Risky Business

To follow up a little bit on Kate's blog, please enjoy the following: 


It's the 17th/18th century. Sovereign states are beginning to conquer the globe. The International players are well defined- 

• Colin holds the Green Realm
• Scott heads the Black Dynasty
• Alyssa governs the Pink Regions
• Alex controls the Blue Territories 
• Kate reigns over the Yellow Domain

I, an up and coming politician, eventually join forces with Kate to help her maintain her extensive army- we'll call me her general in this first game. Colin is also the head of an international organization that we'll call the U.E. (Un-united Empires), and dictates the rules to those of us who are newbies to the game of I.R. The game commences. 
Colin claims Australia without much fight. After all, it's Australia. Kate seeks to conquer North America and in order to defend her position we end up with most of Europe. It is only slightly further into the game that Colin and Scott begin being a little TOO friendly for our liking, eventually signing a treaty to defend each others conquests where necessary. Scott relates this to a Hitler/Stalin -ish agreement, since they agree to help each other now, but both want to come out ultimate conquerers at the end. And there's no room for team playing in ultimates. So Alyssa, Kate, and Alex band together, bringing the wrath of the Americas, Europe and Africa onto their Australian/Asian conquests. 
It is not until these teams have been formed that we discover the ultimate deceit- Colin has been feeding us falsities from his should-be neutral position of authority! He has been feeding us the wrong IR theories, limiting our ability to play on a major scale and effectively losing us South America in a massacre! Enraged, we ask and they agree to count the countries everyone owns and hand the ultimate crown to the biggest dominator, Kate and I. 

You might be wondering what all of this has to do with reflecting. Well, firstly, in addition to winning with Kate, I branched into my own Red Empire for the second game and won a second time, and was very proud since I have only ever played Risk once before. 

Secondly, during a dinner conversation this week with Elana, I came to the conclusion that really international politics is just a lot of gossip on the grand scale. " China came into work today wearing last nights clothes, I think she slept with Africa, we should probably watch out or she might go after one of those guys we like to flirt with in the copy room, I mean southwest Asia, next!" Playing Risk really helped reinforce that idea. After all, even real heads of states are only people.