Quest Into The Unknown by Douglas Crockford Marin County, California Volume III: Your Finest Hour Not for Sale or Trade January 15, 1986 WINDOWS AND MIRRORS The display screen of a computer is used as a window on the Microworld. It's easy to think about the objects residing on the other side of the screen, and to see certain aspects of it. With your mouse and keyboard, you try to manipulate a program which will then manipulate the objects on your behalf. What I am trying to do is use the screen as a mirror. The exciting stuff won't be happening on the screen, it will be happening inside of you. You will be making connections with stuff that is already inside of you. The screen gives the contexts and constraints you need to find it. The thing that the user interface guys always forget is that the most interesting stuff is happening on our side of the screen. January 16, 1986 STAND BY FOR FUN [This is the text of a talk I delivered at RCA. It included a videotape that I cut with Mike Rubin of Droidworks.] I work at Lucasfilm Games, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., where we make videogames for people who still really like them. We were invited by the RCA guys to produce a videogame for their CDAV box. While CDAV could do a really spiffy looking videogame, no amount of flashy graphics could make the game compelling for people who find videogames experientially uninteresting. The game industry has already proven conclusively that most people will not be satisfied with better graphics. An incremental improvement over the old systems is of little value unless it is sufficient to cross a threshold. And that threshold must be defined in human terms, not technological terms. If we want to reach general audiences, then we must be providing richer experiences. We must get beyond Shoot-Em- Ups and Touch It and Die. Touch It and Die is my generic video game. [And then I did my Touch It and Die rap from Volume I] So I want to use CDAV as the underlying technology for a new home entertainment medium. It is important to think of what we're doing as designing a new medium. We are not simply extending the video game. We are doing something revolutionary. We don't know yet if it will cross the threshold, but I am optimistic. We are doing interactive video. So far, interactive video has not been as compelling as had been hoped, partly because we haven't a good definition for the word "interactive". To give you an idea about how we are going to redefine "interactive", I am going to use the film StarWars as an example. It has a running time of 2 hours 5 minutes. In the interest of saving time, we won't show all of the credits at the end. While you are watching the movie, try to imagine that you are there, playing the part of C3PO or Luke Skywalker. Think about the experience, and about what it would feel like if you made mistakes or had bad luck. How would you feel if you were flying an X-Wing in the trench, and failed to destroy the Deathstar? When we go interactive, we want to put a light saber in your hand, to feel what it is like to be a mythic hero. Would you be disappointed if you failed? Is that the experience you want? So, with that in mind, I invite you to settle back and watch StarWars. [and then I played my tape, with ad-libbed stuff about the meaning of the deaths of C3PO and Luke] A few remarks about what we just witnessed. Many of you thought the bit where Luke gets shot down was funny. That is because you had seen the film before, and had a context for evaluating it. If you hadn't seen the film, you would have been baffled by the laughter. The context for the interpretation of the presentation is as important as the presentation itself. But enough science... What we have is a new angle on the Electronic Story Teller. In preliterate times, story tellers would make small changes in the stories they told to make them more accessible or meaningful to each audience. These changes would be small, a pause, an inflection, an aside. The story stayed the same. There would be small variations. That is what I am going to do here. We have a story, but the structure we give it gives you some play, a small amount of variability. Not so much that you could louse up the presentation. Just enough to make the experience more personal, more meaningful. The stories will be the oldest stories, retold in the newest way. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. In most computer-based presentations, the display screen is used as a window on the Microworld. There are objects on the side of the screen, which you view through a window. With your keyboard and mouse, you try to manipulate a program which will then manipulate the object on your behalf. I want to use the screen as a mirror. The exciting stuff doesn't happen on the screen, it happens inside of you. I want to provide the constraints, the context, the motivation, the permission, for discovering and connecting to the emotional material that is already in you. We use interactivity not to affect the outcome, but to increase the directness and the immediacy of the experience. There are paradoxes here in the relation between freedom and interaction. This paradox, known as Crockford's Paradox, can only be resolved by redefining interaction. Interaction has more to do with