We humans are territorial creatures, like many other mammals, and we've demonstrated this throughout history by waging wars to conquer land and exercise power over it. This is nothing new. We all recognize this perpetual reality. We've been doing it for millennia, and we continue today; the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Sudanese Civil War, the Gaza-Israel conflict, and many more. Conflicts over land and resources remain as present as ever. In this brief essay, I will examine how human territorialism is relevant and depicted in popular culture, more specifically in video games. While doing so, I want to explore the themes of power and isolation, but more specifically, the player's intimate sense of dominion over space and time within the universe of a video game. There are many titles I could include as examples, such as Civilization, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations, Far Cry and Empire Earth. However, I'll focus on just one: Generation Zero.

I first played Alan Wake back in 2014, hard to believe that's eleven years ago. I remember being drawn in by its gripping, story-driven gameplay. Recently, I decided to revisit it, and honestly? It still holds up remarkably well.

Even the graphics, while dated in places, don’t feel jarringly old. There’s a certain charm in how it all comes together, moody lighting, foggy forests, and that eerie, small-town atmosphere.

I’m the best programmer who can’t actually program. Yep, that’s me. I’ve managed to build my own little Bash script, thanks, of course, to one of my trusty AI sidekicks.

Let me introduce you to BookCLI—a minimalist bookmark manager for the Linux terminal.

Why BookCLI? If you've read any of my previous posts, you know I’m a bit obsessed with organizing my digital (and analog) life. That includes browser bookmarks; those little nuggets of useful links we swear we’ll revisit, then promptly forget.