The world is a mess right now. Our world could be worse though. Science Fiction can show how the world could improve or alternatively be worse. Tom Clancy’s the Division is a great example of how the world has gone terribly awry. The game takes place in 2015 during Black Friday, which is a holiday mostly known for people purchasing a lot of things due to things being on sale, where people started getting sick from an unknown disease that was being spread from money. This then led to the disease being called the “Dollar Flu”. Due to the Dollar Flu being so deadly, cities in the United States were put under quarantine. Since things were getting out of hand where local enforcement could not deal with the situation of lawlessness, the government had to approve the use of “The Division”. These Division agents were sleeper agents who are highly trained people who have accesses to unique gear which allows them to operate all on their own with the goal of restoring order so that society does not collapse into lawlessness (Game description part). The game is set in New York City and you play as a Division Agent that tries to figure out how the Flu start and how you can stop it. You meet Faye Lau, who is basically your advisor due to your commander getting killed. She gives you various tasks that mostly are stopping certain enemy factions from destroying and taking over New York City. One mission that stands out is “Amherst’s Apartment” because you are searching for a virologist named Gordon Amherst. You are heading to his apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen are of the city. Once you get there, you discover that he created the Dollar Flu. You find out that another Division agent from the first wave of agents, who were sent to the city to try to help the remaining law enforcement in mid-Manhattan, kidnapped him. This agent was Aaron Keener. Keener felt as if the Division had left him for dead when he was trying to deal with enemy factions in Manhattan. This made him disavow the Division and become what is known as a rogue agent. They are cutoff from the Division network and are on their own. Due to them being rogue agents, their gear becomes red to let you know. The standard Division agent gear is contact lenses that become a user’s heads up display, a smart watch, and an ISAC brick that allows full use of ISAC. ISAC is an Intelligent System Analytic Computer. In a sense, it is a smart AI that helps a Division agent with communication and information. Now your goal is to find a cure for the dollar flu and stop Aaron Keener from weaponizing the virus.
The thing about that mission is that it is a surreal possibility that it could happen. It is not unlikely for someone to try to create a deadly disease and use it maliciously. A good example of this would be the subway terrorist attack in Tokyo, Japan. A group named Aum Shinrikyo used sarin gas in a train station in Tokyo, Japan which killed 12 people. This happened on March 1995(Tucker, Jonathan). This is not the first case of using biological or chemical agents to harm others. The earliest time was during World War I, which had the use of mustard gas. This chemical would burn the skin of anyone exposed to it. The Division is similar to this in some ways because the dollar flu killed a lot of people that were exposed to it, some areas were affected more than others. An example from the game that shows this are the contaminated zones in the Dark Zone. The Dark Zone in the Division is a zone from East 31st street to East 65th Street. It is known as the Dark Zone because that is where it is the most lawless area. It is almost like a no man’s land. Only Division agents who are well equipped may enter the Dark Zone. It is possible to scavenge for better gear there but there are also a lot more danger compared to outside the Dark Zone. The Dark Zone was also the first place that quarantined people who caught wind of the Dollar flu. It was the epicenter that became worse. This is a good example of how The Division is a Science Fiction media that shows the dystopic version of what can possibly happen in our world. It is not impossible to have a person in the world just decide to engineer a virus that can kill. The Dollar flu in the game is a genetically engineered version of smallpox. It was engineered to spread even easier and with a higher lethality rate. If somehow someone got a sample of a virus and they had enough knowledge they could in theory do the same thing as what Gordon Amherst did in the Division. Another thing that is possible would be the technology that the Division agents use. They basically have access to a supercomputer that can get them whatever information they need. Something in the real world that would be similar is basically a smart AI or Artificial Intelligence. In the game, ISAC has access to government and military information and was also capable of accessing all camera systems so that an agent can use that to recreate a virtual recreation of what happened. In the real world, we probably have sometime far less advanced as this but with the way how technology is improved, it is not impossible for people to create an AI similar to or exactly like ISAC. Google is similar to ISAC in the way that you can just ask it questions and it will give you an answer. Google Assistant would probably be the closest to ISAC because it can recognize voices and identify whose voice it is. It can also give information that you may not think you need. ISAC can also be compared to JARVIS from Marvel’s Iron Man. The only difference would be that ISAC does not have a personality or charm like how JARVIS has. The Division is just one of many examples of Science Fiction that can be possible. A darker dystopic version of what can happen from a pandemic.
In the end, The Division is a grim look at how the world reacted to a sudden pandemic. It is also highly possible to create the gadgets that Division agents used in the game. We have things that are really similar. Maybe in a few years of so, we may even see an artificial intelligence just as capable as ISAC. This video game is the apocalyptic version of a pandemic in New York City. It is also futuristic with its use of gadgets that, in today’s world are not so far off. These is also a second game which is similar to the first, but it takes place in Washington D.C instead of New York City. It takes places seven months after the first game and you are sent to Washington because the network that runs ISAC is offline, and you find that the White House is under attack. Most government officials are dead or missing, so you really see how the order in the world has turned into chaos. Hopefully, The Division just stays being a Science Fiction video game and not a look into a dark future.
Work Cited
- Entertainment, Massive. “Tom Clancy’s The Division.” Game [PC]. Montreuil: Ubisoft (2016).
- Tucker, Jonathan B. “Historical trends related to bioterrorism: An empirical analysis.” Emerging Infectious Diseases 5.4 (1999): 498.