taking part than in making decisions. It is joining the dance around the tribal fire. It is not choosing to fire a gun into a crowd. It is finding the rhythm in the structure of the experience and resonating with it. It is not playing your horn in the middle of the violin solo. We still have to learn about the recreational medium. We need to identify its biases and constraints, and figure out how to with it. We need to discover the class of messages that can be better transmitted with this medium than any other. We need to construct a new vocabulary of interactive presentation. We are also learning about the human experience and the need for and uses of entertainment. There may be fallouts from this work that could benefit education and general computer usage. The computer has always been as much an obstacle as it has been a medium or instrument. The new paradigms of interaction that we discover may turn out to be generally useful. But mainly I'm in this to make some fun. In particular, I want to make something that Mom will like. If we can't do that, then we're doing something wrong. When I talk about Mom, I don't necessarily mean females 18-45 living with children. I'm talking about that part of each of us that is not satisfied with technical effects. For me she is a real mythological figure, the Goddess of Home Entertainment. Her temple is the living room, and her alter is the Home Entertainment Center. She is the electric anima, the archetypal Hostess with the Mostess. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool Mom. I am developing programs for this new interactivity. I have already proposed two programs, Dial "E" for ExpandoVision, and Alien Springs, Wyoming. Starting next week, H and I will be collaborating on a plan for a show to go into production this year. We will be doing groundbreaking work with the structure of experience and design of interaction. Will we be successful in crossing the threshold with CDAV? Stay tuned. And now, we are going to go interactive with a stimulating audience participation-style question and answer period. January 18, 1986 An Evening of ExpandoVision with Bert Convy! I finally thought of an entertainment that could use Microsoft Windows. The show features a menu bar: Songs Guest Stars Comedy Drama Closing Under songs, you can select from Happy Talk Tiny Bubbles New York, New York Under Guest Stars, you can select from Gavin McLeod Joan Collins Tony Orlando Under Comedy, you get Tattletales Love Boat Bloopers A true John Davidson Story And Drama, including excerpts from Police Woman Love Boat It's Bert the way you like him best! He does it all! Some Assembly Required It's Dynamite Stop Entertainment with Big Name Stars! Watch for An Evening of ExpandoVision with Florence Henderson! January 21, 1986 And Now, Back To Transit Authority Transit Authority has us questing through the galaxy. The trick for eliminating driving becomes a plot device, in fact the title character. Mechanically, to move from one planet to another, you file a flight plan. Once your plan is approved, you have a time window in which to press the launch button. From there on it is automatic until arrival. While in transit, you can catch up on your paper work. You might discover that you don't really want to be going where you're going. Too bad. There is someone who is helping you. I don't know who yet. He (or she) guides you through the first part of the quest. Once you have proven yourself, he will sacrifice himself in order to make it possible for you to complete your quest. He gives himself up for the greater good. He believes in you. January 28, 1986 I have nothing to say. You don't need to read this page, there is no useful content. It's just that I fell out of the habit of keeping this journal while finishing the Phase I reports and preparing my address for RCA's interactive video conference. I am writing this page just to establish the habit again of jotting down something important every day or so. Only this time the important thing is re-establishing my writing pattern, not the content of my writing. As far as content goes, it is not here. I warned you at the top that there really isn't anything on this page. That hasn't and will not change. You can rely upon it. I swear to God Almighty, I will fill this page and not write anything meaningful. And by golly, I'm going to do just that. Just to provide an historical context, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded today. January 31, 1986 I've been thinking about some of the complaints I get about my system in the area of repeat performances. They want to be able to go through again and have it be different. My contention's that if you liked what it did to you the first time, then you'll want it to do that to you again. It turns out in pattern video games that that's what the heavy repeat players do, anyway. If they depart from the pattern, they die and get frustrated. But there's more to it than that, it is more subtle. Suppose Mom is following the pattern (which is a pretty wild supposition in the first place) and she misses a turn. She will be thinking "Damn, I missed the turn." But that illustrates that she isn't in the experience, she's in the game. I don't want her to be in the game, because it is a level removed from the experience. February 