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195 lines
9.1 KiB
Plaintext
195 lines
9.1 KiB
Plaintext
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BUREAUCRACY REWRITE
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REVISED SCENARIO (PLOT ONLY)
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v1 of Jan 87 13:50
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**************************
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1) HOUSE, BANK, LLAMA, MAIL
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You have just moved into your new house. Everything is fine. You have
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a new job at Happitec - Vice president of Systems Development. The fact
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that your previous job ended in something of a disaster when roughly
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150,000 people were seriously inconvenienced by a rather buggy program
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for which you were responsible is neither here nor there. The internal
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bureacracy of your previous company took care of that, and anyway - when
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was an information specialist's career ever set back by a disaster of
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that sort?
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The game opens in the living room of your new house. Everything is
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dandy, as we said. The house is much bigger than your previous
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apartment, the area is nicer, you will be earning more money and, best
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of all, you are leaving today on a two-week vacation, all expenses paid.
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The only thing you will need is the cab fare to the airport.
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Unfortunately, due to a tiny little foul-up at the bank (which, you seem
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to recall, uses software produced by your previous employers) your
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change-of-address card has not been actioned by the bank. The reason?
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The DP department can only accept change-of-address notifications on
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official change-of-address forms. A change-of-address form has been
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sent to you... at your old address, along with your checkbook and your
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new credit card (which expired last week).
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Your quandary? To get hold of enough money to get a cab to the airport
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to get your flight to Paris, so that you will be able to survive for a
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fortnight. After all, once you start your new job, everything will be
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allright.
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In the package is a letter from your new boss, Ollie Fassbaoum, telling
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you how to pick up your airline ticket. He also mentions that a check
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for $75 is on its way to you in the mail.
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So you have two alternative problems. Problem A is to get your bank
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either to cash you a counter cheque or to get a cheque book to you
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QUICKLY so that you can get cash from your bank. Problem B is the
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alternative, which is to get hold of the money order which Fassbaum has
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sent.
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You can attack these problems in either order. Doesn't actually matter
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which. Here they are:
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PROBLEM A: THE BANK
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STARTING INFORMATION: The bank has failed to act upon the change of
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address card you sent it, because it was not on a proper form. They
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HAVE used their initiative to the extent that, realising you needed a
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change of address form, they sent you one. Unfortunately they sent it
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to your old address.
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The new tenant of your old apartment has in fact received this form.
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He has also previously received a cheque book and a credit card, among
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other mail, which he politely returned to your bank with "PLEASE
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FORWARD TO NEW ADDRESS" written on it. The change of address form is
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the last straw. His attitude is "Fuck this; tell your bank about your
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new address, I have had enough." He has gone on holiday to stalk Ai-Ai
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in Zalagasa and won't be back for three weeks.
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So you might think of ringing up the bank to ask for a NEW change of
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address form. If you do this, you will get Pongo the bank parrot, who
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will tell you that according to their records, they sent a change of
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address form to your old address (You already know this) and they can't
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send another one out until the original is returned. They cannot
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possibly bypass the system in your case because (A) how would it be if
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everyone bypassed the system, and anyway (B) the system was manufactured
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by the Deep Thought Corporation of America Inc and is notoriously
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inflexible. They have had someone in to look at it but things only seem
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to have got worse. Ringing the bank is therefore a no-win game play.
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You might also think of actually visiting the bank to see if they can
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help. The bank staff are however completely incapable of helping you.
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The systems have been automated to such an extent that the humans are
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reduced to mere robots and show no initiative. They are completely
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intimidated by the computer, which anyway has behaving strangely of late
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so they don't want to take the risk of offending it. The only thing you
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learn is that they COULD cash a money order. Since this is the thing
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that Fassbaum is sending you, it is obvious that that's what you need to
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find.
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If you haven't already looked in your mailbox at home, you'll perhaps do
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so now. You will find that someone else's mail is in it, which might
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alert you to the fact that something is wrong with the mailman. Perhaps
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he is a DTC robot? Perhaps he is just a prick. Anyway, all the mail is
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misdirected, and it's obvious that if you are ever going to find the
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Fassbaum money order you will have to look in someone else's mail. You
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will in fact NOT find the money order until you have opened all the
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available mail.
