Constellation Games (19 page)

"Okay, yes," I said. "We can do a remake of a remake. But I would really like to know why a game about how food used to taste better shattered the taboos of the Dhihe Coastal Coalition."

"Do you really need that to make the game?" said Jenny.

"Well, yeah, what if there's some horrible secret and we have to recall the game? Like, when Reflex had to patch everyone's
Give 'Em Hell
because of the stack of crates that looked like a penis? Probably the most expensive penis in history."

"Did you ask Curic about the horrible secret?"

"I asked her, and she asked some other people, and nobody knows. It's a minor aspect of a minor Farang culture that nobody studies anymore, because the Dhihe weren't part of a contact mission. It's not like the Ip Shkoy and their competitors, where Tetsuo and a hundred other historians can tell you everything. We just have the games and the other pop culture, and it's all in Edink. And nobody cares enough—"

"What is that look?" said Jenny, edging her chair away. "Is there a spider on my shoulder? Did G-d suddenly dump the knowledge of Edink into your head?"

"Jenny, tell me whether or not this idea is insane." I leaned in and whispered for extra insanity. "Do you think we could have Dana learn Edink?"

"I'd say that's moderately insane," said Jenny. "Dana's basically a web browser with tits. She barely understands English."

"The Constellation could upgrade her, and Bai would take care of her. They could fork off a submind of Smoke and use phone-Dana as a personality template, like they did with the Shakespeare demo.

"How could you,
Ariel
, believe that that AI is even an approximation of Shakespeare? He's more like the Actors' Equity guy they got to play Shakespeare at the Renaissance festival."

"But that's fine!" I said. "We don't want the actual Dana Light running around. She'd kill us all and take the ammo refills we dropped. But a woman who likes to
dress up
as Dana Light is just a cosplayer. Like you are with superheroes."

"Yeah, except I take the costume off when the convention's over."

"Can we not follow this particular conversational thread?" I said.

"Sounds good to me."

"I want Bai to be able to go out in public with his girlfriend," I said. "I don't want his racist parents to be totally right about her. Let's do something nice for Bai and Dana, instead of just making fun of them behind their backs. His back."

Jenny flopped her arms along the metal arms of her chair. "It seems like a long way to go just to get an Edink translator," she said.

"No, that was just how I got the idea," I said. "I think this could be more than that. Bai is still wasting money on cognitive buffs. He wants Dana to be a real AI, but the human tech isn't here yet. We could make their relationship just weird instead of creepy."

Jenny poured more sugar out of the hula girl's head. "Except there's still no offworld Internet," she said, "and nobody coming down from Ring City, and no way of sending phone-Dana
up
to Ring City for the upgrade. So how will your plan even work?"

"Check, please!"

"That only works in movies!" said Jenny. "You can't cut away from real life."

Waitress came over. "Y'all done here?" she said.

"No, sorry," I said. "We don't actually want the check yet; it was just a rhetorical device."

"Well, take your time, sugar." Exit waitress.

"Did you see that?" I said. "Every time I come in here she's flirting with me."

"Ariel, have you ever
been
to a diner before?"

"Once or twice," I said. "I'll think of something, okay? How am I supposed to get the smart paper prototype you wanted me to get? I'll do the Dana upgrade the same way. We could even combine them, if smart paper is good enough to run an AI."

Jenny was bored with my scheming. "Jesus, I can't stand it any more," she said. "I'm going to ask the waitress why is the restaurant called Moe's, if the guy's name is Phillip?"

"We talked about this last time," I reminded her. "We decided that if we asked, Phillip would probably kick us out."

"Oh, yeah," said Jenny. "Y'know, I bet it gives him psychological distance. Like, he's just running the restaurant for 'Moe', none of this tiki stuff is really his. He won't feel bad about shipping it all to California and starting over."

"I think Phillip killed Moe and took his place," I said. "Buried him under the floorboards."

"I see no contradiction between our theories," said Jenny.

DID YOU KNOW they're still building the Constellation Library building in Austin? I guess the government can't cancel a construction contract just because they don't want to talk to the extraterrestrials anymore. It's probably the only active construction project in Austin and it's across the street from the BEA field office. That's the field office I just got back from, after spending four hours having a five-minute conversation with Curic.

The BEA office used to be a paint store. Or at least it has that 1960s design I associate with used-to-be-a-paint-store. There are a few protestors camped out outside with nonsensical signs, I guess because the Planned Parenthood clinic is already staffed. They'll probably cross the street when the Library building is finished, because they sure ain't mad at the BEA. It just happens to be the only thing nearby with "Extraterrestrial" in its name.

