You must have heard about or even seen the glory of Resistance — field-arts (FA, pictures created with links and fields in Ingress). In Russia the scale of such FA can range from just Moscow to the area of the whole country. And now let us introduce the author, the initiator and the organizer (three-in-one) of those complex operations — meet @vikkichaplin!

Vika is the sentinel figure for the Russian and Moscow Resistance, being the author and initiator of huge field-arts, and an experienced organizer as well. Who would buy a smartphone for an agent in another town, because they can’t afford it themselves? Who would not only organize a field-art, but also create and give away swag for all the participants for free? Vika! Who would spend days on another difficult situation with a coming BAF operation? Vika! Who you gonna call in the middle of the night to sooth your aching heart with talks and cognac? Vika again and again.

— Hello, Vika! Can I ask you a few questions in the form of an interview?

— Hello! No problem! The main thing only that my answers would not harm the Resistance.☺

— How did you come into Ingress? When? How did you discover the game?

— My acquaintance with the game was really impressive (:facepalm:). In April 2013 I had just finished my work in two major events — the finals of the award “Citizen Initiative” and the national cinema award “Nika” (I am in the organization committees of both). So it was during my after-stress relief comedown that my relatives from Sochi, level 7 Res-agents at that time, came for a visit and told me about the game. It had been such a masterful presentation of the game that in the morning I woke up as one of the Resistance.☺

— Many people give up Ingress after their first look at the game or once they have reached level 8, considering it “the game finished”. How did the game hook you up, so that you decided to go on playing?

— I enjoy all forms of art. Some people can create culinary masterpieces, some are into cinema, my motto has always been “do what you can do best in life”, so when on level 5 I had for the first time connected several portals with triangles and it had turned into a recognizable picture, I realized that it was absolutely mine. So Sagdim and I finished our first ever accidental mini-field-art then.

— So, from the very beginning Ingress for you has been all about field-art?

— Actually, no. I have always looked at FA from the point of view of an artist who has something to say to the world. Moreover, I have always been pro-cross-FA, because two colours are more fun than just monochrome. And come to think about it, war is war, but art has always been there. Besides, Ingress brought us Anomalies. At that time, in 2013, I was in the Resistance team and drove my first shard all across Russia and Ukraine. Those were the hard times, as all the days were split between my job and Ingress, not a minute was left for my family life or plain sleep. My role was to be the negotiator, the diplomat: I had to persuade the Res-agents of the town, where the shard came into, to forego sleep and comfort and devote themselves to that battle for the shard. It was then that I had studied the regions of Russia. And I had come to know so many amazing people that after the shard I had an urge to replay operation “Diamond” on a far grander scale than my first local one. The operation unexpectedly turned into something that later became known as the meme — “Raise the**** Voronezh!” — in Zello.

— So you support the cross-faction — blue-green — field art (CFFA)?

— I have always been for the cross-faction relations outside the game. As for the game itself… Well, Ingress can be interpreted differently. Some believe in flipping of portals into their faction’s colour, some play for their heart’s sake, just walking along and doing whatever they personally think is best at the moment. Some create BAF operations (and again a lot variations here — either with unusual anchor portals, or for the maximum MU count)…As for me, I have realized that I do have something to tell the world using the Ingress language of FA. And if I can help it, the language of cross-faction field art.

In any case, I think that CFFA are beneficial to both factions in this game, because agents (people!) not only have an opportunity to create something beautiful together, but also demolish the wall of hatred and that terrible propaganda used by the Moscow Enlightened. They are the vociferous opponents of CFFA, and the rejection of not only CFFA, but also the opposing faction as such is at the foundation of the game for those Enlightened from the very beginning.

By the way, my first designed and planned field-art was a CFFA: “Moon Glory-of-the-Snow”, July 2013. “Today the blue and the green fought together against the blue and the green”, as I proclaimed then.

— And what was that notorious story with Voronezh?

— As I have said earlier, I had a wish to create the “Diamond” but on a greater scale than my original miniFA. First of all, I had gathered an org-chat with the regions, then the portals were chosen and the preparation began. Voronezh was strategically important for us, because there had been several crosslinks in its suburbs which were crucial for the success of our operation. They confirmed their participation. So on X-day I went to the middle of nowhere together with the blue combat-crews.

