Launched in the 1990s, the very first Civilization is widely regarded as one of the most influential and arguably best video games ever made. But there is a lot more that the MicroProse title is remembered for even decades later. Despite being launched during an era where memes were nonexistent, given that the internet was not exactly the most accessible concept back then, 1991’s Civilization still became the source of a viral meme that took the gaming world by storm for years, starting from 2012.
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This meme became known as Nuclear Gandhi, which may sound like an oxymoron at first but has interesting origins that have kept Civilization in the conversation for a long time.
What Is The Nuclear Gandhi Meme?
Civilization is a turn-based strategy 4X game that features various historical figures leading their respective countries to eventual prosperity and building relations with other regions across the globe. One of these leaders was Mahatma Gandhi of India, who was not exactly known for being a violent individual and carried pacifist traits that prioritized handling situations with peace rather than unnecessary aggression.
Now, each leader featured in Civilization was given a rating based on how aggressively they would tackle numerous scenarios, and Mahatma Gandhi, considering his peaceful nature, was the only figure rated 1 for being the least aggressive out of the entire roster.
It is also important to note that once a country adopted democracy in Civilization, its leader’s aggression rating automatically decreased by two points, but since Gandhi was already at 1, India going down the democratic route would technically bring his aggression rating down to -1.
However, more than two decades after the game was initially launched, a player pointed out that there was a bug in Civilization that was making Gandhi extremely aggressive, resulting in him using nuclear weapons on the player. According to them, when India did become a democracy in the game, Gandhi’s aggression rating did not go to -1 as it should, because the developers used an 8-bit unsigned integer variable to store the aggression level that can only hold values from 0 to 255.
So, instead of Gandhi’s aggression rating going to -1, it allegedly went up to 255, causing him to become a highly violent individual in Civilization who would not think twice about using nuclear weapons on anyone who disagrees with his stance. This supposed revelation quickly went viral and turned into an internet meme called Nuclear Gandhi, a phenomenon that ran for around eight years until 2020.
The Nuclear Gandhi meme came in many forms, ranging from adding nuclear references to famous quotes by the leader to him showcasing his relentless love for nuclear weapons.
What Happened To The Nuclear Gandhi Meme?
Given the kind of popularity that the Nuclear Gandhi meme has garnered ever since its debut in 2012, with multiple notable publications also reporting about it online, its origins’ authenticity naturally came into question. Did that source code bug in Gandhi’s aggression rating actually exist, or was it all a rumor that kickstarted one of the most recognizable gaming memes of the 21st century?
The meme became so huge that even the developers of Civilization could not avoid questions regarding what it all meant, leading creator Sid Meier to officially address it in an autobiography he published in 2020.
He revealed that there is absolutely no way that a bug like that could exist in Civilization, considering the programming language it used, and that there was no overflow error that made Gandhi become super aggressive. In fact, Gandhi’s aggression rating stayed constant throughout the game’s runtime, regardless of any democratic changes that India goes through in Civilization, as his aggression level was already at its lowest possible value.
As other developers had already explained before that there was no factual basis for the supposed bug, Meier’s autobiography served as the final nail in the coffin for the Nuclear Gandhi myth.
However, the Civilization developers have ensured that the legacy of the Nuclear Gandhi meme still remains intact, as the leader’s tendency to use nuclear weapons was turned up to its highest potential in Civilization 5 — it also made an appearance with some tweaks in Civilization 6.
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