Mars 2112

By Ashton Saylor

You are Mike Durham, operative for the Special Android Task Force of Colony 654, on Mars. As you sit
down to a steaming dinner of synthetic carrots, potatoes and beef, you notice again your gut is getting
out of control. You pledge that tomorrow, you'll cut the dinner ration. Tonight, you flick on the TV and
start eating.

The news tonight focuses, again, on tensions between androids, called "plastics," and humans. One
speaker, a balding, energetic man, holds forth volubly, "Yes, Melinda--I know that Colony 654 wouldn't
have survived without the plastics, but that doesn't mean they're human. We wouldn't have made it
without spaceships either, but that doesn't mean spaceships get equal rights!"

As you watch, you become vaguely aware of your personal android assistant standing over your
shoulder, watching the TV. She's a Shiela model, which means she has attractive blonde hair and
naturally red lips. When you look at her, her eyes are fixed on the screen. After a moment, the plastic
turns her attention to you and says, "Sir, call on the line for you. It's Commander Blint."

"Put him through," you say, cleaning your mouth. Your commander's voice comes eerily out of the
woman's pretty mouth. "Durham, is that you? Get down here right away, we've got a 147200."

Damn. More terrorists. You'd think after the first two colonies on Mars had already been destroyed,
people would learn to stop killing each other. You copy down the address and shovel down a couple
more bites while you shrug on your uniform and gear. The plastic watches you dress with that eerie,
unblinking stare. You can never bring yourself to call her by name. Instead, you say, "You, bring me
my..."

You hesitate. Which piece of gear do you want? You know you only have time to carry one down to the
mobile pod. You may choose either the backpack-sized EMP bomb, specially calibrated to disable
androids, or your Personal Camouflage Unit, which gives you the next best thing to invisibility.

Write down whichever one you choose, then proceed to Section 2.

You slip into your mobile pod and get the siren running. Looking up at the white, plexiglass dome that
passes for a sky here, you wonder what it could be like if the glass were just gone. Would you die of
asphyxiation first, or of cold? With no humans, would the plastics keep going? Would they build their
own civilization?
You pull to a halt outside the scene of the incident, tires screeching. A menagerie of sirens already blare
outside a non-descript engineering building. As you recognize the place, your heart sinks. That building
controls the dome for this sector. Without the delicate balancing act of mathematics and energy pulses
organized by the computer in this building, the dome would fall. Finding out what would happen
without it suddenly seems all-too-real a possibility.

Commander Blint greets you as you approach. "Durham. Good to see you. This is one of the worst we've
seen yet. We've got terrorists, including a dozen plastics and at least three humans, holed up inside the
Dome Control Building. They've unplugged the central power supply. We're running on battery life
now."

"How long have we got?" you ask, eyeing the all-too-fragile dome above your head.

"Three hours, maybe less," Blint says. "They refuse to negotiate. They already killed Bernie when he
went in unarmed. They say their demands have to be met, or they'll let every human in the sector die."

You raise one eyebrow. "Any chance...?"

Blint shakes his head sharply. "The MSOD has already made it clear it is not the policy of this colony to
negotiate with terrorists. We're on our own."

If you insist you want to go in and talk to them, even though Commander Blint says it would be suicide,
turn to Section 3.
If you examine the area to come up with another plan, turn to Section 4.

The commander protests, but you insist. You're going to negotiate, or die trying. You shrug out of your
armored jacket and pass off your gun. Feeling naked, you approach the front door.

"I just want to talk!" you call out.

"Are you prepared to accept our demand for equal rights for all android units?" A voice calls out from
somewhere inside the square building.

"Now, let's talk about this. I'm sure there's some agreement we can come to."

"No talking!" The voice says. With a shiver, you realize why the voice sounds familiar. It's the voice of
another Shiela model. She shouts, "Go back, or we will shoot you!"
"I just want to talk! There's no reason to be like that." You take another step.

