Steve and I went back to Building 32 to interview ORCHID team members Nadia Pantidi and Joel Fischer from the University of Nottingham about their disaster response research. It was terrifically interesting. Nadia talked about her study of a training exercise at Fort Widley in Texas for urban search and rescue responders and her work with the Hampshire fire and rescue service on how they assess their tactical command structures using role play. Joel told us more about the AtomicOrchid mixed reality game and how well the use of algorithm-based agents at the tactical level of command went down with real-live people in the field. It reminded us that the use of scenarios in disaster response training is, like many video games, psychologically compelling because it draws on common fantasies of destruction. Its simulations have an uneasy – and sometimes uncanny – relationship with reality to the extent that they carry with them archaic notions of ‘tempting fate’.
See http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/10/july7.uksecurity2