Actually, the meme was compiled from fragments wrenched from the context of all dialogues during the operation. The Sky (Intel Operator) informed me that Voronezh was out of touch. There were no crews of ours in the vicinity at the moment. I have been listening to that audio-file many times. I do not feel any shame for what I’d said then. I was ashamed in front of all the Res-agents from other regions, some of which had had to cover 500 km to one end just to take part in the operation. I had mixed emotions during that Zello talk — hurt, indignation, rage. No one had forced Voronezh into that operation, they could have just declined and I would have found other crews. But the operation turned out a mess only because of those crosslinks which no one had any opportunity to destroy at that moment. About a year later, I decided to replay the operation but managed to run into the same trap. It was a good lesson to me and an unforgettable experience. I am OK with that meme, even heard it in musical arrangement (the “enlightened” made me a present for the 8th of March (the International Women’s Day in USSR and now in Russia) two years ago). But walk a mile yourself in the shoes of the organizer responsible for dozens of people who had devoted their weekends to the operation, and then tell me — would you be less emotional about the whole thing? I think there wouldn’t be many ‘calm philosophers’.

And there is a third story about Voronezh. On May holidays in 2015 Moscow Resistance agents went to cover that glorious town. Some of the Voronezh Resistance knew about it, but chose not to come into contact. As a result, we had to flip a blue portal, which turned out to be the guardian one of a local Res-agent (though what kind of guardian it could be when it was only 20 days old and was a side-road portal with links). The local Resistance got offended, came up and flipped our own blue fields, all the while cooking up a tremendous shitstorm in COMM. ☺ Had we had any coordination between us, we could have changed the plan and no guardian portals would have come to harm. Later it became known that the portal in question was under a pact of non-destruction with the local Enlightened…

The story itself is not about the meme, but about the attitude of people to the operation they were invited to. Each of us has a freedom of choice in our deeds. And each of us must be responsible for our own actions and promises. It’s an all-human unspoken rule. The game just serves as a canary in a coal mine, it indicates our qualities, bares our merits and drawbacks.

More than two years have passed, and it is good to know that the Voronezh Resistance is very active now and enjoys operations and events. This is a true victory.☺

— Coming back to your first steps in Ingress — how did you get into the Res-chats and got acquainted with the Moscow community of agents? Did your Sochi relatives help?

— My brother sent me an invite (it was the time when Ingress registration was invite-only — a kind of a select club), showed me the game and flew back home. I was left alone in the open sea with just a plank to carry me… The task at hand was either to master the game, or realize that it wasn’t meant for me. And that’s how it all started… I was studying the game via all means available, but first followed my brother’s main guideline: find your area on the map, study it, find the agents who had deployed the resonators in the portals and contact them in the in-game chat. Thus I came to know amazing people and Resistance agents: skybug, Aer0, gefest100, rejii, Punnyo, can2, login40k, vizor101…

— Does it mean that your creative union with Aer0 (the author of many pictures for FA, in which you acted as an org) was formed in the very first days of your acquaintance with the game?

— Yes. ☺ By the way, before shard-battle in 2013, there had been an epic capture of NAR (Northern Administrative Region of Moscow). ☺ The region was green all through, there was no organized Resistance there. To be exact, there had been no straight region division in the city then, as is the situation now. The Res-agents just grouped around some dynamic core, in a more or less territorial fashion. Sagdim and I became the initiators of the raid with three main goals in mind:

·        liberation of the region;

·        leveling of Sagdim and me;

·        formation of the local resist-quorum to follow the raid, in order to raise the portals to level 8 and then have a get together to become fully acquainted and start proper coordination of game actions.

— Did it work?

— Quite well. Note that at that time the whole of NAR contained only 50 portals!

— Which FA were created and organized by you?

— “Midnight Silkmoth”. That operation was created to commemorate the victims of Boeing-777 flight MH17 crash in Donbass on 17 July 2014. In many legends of the world the butterfly is a symbol of soul. We wished hard for that one to fly. Authors: vikkichaplin, Aer0.

“Cloverleaf”. Idea: vikkichaplin, S3G4. Design: Aer0. Moral and psychological support: VadZay. Sega and I showed him the picture, and he responded that we were mad, as it required the WHOLE of MOSCOW to participate. I just nodded, and we plunged into the preparation. The operation got the name “Four-leaf Clover” and amazing agent Aer0 turned the sketch into a masterpiece.