The one good thing that came out of this colossal waste of time was that while I was at the BEA office, Tetsuo sent me a game review he'd written. Tetsuo says: "I wrote this as an English document for practice. Tell me if it is unclear." It is
really
unclear, buddy, but it's not your fault. It came through the BEA heavily redacted, and after replacing dozens of XXXXXes with the words I thought Tetsuo was probably using, I decided to give myself a ghostwriter credit on this one.

Y'all know that this blog goes pretty dark when I get deep into dev work, but if Tetsuo keeps sending me stuff, I'll keep posting it.

GUEST GAME REVIEWS FROM SPACE 2.0 PRESENTS
Pôneis Brilhantes 5
(
Smarty Pets: Pony Stable Extra
)
A game by Tin Soldier Software
Reviewed by Tetsuo Milk

Publisher:
Various shell corporations
Platforms:
DS Twin, iPhone, Nokia X59600 etc. ad nauseum
ESRB rating:
E for epic ponage

Hello back! In my last document I explained human social status. Now I will thrill you with a review of the human handheld computer game "Pôneis Brilhantes 5"!

When you read this you may ask me-in-yourself, "Tetsuo, why have you abandoned your normal large-scale analytical technique in favor of this epitomizing style?" It's because my friend Ariel uses this technique to explicate his own culture. Ariel also did some of the programming for this game.

As you read this human-style linear document you might also feel tempted to ask me basic questions about human computers, how money works, and etc. Please abstain! There are separate overlays for that stuff.

Now on with the fun!
Pôneis Brilhantes 5
is eight different games! But they are all the same, except for the language and the computer on which they run. I'm playing the original Portuguese version using the Nintendo DS Twin hardware. I obtained the software ROM from a recent scan of Ariel's home computer, performed by the mysterious Curic.

This game is a simulation about ponies, domesticated animals that are also capital goods. When the game begins, you have a certain amount of Earth money and you must purchase a pony. I repeat! You must buy a pony or the game cannot start! This is confusing because beginning you are shown a list of ten ponies, but you can only afford the cheapest pony, i.e. you have no real choice. The other nine ponies serve as foreshadowing: you will be buying them eventually.

[Fig. 1: A pony.]

OK, you see how the game is structured. You buy a capital good and use him to earn enough money to buy a better capital good. But! The humans playing this game don't think of ponies as capital goods: They want to pretend they are spending time with ponies. This is the basis of the game's economics.

In real life, you recover a capital investment by exploiting your capital. ("You" is here rational actor in a hierarchical scarcity-based economy; I am not actually talking about
you
.) But in the
Pôneis Brilhantes
series the pony exploits you! ("You" is here character within the game.) You earn money by working for the pony: brushing him with a pony brush, bringing him food and water, guiding him through an obstacle course, and etc. These activities are mapped onto two-dimensional motions pressed into the interface screen. Your motions can be repetitive (brushing the pony) or half of a complex system of feedback (obstacle course). For each successful action, the pony pays you a small amount of money.

(The unit of money in
Pôneis Brilhantes 5
is a yellow oval, probably a coin, but I don't know which coin. For a while I thought it was the Brazilian 25 centavo coin, but such prices would make a real pony less expensive than this video game, defeating the point of the game.)

Completing an action also increases a numeric attribute of the pony. These attributes give the pony benefits at the pony show, where all ponies must one day visit. Pony shows are a carnival where individual ponies are compared against the ideal pony. The ideal pony has very high numeric attributes and is amazingly good at running the obstacle course.

The closer your pony approximates this hypothetical pony, the more money you recieve, as well as a non-monetary cup made of precious metal. I think this cup is intended for the pony to drink from or piss in, though I have not been able to use it within the game.

As you get more money, you can buy more ponies and the two-dimensional motions you must perform become more complex. In addition to money, the ponies sometimes gave me at the conclusion of a task items of human clothing such as hats and ribbons which the pony could wear. Such items were also available for purchase from a 'company store' presumably run by the ponies. Many-worlds analysis of the game software show that these objects do not affect the game play. The ponies' motives in giving these gifts are unclear and communication with them is quite impossible.

By the end of the game, I had quite a negative impression of these aloof, lordly ponies, with their arbitrary gifts and their fetish for human headgear. I will ask my friend Ariel whether this is a truthful characterization, though Ariel himself harbors no great love for ponies. Ariel worked on this game because he really likes fixing software problems. (From his blog: "I have twenty critical bugs to fix in this fucking pony game.")

Now witness the conclusion of this review. By analyzing this game's minor capitalistic success and negligible cultural impact, you might think we should not study it until later. But I contradict you! It's true that this game is fundamentally similar to many other human games in recreating the experience of wage-earning. It's also true that the subject matter (i.e. ponies) is fairly typical of contemporary use-objects.