3, 1986 Suppose you went through the show once, and you liked it and want to do it again. Your favorite part was when the Mentor makes a speech about cosmic responsibility and human purpose. You find it quite moving. It could change your life. So you whiz through the first part of the show, and you are ready to soak the speech in, but the program has determined that you've played it before, so just as the Mentor starts his speech, he stops and says "But you already know this," and sends you back into action. Is that interactive fun, or what? February 4, 1986 Chip pointed out that experimental video (like video feedback, etc.) is boring for most people. The stuff is OK at first, but it usually goes on much too long. You are thinking "That was interesting, what's next?" But it doesn't move on. It may be that such programs are much more fun to make than to watch. Or maybe the video artists are misinformed about how to really transmit their stuff to mass audiences. DREAMSPACE should be OK because you can make it interesting. At the very least, you can make it change when it gets tedious. Everybody does detective shows. That's because video is a medium of communication, information. In interactive video, you release information selectively. The detective story is a natural. But that is not the only fact-finding story. The Quest of the Grail is not recognizably a detective story. But much is revealed to Galahad as he accomplishes his quest. What this means is that Dial "E" is not a detective show. It is a love story, or at least a soap opera. (By the way, Sir Galahad wins. He completes his quest. His reward: Angels take him to heaven. The Lord's Reward.) Valentine's Day, 1986 I am sitting on a United 767, held at the gate at Newark Airport. They are forcing us to watch an awful game show called _Perfect Match_. It is profoundly bad, and we are held captive, buckled, strapped in, restrained, forced to watch it against our wills. Because of FAA regulations, we must stay on the ground until the show is over. I have been in New Jersey this week to pitch TRANSIT AUTHORITY. And they want it. If we can work out the money, we will do the show. So I can focus now on TA, do some clear visualization, figure out exactly what the first five minutes will be like. Also I have to prepare two talks for the Microsoft CD-ROM conference. Things I'd like to talk about include: These elderly boardroom guys who say "Interactive" and what it means. Lucasfilm's role in the interactive business. The inappropriateness of the Alto-style interface in the home. The computer revolution and the Beta test. Our story so far: All of the inhabitable planets are dead. They were made uninhabitable by nukes, toxic wastes, and nanotechnological accidents. People now live in habitats, cities in space. All travel between habitats is regulated by the Transit Authority. You are held captive in you spaceship by a quarantine order. You are not permitted to exit. To make matters worse, your microphone is broken, and cannot be replaced because maintenance crews may not enter. But you can still travel, and can transmit computer messages. This quarantine is a mistake, you must get it corrected. There is someone helping you. I don't know his name yet. Let's call him Mentor for now. He is helping you with advice and favors. He directs you from place to place, going through a procedure that should get the quarantine lifted. Then you find out who this guy really is. He's a heavy dude at the Transit Authority. He has done some very crooked stuff in the past, and he was the one who put you in quarantine. But he asks your help. A new green planet has been discovered. He has a plan for saving it from ecological destruction, and he needs you. Most of what has happened so far was a test. Now you are ready for the real mission. Mentor has placed his family and closest friends on the green planet. There is no one around who he can trust. Except you. His plan is to ultimately put a quarantine order on the entire planet. (I just gave away the surprise ending.) It will involve putting you on the planet, and extending your ship's quarantine. Authorizing you to alite on the planet is a capital offense, and he will die for it. He fixed the records at the Transit Authority to show that you are carrying a synthetic virus (nanotechnologically manufactured) which causes slow, painful death in humans, and disintegration of certain materials (such as found in microphones). He also established the quarantine policies at the Transit Authority which will automatically isolate the planet in the event of nanotechnological contamination. He might have used this quarantine trick in the past to isolate his enemies. One good deed that you'll get to do is release such a retch. He has been imprisoned like you, only for years. You see him on the screen, you see what loneliness has done to him. He cries out for a voice to listen to. But you cannot speak. You see this forgotten person. You will be able to rescue him. Thanks to you, he will be allowed to go to the green planet if he can get there before you. But you cannot respond. You cannot answer the cries, the pleas for any kind of human companionship. When you arrive at a habitat, you will not be welcome. The locals will fear your ship will have an