You Say You Want A Revolution

10. "The Resistance" in Half-Life 2

Not only is Half-Life 2 one of the greatest games ever made, it features some of the most crazy-loyal, beanie-wearing revolutionaries you'll ever see. Despite the fact that they're liable to get shot by Orwellian stormtroopers, crushed by mechanical titans from another dimension, or zombified by hungry headcrabs, they insist on repeatedly joining your cause. You can't help feeling bad after the 40th or so schmuck gets toasted by a Combine rocket launcher. "I'll follow you, Freeman!" No, please. Stay home. Hug your wife or something. You don't deserve to die, little digital dude.

9. Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett

If you haven't read anything by Terry Pratchett, you should probably just warm up the irons now. Put your eyes out when you're done with this paragraph. Regardless, this revolution has it all: cavalry pounding the streets, makeshift barricades, little old ladies on top of said barricades asking just what your grandfather would think if he were here to see you rabble-rousing. Sure, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you haven't read Terry Pratchett's other books, but that's no excuse. Get to reading!

8. The Rebel Alliance

The Rebel Alliance is pretty much responsible for my childhood: for me, there was no greater calling than sprinting around the sandy playground in elementary school, pretending I was an X-Wing. The only diary I kept when I was a tiny tyke was a long-running story about my friends and I flying around the galaxy as Rebel sympathizing mercenaries. If I ever get a tattoo, it will be the red Rebel shield, and it will be on my shoulder. I will use it to attract potential mates.

7. The French Revolution(s)

The greatest part about the French, aside from Victor Hugo, is the fact that they just keep doing the whole revolution thing. Is it pure restlessness, or is it a cynical awareness that any form of stable government will eventually become horribly corrupt? Is it the desire to constantly have good fodder for future Broadway musicals? Or is it a deep-set psychopathic attraction to guillotines? Whatever the reason, storming the barricades is practically a hobby in France.

6. Animal Farm

This classic novel, adored by high school English teachers the world over, shows you just how dangerous living on a farm can be. At any moment, the chickens might declare their pen a sovereign nation-state and begin to develop a bigger, faster, grain-choppinger threshing machine, and soon you'll need your own- not for actual threshing, of course, but to make sure that they don't decide to thresh all your grain first. Bawk bawk, ba-Bolshevik!

5. The Dance Dance Revolution

This is what I did instead of going to prom. You can't say that about any of the other revolutions on this list.

4. The Third Servile War

No, you jerk, I'm Spartacus. Look, see? I have my driver's license, right here. It says "Spartacus". That's me. That's my name. Hair, black. Skin, dusky. Stock, Nomadic Thracian. That's what Plutarch called me. "Of nomadic Thracian stock." You're just a guy with a funny hat and a metal skirt. Have you ever been in a Stanley Kubrick movie? Have you ever been in any movie at all? I didn't think so.

3. Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution

The only thing cooler than being French and revolting is revolting against the French. There's nothing that makes you feel like a boring sucker than not taking control of an entire island colony. And instead of becoming a ruthless, iron-jawed dictator and getting tossed in the guillotine by the oppressed, you can die at the hands of a foreign republic and keep your "street cred" intact. Toussaint knew where it was at.

2. The American Revolution

A bunch of guys did some stuff and beat up some other people. They started some nation based on some principles. Who cares? Whatever, man.

1. The Scientific Revolution

This was much better than the Industrial Revolution, because nobody's hands got cut off by giant sewing machines. Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium and Vesalius published De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Descartes, Newton, Tycho Brahe and Galileo all got their big work done. There were no problems with the world at all, and everyone was just so smart. If it weren't for the scientific revolution, we probably wouldn't have Taco Bell.

Contact John Bailey at John.C.Bailey@UConn.edu