Running a
country takes having the right mindset, having the right team, and a lot of
luck. It’s never easy or simple – are the Russians for us or against us? Did an
element of the United States kill their own President? Why does the U.K. want
our blood? Aliens is the best answer to all those questions and you’d think
being one would help make those answers more clear, but I see I’m getting ahead
of myself.
 |
| Daniel, Ryan, Cameron, and myself - Team Japan |
Saturday,
three friends and I played the MegaGame “Watch the Skies” with about 40 other
people – each serving in different roles in different countries, or as news
reporters, or even as aliens. The setup of the game is that aliens are real and
each nation needs to deal with that fact. Will they fight the aliens? Join
them? Underhandedly collect DNA from cards you handed out to figure out who is
an alien and who is not? The possibilities are endless as each team can define
its own agenda – even if it breaks the “game”; in fact you are encouraged to
break the “game”.
We were Team Japan; Ryan our Head
Scientist, Cameron our Military Commander, and Daniel our Foreign Secretary,
and I was Prime Minister leading the “Calm is Strength” Government. Each of us
had our own game to play within the game itself. As PM I held the purse
strings, deciding where to place our precious resources each turn therefore
setting our nation’s agenda. As Head Scientist Ryan was tasked with collecting
research and completing our nation’s primary goal PROJECT GUNDAM (more on that
later). Cameron had the difficult task of placing our Advanced Interceptors and
Advanced Tactical Squads on response to flying saucers and abduction squads; he
also tasked our Secret Agent who turned the U.K. spy the very first turn,
disarmed a nuke in Angola, and double-crossed the British when he assassinated
the U.K. PM after he paid us to kidnap the Russian Military Commander. Last but
not least was our Foreign Minister Daniel, who sat through grueling United
Nation’s meetings serving as Japan’s public face on the world stage.
The game started slow, our plan was
to remain neutral yet helpful in the world, but to acquire alien technology to
complete PROJECT GUNDAM. Our agent found 100 special candidates within our
borders that we started training in special high schools. We were starved for
technology though; while Cameron shot down an alien craft his operatives failed
to recover any tech. The first two rounds were disappointing in this regard, so
we went to the Gray Market to buy alien tech. That allowed us to jump start our
research. Meanwhile Daniel learned of a plague in Uganda which he pledged our
willingness to take in refugees – who we shifted through for more special
pilots.
In proceeding turns the other
nations’ actions became difficult to decipher. The U.K. wanted to test people’s
blood to see if they were aliens. Russia wasn’t fighting the aliens. The U.S.
declared to the world that aliens were real. It was difficult to know who to
trust and with what information. You learned to not only appreciate the worth
of information, but also the cost – does revealing this information reveal my
intentions or imply something I didn’t consider or intend. Decisions were made
by implication; for example: failing to shoot down a saucer one turn implied to
the rest of the world that we were far more complicit with the aliens than we
actually were.
Eventually Ryan succeeded in
creating détente and collected the much needed power source for PROJECT GUNDAM
from the Brazilians. Sadly here is where we made our misstep though – we announced
the completion of PROJECT GUNDAM to the world and then we failed to anticipate
foreign agents being used to sabotage them. Had we used our agent to protect
our mechs the final battle would have turned out very differently. Despite this
Japan was left on excellent footing, the Gundams could be repaired, we were masters
of Science, and Daniel had usurped the UK’s position on the Security Council in
the UN gaining Veto power. Sadly Daniel was vaporized when the escaping saucer
was destroyed with him in it.
Some advice I would give future
Watch the Skies players is to have a goal to work towards; whether that is
giant fighting robots, secretly assassinating every Head of State, or building
an undersea lair have that plan in mind and go to the game controllers with it.
The unscripted, improve nature of the game means no-one is there to hold your
hand, so you need to take charge and at least have a starting point. Secondly,
use Whats-App or another messaging app to stay in the know. I don’t know how
many times we collectively knew things before the other teams (like when the US
President was assassinated, Daniel actually gave his condolences before the US
Foreign Minister had heard the news). Finally, look the part. Team Japan all
wore suits and red ties to create a united front. It made it easy for us to be
identified and it gave us an air of credibility. The paper lantern and home-made
mochi also helped sell the fiction. You’re not going to get the chance to be
the Prime Minister of Japan any other time in your life, why not live it up
while you can?
So final highlights that probably
make no sense out of context:
·
Cameron’s brilliant play to turn the U.K.’s
agent on the very first turn. We didn’t get a lot out of it, but we knew when
their agent was killed.
·
Still having no idea who nuked China.
·
Still being clueless about who assassinated the
US President.
·
Revealing that I was also an alien right after
Ryan did and after I had been funneling money and interrogating a live alien
for my own ends.
·
Getting a Haiku published in the GNN Newspaper
·
Brazil becoming a world power right under
everyone’s noses
·
Seeing the biggest smile on Control’s face when
I told him we’d built Gundams piloted by unstable high schoolers.
If you get the chance to do a
MegaGame, any MegaGame really, get your friends together, make a plan, and
sign-up I think you’ll enjoy it. Learn more about our local group the Bellingham MegaGame here.
