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Interactive Adventure - parts 1 to 5

   When the Interactive Adventure was running regularly, there was a new part and Poll every week. Then I got distracted, and then starwars.com stopped hosting websites, so the whole thing stopped - just as the plot was thickening! For this, I apologise. Now, two years later, I find that I've actually lost the most 'recent' parts (6 and 7), despite the fact that I usually keep all my data backed up in at least three places.
   Nevertheless! I am now going to wrap the story up properly. Below is the story that was told two years ago, along with the poll results - the winning option being in bold. The new part 6 (and beyond), with the new poll, is here. This poll will be open for 4 weeks (while I'm going to some conferences), and I will then collate the results and write the ending accordingly! (This will almost certainly involve one last poll).

   Like all the classic choose-your-own-adventure yarns, this is told in the second person - yes, this means you!
   The only clue I gave as to how the polls would affect the storyline was to say "And remember... you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes..."

Preamble:

   This story is set in a galactic society that is very like many futuristic societies are imagined to be like these days. About one third of the galaxy has been colonised by humans. A large part of it is run by the Barondom who are generally all a bit evil. A similarly large part is known as the 'Chaotic Regions' and is formed of a large number of unallied systems. Finally, the remaining approximate third of known systems is run by the Administratium, an idealistic society that is implausibly good at maintaining a steady state of population-happiness, largely due to the extremely effective 'Wherego report' system which allocates the most suited job to any given member of the society when they reach the age of eighteen.
    Naturally in this galaxy they do not use earth units of time or space measurement, nor English as their language, so everything that follows in this story is effectively translated into these familiar terms from whatever they actually use.

Poll:
Q(-1): What gender do you want the lead character to be?

-1
Male
2
Female
3
Neuter
0
A being that is somehow able to switch between male and female
1

 

Prologue:

   You are Yooless P. Witwoman (aka Yoo), born and raised on the idyllic planet of Havannah in the Administratium. As your eighteenth birthday approaches, you begin the 'Wherego' tests, which will last several days. This is a very important time in your life, as the results of these tests will determine what job you are allocated. You posses three particularly distinctive traits which you expect the report will take strongly into consideration...

Poll
Q(0a): Your primary distinctive trait which you reckon will come in handy all the time is...
Q(0b): Your secondary distinctive trait which you think will come in handy occasionally is...
Q(0c): Your tertiary distinctive trait which you don't expect to have to use in this adventure is...

0a
A knack for saying exactly the right thing to the right person at the right time
3
some psi ability, including but not limited to, telepathy, psychokinesis etc...
1
the ability to use any handy item as a weapon
1
a vast and expansive knowledge of science and magic
1
0b
secret contacts in the chaotic regions
1
[I can't remember! Can you? If so, remind me at ranma-tim@care2.com ]
1
You own an interesting pet...
3
[See above if you remember what went here...]
1
0c
The spooky ability to change hair colour and style at will
1
An unguessable middle name
0
You always win staring contests
2
Retractible vaginal teeth (Flipin' 'eck!)
3

 

Part 1:

   The Wherego computer has finally worked out your job! You are to be a...

Generalised Society Fixer, Second Class

   A small data-disk writes itself into your home: semi-sentiently linked to the main galactic net, it can tell you all about your job, and answer any questions you have: it will be the hand-book for your new life. You already know that a Generalised Society Fixer is someone that helps fix unexpected problems that occasionally occur in the Administratium's otherwise perfect society. The disk informs you that 'Second Class' means that you will form part of the large list from which the First Class Fixers will assemble a particular team for a particular job. It also informs you that you have already been selected for a team, and that you are scheduled to leave the planet tomorrow.

   The next question you ask is whether or not you are allowed to take your pet Wyndlkidd with you, pointing out that its extendable wings enable it to fly in a large range of atmospheric densities and gravity conditions. The answer is yes. You make your leaving preparations: a few tearful goodbyes, visits to places of personal significance, settling of fiscal and emotional debts. But eventually you realise that you are going to have to say something to Bronze Pierson before you go.

