SECTION ONE
PRELUDE TO THE GAME
On days designated as “week ends” certain humans, we designate as Participants, can be found gathering in wooded areas. The Participants carry heavy bags of equipment to small cleared areas, we call the Gathering Area, where they remove each piece of equipment, talk about it at great lengths and place it aside. The first few hours is occupied with scooping brightly coloured orbs from plastic bag-lined cardboard boxes and placing them in plastic pods. The size of these pods seem to be in indirect proportion to the participant’s prowess in the game. The more skilled the player, the smaller the pod. The players with the smaller pods are viewed with some awe and reverence, but not to the point of worship.
The form of worship is done in a special area where Participants fire their projectile firing devices over The Holy Box. After every shot they bow to the Box, staring intently at a small read out screen. When the Box displays an appropriate blessing, the player returns to the Gathering Area.
Participants are extremely religious and superstitious. They wear special masks in any area outside of the Gathering Area. This is presumedly because they believe that evil spirits live in the spaces outside of the sacred Gathering Area and the mask conceals their faces so the spirits cannot recognize them and cannot thus steal their souls. Participants also insert a plugging device into the end of their projectile firing devices. It is presumed that it holds the blessing, given to them by the Box, inside the device. The plug is removed only in areas outside of the Gathering Area, where the Participants play the game, obviously to release the blessing as the game commences.
SECTION TWO
THE PARTICIPANTS
There appears to be two groups of participants, Penitents and Players. They are both governed by a group we have designated Wardens. The Wardens can be identified by the article of fluorescent clothing they wear.
The groups can be easily identified. The Players all bring their own equipment and wear apparel unique to every individual. They also display tribal affiliation badges. The Penitents are those who come to the gathering place with no equipment whatsoever. Because of this, they are punished.
The Wardens issue all of the Penitents with identical clothing and equipment. The Players wear and carry a bewildering variety of apparel and equipment. This is why the conclusion is made that those who are given apparel and equipment, which is identical, is interpreted as a form of punishment. The removing of a Participant’s individuality is apparently essential to the punishment process.
The Players segregate themselves from the Penitents, the same way children avoid those who have been scolded in public. Whether it is from embarrassment or from fear of being punished themselves, they voluntarily separate themselves from the Penitents.
The penitents are then grouped together and officially admonished by the Wardens, although some Players will attend this group admonishment. (This may indicate that the Players in question may be on some sort of probationary period.) The Penitents are treated as if they have never participated in the game before and each piece of equipment is explained in detail to them.
Once the group admonishment is completed, the Players and Penitents assemble in their own separate groups and venture into the wooded areas.
Some times, when Penitents are to be severely punished, Players are allowed to participate in the same group. This is obviously used to teach the Penitents a very harsh lesson. Penitents are constantly outmatched by the Players. This may be part of the ritual of punishment, the Penitents becoming supplicant to the punishment handed out by the Players. However, some Penitents are less than willing to accept their fates and insist on avoiding the punishment, by engaging in the ritualistic combat with the Players.
SECTION THREE
THE GAME
The game is ritualistic combat, where no Participant is intentionally harmed by their adversaries. There is also no animosity harboured between the Participants. This is evidenced by the fact that all Participants actively interact when the ritualistic combat has concluded. The Participants are divided into two groups of adversaries, each group proudly displays their tribal colour in the form of an armband. Each group, or Tribe, has a brightly coloured piece of cloth, usually rectangular, that matches the Tribe’s arm band.
Each Tribe is escorted by the Wardens to opposite ends of an area delineated by brightly coloured ropes and told to wait in the area they were escorted to. In this area, each Tribe formulates their battle plan and hangs their Tribal Banner. The Wardens then group the participants around the TRibal Banner and announce the start of the ritualistic combat with a countdown and then a loud signal. The participants rush out of their starting area towards their adversaries.
The ritualistic combat is very structured, and each participant has their own role to play. Some have been designated to stay behind and guard the Tribal Banner, some are designated to rush forwards and engage the adversaries immediately, others break off on their own and wander aimlessly. This aimless walking, while appearing to the untrained observer to have no purpose, obviously does have purpose as it happens so often.
When adversaries encounter each other they shoot at each other with highly specialized projectile firing devices. They are specialized because unlike other human projectile firing devices, these are non-lethal. When a participant is hit, a bright coloured mark is displayed on the Participant’s person and they leave the field of mock combat.
The objective is to capture the opposing Tribe’s Banner and return it to hang in display with their own Tribal Banner. The victory is purely symbolic as the banner is returned to the tribe after the ritualistic conflict has concluded.
SECTION FOUR
OBSERVANCES
1. Unlike other encounters where projectile firing implements are used, no one appears to get hurt. It is assumed that this non-lethal from of ritualistic combat is in a testing phase to replace more lethal forms of adversarial conflicts.
2. Governments find this form of adversarial conflict less desirable than the lethal forms. The observations of this group prove this theory. Governments often engage in lethal forms of adversarial conflicts but legislate against this non-lethal form. Perhaps it is also a form of religious persecution. Superstitions are not widely accepted and governments may be attempting to discourage the thoughts of Boxes giving blessings and spirits stealing souls if the person’s face is not covered.
3. The non-lethal ritualistic combat, called “paintball” is gaining public acceptance. Most industrialized nations now have “paintball fields” and government legislation has relaxed somewhat. It could be that paintball may replace lethal forms of adversarial conflict in a few decades. Former enemies now compete against each other in an air of friendly competition. It is this observer’s opinion that First Contact should only be initiated by the Guild when paintball replaces lethal adversarial conflict.
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