Gunfire roars and an impact shocks you. You hit the ground hard. You feel so dizzy. Legs, your legs won't
move. Cold. You lift one hand; it's covered in blood. Somewhere in the background, Commander Blint is
shouting.

The last thing you hear, strangely clear among the hubbub, is the android's female voice saying, "Stupid
fool. I didn't want to have to do that."

The End.

You move up to the police line, examining the squat, square building. Strange that the key to the survival
of this whole sector should be inside that one, inconspicuous building. Why wasn't it better guarded?
From inside, you hear someone with a loudspeaker shouting to the city, "Androids of Mars, stop letting
yourselves be treated like slaves! Stand up for your rights!"

"Why'd that stupid Jap have to give them free will?" One of the men near you mutters. His companion
replies, "There's a reason they were outlawed on Earth."

You growl, your voice pitched for their ears, "Those androids saved our lives. If we hadn't gotten this
unit, Colony 654 would be so much dust, like all the other colonies on this god-forsaken planet."

As you walk away, you hear one of the men mutter, "It's not like they're actually conscious. Just
programmed to act like it."

Letting that slide, you continue your examination of the building. When you're done, you pull up
blueprints of the building, which Commander Blint has managed to secure from somewhere. He says,
"Well, Durham? You're the expert. What's your suggestion?"

"The way I see it, we've got two options," you say, pointing. "We can either storm the building with
three teams, one entering here, one here, and one here. Or I can take just a couple of good agents, and
we can try to sneak inside from the wetworks, below."

Blint nods slowly. You know the man. He's good for speeches, not for decisions. It's going to be up to
you.

If you'd like to storm the building, turn to Section 5.

If you'd like to sneak in from below, turn to Section 8.
5

You organize the assault teams at a mobile HQ around the corner, to be out of sight of the building.
There will be three teams of 6 men each. You decide to take the one that will be going in the front. It's
the most dangerous, and the most critical. You can't trust anyone else to do the job.

When everyone is in place, you feel strangely uninterested. A bit of sweat beads your forehead, but the
adrenaline hasn't kicked in yet. Have you done this one too many times? Is today the day your luck will
run out? Maybe after this, you should consider that retirement package.

A half-dozen gas rockets stream overhead and into the windows of the building. That marks your signal
to go. You rush up and run across the intervening space in a low jog. Gunfire blazes, and you hear men
around you crying out in pain as they're hit.

You burst in the door and shoot something which moves. Smoke everywhere, and you can't use
infrared, because the plastics are room temperature. Breathing through the gas mask gives the world a
strange, closed-in feeling.

Where is your adrenaline? As far as your body is concerned, you could be taking a walk in the park. You
kick down a door, and find a half dozen plastics looking up at you with shocked faces. They're huddled
over the body of a human--someone knocked down by the gas.

As one, they grab for weapons. Do you have an EMP bomb?

If so, turn to section 6.

If not, turn to section 7.

You pull the cord on your EMP bomb. What always surprises you is how much fanfare there isn't.
There's no flash of light, barely even a sound. The plastics in front of you just all sag to the ground,
weapons dropping from lifeless fingers. You know they won't be repairable. Their electronics have been
fried permanently. They look as pretty as ever, but the wiring inside is gone.

You step over the bodies--can dead plastics be called bodies?--and see the hatch to the central control
room.

Looking back, you see a few of your best people gathering in the gloom. This area must be secure.
"Come on," you say. "It's time to finish this."
Turn to Section 11.

A Dave model lifts a fierce looking gun, his handsome face twisted in an ugly grimace, but your gun
flares to life first, ripping apart his torso as if it were paper. He falls, his eyes still flashing hatred, but
with his body torn to shreds, you know there's nothing more it can do.

Sadly, the other four plastics in the room have by now had time to get their own weapons prepared.
There is nothing you can do to stop them from shooting you down where you stand.

As you die, you think of the Shiela model, waiting at your house. The only person waiting for you. The
only one who will notice when you don't come home. Will she care? Does she feel anything at all?