   It had looked as if your relationship with him was going somewhere until a couple of months ago, when a number of complicated and disturbing things occurred. (You know exactly what these things are, of course, but they are not explained here in order to make your past seem more mysterious. Cheap and easy plot techniques, yay!) There are some decisions in life which seem pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things, but ultimately prove to be of crucial importance. It just so happens that this upcoming is one of these. (You don't know this of course). You decide that the best way to say goodbye is to simply leave him a vidmessage. You step in front of the camera and tap 'record'. If ever you needed to use your uncanny ability at saying the right thing (to the right person at the right time), it is now.

Poll
Q(1a): What do you say to Bronze?
Q(1b): And then what?

1a
I'll never forget what you did for me
1
You're cute when you smile
2
Get plenty of Calcium
3
It't not what you said, it's the way you said it
0
1b
Maybe one day I'll forgive you
2
Don't overdo it
0
Be kind to your knees - you'll miss *them* when they're gone
4
I hope you get an interesting job
0

(Yoo surreal nutter!)

Part 2:

   You leave the planet, still feeling proud of the finely judged level of emphasis you managed to put on the word' 'them'. Within a couple of days, you reach the Society Fixer's HQ, part of the vast complex of structures in orbit around Big Zed, an oversized inhospitable bad-tempered ugly planet in the Alpha Central system, and as the airlock door phooshes up in front of you, you are immediately confronted by a huge and over-friendly grin, wearing a round and jovial face and a small but robust-looking male body. Boringly human. You reflect on the mundane yet persistent adherence to the traditional human form chosen by the vast majority of the race, but rather than consider further modifications to your own body, you again reaffirm your ambition to meet a sentient alien - be it Omnic, Elijj'hari, or some other as-yet unknown race.

   "Hey there Yoo!" he exclaims, as your Wyndlkidd flies over to investigate him. "Allow me to introduce myself - I'm Power Maxx, your leader for the next mission. Ah!" he laughs nervously, "this must be your delightful pet. What's its name?"

   "It doesn't have one, yet," you reply, "and you are correct do avoid guessing the gender: the Wyndlkidd have four genders, none of which can be reasonably translated as Male or Female. This one is a class 'f' so you should refer to it as 'fe' instead of 'he' or 'she'."

   "Fantastic," he replies, uninterested. "Come right through, the others have been waiting." As he sets off away from you, he makes a curious gesture, which you correctly assume to mean 'follow me' in the local gesture-dialect. The corridors and lifts are cunningly shaped and lit to avoid the sense of claustrophobia the lack of windows might otherwise generate, and you and your Wyndlkidd follow Power in single file. A side-door eventually opens in response to his prescence, and he makes another strange gesture which could be read as 'after you'.

   You step through into a large lounge area, and you are just sizing up the effeminate-looking man on the far side of the room when a strong arm suddenly shoots out from your right and grabs your neck. You can feel the light cruel kiss of a blade resting against your throat, as a gnarly deep voice behind you says, "Just the hostage I've been waiting for! Please do note that I am not pinning your arms or legs: this is to demonstrate that I will slit your throat at the slightest hint of a movement, so don't try anything stupid."

   As he is saying this, you hear Power draw in a sudden breath from the doorway behind and to the left of you, and the effeminate-looking man looks rather shocked. Your Wyndlkidd flaps casually into the room and looks around, not comprehending what is going on, but still looking a little dangerous to anyone unfamiliar with the species. Clearly the guy is either serious, or this is some kind of test. But physical action seems too much of a chance to take, especially considering that you don't have any specialist training in that area - yet. So you resort to your deadliest weapon: your brain.

Poll
Q(2): What do you say?

