The headlines around the world about Sean Smith last year were mostly about how he left this Earth. But this is a story about what he did while he was here. This is a story about Sean Smith's life—about what he did in the so-called "real" world and what he did in a virtual galaxy where he was a Machiavellian legend.

Continuing his blossoming love affair with the video game community, conservative pundit Glenn Beck has waded into the tragic events surrounding the death of State Department employee Sean Smith in Libya earlier this month.

As has been written before, Sean Smith of the U.S. State Department also was a deeply committed presence inside the world of EVE Online, as well as outside it, serving on the unique Council of Stellar Management, a governing body selected by its peers and convened in the real world. Smith was killed Tuesday in an…

In a memorial service today for four American diplomats assassinated in Libya earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid tribute to Sean Smith, a consular officer for the United States who also served as a diplomat in EVE Online and as a member of that MMO's real-world governing body.

Grief, in an online community, can be a shockingly intimate thing. People who have known each other as a collection of digital avatars and assumed names gather together to mourn the genuinely painful loss of one of their own. The best and most generous parts of a community's nature often show when tragedy strikes it.

Sean Smith, the US State Department official killed by "militia" in Libya yesterday, was a senior figure in the EVE Online community, and frequent member of the game's Council of Stellar Management (CSM), a fan-elected governing body.