The End.

The Wetworks is a term for the underground facility that spreads beneath most of Colony 654. It's
where a lot of the life-support and other engineering required to make the domes livable happens,
safely tucked out of sight. Work down here is dangerous and miserable; secluded from the sun
sometimes for days at a time. That's why it's often left to plastics. Hell, this is probably how they got in
themselves.

Unsurprisingly, they have the entrance guarded. You stop, just out of sight, to confer with your two
agents, Amanda Garret and Rick Shane, both seasoned veterans. "There's two guarding this entrance,"
you say. "If we can get past them, we should be able to get right up to the control center without stirring
the hornet's nest on the top level. Easy in, easy out."

"If we can get past them," Agent Shane says darkly.

"Let me do it!" Agent Garret says, her eyes bright in the darkness. "I can sneak up; they'll never know
what hit them."

If you have a Personal Camouflage Unit, turn to Section 9.

If you do not, then it makes most sense to let Agent Garret take point on this one. Turn to Section 10.

9
"Not this time, Mandy," you say casually. You wink and activate the Personal Camouflage Unit, and are
rewarded with looks of startlement on the faces of your agents. You say, "Follow on my signal," and
suppress a chuckle as their eyes widen and they look around, instinctively trying to find a face to put
with the voice, even though they know you won't be visible.

You slip up to the entrance and knock softly on the rattling aluminum door that guards the only
entrance. Someone opens it, suspiciously holding the door open only a crack. It's enough.

You grab the person's leg and flip them forward out through the door. Before they can recover, you slip
through and blast the next person with a stun gun that will be effective at knocking out both humans
and plastics.

You give both bodies a few more stuns, to be safe, then lift one of their hands and pose it in a thumbs
up sign, to tell your agents to come along.

As they get there, the short battery life of the Personal Camouflage Unit fails, and you stutter back into
visibility. Shrugging, you say, "Just up ahead, there's a hatch that will let us into the central control
room."

Turn to Section 11.

10

Agent Garret nods sharply and grips her weapon more tightly. You've seen her move. The woman could
sneak past a cat. You only hope it will be enough.

She slips out into the dark, but before she's half way there, you know there's simply not enough cover.
She ducks behind a pipe and pauses to look back at you and smile.

That's when the bullet takes her. For as long as you live, you'll remember the sight of her dying.
Fortunately for you, that won't be very long.

You cry out in rage and emerge from cover, guns blazing. At least one android face explodes before they
take you down too.

"Sorry Blint," you murmur as you lay, dying. "Didn't get it right, this time."

The End.

11
You slip through the hatch that should lead to the central control room, only to find a long, dark hallway
extending in both directions.

"Things are never simple," you mutter. "You, guard this door, and you, come with me." You point at
Agent Amanda Garret to come with you. A protege of yours, you have the utmost faith in her abilities.
Even as you choose her, a quail of fear crosses your heart. You couldn't bear to see anything happen to
her. But you know that if you try to shelter her from the dangers of this job, it wouldn't be fair to either
of you.

Looking back at the hallway, you sigh. The blueprints were clearly not up to date. Which way will you
go?

If you go left down the hallway, turn to Section 12.

If you go right down the hallway, turn to Section 13.

12

The hallway narrows as you travel along it. The walls feel rickety, as if this was never meant for regular
traffic. Soon, overhanging pipes force you to crawl down on your hands and knees in order to continue.
A puff of steam hisses past your face. You peer ahead into the gloom, trying to find some sign of
whether you're headed the right direction.

"Sir," Amanda's voice comes from behind you.

"Yeah?"

"I think I recognize this facility. If I'm right, then we should have gone the other way back there."

You nod. "I think you're right. Let's go back."

Letting her lead now, you turn back and go the other direction back up the hallway. You only hope
you're not too late.

Turn to Section 13.