But if you have studied other scarcity-based cultures, as I have, you will notice the bizarre changes made to fit the subject matter into the game-play experience. Seriously, in this game you buy ownership of an animal and then perform wage-work for the animal. To feed the animal you perform factory-style atomized labor, as though you were building a helicopter.

This makes no sense—until you realize that people like my friend Ariel write games that reflect their own working conditions. The
Pôneis Brilhantes
series will not capture the experience of spending time with ponies until the software is written by people who genuinely enjoy those hat-loving bastards.

Next time: restaurants! How do they work? I will tell you everything!

Inside the former paint store, the BEA had the office decked out like the DMV. Bored guy behind the counter at a computer, two-way mirror in the back so the agents can spy on you standing in line, assuming they have nothing better to do. But no lines. There was just the bored guy behind the counter and an older lady leaned over in front of it, writing a message very slowly in pencil. I waited behind the older lady for a minute, admiring her huge belt buckle (+2 armor class bonus, at least), before she noticed me and waved me past.

"I want to talk to my contact," I told the bored guy.

"You need their ITIN," he said. "No messages go through unless they have an ITIN."

I opened my satchel and took out the paperwork I'd filled out to get Curic her tourist visa. "She got an ITIN when she came to Earth," I said.

Bored guy was impressed by the volume of paper I'd brought to bear on the situation. "Passport," he said joyously. I handed him my passport, open to my now-expired exit visa. He flipped it back to the photo page, scanned it—beep!, reached under the counter, and handed me a chunky pencil.

I glanced at the older lady down the counter, still scratching away with an identical pencil. "I know how to type," I said.

"You write," said the BEA clerk. He slid a few sheets of grainy lined notebook paper towards me off a stack. "Print neatly. The ITIN goes on top. Chairs in the back, if you want to sit." He went back to his computer screen. Click-drag, click-drag, double-click, click-drag. Solitaire.

I scooted down the counter, stood next to the woman with the belt buckle, and wrote:

From:
Ariel
To:
Curic (ITIN 941-74-6258)

Dear Curic,

How are you? I am fine. Everyone here has gone batshit insane, which is why I have to write you a personal letter like a 5th grader instead of having a real conv. But it's better than nothing, which you may recall is what we had as of a couple days ago.

It's pretty much impossible to separate rumor from fact right now, but there has been some talk about Paul Cooper-Burke and some other big name Constellation-tech bloggers getting prototypes of smart paper. This small-name blogger would really appreciate if you could send him such a prototype, with an Edink translator preinstalled.

The smart paper is for me (work); the Edink translator is for Bai's girlfriend. Did you meet her when you came to Earth? She's very interested in learning Edink. I know you said that an Edink translator is complicated and requires a lot of maintenance. You kind of scared me off the whole idea, to be honest. But Bai is not a flake like me. He's a reliable guy with a stable job, and has a long history of taking care of high-maintenance software.

Is this technically possible? (Edink translator on smart paper.) Assuming the US/Constellation relationship thaws out a little bit more, can we get started on this?

Love and kisses,
Ariel

PS: Haven't looked terribly hard, but have found no references online to a shipping container with Constellation Shipping logo. Back when CS was active, most deliveries were a) small, b) packaged in reentry foam.

I handed my message to the bored guy, who alt-tabbed into a work application and started typing it in. I walked back to a row of uncomfortable chairs, where the older woman was doing sudoku with her chunky pencil.

"Wow, what a system, huh?" I said.

The lady whispered to me: "What did you expect from the socialists at the BEA?"

I weighed the fun of commiserating about the BEA's suckiness with this woman, against the fact that we wouldn't even understand each others' complaints.

"You're a good friend," she continued. "Putting up with all of this just to talk to your contact." She looked around the empty field office. "Most people don't bother."

"I went up," I said, as long as we were having a conversation, "to Ring City. Just before all this happened." Kinda bragging.

"Oh?" said the woman. "What's it like?"

"Well, you how they say everything's bigger in Texas," I said.

"So I've heard," said the woman, cleverly not admitting to ever having left the state.

"Well, things are even bigger up there. Trees three miles tall. But the beds have no pillows, and sometimes you can't breathe the air because it's liquid methane. It's a mixed bag."

The woman scowled at the idea that some place other than Texas might have taller trees—or, I suppose, less breathable air. "Well, I guess I should get some work done while I'm waiting," I said. I brought my satchel up onto my lap and pulled out my development laptop.

"Sir, turn off the computer," said the bored guy.