environment leak and contaminate the habitat. They will want your stay to be brief. They will be upset that you were given authorization to travel there at all. It will be the same everywhere. It would solve the Mentor's problem as well if you were to crash on the green planet. So your final landing might be a little dramatic. But you will land safely, and walk out onto the green. It will be the only use of green in the show. We won't show you finding the colony. You can do that on your own. February 17, 1986 I just heard Mentor make a speech. I didn't get all the words, but I got the sense of it. He was a businessman. He has worked aggressively all his life, rising to a level of great importance at the Transit Authority. The TA is a very powerful monopoly, having absolute control over all space transportation. He tells a little of the part he played eliminating the last competitors, and of the expanding new-governmental roles that the TA has been taking on. He tells of his personal ambition, of his accumulation of power and wealth. He touches on some evil things he has done, and on how he rationalized them. He talks about trying to discover meaning, purpose. At times it didn't seem that he really earned his success, much of his success he owed to luck or good fortune. What was it for? And he found an answer. He can save a planet. He can do it only because of the place he is in and the influence he commands. He has been searching for a way to make his life make sense, and this is it. (I see him like any of those executives we fly with on United, decent people, fathers and husbands, who occasionally have to do something that they aren't too proud of, which ends up profiting themselves. I want this businessman to find a way to become a great hero. He saves an entire planet. That's pretty good, isn't it?) He doesn't care how he has to do it. He puts you in quarantine to compel you to assist him. In the past, he has used that trick to eliminate enemies. That's not his purpose now, but it is a technique that he's comfortable with. He knows how to use the system. He needs you because he can't be in two places at once, and there are some steps that he must not do himself. Also, he doesn't want to have to face some of his past deeds, like seeing the people he quarantined so long ago. And ultimately, he wants you to validate what he's doing. That's why he gives you stuff to watch, facts organized (in his view) to convince you that he is a good man, and that everything that he did was necessary. The material also serves the plot, but that isn't his motive. You could finish the plot in ignorance. He just wants somebody to understand. You. April 2, 1986 Hey, I'm back! I've been writing treatments and speeches and budgets. But now I'm back here and just in time. Today Steve is in Princeton with my final budget for Transit Authority. Will we do business? Do we want to? Stay tuned. But in the meantime, let's talk about Transit Authority. What Fraser is doing to you is conducting a whirlwind publicity tour, taking the threat of a devastating incurable disease to four far-flung habitats. He needs this awareness in order to be certain that the quarantine regulations will be interpreted so severely that the entire Green Planet will be quarantined. For his abuse of his authority to grant travel permits, he will suffer a terrible sentence. He promised Lizette that he would join her and her Goddess cult on the planet, but he knew he couldn't get away in time. No. He had to stay behind to guarantee that your mission was successful, and the Green Planet protected, for at least a time. Your itinerary starts at Mesembria, which is situated near the sepulchral Cappel habitat. Mesembria would have been the third habitat had not the Transit Authority acted swiftly and ruthlessly in implementing its quarantine policy. Thousands of Mesembrians died in transit in order to contain the virus. That was long ago, but the memorials are still honored in Mesembria. Then it is on to Dysis, Anatole, and finally Arktos. Fraser will be arrested when you get to Arktos. That happens to be where he is. The plan called for him to join you there. But he couldn't. Even if he hadn't been arrested, he could not go with you. The media would label him as a dangerous madman. A madman might be expected to board a doomed spaceship. Lizette asked how he could actually enter your spaceship without breaching quarantine? Fraser said he knew there was a way. But he knew that there wasn't. He lied to her in order to make sure that she would go and serve the Goddess. She had her job to do. He had his. Fraser can be obsessed with completion. Part of his reputation at the TA is as someone who can "Get the job done." And he gets it done. Whatever it takes, leaving nothing to chance. Chances are that, knowing the situation that you might have volunteered for your mission. But Fraser doesn't take chances. Given the choice, he would rather take his chances with the death penalty than with the success of his mission. I've been thinking again about Lizette, and her story. She runs this guy's home, raises his children, but is never really close to her husband. Partly it is because he is shielding her. For example, a number of times in his career he takes major chances, betting everything. He didn't want