Thread by @raguileramx

I was a a big fan of flight sims in the late DOS-era and I was reminded of one that was quite a hit at the time, Su-27 Flanker by SSI (1995). Anyway, here is a thread on how current Russian views on Ukraine existed well before anyone even knew who Putin was. /1 🧵

SSI was one of the biggest names in PC RPGs, being the company that had the Dungeons & Dragons license for much of the 80s. But it was also arguably the biggest name in wargaming. Su-27 came at a time when hyper-realistic flight sims were having a golden era. /2

SSI was not an established player in the flight sim market, in fact Su-27 was the only such game it ever sold. Lacking in-house flight sim talent, it was outsourced to an external developer, the Moscow-based Eagle Dynamics. This happened to be their first game too. /3

Su-27 game out to generally positive reviews, which praised its realism and accuracy but criticized its somewhat dated graphics and high learning curve: even the cockpit displays were in Russian with no option to switch them to English! /4

Still, it made quite a splash in 1995 particularly since few flight sims at the time let you fly Russian aircraft. It narrowly lost Computer Gaming World's Flight Sim of the Year award in 1996 to EF2000 (which yours truly was a massive fan of). /5

Anyway, 1995 was a time in which lots of videogames and movies had post-Cold War geopolitical rivalry scenarios and Su-27 was no exception. Its battleground was none other than the Crimea peninsula. /6

Now, flight sims back then had MASSIVE manuals, 100s of pages long that described everything from air combat tactics, how the avionics worked, specs of enemy and friendly aircraft, and lengthy historical backgrounds to the game's campaign. Here's the Falcon 4.0 manual: /7

So what was the story behind this game? Let's see from the manual itself. There is no mention of the Ukrainian cultural origins of the Crimea, simply its position as a territory fought by other empires. /8

Then there's the infamous "gift" argument, which again, denies Crimea any historical association with Ukraine. And obviously no mention of the forced resettlements that led to the Russification of the penninsula over time. /9

Then there's a discussion of the status of the "Russian" Black Sea Fleet. Although it was historically created in czarist Russia, the fact is this fleet was based in Ukraine, dependent on Ukrainian servicing, and likely had significant Ukrainian manning during the Soviet era. /10

Now we get a dose of victimization. The evil Ukrainian government abolished the Crimean Republic in 1995, which was formed from the Crimean Autonomous SSR. Not mentioned that it seceded in January 1991, before independence, and voted for Ukrainian independence (54%) too. /11

Here's the game's actual campaign storyline. Sound eerily familiar? Popular referendums for secession? A Russian naval landing to seize airfields? This reads nearly exactly the same as the "little green men" invasion of February 2014, except overtly. /12

The only remotely positive element of this campaign is that at least you could choose to play the Russian or Ukrainian sides (both, after all, fly Su-27s). But it's kind of obvious who they have framed as the villain of the storyline: Ukraine. /13

The point of this thread is to show that Putin isn't the only culprit of this war. Russian society has deeply rooted views of Ukraine being subservient to Russia in every way. These were not ignorant rural vatniks but above-average educated Russian game developers in 1995. /14

As an addendum, Eagle Dynamics continues to exist to this day (its founder Igor Tishin passed away in 2018), though it has since relocated to Switzerland... suspicious? They still to do flight sims, notably the DCS series which includes a Su-27 module. /15

Interestingly, an Eagle Dynamics developer was accused of smuggling F-16 technical information into Russia. Surprise, surprise. /16

Thread ends here. Hope you enjoyed it and, well, if you haven't done so, why not pick up and play a flight sim one day? They are great!✈️🕹️ /17

Btw, forgot to mention that Su-27 had a sequel, Su-27 Flanker 2.0 which came out in 1999. I actually did own this one though well after it came out, and I didn't really get into it that much. It also featured the Crimea in a nearly identical campaign. /18

Interestingly, the manual to Flanker 2.0 didn't really describe the hypothetical political tensions that led to the conflict. It was merely combat between Russia and Ukraine and left it at that (the background section was basically copy-pasted from the original). /19

As for DCS, take a guess where the main campaign is? Not Ukraine but a battleground more apt for the late 2000s... Georgia. Ok, now end thread! /20