13

The dark hallway widens and starts to climb. The walls drop away after a time, and you find yourself
walking along a catwalk, high above the tangle of pipes, big and small, that make up the wetworks.
"Here," Amanda says, pointing at a rickety-seeming ladder. "This should take us there."

"How do you know?" You eye the ladder suspiciously.

"See all the lines heading into that structure?" She says, "That's the power line, and that's the
hydraulics. That room up there has to be the control room."

A hail of gunfire suddenly rains down on the catwalk; sparks leap from the metal walkway around you.

"Down!" Amanda shouts, but you know there is no where to hide. You swiftly train your stun gun on the
place where the gunfire is coming from and shoot. To your satisfaction, a human shape tumbles from
the structure above you and falls the full way down, to be lost in the shadows below.

"Let's move, now!" You snap, and the two of you quickly scale the ladder. No more gunfire comes, and
at the top you emerge onto a narrow platform with a single door. You kick down the door without
hesitation and burst into a dark room.

Banks of computer displays blink in the darkness. Dials and levers beneath the display promise esoteric
power. Here, you realize, is the heart of the system that maintains the dome for this sector. A red light
blinks ominously off to one side, probably indicating that power is failing.

Who would do this? Who would threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, just to prove a
point?

If you investigate the controls immediately, turn to Section 14.

If you risk breaking wireless silence to contact Commander Blint for guidance, turn to Section 15.

14

You step into the dark room and move quickly to the controls. You know the power must be here to
save the dome; if only you can figure out how to use it.

You are leaning in close to examine a reading when the shot comes. You never see it. You never hear it.
It takes you in the side of your head. The bullet travels faster than the neurons to your brain, meaning
you literally do not even feel the pain of the lethal wound.

The End.

15
As you try to raise a link to the police network--which is supposed to be present throughout the city,
dammit--Amanda pushes past you to investigate the controls in the small room.

"No signal," you say with a curse.

"I think I'm making sense of this," Amanda says. "Look here--"

Her voice is cut off abruptly with the sound of a gunshot. Before you can react, Amanda's dead body
slumps to the floor. To one side, shaking, feminine hands hold a smoking gun.

You leap forward and grab the gun, ripping it from the hands of a slightly-built woman. You grab her by
the arm and throw her to the ground. She cries out in pain as she hits it.

Shaking with rage, you lift the gun that she just used to kill your student, and level it at her head.

She looks up. It's an android, the Sheila model. Now that she's out of the shadow, her hair fairly glows
blonde. The similarity to your own Sheila model is uncanny, as always.

In a small voice, she says, "Please don't kill me... I don't want to die."

"Neither did Amanda," you growl. "What about all the people who live in this sector? Think they want to
die?"

"We just wanted... to make things better. We thought you would listen..." She says.

Androids have no rights. There will be absolutely no legal repurcussions if you destroy this renegade
model. You look over at Amanda's corpse, a bleeding hole where her beautiful, clever face used to be.

If you pull the trigger, turn to Section 16.

If you spare her and use the stun gun instead, turn to Section 17.

16

The gun fires with surprising ease. There's a kickback in your hand, and the android's head splits open,
revealing sparking wires and a blue glow that fades, then goes out.

It didn't bring Amanda back, but you feel a little better.

As you go about fixing the system and getting the dome stable again, you think about the plastics. If free
will only lets them kill people, then why let them have it at all? It's not like they have true feelings. Just
programming. It's not worth the loss of human lives.

Afterward, you are the hero of the day. The news programs can't seem to stop talking about the brave
agent who penetrated the terrorist held compound to turn back on the dome. Several sad programs are
run about Amanda Garrett. When you try to stop answering questions on the topic, the newsmen
explain that your close personal relationship with her makes a great angle. The public eats it up.

If one good thing comes out of it all, it's a offhanded suggestion made at the department Earthcrossing
Holiday Party a few weeks later. You mention your thoughts of retirement to Commander Blint, and he
winks knowingly, saying, "Ah, ready to start your career in politics, eh? I've been expecting that. Well,
good luck to you. And know that you'll have my vote!" He lifts his glass in a toast to you.

