, with a view it feels like only a god should know, I feel like I am being questioned, challenged. Anywhere I look, I can see for miles and miles; I imagine I am in the sky, surrounded by the heavens, but the cool ground below beckons to stay in place. I am attached to the earth, yet miles above it. I am overwhelmed with contrasting feelings of of power and impotency. Where do I belong? What is my purpose? How can my life affect this world of which I can see so much? I humble myself to the simple power that lies within me and the pressure exerted on me by the sky, nature, and all that is holy.

I experienced this view using Google Earth, videos on YouTube, and pictures from Google Images. Viewing Mt. Fuji digitally, as opposed to real life, creates a different affect on the sensations aroused from the scenery. I am basing my entire sensual experience on imagery, yet I can see only what is available online. I am limited by the range of the photographer and the resolution of the camera. I cannot feel the crunch of the earth under my feet. I cannot feel the suffocating air pressure nor the excruciating cold. All of these would be factors in threatening the physical effect on my perception of the summit. And I cannot traverse freely though the space, though I pretend to by changing the view and or moving through different images. Another limitation is in the size; I can only see what is on the computer 15-inch screen. I have no use for peripheral vision.

However, there are several advantages to virtually experiencing this place. I doubt I will ever actually have the ability to travel to the top of Mt. Fji, therefore the mere fact that I am able to see this from here in my dorm at College Park is astounding. Even though the screen is small and there are several limitations, I am still able to see exactly what the summit of the mountain looks like. The most powerful facet of this mountain, however, is the view–and I think the digital capturing of the mountain and surroundings is exceptional, enough to take my breath away just by looking at a computer screen.

I hunkered down during Hurricane Sandy and played an awful lot of this game. Luckily, it’s chock full of interesting morality!

Harm/Care

In many ways, this distinction is at the heart of the game, and manifests itself in a number of ways. The game, as implied by the name “total war,” is very much centered around harm. This is first and foremost in display during the sophisticated 3D battles controlled by the player. You command your men to fight others, with casualties routinely reaching into the thousands. Only by inflicting massive harm and violence can you grow your economy, expand your kingdom, and ultimately satisfy the win conditions of the came, which require the player to take and hold a set number of regions. The “taking” is impossible absent an ecnomy powerful enough to buy out the map, and enemies willing to sell it. In other words, attempting to care in M2TW is counterproductive.

Fairness/Reciprocity

This isn’t featured particularly heavily in M2TW. The tax system allows the player to increase or lower the rate paid by civilizations in the empire, but it’s done on the basis of economic and strategic considerations, rather than the concerns of the civilians. When the player enters into an alliance with other states, there is an expectation of gift-giving in order to keep the relationship strong. Usually, however  this deters betrayal so that the ally can serve a strategic purpose, generally more war-mongering, later down the line. In other words, the fairness/reciprocity in M2TW only in order to serve a greater, geopolitical purpose. It certainly has no inherent in-game value.

Ingroup/Loyalty

This is incredibly important to the M2TW experience. Every facet of your empire, from individual generals to entire regions is affected by loyalty. Loyalty breeds happiness, as well as battlefield supremacy, and can serve every function from keeping an overpopulated city from rebelling to willing troops on the ground to hold their formation. As foreign territory is incorporated into the player’s empire, maintaining a sense of loyalty is essential to holding onto captured land — itself essential to winning the game. Loyalty is definitely elevated in M2TW, but it is worth noting that this role could serve as meta commentary on the Medieval time period depicted in the game.

Authority/Respect

This value goes hand in hand with loyalty/ingroup. Characters have an authority and respect value which affects both their battlefield performance and management of settlements. While less significant overall than loyalty, authority/respect still holds weight when dealing with other nations in the game. The military supremacy at the player’s command directly translates to the amount of authority — “diplomatic leverage” in the games terms — he is able to exert over his opponents. This doesn’t strictly translate into respect, aside from in the Machiavellian sense. Again, in-game it’s just another political tool in the player’s box.

Purity/Sanctity

Religion is a major factor in expansion. However, the game’s relationship with sanctity mirrors that of its fictional inhabitants. The people’s relationship with religion can spawn both crusades and defensive Jihad, meaning that religious commitment can be used as another means of military expansion. The whole thing really reads straight out of The Prince, with the player’s absolute authority and moral judgement (or lack therof) being the only really significant question at hand. All other ethical considerations are woven into the game to be manipulated and used to expand power, retinue and wealth. In fact, crusading armies, like any other in game, have the option of sacking cities and massacring their inhabitants. Purity is certainly, objectively devoid from this game world.

Really, this game is about harm/care (by which, I mean harm). Every other value is present in some senes, but only so that it can be used as a means of exerting further harm on the player’s opponents. The morality is logical and consistant but exists to be understood and utilized rather than respected. It’s an interesting, philosophical and, dare I say, realistic simulation of power.

I don’t play many video or computer games, but my friends often have game nights involving card and board games. Settlers of Catan is one of my favorite board games. It is a strategy game in which four players or teams play to get the most resources, roads, settlements/cities and ports.