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The mail problems remain exactly as they currently are except perhaps a
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few more pointers ?
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The LAST batch of mail you find will contain two items: a money order
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addressed to you, and an envelope addressed to someone else. The money
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order will have been destroyed in one way or another, depending on where
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you find it. It can have been licked by the llama, plunged into water
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by the paranoid, ripped to shreds by the macaw or cut to ribbons by the
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collector. Every batch of mail will also contain a special offer
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suggesting that you, the lucky recipient, might have won $25,000. The
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last envelope will also be another stupid thing suggesting that you have
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won $25,000 and will ONLY be morally distinguishable from the other junk
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mail by the fact that it is a real object. If you assume that it is
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just junk, you will not ask to pick it up (**YOU AUTOMATICALLY PICK UP
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THE MONEY ORDER, JUST TO MAKE THINGS SUBTLE**) and will never get to the
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airport. If, however, you DO pick it up, you will find that it is
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addressed to a silly name at a non-existent street address (You will be
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told this in the text) so that you are perfectly justified in opening it
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and taking the money order it contains.
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You then have to return to the bank with the money order and run through
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the bureacratic process of cashing it. This will involve the silly
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forms (siller than now but less paranoid) but in the end you will get
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the money.
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Throughout this process the nerd will keep appearing and try to sell you
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things to do with computing- books on protection systems, hacking
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manuals, interesting terminal numbers and so forth. They will always
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cost slightly more money than you have after buying your cab fare, so if
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you accept his stupid offers you won't be able to get to the airport.
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Also throughout this process, pseudo DTC repair men will keep appearing
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out of the corner of your eye.
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The restaurant remains the same. If you don't eat you die. The
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waitress runs away after a pause because something goes wrong with the
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computer terminal she is using to punch in the order. The waiter comes
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out and takes your order but whatever you ask for he brings you a bill
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for $475.50. When you quesiton him about the bill, he explains that the
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DTC computer is fubar and the real bill is $4.50
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>ASK WAITER ABOUT COMPUTER
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"It's a DTC. As I said, it's Fubar."
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>ASK WAITER ABOUT FUBAR
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"Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition. As I said, it's a DTC"
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Outside, the waitress and a pseudo-DTC engineer in a white coat with a
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walkie-talkie is snigelling (a very private in-joke word which will not
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be explained) over something with the waitress. They disappear when they
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see you.
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DTC engineers are found everywhere.
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The general principle is that DTC is the Frobozzco of the computer world
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and that companies use DTC foul-ups to excuse their own infelxibility.
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The CAB COMPANY and AIRPORT work as normal except that we will find some
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way of blaming the snafu at ATC on the DTC computer.
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The AIRPLANE PUZZLE we have already dealt with.
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Perhaps the piped music system is a DTC product as well, and Boysenberry
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could have been a once-creative company now absorbed into the DTC
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bureacracy.
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The airplane pay-off is the stewardess telling you that it is not
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actually going to crash, it is in fact a totally inexplicable computer
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malfunction.
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ZALAGASA, THE SILICON MINE, THE MAZE
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===================================
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Zalagasa could be a real or a fantastical place. It is never actually
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made explicit which is real, although attention is drawn to your labile
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emotional state at the time.
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While you are in the cooking pot it occurs to you that a series of
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bureacratic and computer foul-ups have led to this sorry plight, but on
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the other hand you have at last found tranquility in a place where
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neither computers nor bureacratic conventions exist. Witness the
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charming primitivism of the Zalagasans dancing round the pot chanting
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their age-old chant of ZBUG! ZBUG! ZBUG!.
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You solve the eclipse prediction puzzle as before and escape from the
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cooking pot. One of the Zalagasans comes back and engages you in
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conversation, observing that your Boysenberry is in fact a rather
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primitive version and that theirs has a much more sophisticated BIOS
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which was introduced to them by a mysterious nerd-like figure who
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emerges periodically from a hole in the ground. He tells you that that
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hole in the ground is over to the west.
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This leads you into the Silicon Mine, which is in fact the Quicksand
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renamed PLUS the
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