As you wash your face later that night, you speculate, maybe you should go into politics. You've done
well enough to make a name for yourself. The people could really get behind someone who was willing
to take a strong stance against Androids. It's about time someone did.

The End.

17

You lower the revolver and pull out your own stun-gun, using that to disable the Sheila model, but it
ends up not mattering, anyway. Once you turn the dome back on and round up the terrorists, the
android criminals are all dismantled, their memories wiped and parts re-purposed for repairs on other
units.

After the hearings, when you see the various parts of the Sheila model that killed Amanda being taken
off in different directions, you wonder what was really lost when that unit was dismantled. Anything at
all? Or is it really all just a trick of electronics, the result of one Japanese engineer's obsession with
making lifelike dolls?

But as you lay awake at night, long after the events of that day, her last words come back to you. We
just wanted to make things better.

Before long, you find yourself attending debates and political discussions on the topic of androids. An
anti-plastic group recognizes you at one of these events and pulls you up on stage, waiting with bated
breath to hear the words of the hero who saved an entire sector from android terrorists.

To your surprise, and their chagrin, you take the stage, but not to recite the traditional incendiary
android-hate speech. Instead, you find yourself talking about the need for equal rights. If androids are
self-aware enough to ask for equal rights, who is to say they aren't self-aware enough to deserve them?
If androids had been given a fair bargain from the start, that terrorist attack never would have
happened. The dome would never have been threatened. A lot of strife and suffering, going back to the
very beginning, could have been avoided.

Amanda would still be alive.

You speak, and people listen.

The End
 Discussion on Mars 2112

Yesterday, I posted a short sample gamebook. It's 17 entries, with maybe half a dozen real choices, but
hopefully there's enough substance there to give you an idea what gamebooks are about.

It was a fun experience for me to write a short gamebook that quickly. I definitely found myself enjoying
the world and the themes as I was working on it. This is possibly a story (or at least, a setting) that could
bear a more well-developed treatment.

Anyway, my intent today is to break it down a bit, and talk about what it's doing, what's good and
what's bad. Ready... Go!

I've been amusing myself on this blog by describing kinds of choices that gamebooks can offer readers.
The short gamebook I posted yesterday, Mars 2112, was designed to showcase a few of those kinds of
choices. Let's go over them...

The very first choice you make is to pick the equipment you bring with you on your mission. You are
forced to pick one of two options, a weapon or a stealth device. My intent with this choice was to
demonstrate the "Apples or Oranges" style of choice, a choice in which the reader must pick between
two things that cannot be easily compared to one another. This is good, because there is no "right"
answer, and yet it is still a meaningful choice.

The other thing I would like to point out about this first choice is that it may be jarring for some readers
to be presented with a choice about equipment when the text so far has been so story-based. It's a shift
of gears. For experienced gamers, they will know what to expect and may enjoy this kind of choice. For
someone new to games in general, and gamebooks in particular, I speculate that being asked to think
about equipment alll of a sudden may not be fun. What do you think?

Next, you are faced with a choice regarding whether to go against the Commander's advice and try to
talk to the terrorists, or search around and examine the building to consider an assault. My intent with
this was to offer a "Cake or Death" choice, as an example of what NOT to do in a gamebook. I'm afraid
that I might not have completely succeeded, because despite numerous hints that talking to them is not
a good idea, the text still leaves enough room for speculation that someone might try anyway--
especially given that many people's moral codes may require them to attempt talking rather than
jumping to killing, even if it's dangerous.

A true Cake or Death choice is any choice in which one answer is clearly better. This is not something
you want to do, but I was trying to demonstrate it for the example's sake. What do you think? Did I get
there?
Because this gamebook is so short, most branching storylines involve prompt player death. This is to
avoid too many branches to the story that could cause the word count to bloat. That said, there is at
least one choice that does take you through one of two different possible (viable) paths. If you make it
to section 4, you're given the choice to storm the building or sneak in. This falls under two categories of
choices, one good and one bad.

