Even if, ES didn't copy you or your idea, even if they don't acknowledge anything, I can say that the idea, copied or not, is a very good one.

So I guess I'll congratulate you on thinking up such an awesome theme. As I play the Warchiefs I really get the feeling for it, *thumbs up*.

Thanks Elpea. I appreciated your post. Have you gotten a chance to play yet? I'll be able to play it soon.

As to Microsoft or Ensemble contacting me, they never bothered. No one ever contacted me or even asked if I at least wanted a free copy. Your the only person who responded. Brazilians are very nice and polite people.

As a Native American / Latino - I should be used to things like this ... sigh.

The only advice I can give to gamers is don't ever offer these big corporations your idea with out some kind of pre-agreed contract. <-------- very important.

I only wanted to inspire them to think differently, outside of the status quo box. And imagine what it is to be on the other side of conquest. I did that instead of crying out "racist". That much I did for the sake of being holistically productive, and it worked - so I can't complain much.

It is still nice to know that such a game exists. I just have two more web projects to finish before I can go out and buy this game. I should be able to have it in less than 40 days.

The other day I saw "Pirates of Silicon Valley", and it hit me. You now the movie about Bill Gates and Steven Jobs and how Mr Gates is all about stealing ideas and making money with them. I couldn't help but think if this tactic is also practiced by Ensemble under Microsoft in 2006.

Spooky cause I am not Apple. I'm not even the guy who sold DOS for $50,000 to Microsoft - I'm just a struggling web designer who lives in a room and who sometimes only gets to eat toast for dinner.

Real spooky. I'll lock my window and door tonight. Enjoy the game.

CheTzu

"Freedom can not be given - it can only be taken" - Fanon

Firstly, well done on your idea, a year back.

But don't you think that there might just be a chance that they thought of the idea themselves? Hell they might of had the idea in mind whilst making AoE3. The thought of being able to play as natives crossed my mind several times when playing the vanilla version and I had never read your post before so I'm pretty sure it cropped up in the developers minds.

To be honest the fact that "at the very least" you expect a free copy of the game is ridiculous, why?

1) They quite possibly could of thought have it themselves as stated above.

2) Even if they did read it, why would they give you a free copy? Really, look at the rest of the forum, it's filled with lots of fan ideas for the next Age game. Just because they happened to choose one similar to yours that doesn't entitle you to a free copy of the game by any means.

Nice idea, don't flatter yourself too much.

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There's nice people everywhere.

Good luck with your job.

Aside from the use of Native American civs in Warchiefs, I'm not quite sure that I understand why you believe Ensemble stole your idea? It seems to me that their only options for the X-pack were:

More European civs

Asian civs

Natives from the Americas or Africa

I would agree that their choice of the last option validates your idea, but it doesn't seem credible to suggest that they copied it simply because they chose to offer Natives as a civ choice. It was one of a limited number of realistic options they could offer.

Quoted from CheTzu:

AOE III was a very racist game and insulting to all the indigenous folk of this half of the planet!

I guess everyone's entitled to their opinion, but this seems like a very unfair charge. I think that ES merely stuck with a colonial theme pre-X-pack. It was a decision driven by financial reasons (shared art assets, thematic consistency, etc.) rather than some hidden racist subtext. They can't include everything, so playable Native Americans for an X-pack were a perfect compliment to the original Europe-heavy theme.

---

Strategies:
- BWKiC - A British Fast Fortress strategy
- The Aztec Scout Slam- An Envoy Rush, Native-Style

Well CheTzu, legally ES are really not obliged to give you anything unless you can prove that they used your idea for influence, which i think you will have trouble doing...

however, I'm sure that the folk at ES are good people, and if you contact them (and they really DID use your idea for inspiration) then they will happily discuss the matter with you.

Also I'm interested to know why you though AOEIII was a racist game? Is it because of the stereotyped portrayal of the native americans, and their relative lack of contribution to the games' outcome? Look beyond the natives and you will see that almost every civilisation could be labelled 'stereotypical'. Are we to also to take offense to the fact that the Ottomans lose the campain, due to some 'Islamaphobia' that ES possesses... or to take Russia's weak military units as an offensive remark that the Russians are poor fighters? By your logic this would be so, there really is nothing AOEIII portrays about the native civs that they do not about the Europeans... I recall some very critical comments about the British/French/Spanish in the campaign, I really cannot conclude anything other than that the game is, if anything, more critical of European imperialsim than it is dismissive of native culture... The American indians were shown in a very favourable light if you ask me.