2
"I always thought this kind of initiation test was a taquing stupid idea. Now let go of me and lets get down to our job."
3
"Since no-one here cares about me yet, I'm not exactly a sensible choice as a hostage. If you check the literature, I believe you will also find that the policy here is to kill unimportant hostages in any case."
0
"You know, your mother never meant to hurt you or your father. It's wrong of you to blame her. This isn't going to help."
2
"I take it you are unaware of what a trained Wyndlkidd is capable of." (er... not much, but it might work!)
0
Laughing evilly: "You obviously don't know who I am. Put the knife down before you get hurt"
4

 

Part 3:

   The blade comes slightly away from your throat, and you feel the man's grip on your neck loosen considerably as his confidence dissolves. He mutters a small but valuable collection of expletives, and you would be feeling pleased with yourself if it weren't for the fact that you were still bugged by the possibility that you might just have complied with their test. The effeminate-looking ('EL') man's eyes widen and he places a hand on the wall behind him to steady himself. With a theatrical gulp, he calls your eye-contact, and then asks: "Hey... you're not... Ouragio are you? Oh Freegal..."

   -(you know of an infamous agent of the Barondom known as 'Ouragio' that has launched many fiendish attacks on the Administratium single-handedly - but you didn't know she was female until now)-

   At the mention of the name, several things happen.The guy with the knife completely disengages and you can feel him stepping back behind you. By the sound of it, Power Maxx is sprinting off down the corridor to save his own neck. The Wyndlkidd lands on the main table and folds its wings, gazing hunchedly at EL-man. And you nod just slightly and allow a small smile to develop. As has happened before, you have somehow found the best possible thing you could have said, but its effects surprise even Yoo - presumably you bear more than a passing resemblance to this Ouragio character, or such an outrageous bluff could never have worked.

   You turn to face the gnarly-sounding man, and sure enough, he looks extremely gnarly. Tanned creased features hang around his hooked nose, and tiny fiendish eyes squint out at you from within a veritable nest of crow's feet. Having experienced his grip, you can well-imagine that his lean and light frame hides considerable strength and skill. "Nice to see that some people don't make the mistake of underestimating me. Now give me the knife," you say, fixing him with a look that should theoretically communicate barely contained power and energy. Or something. He hands the knife over by the blade and you take it with a flourish. "Tell me your name."

   He looks briefly surprised, then looks down at his feet. "Narmal, ma'am."

   You nod, and then abrubtly leave the room to run after the sound of Power's disappearing footsteps. You know that you're good at what you do, but even Yoo cannot maintain this bluff indefinitely. You turn yourself in and tell the whole truth. After several rigorous identity tests and history-verifications, Maxx is convinced, and leads you back to the room.

   He goes in first, and you cautiously follow. EL-man is back, but there is no sign of Narmal. "The team seems a little incomplete," you observe.

   "Ah, well." says Maxx, turning sharply, shrugging, waving his hands vaguely and then almost falling over. "Ha-ha, yes. Narmal turned out to be.... bad. I've called up a replacement, however. As you may have deduced, he was the 'human weapon' of the team. And we don't really have a shortage of those. Now, allow me to introduce Moosey. Moosey, this is Yooless. She is good with words, as you should have noticed. Yooless, Moosey is a particularly gifted hardware hacker. Everyone happy? No-one about to try to kill anybody this time?" The Wyndlkidd lands on Maxx's head but he ignores it. "Ok then: your mission, designated 0010285, is as follows..."

Poll
Q(3): What do you hope your mission is?

3
Anything, as long as it involves aliens.
0
I honestly don't mind: if the Wherego report was accurate I'll still enjoy it.
0
Something with time-travel involved, that's always good.
3
Something involving life, death, and love. And that guy Bronze too.
4
To boldly explore strange new worlds, that have not previously been explored boldly.
2

(Curiously, your hopes do have an effect on what happens, through a process that Yoo is completely unaware of.)

Part 4:

   "... you are to prevent Senlius Next from killing anyone."

