Generally when a Flare Path interviewee says they dabbled in diplomacy in their younger days they are talking about their formative games. However, in Ryan Hewer's case the lower case 'd' isn't a typo. My interlocutor today is a man whose CV bestrides two parallel worlds. In one the dire consequences of a clumsy piece of international brinkmanship can be fixed with a single dab of the Load button. In the other geopolitical miscalculations blight real lives and end them.

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