Just so you know (don't want to start a discussing or anything) ES were considering(sp?) having natives as a civ in vanilla version, they agreed not too, they also had Native Americans working on it and asked oter native Americans about it.

Edit: I highly doubt Microsoft would even say you helped the idea they ask a mod for C&C generals, to stop in a way it sounded likea death threat to the leader and his/her family.

[This message has been edited by Joeking14 (edited 10-23-2006 @ 02:51 PM).]

Not to mention you can't legally get anything. Nobody owns ideas.

Yes they do, but only once they copywrite or patent them

They're not simple ideas anymore, they're usually plans for devices. If he had gone to the patent office to patent his native civs idea, I'm betting they would have ignored him.

They didnt copy your idea... The xpack was most likely well underway by the time the first game came out....

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I doubt very much that they copied your idea as from what I recall reading they had thought about having Native Civilizations as early as the AoE III planning stages (and personally I would have taken the Inca, Aztec, Iroquois, or Sioux over the Ottomans any day of the week).
Really when it comes down to it, it was purely common sense to add Native Civilizations, and I just hope that Warchiefs is successful enough that they consider making another expansion that adds the Incas and more.

However, given we are in the days of multi-million dollar game budgets where large portions of those funds are devoted to creating ever increasing amounts of art content (unit models, world models, map models, textures for all those models, bump maps for all those models, animations for all moving models, hundreds of tree and plant models, etc), it would have been extreamly expensive for them to make three Civilizations with building and unit sets as compltely different as we have in the Warchiefs (ever notice how many unit models/skins and buildings are reused across all European civilizations in AOE III, now you know why: limited budgets ).
The only way ES could have avoided it was perhaps if they had reduced the number of civilizations (and probably native allies) in AOE III even more than they had to in the first place. Such a move could have been a disaster for a game company.. which in the end.. has to make large amounts of money to continue creating games.

And finally, the beginning of development for Warchiefs most likely (I would say it definatly did) pre-dates your post, as no games, not even expansion packs are made in less than a year anymore .

Such 'coincidences' as Natives having an agricultural advantage are basically historical fact (and thus, not really a sign they copied anyone, only that they read a history book).

Taken from your other post:

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From my reading the vast majority of those Natives of the Americas from 50% to as high as 95% died as a result of contact with Eurasian diseases. Europeans didn't even know they were bringing that plight to the Americas, and they didn't know the absolutely devasting effect it would have on the people there either.
That period in history was a time when the devasting first contact and the transpher of diseases was inevitable, and if wasn't Europeans, it could just as easily have been the Chinese (and if had been, would things have turned out any better?).

I'm not sure if a horrible accident qualifies as an intended holocaust.

[This message has been edited by Tb0ne (edited 10-24-2006 @ 00:42 AM).]

Consider the Indian Wars and other events in the 19th century by the USA, tb0ne.

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Something similar to this is what I view the revolution as, I just love the idea of being able to revolt specially using Santander , btw to those of you who have played what flag do you get when rebelling with Satander???

Umm buddy there really was only three viable options, natives, more europeans (italians, sweeds, ect.) or asian civs.

Since we were told it was to take strictly in the USA, we knew it would only be natives and/or europeans, so maybe it's just by chance/coicidence.

But it should also be known that you took no action to copyright or protect the idea, did you? Otherwise, without legally making it yours, it's not.

Wow! Thank you all for responding. It means allot to me.

OK ...

First off - I'm not concerned with a legal battle or copyrights or what have you. I already turned down a crew of young lawyers who finally stopped calling me. I rather spend time with my girlfriend. So calm down. A free game is all I hinted to ask for. In my heart I feel like I deserve a whole new computer designed to play the game. But whatever. Maybe a mere "thank you" for the idea is enough. I already thanked the powers that be for making it.

It is real intriguing to me how folks are moved to imagine and assume that Ensemble thought about it before I did and that I must be crazy.

Perhaps they did! Lol. But in reality ...

As far as I know and as far as you all know ... all of the suggestions made by this community for the new expansion pack did not hit the mark the way mine did.

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=9,28348,,10

No one can argue that. But to assume that the ideas for the expansion pack was already chosen before October 27 of 2005 is nothing but an assumption. You are all trying to make it look like fact - and trying hard too.

The "assumption" was not that Native Americans were going to be the focus on the expansion pack. Not at all. Who told who that it was only strickly about the United States? The stage for this game takes place on one whole half of planet Earth.

That link above is why folks are saying there were only three options. The natives, more Europeans or Asians. Well there were more options than that, it's that mine is dead on.

