From the Slate.

2. Lessons from Lord British. Richard Garriott is the Thomas Edison of the virtual world. He founded Origin Systems, the company that developed Ultima Online, the first successful virtual-world game. He ruled Ultima Online as "Lord British"—the absolute monarch, umpire, lawgiver of that virtual community. (He now helps run the U.S. arm of NCsoft, the Korean company that has the world's biggest game, Lineage.) Garriott believes that creation of a virtual world like Ultima Online is a powerful experimental model for the rebuilding of a devastated country.