North Korea: "Homefront" and Real Life.

Timeline: Timeline - Homefront

Now, whilst this is of course a game and fiction and also whilst there are a few discrepancies in time and whatnot, the events of the game and what is occurring in real life do indeed seem starkly similar, especially the missile tests and that recent "satellite" launch.

However, I have to say that something is very unrealistic - that is, the fact that Kim Jong-Un negotiates peace between NK and SK thereby "uniting" NK and SK to become the Greater Korean Republic.

I think that part is unrealistic - unless of course the US really begins to withdraw troops from South Korea soon and South Korea succumbs to NK - which is highly highly unlikely.

But there are growing similarities - even though some of the dates and events may be a little off. But in all cases, the story does not look good for the United States. In any case, I'm not saying that we should take the game as truth, but do take a light-hearted look at it - you won't like what you find.

Here are two pieces from last year, bearing in mind when the gaming articles are dated :

Sources - Homefront's Story Becoming Even More Real

Update #2: Homefront's Story Becoming Even More Real

Back in March we spotted a news story coming from North Korea about an EMP bomb that was being developed, mirroring the early events in THQ’s Homefront title. In another twist close to the storyline, the news this morning of Kim Jong-il passing away (and the probably replacement by his son Kim Jong-un) has got a few people digging out the Homefront timeline once again. Sure enough, listed under 2012 – not long after a UN sanction as a result of their weapons testing – is this exact event. A couple of weeks ahead of schedule maybe, but not a million miles off.

This, of course, is probably just coincidence. But it goes to show just how close games can imitate real life, and you never know, we might be seeing the unification of North and South Korea over the next 18 months. If that happens, I’m stocking up on baked beans and heading for the hills…

This is what we wrote about the previous bit of news back in March:

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The storyline behind Homefront has been both praised and frowned at for just how close to the wire it is. A string of events that before today seemed quite feasible but collectively unlikely, leading to a Korean invasion of the USA, has been pushed home by THQ in their advertising strategy. For many, us at TGR included, it’s a master stroke and a fantastic way to bring gamer’s closer to the action with believable consequences, but for some it was just a little too edgy considering the state of the world’s politics right now.

The start of the Homefront timeline begins with the following:
2011: North Korea faces another UN sanction over its latest nuclear test.

A couple of years later, General Motors file for bankruptcy again and fuel prices hit a record high. By itself, it’s a timeline that’s enough to scare most people, as events lead up to the 2025 even of Korea detonating an EMP satellite wiping out 99.9% of the electrical equipment in the US.

—

The storyline behind Homefront has been both praised and frowned at for just how close to the wire it is. A string of events that before today seemed quite feasible but collectively unlikely, leading to a Korean invasion of the USA, has been pushed home by THQ in their advertising strategy. For many, us at TGR included, it’s a master stroke and a fantastic way to bring gamer’s closer to the action with believable consequences, but for some it was just a little too edgy considering the state of the world’s politics right now.

The start of the Homefront timeline begins with the following:
2011: North Korea faces another UN sanction over its latest nuclear test.

A couple of years later, General Motors file for bankruptcy again and fuel prices hit a record high. By itself, it’s a timeline that’s enough to scare most people, as events lead up to the 2025 even of Korea detonating an EMP satellite wiping out 99.9% of the electrical equipment in the US.....

[CONTINUED IN FIRST LINK]

Last March we wrote an article about how North Korea, famed for their immense governmental secrecy, were apparently developing an EMP bomb that could have replicated their actions in the Homefront story by taking out the power across the whole of the USA. At the same time, fuel was reaching record highs, again setting a parallel to the timings of the Homefront world. In December, things got a bit more weird and coincidental when Kim Jong-il died, just a month ahead of when you passed away in-game.

And so it’s been with great interest and some underlying unease that I’ve been following the news of North Korea’s attempts to launch their own rocket into space, shrouded in secrecy but supposedly intended to get a new satellite up into nearby space. It doesn’t take a genius to work out how they hid the launch of their EMP bomb in Homefront – yup, by launching a satellite into orbit. Many international experts are convinced this was a nuclear missile test, which would have pissed off quite a lot of countries, and that’s where things slot back into place.

While the events in the game time the EMP launch in the year 2024, there’s is a much earlier entry in the history books in 2011 regarding a secret nuclear missile test. Where the comparison falls apart a little is both in the year it took place, the fact it was Kim Jong-il who approved the launch in the game, and THQ’s version didn’t have the missile falling apart shortly after launch and landing in the sea.

It’s a tenuous connection, and I suspect the links will start becoming more and more distant as time draws on, but it’s still fascinating to look for parallels between the real world and the one thought up by THQ and their writing bods.

Or let's just hope that Western-educated and Western-experienced Kim has not played too much of this game and is trying to act it out

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


I just watched red dawn. The story to it is very close to Homefront
. Seriously had kim jong un been getting plans from FPS shooters?

reply to post by yuppa


I know right?

And it doesn't help that many of the details of the timeline of the game are synchronizing with our own real life timeline - Kim Jong-Il dead, nuclear tests, launching of "satellite" (although the game has that about a decade from now) and also more ominously, a stronger strain of bird flu which kills millions (in real life, we've just recently heard that there's a more deadly form of bird flu being found widely - deadly in that it is hidden and takes longer to detect).

Goodness knows what's going on...

Hopefully, it's just rhetoric, albeit extreme, from Kim this time around.

Funny considering Homefront originally had the Chinese but due to pressure it was changed to a unified Korea.

The antagonists in Homefront were originally intended to be Chinese, but were later replaced by a unified Korea for two reasons: the risk of a possible backlash by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and the reality of economic interdependence between America and China that made the Chinese "not that scary"[7] said Tae Kim, a former CIA field agent and consultant on the game's backstory. "We went to a very rigorous, academic research process to make sure to not only look at North Korea's current state but to look at historical examples how things could parallel and turn events. History repeats itself. From today to the day the invasion starts in the game, if you combine everything, the odds are very very slim this becomes true. But when you look at the storyline step by step, every step is a coin flip but a plausible step. So once you get there, it's plausible. And from there the next step is plausible as well. Even though the whole thing is fictional, it comes with plausible baby steps.

en.wikipedia.org...

Dont even get me started on how weak this game was, with it's invisible barriers and all but thats another thread eh?

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


A land invasion against any country that has nuclear weapons would never happen by any nation X against any nation Y. Its why the US wont go into Iran, and why they wont go into NK either... or any other nuclear armed nation. Likewise, its why no one will ever invade the US, China, Russia, etc, with the exception of Israel, because their all religious nutjob fanatics in the ME and nothing is out of the question when religious fanaticism is taken into consideration.