I made my argument a year ago with the assumption that the expansion pack will most likely end up being more European countries and the Independence movements of the Americas with a continued racist misrepresentation of the First Nations.

I think that was the "assumption" a year ago. Here is the link to those ideas. Mine are also included.

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=9&tn=21648&f=9,,,10&st=150

Read my original post and how this community responded to get a better idea at what the TRUE ASSUMPTION was back then. Many thought it "impossible", "unlikely", or "unrealistic".

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=9,25490,,10

Is it possible that anyone could of came up with the idea of native Americans being the focus of the expansion pack?

Perhaps. My friends think like I do, somewhat.

Is it possible that anyone could of came up with the idea of Mestizos playing a part?

Perhaps.

Is it possible that anyone could of chosen the Independence leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean like Haiti to be on equal field with George Washington?

Perhaps.

Is it possible that anyone could have imagined Aztecs would get advantages in more units and other such details?

Perhaps.

I could go on, but just go read the original posts and compare that to the game play. Because some one thought it first - Evidence points to me.

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=9,25490,,10

Listen to some people here ... who even dispute the Native American Holocaust and the African Holocaust trying to justify it with truely wacky logic. And then some of you act as if my idea was just the natural next step for an expansion pack?! "Don't flatter yourself". Most of you who put thought to it, wanted more United States to be represented. LMAO!

I know this community is different from the actual game designers ... yet, it is still in the family.

Moving out side of the realm of details which you should read before you assume that I am crazy for believing my ideas was the ideological and strategic influence/blueprint for "War Chiefs" - the basic idea of representing the view of resistance from Native Americans and Mestizos to balance the "racist" perspective of conquest and colonizing was the main argument I made. It is a wise move to have adopted my "Colonial Resistance" for "War Chiefs" to shield the corporation from accusations of "racism" - which can be easily made by activists and web designers and Microsoft haters and a whole Universe of folk around the world.

I'm not going to respond as to why I thought the original AOE3 to be racist. My refusal to respond to that, I hope will move you to read the original thread for ...

... Age of Empires III "Colonial Resistance" - 2005.

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=9,25490,,10

sincerely,
CheTzu

p.s. Yamato Take also deserves a little thank you. I mean really. The only other dude who put thought to Indegenous folk, except that he went global. Since I am so influential(sarcasm), I believe AOE4 designers should take a serious look into his idea. But if you do, let him know and appreciete the time he took to CONTRIBUTE. It encourages a community such as this to step up and be a community.

http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=9,28348,,10

[This message has been edited by CheTzu (edited 10-24-2006 @ 03:27 PM).]

I think you take the game to seriously to take your comments seriously.

It's a game! It's for fun!

You want to start taking objection to games for what you think is racism or slighting of anyone? I'm sure you can find problems with a LOT of games out there.

As for crediting you, or anyone for ideas for TWC... Ensemble HAS done so. They just haven't done it to specific people because that would simply take too long. They state specifically that a LOT of the ideas for TWC came from the AOE3 community posts, and I'm sure they look here as well as at AgeCommunity.
If that isn't thanks enough for you, well, I'm afraid you expect too much of yourself.

^ Ditto.

Maybe they did get the idea from your post. Maybe they didn't. It's a mere question of chance; whether or not they happened to see your post and, if so, when they actually saw it. We don't know, and we may never know...I suppose we could ask, but they might not remember...

I remember a simple example of such chance. Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison both designed the incandescent lamp, almost simultaneously and with absolutely no knowledge of each other's existance during the design process. Yet, the structure for the idea was nearly identical...It is possible that you and ES had some sort of "parallel logic" in your thinking such as these men had.

Either way, however, I personally commend you for flawlessly predicting, with no hard evidence, the subject of the expansion pack. You are obviously rather wise, and you deserve compliments of the gaming community, but all we're saying is that you shouldn't expect more than that. If you did indeed inspire the subject, you must be aware of the "sterility" of modern companies. It is likely they would not recognize you or credit you specifically, simply due to the way the system works.

You don't know if they got the idea from you. All you have is your opinion that they did. Case closed.

Your self-pitying "well, I'm used to not getting credit being a native american" bullshit has turned me completely against you.
Whether ES were inspired by your post, or whether the much more likely eventuality happened is irrelevant.

Time for some more serious rebuttal:

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The massive irony here is that you are assuming Ensemble Studios read and stole ideas from one very specific post from yours, rather than independently thinking of the rather obvious setting and idea of Native Americans.

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...
...
...
Obviously.
Ensemble Studios never disadvantage a particular civ due to their inferiority in real life. You didn't think of that idea.

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Scuse me?

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Evidence does not point to you.