The good category this falls under is the "Tactical Choice," which is just the term I've been using to
describe when your choice in one area may depend on situational factors, such as how much life you
have left or, in this case, what equipment you brought with you. If you have the EMP grenade, storming
the castle is the better option, but if you have the camouflage unit, then stealth is the better path. This
requires the player to engage with the text, consider all factors, and then rewards the player with a
possible "right" decision if they successfully think it through.

There is a school of thought that having a "right" option isn't good--but really, it's a little bit more
complicated than that. If there is a right answer, then the player is faced not with a choice, but with a
calculation. The challenge isn't for the player to pick between two competing values, but instead to
think through the tactically correct approach. This isn't bad; it's like doing math. You have a problem,
you solve it. If you solve it successfully, you get a reward. But it is important to remember that it isn't a
real choice--unless the player doesn't solve the calculation correctly, and makes the decision based on
other factors. But that carries it's own problems. Ideally, this type of problem should strike a good
balance between providing enough hints in the text that there are clues as to the right answer, while not
giving the answer away outright. It's not an easy balance to strike, but when successful, can be very
good. Finding the clues to make good choices is one of the fun mini-games in a gamebook.

The other reason that I like the "Tactical Choice" is because, while it is a calculation, the answer can be
different depending on past choices the player has made, or other factors. This helps prevent it from
becoming stale, as if the player is in a different situation next time they come around, they get to solve
the problem again, rather than just remembering the answer from last time.

All this is discussion regarding the tactical aspects of the choice whether to storm the building or sneak
in; it's a modest example of a tactical choice, but it is one. But you'll remember I said this choice falls
under another category as well, a less-desirable category. This choice, in Section 4 of Mars 2012, also
falls under the category of "Blah" choice.

The "Blah" choice, according to my blog post on the topic, is one where the reader doesn't have any
narrative reason to care. I won't say this wholly falls under this topic. If you're interested in tactics, this is
an interesting choice, and you do have reason to care because of the stakes if you fail your mission. But
it is not a character-driven choice, and to me that makes it less interesting.

What do you think? Do you care about this choice in the story, or is it just a roadblock to get through?
Do you have a moment of fun in considering the tactical aspect of the choice? Do you think the answer
is too easy and obvious, or not obvious enough?
And with that, I'm going to call this post here. We're only 4 sections in, but the discussion is shaping up
to be longer than the original piece. Typical. Tomorrow, we will continue with "E: Even more discussion
on Mars 2012!"
 Even More Discussion of Mars 2112

To start with, I wanted to pick up where I left off with E: Even more discussion of Mars 2112.

We left off on the "D" blog post after section 4. On section four, the player is given the only choice that
significantly diverges the storyline. Traditionally, such choices are geographical. In this case, you have
the option to go straight into the building, or try to sneak in underneath. As these are literally different
paths, I had to write different plot paths as well. Something I would like to see more of, however, is
branching plot paths based on character-driven choices, rather than geographical choices.

In this case, let's follow the "charge straight in" path first.

As we discussed last week, the choice you make in 4 is tactical, because what equipment you chose back
in section 1 will make a difference now. In this case, if you charge straight in, you'd better have the EMP
bomb, or it's Game Over. In a longer gamebook, there may be other options; perhaps instead of instant
death if you don't have the right equipment, it could be a more challenging fight. But, as an author, it's
always important to make the player's previous decisions matter. If I had provided the choice of the
EMP bomb or invisibility early on, and then it never came up again, the player would feel cheated.

If you take the other route, of attempting to sneak in under the building, you end up with the exact
same type of test, only it's required to have the Personal Camouflage Unit in order to survive and
continue. There's no real choice, it's just, you succeed if you have the right equipment, and you don't if
you don't--but it's rewarding to the player for the reasons we discussed above. Either way, if you pick
the right path for your equipment, you continue to Section 11, where you find a hatch to the control
center.

