Halfway down the Danube

Go to section 29

Combat Command in the World of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers: Shines the Name, Mark Acres, Ace Publishers, 1987.

What an odd little book. I picked it up for pocket change off Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. It's a choose-your-own-adventure book, set in the universe of Robert Heinlein's military science fiction novel, Starship Troopers, which perhaps should not be confused with the Paul Verhoeven movie of the same name.

It's more complicated than the choose-your-own-adventure books of my youth. Elements of randomness are involved, not merely exerting your own naked will onto the pages. Basically, on the occasion of battle you roll a pair of dice, kind of like you were shooting craps, and check the result on a set of "combat charts", repeating as necessary until the battle is over.

Since Gary Gygax wrote the introduction, I'm guessing that this system is based on the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, and not on any sort of actual military operations research.

Anyway. Here's the blurb, which is accurate enough:

ENTER THE WORLD OF THE STARSHIP TROOPERS

You are Corporal Julian Penn. A seasoned combat veteran, you lead your squad of Mobile Infantry against both Bug and Skinny forces. The success of your command is as vital and perilous as any Bug War missions faced in Robert A. Heinlein's legendary story.

From victory against monstrous aliens to overcoming your own troops' flagging morale, your decisions hold the key to victory -- or defeat.

Uh-huh.

The first fourteen sections of the book form a nearly self-contained unit. In the first section, you, Julian Penn, are given a telegraphed moral dilemma: do you leave Paolo Guiterez, a "crazy Latin" who has screwed up your mission and is probably dead, behind? Or do you rescue him single-handedly? Or do you go in with a team to pick him up?

Now, the weird thing is, the obviously correct decision in the context of the book can lead to worse results than being a complete and utter bastard. Let's examine the hedgerows of this garden of forking paths.

Decision 1: you abandon the crazy Latin to his fate. This causes the morale of your squad to drop by one point.

Path 1a: you beat up a guy named Brennan, who has a problem with your decision. And that's fine. No further change in morale.

Path 1b: you ignore the matter. Morale drops two more points.

Decision 2: you charge in single-handedly. You get dinged, or you don't. Doesn't matter. And hey, Paolo's still alive! That crazy Latin.

Path 2a: you court-martial him. He hangs by the neck until dead, and may God have mercy on his soul. Morale drops a point.

Path 2b: you ignore the git. Morale drops two points.

Path 2c: you beat him up. Morale stays constant.

Decision 3: you go in with backup.

Path 3a: you get dinged. See Decision 2.

Path 3b: Your comrade Jim Wade buys the farm. Morale drops by a point; now see Decision 2.

Path 3c: Both Wade and "the tall, strong black man from central Africa" Sutu buy the farm. Morale still only drops by a point. (One wonders if morale would drop if Sutu died and Wade survived.) See Decision 2.

Path 3d: You go in, you pick up the crazy Latin, you go out. No one (human) gets hurt. See Decision 2.

Path 3e: Y'all die. Go to section 29.

So. You can leave the crazy Latin behind, and as long as you lay some hurt on your critics, it's only as bad as if you saved his ass and got someone else killed in the process. In that case, while beating the crazy Latin silly afterwards is neutral to the general morale, it's worse if you hang the guy, and even more so if you only cold-shoulder him.

On the other hand, if you charge in yourself, and later happen to lay some hurt on the crazy Latin, hey, your morale doesn't drop at all. Incidentally, you're also beating on a guy who has signs of a concussion.

Finally, if you go in as a team, you might all die. This is not the case if you go in by yourself. Apparently in the future, there is no "team" in "I". (In Heinlein's original book, a great deal is made of the importance of teamwork.)

It strikes me that these are really strange values to inculcate via a children's choose-your-own-adventure book. The beatings will continue until the morale improves? Oh yeah. We are the happiest barracks in the Federation!

Anyway, for amusement value, here's section 29 -- i.e., the DEATH section -- in full:

History is full of examples of the difference one man, or one group of men, can make. Although their names never appeared in the history books, Julian and his men did live on in the textbooks. Future generations of M.I. officers studied his mistakes. Perhaps it was one such officer who remembered Julian Penn and led his men to victory over the Skinnies. It is documented in the history books that the Skinnies changed sides, gave support to the Terran Federation, and allowed Humans to triumph over Bugs... at least for a while.

You can return to section 1 and try again.

So, punk. Do you feel lucky?

Posted by coyu at September 20, 2004 08:02 PM