Overview
The narrator of “Network States” is the unnamed journalist who investigates HOIMMRT, a real-time online role-playing project built around a simulated World War II. He presents the story as an article based on events between August 12, 2023 and June 1, 2024.
Biography
The narrator learns about HOIMMRT from his former roommate Joanna Kim, who connects him to Harold Vaunnett. He meets Harold at a San Francisco workplace and begins recording interviews about the game, its factions, and its real-time structure.
During the article, the narrator speaks with Allied players, enters Axis online spaces, and follows the East Asian HOIMMRT communities through translation tools and private platform access. He attends an Axis strategy call and travels to Boise to meet BigIron6, the leader of the in-game Third Reich faction.
When Trapgate begins, the narrator monitors several online war rooms through the night and watches the German invasion of the Soviet Union unfold through a stream. He experiences the simulation as something closer to news than a game, while also recognizing that no one is dying in the simulated war.
He is last seen at a BurgerTime party in Mountain View with Harold. There he watches the American faction announce entry into the war and concludes that HOIMMRT exists in a third state between true war and true peace.