Harm/Care:

In the game, there aren’t many ways you can harm another player or team. The robber may be placed on a tile that prevents any surrounding settlements from obtaining the resources and is moved when a player rolls a seven or uses a knight card. The best way to harm someone in the game is to take away their resources or cut off a road.

Fairness/Reciprocity

If a player is to place the robber on another’s tile, he accepts the vengeance of the other player in future turns. Basically, the person losing the resources will refuse to trade or bargain with the robber-placer until some sort of truce is made. Also, if one refuses to trade for a certain resource, he can expect the other players to refuse his trade offers for the foreseeable future.

Ingroup/Loyalty

Sometimes, two players team up against another (usually the best or most arrogant player) to prevent that player from gaining points. These two players will work together to assure the failure of the other by refusing trades and sabotaging resources with the robber piece. If one player is to break this truce, he may be subjected to similar treatment by the other player of the truce.

Authority/Respect

Although there are no authority figures, players gain authority by earning points and cards such as Largest Army. These cards are often hard won by players competing to gain the resources to build these achievements. Respect is determined by the individual players themselves rather than any game construct. The more competitive the group, the less respect is apparent in gameplay.

Purity/Sanctity

There is little to no emphasis on purity in this game. Some players pride themselves in being kind to each player and not targeting one, but most tend to gang up on people and do everything they can to win.

For this week’s blog post I decided to study the morality of one of my favorite games, Kingdom Hearts. It is a classic good-vs.-evil game by Square Enix that involves Square Enix and Disney characters in a vast multiverse, and focuses on friendship.

1. Harm/Care:  In the game, your weapon is a large “Keyblade,” and you use it to defeat shadow creatures called “Heartless” that attempt to steal the hearts of characters. Those who try to harm others are classified as “bad guys,” and the designated “good guys” are allowed to harm the bad guys in order to protect or care for others. Teammates, or fellow good guys in your party, often care for you by replenishing your health.
2.  Fairness/Reciprocity: Fairness and forthright conduct are emphasized in the game; deceit is something practiced by the “bad guys.” Reciprocity frequently comes into to play. As you travel from world to world around the multiverse, you aid the native characters in each world and they in return help you on your journey, giving you items and occasionally joining your party temporarily.
3. Ingroup/Loyalty: This aspect is extremely important in the games. The game frequently emphasizes that friendship is the most important thing in life and that you have to take care of your friends. Most of your journey in the game is in fact in pursuit of a friend that has been swayed by the forces of darkness. Even though this person technically works with the “bad guys,” they are classified as a friend and must therefore be saved.
4. Authority/Respect:  a respect for authority figures is built into the game even though few appear. There are no parents shown for the young human protagonists, but Mickey Mouse appears as “King Mickey,” a royal authority figure that everyone seems to respect despite the fact that different worlds have different governments.
5. Purity/Sanctity: This is one of the main themes of the games. The enemies in the games are made when “darkness” overtakes someone’s “heart” (which seems to function like a soul or spirit). These corrupted hearts then become the puppets of the ultimate villain, who turned to darkness in order to gain power. The purity of the main character’s heart is supposedly what makes him such an effective hero.

This is a game for explorers (with multiple worlds and hidden areas) and achievers. Even though there are no actual social components with other human players, the game does promote social behavior and morality.

The only computer game I have ever really played was Neopets when I was in elementary school, so I may have a fuzzy memory when it comes to some aspects of it. Neopets is an online game that was popular when I was a kid. Each person can get new neopets, which they have to take care of and train. They can play other games to earn neopoints and buy or sell things or add to their neohomes.

1. Harm/Care: A huge part of the game when I was still playing was taking care of your neopet. If you did not feed it regularly, it’s hunger points would go down and it would display and image of a sad, crying pet which would automatically cause the viewer to feel terrible and guilty. You could also go to a fountain and heal your pet. There was also a battling arena called the Battledome, but I never played it. However, neopets would battle each other using different attacks and weapons. They could gain skill levels and become stronger when they beat the other pet.

2. Fairness/Reciprocity: One of the main goals for players in the game was to earn neopoints. This could be earned by selling items in a store, or playing games. There was a huge selection of different games you could play, and your score would total to a ratio of neopoints you earn. This was a very fair method of gaining money. However, every so often random events could happen, for instance, a ghost could come steal your items or money, or you would simply stumble upon a great item to use or sell. The unfortunate random events often angered people, which somehow made them want to play more since they wanted to get it all back.

3.Loyalty/In-group: When I played, there were no groups within the game.  Your loyalty was towards your pet, keeping it happy (by playing games, reading books, giving new toys) and fed well. There was also a feature of the game that allowed you to go on quests for faeries, and you would have to stay loyal to faeries who had enemy faeries or they would not give you anymore quests.

4. Authority/Respect: In neopets, the player has to respect the rules of the game. If the players do something wrong, the moderators/admins who would email the players and either give a warning or cancel their account.

5.Purity/Sanctity: This game is all about taking care of pets so it is mostly pure. However, as always there are overzealous players create accounts just to aid their other accounts somehow or try to earn neopoints in whatever way possible. This was the only time the game was corrupt, which was due to the players themselves.