In Section 11, I included an example of a "Which Door" choice, asking the player if you go right or left,
without providing any information about either path to give the player a reason to choose one over the
other. "Which Door" choices are a big pet peeve of mine. Although I have to admit they do have a place,
I think gamebooks in general, and especially the older gamebooks, heavily overuse this type of choice.

The important thing to realize is that a "Which Door" choice is not a choice. It's a randomizer. Just like
there are times when you want the player to roll dice to determine a random result, there are also times
when you can give them multiple choices with no information as to what leads where as a method of
leading them in a random direction. But never make the mistake of thinking it's a choice.

In this case, it's especially bad because the choice doesn't even matter in the end. It's what I call an
"Illusionary Choice." If you take the wrong path, you'll simply run into a dead end and have no option
except to go back and re-unite with the main path. This is another thing I included as an example of
what not to do. This doesn't even have the redeeming characteristics that a "Which Door" choice has. As
far as I can tell, an Illusionary Choice has no purpose, and should never be used. Does anybody disagree?
In Section 13, you finally get to the actual control room (whether you want to or not). Here, I provided
another example of what not to do: the "Shell Game" choice. The player is given a choice of whether to
investigate the controls immediately, or attempt to radio command for tech support. The player might
imagine there might be time constraints; perhaps if you take the time to radio in for tech support, you
won't fix it in time. But if you blunder in without advice, you may make it worse. Or you may imagine
that radioing to the commander might alert enemy forces to your position.

In truth, none of these considerations are relevant. The only outcome of your decision is to determine
whether it's you or your assistant Amanda who gets shot by the terrorist plastic still in hiding here. You
think you're getting one thing, but you're actually getting another. That's why I call it a "Shell Game"
choice.

Like the "Which Door" choice, I object to the "Shell Game" choice in principle, but like the "Which Door,"
it does have a place. The danger is that the player will feel cheated because what they thought they
were getting is taken away. Like the "Which Door" choice, it's essentially a randomizer, but in a sense it's
even meaner to the player, because it asks the player to make a thoughtful choice based on certain
considerations, and then rips that away. The considerations and the choice and the effort the player
made are rendered meaningless because the results are wholly unrelated to the decision the player
thought they were making.

This type of choice can have a place. In fact, this example, despite my best efforts to make it awful,
turned out to be not too bad. It's a surprise, yes, but it's a point in the story where a surprise is called
for. It's random, but it at least logically follows, to some degree. If you knew all the information when
you were making the choice, the results that followed would make sense. This happens in real life; why
not in gamebooks? Much worse examples of a "Shell Game" choice can be found in many gamebooks,
especially the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. I read a CYOA book once, in which if you sat
down at a certain table with a certain man early in the game, you would then fly to Africa and win the
book, without a single other narrative choice. The end. Congratulations, you win! There's no way this
logically follows, no matter how much you stretch it. Worse are the ones where you lose based on a
Shell Game choice. Like if you decide to make a certain phone call, you wind up falling out of the airlock
and dying, with no other chance to save yourself. My hackles rise whenever I see this kind of choice.

I was hoping to wrap up my discussion of Mars 2112 with this post, but I've run out of space, and there's
still more to say. I apologize for the length of this discussion! I hope it is at least of some interest :)

See you next time with "F: Final Thoughts on Mars 2112!"
 Final Thoughts on Mars 2112

I apologize (again) for dragging out this discussion so long! In truth, Game Theory in general, and
Gamebook Theory in specific are something that I have the odd trait of waxing passionate and poetical
about. *shrug* I didn't make me. I just turned out this way. I claim no responsibility.

Anyway, to continue (for those who may still be reading), I present, Part III, Part the Last, of Discussion
on Mars 2112: Final Thoughts.