   The name means nothing to Yoo, or Moosey. "Our personality-projection graphs were recently staggeringly disproved by this man. He was living out his days as a retired hardware-hacker" (you exchange acknowledging eye-contact with Moosey) "on the planet Marmoseth. Everything seemed normal. A few weeks ago he upgraded his home-security, at tremendous expense, to a top of the line Home-Is-Your-Fortress setup, version 3.1. Given the proximity of the Barondom and Chaotic systems, this is almost understandable. A few days ago, he ordered some very specialist parts. Moosey, you'll be given the full details on the journey. Some of his offworld communications were monitored, and new personality-projection graphs were drawn up based on these. The probability of spontaneous mental recrystalisation was then put at 40%. Strong influence by a hidden variable estimated at 50%. 10% remaining assorted improbabilities."

   Your Wyndlkidd, still perched on Maxx's head, decides that what this conversation needs is some surreal gurgling noises, which Maxx ignores.

   "Whatever the cause, the change seemed to carry a high risk of vigilanteism. For this reason, we sent in two diplomatic AI on Alpha double-prime RDUs."

   -[Techy knowledge: RDU = Remote Drone Unit. Different models are capable of different things, but their primary aim is to allow an AI [[Armoured Igloo. No, it really is Artifical Intelligence, sorry]] to appear and interact as if it were human. The appropriate image is projected, and the unit itself can move and morph within that projected volume to provide the necessary physical interactions.]-

   Moosey is looking very pleased, and Maxx is pausing for dramatic effect. "What's so special?" you ask Moosey.

   "Only taquing Alpha double-primes. We are talking TOTR A1 RTTM bonzer tail-waggers of the highest degree. Whoever authorised their use must have been seriously paranoid."

   "And justfiably so," continues Maxx, "seeing as all contact with them has been lost ever since they entered Senlius' defined domain-area."

   [The scene dramatically fades to black, and then fades back in again - in the American version there was a commerical break]

   "All contact with the Alpha double primes was lost?!?" echoes Moosey [probably to remind forgetful American viewers of what was going on]. You give him a hard stare.

   "Correct. It seems that Senlius Next means business, and we are not certain what. We want you to find out what happened, and bring Senlius back into line. Your human-weapon should be ready shortly: you leave in two hours time."

   "Wait a minute," you say, "from the sound of it, this could actually be dangerous. I'm not prepared to go unless you get us...

Poll
Q(4a): What do you want?
Q(4b): Incidentally, for later reference, what characteristics do/es You/o find attractive? (You may select more than one response)

4a
Guns. Lots of guns.
1
Another one of those Alpha double-prime RDUs, or something better if you can get it
0
A seriously tooled-up ship so that if we have to, we can nuke the site from orbit.
3
An extra 5 days of paid holiday this year, and you [Maxx] promise never to dye your hair blond.
0
An extra human-weapon type team-member that is female, for balance.
4
4b
Black hair
6
Blond hair
0
Weird kind of hair
2
Very long hair
4
Dark eyes
3
Light eyes
1
Mysterious eyes
3
Sexy eyes
4
A good smile
7
An enormous bank balance
3
A very muscley body
0
A fit but not over-muscley body
5
Anybody
0
Good sense of humour
3
Weird sense of humour
5
A fondness for weak puns
1
An obsession with music
3
An interesting job
1
A good sense of rhythm
2
An undefineable something
6
No piercings
3
No Piersons
1
Piercings all over the place
0
bi-curious
3
sharing several key common interests (its good to have things in common)
5
sharing no common interests (opposites attract)
1
A gorgeously masculine smell
2
Someone that Yoo can respect and respects Yoo
5
Yoo is actually a lesbian because guys are rubbish and what you really want to read is some hot girl-on-girl action (and you're also glad that these Polls are anonymous)
4

 

Part 5:

  "I agree," says Moosey, a little geekily eagerly.

   "As do I," says an overconfident brassy voice entering the room: it comes from a guy that looks like a small and tough wiry-type man, about thirty - only scaled up: he's almost two meters tall. He has a small crop of manky blond hair, beady eyes, and is clearly lacking an undefineable something. As he catches sight of you he flashes you what you guess is supposed to be a smile rather what it actually is, a kind of squinting grimace. Unattractive almost to the point of repellant, but not quite: you are unnerved by how safe you feel when near him, like walking past someone who's juggling five clubs solidly and barely noticing.

