I am looking for the name of a short story by a renowned sf writer where world violence and wars were eradicated by introducing pacific soccer-like competition around the world. But, as time passes, the competition became more and more aggresive with introduction of new rules and weapon systems and ended up in a global war.
-
Possibly similar question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/1626/… ?– CatijaCommented Sep 23, 2015 at 4:36
-
2@Catija - having posted that other question, I can confirm this is not the same story.– Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SECommented Oct 28, 2015 at 11:25
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
It's a short novel from Bernard Werber in "[L'arbre des possible][1]" ("The Tree of Possibilities" in English) and titled "Du Pain et des Jeux" ("Of Bread and Circuses")
Couldn't find an english site talking about it but this is the summary from the French wikipedia page:
Du pain et des jeux : dans le futur, afin de développer l'économie, divertir les gens et mettre fin aux guerres et à tous les conflits politiques, le football se développe pour se transformer en un sport extrême et mortel
Roughly translated, that comes out to:
Of Bread and Circuses: In the future, due to developments in the economy, soccer is used to resolve all wars and political struggles, but has turned into an extreme and deadly sport.
IIRC: soccer has become so popular that countries used it to solve their conflicts without killing anyone. The game was considered a little too simple so the federation changed the rules, augmenting the numbner of player, the field size (adding bunker, trees, lakes... to augment the strategy), letting players build a complex strategy, build fortifications, etc... eventually authorising players to kill each others
Finnaly, soccer matchs became a sort of mini war (with spies, missiles, traps, etc) watched by nearly all earthling on tv...
The full text of the book (the short story is page 132) in french : http://frekb.ru/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/9-french-Werber-Bernard-Larbre-Des-Possibles.pdf
-
2This isn't much of an answer as it stands. If you edit in a more detailed answer, it should be fine; otherwise, it might get deleted.– Rand al'Thor ♦Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 17:38
-
-
This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question, you can ask it by clicking Ask Question. You can also add a bounty to draw more attention to this question once you have enough reputation.– AncientSwordRage ♦Commented Oct 27, 2015 at 23:29