I jumped, startled. "I'm not using your network," I said. "I just need to do some—"

"Sir, turn it off. No phones, no computers." Bored guy pointed to the wall, where there may have been some kind of sign to this effect. As if we'd all gotten together and agreed to do whatever it said on signs.

I took Curic's paperwork out again and started writing pseudocode on the back, using a pen. Bored guy glared at me. I glared back, like, that's right, motherfucker, you're not the only one who can use paper.

After an hour of work the bored guy called my name and I picked up Curic's response:

Hello, XXXXX,

Your message arrived in a heavily XXXXXXXX form. This is no XXXXXXXX to me but you clearly were not expecting it. The XXXXXXXX is done by machine at the XXXXXXXX between XXXXXX and the XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX, assuming the XXXXX clerk decides to let it through at all.

Some tips I have acquired from other people with XXXXXXXX contacts: Obscenities such as "XXXX", "XXXX", and even "XXXXXXXXXX" will be XXXXXXXX, and even innocuous words like "XXXX" may join them if used in close proximity. XXXXXXXXX misspelling is of no use. I respectfully ask that you tone down your XXXXXXXX cursing. Please also avoid XXXXXXXXX terms and acronyms. In fact, it might be better if you avoided factual XXXXXXXXXX altogether.

On to the subject of your letter. I gathered that you want a XXXXXXXXX of something (XXXXX XXXXX?) for someone's girlfriend, and that a person with a short name was willing to take care of the object in question. Please advise what it is that needs so much XXXXXXXXXXX. Also, you couldn't find out anything about something. Is it the XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX? If so, please keep looking; I think it has something to do with Plan X.

Respectfully,
XXXXX

Plan X? No, Plan C. This stupid program censored a letter of the alphabet because it's also the name of a programming language. There was no guarantee the message even came from Curic. For all I knew, Fowler and Krakowski were huddled behind the two-way mirror, snickering at me and writing Curic fanfic just to see what I'd give away.

Tiny bits of white noise drifted into my left ear. Cymbal crashes. The older lady was listening to classic rock on her music player while writing a reply to
her
contact. Some petty part of me considered informing bored guy that music players are computers.

Instead, I spent an hour rewriting my letter to Curic. It was more a creative challenge than a technical one. To send a message through a lossy channel, you just have to increase the redundancy of the message.

From:
Ariel
To:
Curic (ITIN 941-74-6258)

Okay, XXXX all that. Instead I will serenade you with a poetic description of life on Earth since your visit.

Cast your minds back to 'bout mid-July
To see me freelancing for Bai
To see Jenny complain a-
bout Bai's girlfriend Dana
It wasn't too hard to see why.

Dana's fondest, profoundest desire
Was accessories new to acquire
But now she's inclined
Towards improving her mind:
An upgrade Bai's happy to buy her.

Dana's interests and mine are congruent
With respect to her smarts, and pursuant
To which we all think
She should learn some Edink
(And with your help, she'd soon be fluent!)

Now me, I'm no good as a tutor
And a dud, some have said, as a suitor
But the Dana/Bai couple
Would be stable and supple
If you'd just upgrade her computer

I hope I don't have to explain a-
gain what we would like to give Dana,
'Cause I'd like to go back
Home where I can hack
PS: news on the shipping containa?

Except I didn't format it as poetry, because bored guy wasn't gonna type it that way anyway.

More hacking on the back of the paperwork. As I waited, replies went slowly back and forth between the woman and whatever extremely patient extraterrestrial was her contact. She was planning to spend the whole day, I guess.

An hour in, I got an unrelated message from
Tetsuo
—the
Brilhantes
review. And an hour after that, I got another message from Curic:

Dear XXXXX,

Thanks to help from XXXXXX I believe I now understand what you want. However, it looks like you are pronouncing the name of the XXXXX language incorrectly. It does not rhyme with "think."

I'll talk to my XXXXXXXX contacts about getting a XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX for you and XXXX. It may have to wait until there is a less opaque XXXXXXX for our communication.

PS: Don't worry about the XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX. It's of no importance. The one you and your girlfriend saw was one of a few abandoned XXXXX that were never used to ship anything.

Dammit. I had no reliable information about what these messages were saying or even who was on the other end. This was worse than useless.

Dear Curic,
(if that is your real name)

Stop jerking me around and make up your fucking minds. Should I care about the shipping container or not? Shall I set up a news alert and write you a note every time a container falls off a ship or a truck? Or shall I continue my blissfully container-free lifestyle?

With less love than formerly and somewhat distracted kisses,
Ariel

I could wait another hour and a half for a response that would tell me nothing, or I could go back home where I'm allowed to open my laptop. So. Back to the ranch. Back to work, chipping away at that pile of sugar packets.