   Your Wyndlkidd looks up in alarm, and with a scream flies up to scratch at Masimus' face. He catches fer by the legs with Jedi-like reactions, and grabs the beak with the other hand: holding fer up to his face he gives fer a beady stare. [Ok, I should have started being consistent with the fe/fer thing earlier, sorry] You were about to apologise for fer attack, but the sudden irritation at the way he is treating fer stops you in your tracks. He releases the creature, and fe flaps casually back over to the table.

   The guy turns his expansive frame around to draw everyone's attention. "I am Masimus. Delighted to make your acquaintences. Maxx, I recommend you get Shemora assigned with us: we've been training on our double-teaming work recently and I think she's exactly what we need."

   Maxx looks slightly uncomfortable, but eventually seems to conclude that giving the go-ahead will still be a sign of how powerful he is, so he agrees.

   [Please note, the above is not quite true: Masimus actually turned up a few minutes later, and much conversation was repeated before he said "As do I." But I had him come in at just the right time in the first conversation for conciseness, at the cost of co-incidence. That conciseness has now rather been ruined by this paragraph, but never mind]

   As you all head for the squad-ship, Power Maxx says, "I've called up Shemora, she'll be joining you shortly. Masimus, from now on, you're in command."

   "What?!" you shout, wheeling around, "That moron, leading us?"

   "Of course," replies Masimus condescendingly, "I'm clearly the most experienced and skilled when it comes to leadership. I don't think anyone else in the group comes close."

   "Poop to that. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one with any brains here. Tell you what: Scissors paper stone. If I win, I lead. Otherwise it stays with you. The odds are in your favour." You sense that he isn't keen on the idea, but he agrees: presumably you found just the right words to convince him.

   "Alright. Three - Two - One -"

Poll
Q(5): What do you go for?

5
Paper
1
Scissors
1
Stone
3
Knee in the groin
0
Nothing: say "No-one with any brains would gamble when they have nothing to gain."
2

The story now continues in part 6!

But, just for reference, in the original version of part 6 the following polls took place:

Q(6a): What do you want to start training in?
Q(6b): How do you want to get to Senlius?

6a
Combat with melée weapons and stuff like that, so I can beat people up
1
Combat with ranged weapons, so I can get people from far away
0
Diplomacy, tact, leadership, things of that ilk
2
Juggling, spoon playing, back-flips, free-fall control, and other fun stuff
1
Actually I think I should learn all about these home-is-your-fortress thingies, seeing as that is what we are up against
2
6b
Stealthily, like Masimus suggested
1
With a crazy dive-bomb style attack on his house
0
Just try to talk to him, using my cunning word ability
1
Hire gullible people to attack his house from all sides at once
2
Find a celebrity he likes, and use him/her as a hostage
0
I have a much better idea, which I will e-mail to ranma-tim@care2.com
2

   [Both of which were determined by a coin-toss. The much better ideas I received went as follows:

A)   Either Yooless or Shemora (or preferably both) to get employment in the bad guy's house (maid, etc.) for insider information after following plan A for a stealth approach to the planet. Carrying a radio would be far too dangerous therefore the plan is to either communicate from the inside to those outside and plan the next course of action (attack with style, etc) or to escape past the incredibly cool security to report back to the rest of the team, and then the administratium. - O.N.

B)   Walk in the front door, fire guns at his feet, make sarcastic comments and leave again. Go back to your spaceship and wait until he shows up, fires guns at your feet and locks you in the broom cupboard. In the last five minutes of the story build a tank from the spare parts you handily left in the broom cupboard and save the day (without actually hurting anybody, or at least, only their pride). - R.'H'.L.

   A further coin toss made B the winner, and things proceeded from there... until the hosting all went pear-shaped.]

Continued in Part 6...

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