Are you a Battlestar Galactica fan? It appears so is the German government. The German Federal Agency for Civic Education has agreed to fund a 5-day event held aboard a retired destroyer in an attempt to see how scenarios from Battlestar Galactica can be applied to real life. Projekt Exodus (possibly named so after part one and two of the third and fourth episodes of Battlestar Galactica the reimagined series that aired from 2004 to 2009) will include 80 aspiring diplomats who will be role-playing scenarios based on Ronald D. Moore’s TV series.
Exodus will begin on February 4th and will last for two and a half days, with 1 and a half days set for prep and one day for reflection after the exercise has been completed. The LARP exercise will see participants bring to life various characters using improv and acting techniques that will be taught during the first and a half days of prep time. Using those techniques, the participants will explore the variety of topics the show has explored previously. Battlestar Galactica topics generally centre around freedom, safety, government, politics, ideology, theology and a multitude of others.
A refresher for those who have seen Battlestar Galactica, in the two-part episode Exodus, there is a major focus on the struggle of human refugees led by Colonel Tigh, as they lead an insurrection on the Cylon-controlled New Caprica. At the same time, Admiral Adama and the crews of Galactica and Pegasus plot a rescue attempt of the survivors. Since Projekt Exodus is designed to analyse the narrative structure of the series, participants can deal with a similar scenario in which a civilian government faces an ongoing war, the participants will be forced to develop strategies and solutions for a guerrilla warfare.
More information is available on the Project Exodus website, as well as via Twitter and Facebook.
According to The Verge, Projekt Exodus will aim to help those involved “experience problems of our society from a completely new viewpoint” The organisers hope the experience will leave a lasting mark on their memories and help them think out of the box in the future. Unfortunately the game will be played only in German, but the organisers hope to repeat the exercise sometime in the future and offer an English-language version to international audiences. Here’s something we’d love to see more of around the world — people taking TV shows such as Battlestar Galactica more seriously than just ‘silly entertainment shows’.
So Say We All!