her to worry. So she never knew. Or at least he never knew that she knew. And so she was unable to share the most important events in his life. There was certainly comfort, but there was also a great loneliness. They lived together, but they were strangers. They sleep together, but not in love, merely in convenience. Neither is satisfied. After the children were grown, she begins searching. She used to live for her children. Now she needs to find something else. She tries many things, looking for something to give her purpose. Finally, she studies history. Her research takes her back to the days of the green planets. There is very little surviving information. She has accumulated nearly all of it, using her ingenuity and her husband's position. She becomes an excellent historian. She mediates, and develops a startlingly complete understanding of what it would have been like to have lived in a world with an open sky. She discovers the Goddess. Fraser is quite impressed with what she has accomplished. He begins to understand it. His greatest barrier is to find a way to connect it to his own world, which he is unable to do. Until he falls in love with her. This is a new person, not the person he married so long ago. Familiar but new, a priestess from an age that may never have existed. He falls in love with her, and is furious with himself for having ignored this remarkable woman for so long, and in the same way he is furious at his ancestors for allowing the Goddess's worlds to die. When he is informed of the discovery of a new green planet, the couple instantly know what must be done. That gives them a head start because no one else knows what to do about it. The Habitats want political jurisdiction. The Cartels want commercial exploitation. The Transit Authority will profit in any case. But the head of the Transit Authority and his wife have a different plan. So with that background, how do we tell Fraser's story? Some of the in-flight material is stuff that SHE made to educate HIM. It will be much more personal than the standard documentary. Maybe she comes on the screen and talks to you. Maybe he talks about her. Maybe when you first see them you aren't aware of what their relationship is. Perhaps their situation forces them to be a great distance from each other, and you can see the weight of that. I'm still not sure yet of Fraser's position at the Transit Authority. Is he the top guy, or just an upper guy? It makes sense that he would put himself in the position of the guy who would investigate the issuing of illegal travel authorizations. As the man in charge of getting to the bottom of this, he will be able to delay the investigation until you've finished your terror tour. But the cover-up will fall apart. He cannot round-up the usual suspects. He will be discovered. Lizette is based partly on Lizette Sarnoff, the wife of David Sarnoff of RCA. She is mentioned very briefly in Sarnoff's biography. After looking up all of the indexed references about her, you would be convinced that she was a non-person. On July fourth, he married a beautiful French- born girl, Lizette Hermant, blonde, vivacious, with a peaches-and- cream complexion. In the family circle the private little joke was that on Independence Day he surrendered his independence. How many times did she have to smile at that little joke? Part of her apparent non-personhood may simply be the shield of privacy. Would David's Lizette have been capable of doing what Fraser's Lizette will do? April 3, 1986 People will react differently at each habitat to you. There will be rioting when you get to Dysis. Police will restrain the citizens, who regard you with unreasoned hate, and want to tear your spaceship and you apart. The Harbormaster might have permitted it, too, except that he was reminded that opening your ship would release the plague. He has no choice except to order your defense until your departure. When you get to Anatole, the situation is under control. The population is completely shut-off from your hanger, for security and virus containment reasons. Public relations- wise, this stop isn't too successful. At Arktos, the corporate headquarters of the Transit Authority, Fraser uses his last bit of influence to allow people to have access to the hanger. This time the crowd is quiet. It is driven not by hate, but with morbid curiosity, a chance to look death in the face. Fascination. So that's what Death looks like. A couple of people try to approach the Gleamliner, but they are easily restrained. April 4, 1986 The Cappel Virus (it isn't really a virus) is a self- replicating molecular machine that manufactures an artificial sweetener. The skin of infected people tends to taste sweet. The virus can be transmitted by casual skin contact. It can also be spread in the air and in food. The mother who kisses her child and finds that she tastes sweet has just learned that they are both going to die. People would imagine that their mouths were getting sweet, that their bodies were being converted into artificial sweetener. They would torture themselves with uncertainty, anxiety, and then they would die. There is no treatment, no cure, no hope. Everyone who is exposed will die within 2 months. The only defense is to avoid contact. The disease grows exponentially. It