I studied Game Science and Philosophy at the University of Texas. The program was almost mythical, started at the beginning of the 21st century, a time when suddenly almost everyone was playing games-- most households had at least one game console, if not several. The richest third of the world's population had little else to do but play games of some sort. Even wargames which were once the domain of the ubergeeks, found increasing acceptance among young kids of all stripes. The first dean of the School of Games was Steve Jackson, the founder of the infamous, epynonymous game company, known for a high profile raid by the FBI for its game Hacker. Under Jackson's tutelage, a golden age of gameplaying begun, whose center was Austin, the freakish jewel of Texas.
Game theory was so much more than rolling a saving throw versus poison. The roots of game theory can be traced back to the beginning of the 20st century. (See Von Neumann, minmax strategy, the Prisoner's Dilemna, Assassination Politics and Terrorism Futures Markets.) One of my prof's speeches begun, "If this is the 21st century, why does it very nearly resemble the 1950s? It is because the very same rules of minimizing loss and maximizing gain hold sway."
Game Philosophy had merged with Situationsim and radical politics so that you had strange mutant stepchildren like guerrilla LARPs, metaGames, randomized political strategies, dicerolled event table-driven lifestyles. Edgy players would infiltrate real organizations pursuing goals or challenges, such as corporate document scavenger hunts. The year ended with the popular Identity Theft Masquerade Ball.
It was often difficult to know where the lines were. Many of my fellow students followed at least one rule: don't play if it isn't fun. A popular metaGame was "Spot the Compulsive." If you caught one of the other players taking the game too seriously, and didn't respond to some of the cues, such as the safe word in DomSub games, or the popular hand in front of the forehead, fingers pointing up, palm-out. If the player did not respond to such signs, they were frogmarched to a fountain and thrown in. Repeated breaches of seriousness were punished by exclusion. The player was simply not informed of rulechanges, plot loops and treated as the persona non grata of the game world: an NPC, a prop, one in the forest, but no particular tree.
Somewhere along the line, things got vicious. We always knew the government ws interested in the School for their own reasons. Hell, they had been running the country according to the principles of MinMax since the late 50s. When I learned of the plan to use markets to predict terrorism, I was reminded of Assassination Politics, a game-like Libertarian solution to political problems using wagers, encryption, networking and any means necessary. The school did its best to protect us from data miners, pollsters, marketroids trying to gank our ideas. But increasingly, it came to my attention that some players were already professionals.
I had gotten cocky. I was completely blitzed much of the time, at all my classes. I was confident I could turn any situation around, having internalized some personality and situational formulae. I could pull together enough local variables into a set of motivations for myself and all I needed to remember were the names of a couple of elements and a color. For example, if I was caught in a building by a security guard, I could pull blue-fire. Blue-fire reminds me of natural gas. So I smelled something funny and went to investigate. Here's my card, I do inspections on construction sites.
My main project in my junior year was to infiltrate the Church of Scientology and liberate a substantial group of people in an elaborate mindfuck, revealing and ridiculing portions of the higher level doctrine. I had already run a few missions on their recruitment center and gone through their communications sessions under different names. I also had them convinced that I was an OT FIVE (Operating Thetan level V) from another city. This OT sponsored a few of my faction which were my plants that would aid me in my revelation. We even kicked around some ideas about creating a splinter group from the Church of Scientology.
One of things I discovered was that the Scientologists had developed or purchased the technology to devices that could read bioelectric signatures, micro-EEG tech. It appeared that their range was 1000 or so feet. They kept careful watch over the few that I saw and I wasn't able to grab one. It was part of their advanced auditing technique. With these new devices in their hands, they claimed to be able to detect very fine engrams, which are the spirits of dead aliens, according to Hubbard. These spirits, he claimed, were the source of neurosis. In some cracked way, I felt they were on to something, but using the discoveries to entrap individuals into their larger schemes. These devices meant I had to ditch my other guises and concentrate on the OT-5.