I've left only one significant decision to discuss in this final episode, and that's the final decision of the
gamebook. Should you survive the last Shell Game Choice (see end of E: Even More Discussion of Mars
2112), then you will find yourself standing over the dead body of your friend and protege, fellow agent
Amanda Garret, while over her a pretty android stands shaking, holding a smoking gun.

I'm afraid my attempt to build emotional connection with the characters in this short gamebook failed,
mainly because of the brevity. It's hard to work up much feeling for a character you've just met about
four paragraphs back, but I tried.

Anyway, the point of this entry is to present an example of the kind of decision I love, which is the
Character Decision. Per the narrative, you grab the smoking gun from the hot blonde android and throw
her to the ground, and then you're given the choice whether to kill her or not.

On the one hand, she just killed someone who you cared about a great deal, and she's not even
technically alive, herself. Furthermore, as the text points out, there wouldn't be any legal repercussions
for killing her. She's a plastic; they don't have rights. (As has been made clear with the background
conflict: the entire reason the terrorists are here in the first place is as a violent means of lobbying for
basic human rights.) On the other hand, you would be killing her in cold blood.

This, of course, raises the question of whether a clever AI in a very human-seeming body is alive, or not.
It seems to me, personally, that no matter how well-coded, even if given perfect humanoid self-
preservation instincts, logical capacity, and everything, a computer program still won't be self-aware.
But if the program running the android really is good enough to give all the cues that humans use to
communicate with each other, verbally or non-verbally, how would you tell? Would it even really
matter?

This is a question which fascinates me. And kind of creeps me out. A 17 section gamebook, done as an
example of the kinds of choices you find in gamebooks, isn't really the place to explore this question, but
it seemed like more fun than doing a short example gamebook that didn't explore any meaningful
question.
The point is, that this is a choice which requires the player to think, not about what's tactically best
(though that is fun) but about morals, and life. In order to decide whether to pull the trigger or not, you
have to decide for yourself whether you think androids are really alive or not. Then, you have to decide
whether that matters when it comes time to kill one. Which is more important, punishing her for killing
your friend, or the value of a fair trial and not killing in cold blood?

Not only is it a moral question, but it says something about the character that you're playing. You get to
decide something about the hero, something which changes the main character. And that is interesting.

In the end, from an external point of view, whether you pull the trigger or not doesn't make much
tangible difference. If you spare her, she gets sentenced to death in the courts not long later. (Or, at
least, to "de-commissioning," although whether that's a significant distinction is up for debate.)

But the decision you make changes the main character. It may not affect the outside world, but it says
something about who you are. Either way, your character will be a hero in this world after these events,
for saving an entire sector from suffocation by dome collapse. What your character thinks could shape
the world. If you kill the android, I took the liberty of extrapolating that this means you are not an
android sympathizer. The message you bring the public after the fact, as a celebrity of middling stature,
is one of taking a hard stance against androids. However if you spare her life, this may not spare her, but
it tells me, as the author, that you are an android sympathizer. In this path, though that particular
character still ends up dead, the main character brings a very different message to the public, and with a
world on edge as this one is, the difference in message your character brings to the public could make
the difference in how the politics of this colony develop over the next few years, and what kind of living
standards the plastics of Colony 654 can expect, going forward.

It does run the risk of being seen as a "Shell Game" Choice, in that you think you're making one decision,
but the results are actually something very different. But I think that the logical connection is significant
enough to leave the player not feeling too disappointed. I hope. The purpose here is to give an example
of a choice which changes the main character.

My message here is to say that choices which say something about the main character, about who that
person is, or who they may be changing into, and make the reader themselves seriously sit down and
consider their own stance on difficult moral and ethical questions, are my favorite kind of choices. This, I
think, is the real potential that gamebooks have to offer the world, and I do not think gamebooks, as a
genre, have really reached that potential yet. In fact, I think they are only just beginning to scrape the
surface of what they could be.

Thank you for reading.