begins very slowly. The victim could be unaware of the progress of the disease until at the very end as the proteins in his body are replaced with a non-nutritive food additive. Fraser was just beginning his career at the Transit Authority when the Cappel disaster broke out. He was uniquely capable of making the hard decisions and doing what had to be done. He was personally responsible for ordering the deaths of millions of people who would probably have died anyway. It was easy for him, he acted automatically, pragmatically. He is credited for the containment of the plague. Only two habitats were lost. Had he been involved at the beginning, perhaps only one. He thinks about that still, but it is only recently that he thought of the millions he might have saved as the millions of PEOPLE that he might have saved. The aftermath left him as the youngest chairman in the history of the Transit Authority. A few years later he was no longer chairman, but he was still a big deal. He attempted to regain the chair about 10 years back. It backfired, but he was able to hold on, at least. Part of the price of protecting himself was putting the Prisoner into quarantine. How hard could it be for the hero who doomed millions in order to save the galaxy, to confine one unprincipled man in order to save the career of the hero who saved the galaxy? He was not defeated, but beaten. And for the first time he turned to his wife. He became intrigued with her work in Planetary History. Then he became aware of the discovery of a new Green Planet. When he informed Lizette about it they both knew at the same instant what to do. At that same moment they fell in love. They were possessed by the Goddess. They were driven by the Great Purpose. Mad lovers. Lizette began planning a colony. Fraser put himself on the Planet Development Committee and delayed things by destabilizing negotiations. Their plan was simply to retire on the planet. But Fraser became alarmed at the possibility that this planet will not be cared for properly, and will ultimately die, just like the others. He couldn't let those bastards get their greedy hands on his planet. And then he knew what to do. He'd take it away from them. Could he really do it? It was funny: He could! He just had to scare them enough. Who knows better what scares people? He needs you. You are a Traveler. That's what they call you, Traveler. He needs you to plant the seeds of fear. He also needs to share his secret with someone. He has lied to Lizette. He lied to her and he liked it. He found strange excitement and power in concealing things from her, because his intentions were so good. He felt like a hero again. A good guy! It turned out he could not conduct his terror tour AND be sure that it would work AND join Lizette. So he lied to her. And he felt such a thrill at doing this secret thing, private self-sacrifice. He has to tell someone. You are the only person in the Galaxy he can tell. When you get to the colony, you can tell Lizette what happened. - - - Fraser ordered that the flight plans of all flights, passenger and freight, with point of origin Cappel or Elet to go to a new destination: A near-by sun. All flights bound for Cappel or Elet were turned back. It is possible that some of those flights contained people who were not infected. Cappel was a major pharmaceutical supplier. Thousands of people were endangered throughout the system when Fraser intercepted all shipments. April 7, 1986 The Transit Authority didn't ordinarily attract executives capable of making life and death decisions. It was simply a stodgy transportation company. At one time it had been quite aggressive, as it predatorily acquired or replaced its competitors in space travel. It then absorbed all of the freight business. Then space ship construction, funds transfer, and other financial and banking services. Today, the company merely needs to continue. The acquisition hunger stopped after a series of unsuccessful acquisitions which were unrelated to the main business. There isn't much to do except to be profitable and to crush new competition as it appears. The most recent strategy has been to encourage unnecessary travel. Even though they have the field to themselves, they do provide efficient service. They are competing against potential competitors. April 8, 1986 Hello, Traveler. We've put on quite a show, haven't we? Do you think they're scared enough? I think we did a pretty good job. This will be the last time we'll get to talk together. I'm kind of sorry now that I had your microphone disabled. I'd like to share goodbyes with you. Do you know where you're going next? Home. You're going home. You're going to like it. Lizette tells me it's beautiful there. Everything is living there. It's all alive! Under open sky ... I've sent an evacuation order to the other colonies on the planet. They will all be gone by the time you get there. Once you set foot on the planet, the whole thing will be under quarantine. The whole fucking planet! Incredible, Huh? I've already started the procedures. You so completely scared these yahoos, it's guaranteed. Congratulations. You better launch pretty soon. You want to get going before they figure out where you're heading to. Tell Lizette what happened. Tell her that I won't be coming. Tell her I love