Session 1: A Military Metaverse Died in The Inbox

2300 Central Standard Time, Fall, 2006.

“I don’t think I can say it like you just did, man.”, said the young voice over TeamSpeak.

“Lionhart, you don’t really have to, just use your own words. The main thing is that I want you to look at the map and the compass and try your best to describe what you see. See how the compound is divided into four sections? Tell me where they are by that. And if there is a tank, tell me how many lengths of the compound it is away from you.  Then look at the compass while looking at the mountains. Tell me the opposite side of the compass as you look at ways for me to fly in to attack and fly out,” I said in my sci-fi attack helicopter equivalent nestled in a grove far away from view of the enemy.

“Okay, I think I understand. This may take some practice.”

“That’s what makes this fun”

A Reaver aircraft in Planetside 1. Source: Daybreak Games

The young man crouched beside an alien tree at the base of a hill. He was cloaked, invisible to all who would see him, as long as he kept perfectly still. If he moved, players could make out the hazy outline of his shield. Cloakers were often used as scouts deep into enemy territory--radioing back to the outfit what fight they were up against.

“There’s a few guys on the northwest side, two landed aircraft. There’s a skyguard two compound lengths east. Uhm, come in southwest--there’s a gap in the mountain. There’s a hill northwest to hide.”

“Copy, waypoint set. In, southwest.”

The sound of the hovering jets of my craft spooled up as I converted to level flight. I accelerated to the waypoint, a large pillar of light only I could see floating above the agreed target. I hugged the ground to not be spotted. I squeezed through the gap with my nose pointed at the waypoint. What Lionhart described came into view. I let loose a volley of rockets into the desired corner of the compound and broke hard to the left. Small explosions instantly popped around me. I dove behind the hill, landed, and hopped out to repair the light damage to my aircraft with a nano-dispensing grease gun.

“How did we do, Lionhart?”

“You got one aircraft and a few guys are down. That Skyguard almost had a bead on you.”

“Well, you had a pretty good plan considering. I’m going to see if someone is online to take care of that Skyguard on chat.”

1000 Central Standard Time, the following day.

“Dan, come take a walk with me,” said the colonel as I looked up from my email stifling a deep yawn.

We walked down the long hall of the USAF Combat Systems Officer school to the other side of the building I rarely went to. “Sir, am I in trouble?” I never claimed to be the perfect officer. “No,” he chuckled. “I wanted to show you something,”  We badged into the secure area and stepped into a converted office. It was dotted with computers, some in server racks, others with wires pouring off the sides of tables.  My eyes fixed on a 3D model of an EA-6B aircraft on a screen banking to the left after firing a missile. That aircraft was often used to jam enemy radars and sometimes would launch missiles that would guide their way to the sources of radar beams.

“We set up this lab with DARPA to look into using gaming tech to teach electronic warfare concepts. I’d like you to take a look at this stuff and see how you can use it in your curriculum.”

Graphic circulated to instructors about the Simulation Development Lab

My curriculum consisted of teaching young aviators about basic electronic warfare fundamentals, introducing them to air defense concepts and what systems are used around the globe to defend nations. It involved using laser pointers, flash lights, and an assortment of Bill Nye toys. Some concepts are very difficult to ingest in a short time. My eyes lit up with possibilities. 

If I could teach a fourteen year old kid from anywhere in North America the concepts of how to call in air support in a video game, I most definitely could use this technology to teach the concepts of radar propagation and integrated defense systems.

A student uses an AC-130U Sensor Trainer, a part of the DARPA RealWorld project.

Over the months I started using the tools that were being tested in the lab whenever we had free time in our very tightly scheduled curriculum. I enjoyed watching my students dogfight on a closed network while having to reference a certain type of radar scope. I glowed a bit too when a slower student I had finally got the concept of hugging against the terrain inside the pulse length of the radar to hit a surface to air missile system. That visible light bulb coming on was addictive.

563d FTS Simulation Development Lab Concept photo for poster placement.

Then the generals arrived. I found myself in scripted demos, wearing a VR headset from my own collection (it seems getting the squadron to buy VR hardware is still a perennial problem), I demonstrated how to get air refueled and re-attack a target. I learned that there were efforts to increase the network. Out of the box thinking wanted to connect our students to view “checked-out” experienced aviators, observing relevant training from their simulators. They wanted to tie in soldiers from the latest experiment of DAR-WARS, which later became Virtual Battlespace (VBS).  Essentially, the military was trying to recreate the simple exchange of teaching a fourteen year old with a higher fidelity.

But, as the efforts were starting to gel, it was time for me to get back into the real fight. I left the school to return to my combat aircraft. I kept tabs on the state of the lab, and made headways into deploying similar solutions at my combat squadron. I had learned the painful lesson that after the generals arrive, the bureaucrats that make their living slowing down the process swoop in and take over. It ground to a halt in paperwork. The computers were blasted with frame rate killing group policies. The military metaverse died in the inbox. Somewhere, some civilian was awarded DOD civilian of the quarter for killing it by the book.

But we keep trying. I made a career of it after leaving the military. New tech, lower costs, new possibilities. Eventually, we’ll outsmart the induced drag.