Tora! Tora! Tora! Tora! Alternate Pearl Harbors
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. . . .
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves."
-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, address to Congress, December 8, 1941It is the sixtieth anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Each of these castles in the air of entertainment builds on a foundation of tragedy -- but build we must, if we ever want to see anything but ruins. Like comedy, gaming about tragedy requires time, and time is what this column aims to provide. Four times, in fact, four alternate histories of varying weirdness, each one coming in low under the realism radar to hit history at its weakest point. In each, Pearl Harbor remains the irreducible target of multiversal aggression; awakening across time for its date with infamy.
"Placed in difficulties from which we could not extricate ourselves with honor and justice, compelled to immediate decision,and threatened with immediate hostilities we have, with the advice and consent of our . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: December 7, 2001
Copyright © 2001 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.