her. [He shakes briefly with emotion. He is surprised at himself.] Ah...tell her the planet is safe. God I love her! Goodbye, my friend. Go with the Goddess. April 11, 1986 So, how would you tell Lizette? On the last leg of your journey, there is no in-flight material, unless you feel like leafing through the old stuff. It's just for you, your thoughts, and the stars, as you move through hyperspace, bound for the Green Planet, a world of green plants and blue skies under a warm sun. There is no one talking to you. You are utterly alone in transit. The game is won. Bittersweet. Lizette should be with Fraser. Fraser should be with Lizette instead of being on trial, accused of being the most dangerous madman in history. He knew how this would hurt her. He knew that she would have tried to prevent it. He knew that she couldn't understand that he did it for her, to protect their dream from the shortsighted whims of the corporate developers. Only Fraser saw the danger. What are the beliefs of the Goddess cult? Will Fraser and Lizette be together in the next world? Lizette has lost Fraser for the second time, now. Can she live without him again? April 16, 1986 My first idea for the sequel was that you run around with Lizette's amazons, taking over the other colonies and destroying their radio gear. (If a radio message leaks out 3 months after you arrive, then they will figure out that the whole thing was a hoax, and Fraser's work will have been wasted.) But then Fraser took care of the evacuation order. That guy thinks of everything. H suggested that Lizette and her witches might attempt to rescue Fraser. Might be fun, although Fraser himself would be against it. He wouldn't want to risk the sanctity of the hoax for his own sake, denying his importance to Lizette. ("I'm just an Old Man.") Another sequel might be that Lizette foresees that the Prisoner will finally be found as part of the investigation for Fraser's trial, and that the guy must not be found alive, or the hoax will be compromised. It is dangerous to base the security of your whole world on a single lie. I've been wondering how Lizette put the Goddess cult together. I believe that she organized it, it was not a preexisting group that she joined. Since it grew out of the research she was doing during her estranged period, it was probably made up of students from Arktos U. It started as a discussion group, and grew as her vision of the Goddess became more distinct. She now has covens on several habitats, a small invisible movement woven into the University network. When the chance to colonize the Green Planet arose, she turned up the heat. She knew that she and Fraser alone would not be self-sufficient, so she made the movement responsible for the colonization effort. It took lots of time and preparation, but she has established a successful colony, about seven months ago, about 60 people, mostly young people. She expected that they would be would be ignored. They end up being quarantined instead, even better. She's prepared. She is laying the cultural structures now that will support the colony for perhaps thousands of years. The Cappel Virus is made up of the following four ingredients in equal proportions: Tylenol Capsules Nutrisweet AIDS The Promise of Nanotechnology What of the tapes Lizette produced for Fraser. What will she find of Earth and the other dead planets? How will she evaluate their histories? How did she discover the Goddess, and who does she believe her to be? Is she a real immortal being, or a symbol for the life force? What does Lizette tell Fraser? How does she make her hardheaded businessman believe in this? She will make him believe. Fraser will find truth in it, personal truth. Events in his life will now make sense. Now he knows why he married Lizette and stayed with her for all of these years, even through the estranged period. Now he knows why he couldn't leave her, because the Goddess meant for them to do this together. He was a champion, that was his role. Lizette was the Orgiastic Priestess, and he was the Champion, and together they would serve the Goddess by protecting her world. Fraser will go to his death believing that. April 16, 1986 Fraser couldn't get involved with you officially until you left Mesembria. It wouldn't look right. Reflexively, the Transit Authority sends you to the waystation for holding, because that is what was done during the last outbreak, about 10 years ago. Only that poor soul was left there to die, but he didn't die, because he hadn't been exposed to the virus, and Fraser knew it. Fraser didn't really intend at first to leave him there like that, he just never got around to disposing of him properly. You remind him to do something about it. So Fraser releases the prisoner and sends him to the Green Planet. He has two reasons to do this: 1) The investigation will show that a Cappel-infested ship landed on the Green Planet (just in case you don't make it, a back-up contamination). 2) He is sorry now, and wants to make it up with the greatest gift he has to give, life under an open sky. Fraser is good at finding lots of reasons for the things he does. Unfortunately, the prisoner is insane. He will represent evil on the Goddess's planet. Lizette and her clan will have to live with this. Trouble in paradise. The End