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Age of Empires III simply is not racist. What you "think" is irrelevant to fact.

Another interesting point is that (after reading your idea over) The Warchiefs differs from it vastly. it includes many things you did not think of, and misses out many things. How you have come to the conclusion that they saw your idea and stole it is beyond me. Well, it's delusional.

You're a pretentious self-important fool. Get over yourself.

[This message has been edited by Shrink (edited 10-24-2006 @ 05:32 PM).]

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Wow! Lawyers!? I'm impressed! ... Not. What's the point in even posting that?

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Yet you spend time posting these replies and complaints?

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A free game? Wow okay, how about I say that I knew titans were going to be introduced in the expansion pack of age of mythology and started generating ideas in which eventually ended up being in the real game announced a few months later, although the game was already being created months before I posted my ideas?! I certainly deserved a copy of the game too then!

Sorry man, but seriously, there were only so many options for an expansion pack, if we all had the option to guess and if we are right get a free copy of the game ES would get no revenue because 1/3 of their customers would get it for free.

And who are these "powers"? If anything WE are the powers since if we aren't pleased with the outcome of their work, then WE don't buy it and WE don't use our money and then they have no business.

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Only because that's exactly how you portrayed the situation. You arrogance doesn't help.

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Lol ... No.

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You DO know how probability works, right? Out of all of ES' fans I'm sure one person was as close as their ideas, that just happens to be you. Not to mention, as I already said, it's not like ES just pulls these ideas out of their hat. It's based on history and almost all fact, with some gameplay twists to make the game more entertaining. So there really was a small ballpark in which they had to work with for new material. Like I said, coicidence.

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Oh yes, but they were. No way in hell ES could have had ALL that material to show off when they first announced the game back in early Spring, if they had not started brainstorming and "pre-writing" before or around the release of the original game. By that point they were actually very close to completing the core of the game, what takes the rest of the time is campaign and finishing touches.

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Buddy, it takes place almost all in North America, which runs from Canada down to Mexico. North America constitudes a mere 10-15% of Earth's landmass.

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See, probability.

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Must I show you the door?

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You just trip over yourself here with supposedly, "specific", examples so I'm not going to break each one apart. But, concerning racism, you DO realize that ES tries to keep their games REALISTIC, and you DO know that racism was obviously an issue at the time, as it still is today in many places in the world.

Overall, I think your completely crazy. You didn't copyright the idea, it's not yours. So next time, if you feel someone is going to steal your idea, then COPYRIGHT it. Otherwise, your basically throwing it out there for others to take, interpret and discuss. It is a PUBLIC place, a wealth of knowledge.

CheTzu,

I have no doubt that some of the ideas you meantioned in TWC were inspired by and were borrowed from the ideas in your topic.

Why? Because this is not the first time I've seen this happened!!

In Nov. 2001, I created a topic at AoMHeaven (Age of Mythology) asking people to contribute ideas on what Godpowers they can come up with for AoM (the original game).

Here is a Godpower that was suggested in the topic (Nov. 2001):
Chaos - Casted from a distance and affect over a small area. The affected units will turn against their owner and allies.
The power stops when: a) the units are killed or b) after time
--------------------------------------

Anyone who has ever played AoM expansion: The Titans (released in Nov. 2003), might recognize the "Chaos" godpower .

Could it be that the idea for the same Godpower with the same name... and characteristics... which was created 2 years before... in a forum where the ES designers visit and read a lot... be a "coincidence" or "ES could have simultaneously came up with that"?!?

I don't think so!

Anyhow, I thought it's just fun that I brought this up, and to let CheTzu know that I believe what you've said here. However, one thing that I thought wasn't very wise on your part was to say that you deserved a free copy of TWC. I'm surprised you haven't been flamed to ashes .

PS: CheTzu, if you feel that you've got the creativity, inspiration, and enthusiasm, why not try a shot at applying for a small position at ES? If they seemed to like those ideas from you, who knows what can happen?

Quoted from www.ensemblestudios.com:

careers page

ES doesn't really read the forums often to be honest, and when they do and spot a small idea they probably will take it into consideration if they think it's a good one. But, you are posting on a public forum, NOTHING posted here is YOURS. They are free ideas really.

Quoted from CheTzu:

Wait, so you called lawyers over this? Or maybe an RTS-playing law firm was surfing AoE3Heaven, saw your forum post, and called you? How did it come to pass that this obscure forum post set the legal community abuzz?

Quoted from CheTzu:

If I were Ensemble Studios, I would not feel especially compelled to offer a free computer to someone who accused my employees of being a pack of racist plagiarists! But that's just me.