I should tell you about Crackers. We called him Crackers cause that's all he'd eat, well, white crosses, little speed pills with a cross on top, and crackers. C is tall, thin, with a grave face and a sharp sense of humor. Crackers had been in A.S.H. for awhile, that stood for Austin Skin Heads. He had convinced them to change their name to R.A.S.H. and got them all to grow sideburns. "Rectal," he said, cleaning his glasses with a completely straight face, "I convinced a couple to get high colonics. It's gotten very fashionable among skins and punks now to observe immaculate anal hygiene." That had been a sophomore project whose final paper was practically bronzed by the faculty.
Crackers set out the victory conditions for our game. If we enlightenedd 10 people to leave, that was a tactical victory. If we created a splinter church, that was a decisive strategic victory. Strategic victories were particularly useful for metaGames. Uninitiated non-players could be used from game to game in a larger context. Our splinter church could be the start of an entirely different game, perhaps one where we lure big corporate players to weeklong seminars where they divulge personal secrets for the purpose of "clearing" themselves of obstacles to freedom and prosperity. We could also unburden them of cash.
As you can see, we were thinking far, far, ahead of ourselves. The missions in the game had become part of our lifearcs. I could no longer see myself as an academic. I was a player in a broader sense and subject to rules I did not understand.
I showed up to class one day high on a Rosy Cruxifiction. A Rosy Cruxifiction is a time-release derm that cycles through several psychoactive chemicals 3 times. It was popular among radical seminary students who claimed it put the user through the passion of Christ. The chemist was actually another player who had enrolled in a few theology classes to undermine the School of Religion. He was a big fan of Henry Miller. "The first phase I like to call Sexus. You get incredible body highs off it. And it's easy to have sex. Then comes Plexus. You can tell where that one hits you. Right in the power spot. You feel a powerful rush of psylocibin analogues. Then comes the Nexus, which is ego death, and transformation."
I had timed the cycle for the Nexus to fall after I had left class, but I forgot there was a long day of student presentations. By the second cycle, I became convinced that several members of the class were agents of the Church. (There were also some overtones of messianic feeling, but I managed to overcome those.) This was probably true, but I was in no state to consider it. (I would find out later that an insider had given them my goals and mission statement, which is tantamount to a player throwing away their personality and rolling up a new one.) My tightest game comrades were not in this class. With no one to babysit me, I fell prey to "Spot the Compulsive." They rolled dice to see who would be responsible for leading me off campus. I knew what they were doing, watching from an window of psychic detachment, as they decided to shave my head and put flowers and a tambourine in my hands. With a lack of anything better to do, I mimicked their instructions. "Hare hare Krishna krisha." They rewarded me with a vitamin shot and a bottle of water and ditched the head-shaving idea.
Out on Guadalupe Street, the strip that seperated the campus from a ritzy area that used to be the boho student section, I was trapped in a strange personality loop. I pretended to be a Krishna, having lost my situational formulae when my ass got blown away by paranoia and ecumenical chemicals, but put myself through a regimen of remembering what I was doing and who I was. "My name is Henry. I was born in Vegas. I live in Texas. One day, I'll live in Kansas. I'm wearing sandals. I have a backpack. In the backpack, there are books. In one of the books is a sheet of acid. Oh, shit that could be a liability. It could also be an opportunity." Then I saw a goony looking guy in a crew shirt pointing one of those mini-EEGs at me.
Fight or flight syndrome took over completely. I started running without direction. I remembered something Crackers had told me, "Cloaking is smoking. Smoking is cloaking." Marijuana munged your brainwave signature just enough to make you like a person watching tv. I'd be indistiguishable from the other schmucks, or so I thought. Not trusting anyone I knew, I headed toward a section where Latinos mostly lived. "Mota, mota, mota. Motabooty your ass to the barrio." It was only 6 miles away. Before I even got there, I would lose a sandal, eat all the acid and stay in Roky Erickson's trailer, all within the span of a day and a half.