“Snowflake”, 273 agents, 72 car crews. Idea: Fantasmagoriya, vikkichaplin. And I was the main org.

Maurice Maeterlinck “The Blue Bird”. More than 270 agents, 80 car crews. By the way, it was highlighted in the official Ingress media.

The idea of a similar Phoenix bird had come to mind of Fantasmagoriya a bit earlier and she had put it to life in Voskresensk. It was awesome.

In late Spring 2017 another grand FA took place (I was the org again): “Evgeny Schwarz The Ordinary Miracle”.

The latest of the series of complex Resist-FA was at night of 9-10th September 2017 — the photorealistic “Homeric Hymns_XXIII. To Zeus”. More than 300 participants.

“Urania” has a special place in my heart. Once I saw a wonderful project — a flying comet the size of a country. I saw it and realized that the project was bound to be brought to life. And I am happy that the FA was performed. It was unique in several aspects, one being its simplicity, and another that the seeming simplicity had turned out to be a real challenge to some of the FA Res-agents.

The scale of “Urania” was several orders above the previous operations. The clearance and linking were performed in eight time zones on 16th and 17th September. The participants from all over the country simultaneously watched the dusk, the dawn and the huge comet, which had united Europe and Asia. It is the largest-scale Ingress FA in the whole history of the game so far.

— Which operation do you consider your best?

— I love them all equally. They are mine, beloved, how can you tell which of your children is your most cherished one? And it is also hard to decide from the technical point of view. There is no end to perfection. Each time we finish an operation, we say: “Cool! It’s been a really cool operation!” and then — ta-dam — a new chapter, a new story, and we again plunge into the creation of something beautiful and complex.

— Which has been your happiest/worst experience in Ingress?

— The worst memories are those of that notorious operation, which started the meme. As for the happy moments — there have been a lot of them. One of the latest — the long-suffering paw from “The Ordinary Miracle”, which could not be linked because the agent responsible for it had problems with the traffic early in the weekend morning. The operation had been in full swing for several hours already, other zones had been fully linked, the picture had been almost finished, I could only pray for a miracle. And when it all had finally finished, I felt like I had never before: tears of joy, when after the several hour tension you suddenly reach the nirvana and you look on the scanner and do not believe your own eyes that, yes, we did it.

— Many players at a certain point experience the crisis and decide to stop playing. They delete their accounts or even flip so they “definitely won’t start all over again”. Have you ever felt the same? How did you overcome it?

— Yes, there was once a period when people in the game acted so wickedly and inadequately that my family suggested switching off the scanner forever. It might be that had I not been supported then by lots of guys who had seen and known the background of those events, guys who had become my support and defence against negativity, I would have left the game there and then. I don’t think that Resistance would have lost a lot in my case, but as for me, I would have never had a chance to create all these wonderful operations together with the Res-agents.

It is very important for me to remember that it is a game. It cannot take the first place in my existence, I have real life, family, job, close people and friends. And Ingress is a hobby, so it must give positive emotions. If at some moment a person understands that the game had lost its appeal, then it is time to switch off the scanner and move back to real life 100%. But only four and a half years have passed ☺ since I started the game, so I don’t feel ready to start living without Ingress.

— What would you recommend to a beginner agent, who hasn’t yet found their role in the game and the community?

— Go and try different things; take part in raids and operations, when invited, to feel yourself a part of the team, and don’t be afraid to ask questions about the game. At some point a person realizes what is the closest thing for them in Ingress. Maybe, having tried different roles, they would realize that solo is their preferred option. Or would binge-play on Anomalies and Mission Days. Or would cover our whole planet with a single field (larger than operation URSA MAJOR). The main idea is that the game must be for fun. So, maybe, the most important recommendation is “if you want to do something — do it”. I enjoy sharing my experience with agents who wish to do things.

— Thank you very much! We wish you further fruitful creation!

— Thank you! ☺ And yes, the last thing: my friends, it is important to always remember that in Ingress and in chats we are people first, so we must be responsible for our actions and words! Vive la résistance!

P.S. At the time of the interview I was visiting the amazing town of Murmansk and its Murman-Res-agents and agentesses.

Interview performed by @Victorusys, compiled and translated by @SigynFocshea.

To learn more about FA, please visit The Golden Age of FA on G+.