Quoted from CheTzu:

Sandy Peterson created the game as he wanted it to be without worrying about whatever ideas I, you, or anyone else had. This is the guy who created the Rise of Rome and Conquerors expansion packs. I think he created precisely the game he wished to without desperately turning to internet forums for ideas.

Quoted from CheTzu:

"Racism" is a very serious charge (as is "plagiarism"), yet you level these accusations cheerfully and repeatedly at Ensemble Studios (on an ES game fansite, no less.) And with no compelling case for either charge.

I don't want to slam you here, but no one stole your idea. ES obviously liked the idea of using natives, and it's wonderful that you also liked this (fairly obvious) idea. But the sense of entitlement this has apparently given you is totally unjustified.

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True, but really disease was by far the biggest killer. I'm not saying that makes what happened after any less wrong or right, I'm just unconfortable with the word holocaust being used to describe millions of people naturally dying of disease.

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CheTzu, take this from someone who works in the videogame industry (not for ES) and I'm basically just repeating what I said in my earlier post: no high level games, not even expansion packs are made in less than one year anymore. And so, the beginning for the production of Warchiefs probably pre dates you post by 6 months or more.. heck.. the first stages of planning for Warchiefs probably began in the final phases of production for Age of Empires III. Those common ways of doing things, are found across the games industry.

Call it an 'assumption' I call it an educated guess from someone who knows what he's talking about. There is a process to games development that you clearly do not understand.

You best bet to get a new computer is to get a job, and unfortunatly your lawsuit would probably be laughed out of court if you actually went ahead with it.

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You are taking a videogame far too seriously.
Do you honestly believe the folks are Ensemble Studios set out to make a game that is racist towards First Nations?
If you bothered to read interviews with developers found on various AoE websites, you would learn that ES went to great lengths to avoid that. They consulted heavily with First Nations people employed by their parent company Microsoft, and both agreed the method they used to represent Natives fit as well as possible in the context of a videogame and within sensitivity to First Nations peoples .

Sure, in the game they are just passive tribes waiting for a Trading Post to be built near their settlement, but that has much more to do with the fact it is a videogame (and fitting with gameplay innovations introduced in Warcraft III), and probably absolutely nothing to do with them intending to insult First Nations people.
As someone of partial First Nations ancestry myself, I think you are being overly sensitve.

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Thing is, those are hardly orignal ideas, that's just history fit into the context of a videogame.
There were only so many French colonies in the Americas that had Revolutions. Quebec didn't have one, neither did Louisiana, or Acadia, they were either conquered by the British or bought by the United States.
And so, the number of 'Revolutionary Generals' to draw from in history is limited. Which is why you see Simon Bolivar as a revolutionary choice only for Russia and Germany. Or Bernardo O'Higgins as a Revolutionary choice for the Ottomans.

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Stating that the vast majority of First Nations were first killed unintentionally by disease isn't 'wacky logic', it is fact (minus the alleged instances it was done intentionally, however for the vast overwealming majority it was unintentional).
This spread of disease would have happened if Europeans had traveled to the Americas purely for the purposes of trade. As in history entire tribes were decimated by Eurasian diseases before Europeans had even encountered them.
First contact was inevitable, and so Europeans should not be condemned for unintentionally bringing diseases to the Americas.
What happened later, cannot by justified or excused, but it can be understood in the context of what the world was like 500-100 years ago and throughout human history.

Let's look at the definitions for holocaust:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/holocaust

2. The state-sponsored mass murder of an ethnic group

-Was it state-sponsored mass murder, or was it conquest?
-Could it be considered both?
-If it is both, wouldn't any war of conquest be considered a holocaust?
-Could it have been considered a holy war?
-In what context do we see the massacres of European settlers by First Nations, is that too considered an attempted Holocaust, self-defense, or conquest?
-Can the Aztec empires use of mass human sacrifice be considered a public holocaust against ethnic groups that opposed them?

3. An atrocity committed on a group of people.

-Definatly fits this defition. Both sides commited atrocities however.

4. The “Final Solution”, a euphemism used by the Nazis to describe the shipping of Jews to concentration camps and burned in large crematoriums

-Reservations might be considred a type of concentration camp, however the intention behind them wasn't entirely bad. The way they were handled by Canadian and American governments in some cases might be considered criminally neglegent however.

In the end, this entire horrible story of the conquest/holocaust/colonization of the Americas isn't a story of how horrible Europeans are (and their descendents). It is the story of humanity, which is a ever-growing book written in the blood of conquest, conflict, and competition for resources (and land).