A Road Less Travelled

Our playtesting group was recently testing a roleplaying game called Agora. You each play a faction who made it to the planet Agora during a big war. As soon as you get there the orders come through that there’s been a truce of sorts so just stay where you are and try to build a colony on Agora. The meat of the game is watching a civilization grow. Seeing how short term decisions now effect the way your people think and act far in the future. Watching the slow change of ideal and values as your people interacts with the planet and the task of building something to last.

It was a cool game. We didn’t play it to the end because it was a very long game and because it wasn’t a good fit for everyone. But I found the concept of the slow growth and change of a culture intriguing.

Shortly after we ended the game I was at the library poking around for books I hadn’t read yet that I’d enjoy. I found myself in the fiction section staring at a shelf of Anne McCaffrey books. I’ve liked just about everything I’ve read of hers. I found a book called Freedom’s Landing that looked fun and interesting. So why not? I got it out, started it and then devoured it.

The time is about now. Aliens called Catteni have invaded Earth using their usual tactic of simply taking several entire cities as slaves and expecting this to keep the rest of the populace in line. Our main character is Kris Bjornsen, a student in Denver who got picked up in one of the first slave runs. She and several hundred other slaves from several different races get dropped onto an uninhabited planet to see if it would make for a good Catteni colony. That’s how they colonize, see. They just drop slaves onto the world with rudimentary tools and keep checking in to see if they survive.

The ex-slaves do more than survive on the strange planet. Someone takes charge and makes everyone work together. They quickly become a well-organized community with everybody pitching in to make life work. The leader, an ex-sergeant named Chuck Mitford, figures out what people are good at and assigns them jobs accordingly. He manages to knit together Humans and the two alien races that stayed with the Humans into one group that trusts each other. He and Kris even manage to keep the one Catteni that got dropped with them alive long enough for him to prove his usefulness and trustworthiness.

It was awesome. I finished the first book and immediately went looking for the next. It was just the story I’d wanted to see play out in Agora. Now that basic survival is taken care of where will the civilization go? Will they stay united when life gets more comfortable? Will they be able to build something that will last?

So I started the second book, Freedom’s Choice. And was horribly disappointed. Not because it wasn’t what I’d been hoping for. It was exactly what I’d been hoping for, but Anne McCaffrey knows more about these things than I do.

The second book picks up just a bit after the first one ends. There are several thousand people on the planet now because the Catteni have figured out that it’s very habitable. People are beginning to spread out over the planet. And the politics start.

The group is bigger, much bigger than the first group Sgt. Mitford took command of. He’s still doing an excellent job, but now there are more people in leadership, more people with a say in what happens. More people to appease and explain to and play off each other. The politicians have showed up and the games have begun. And because Kris is close to the heart of things we have front row seats.

I stopped reading after the fourth chapter. It was too frustrating. I much preferred the first book when they had to figure out what indigenous monster would eat them. I much preferred it when the Deski were almost dying because of a severe mineral deficiency they couldn’t figure out. In Agora terms I really liked the Descent and Survival stages, but couldn’t get into the next stage.

Anne McCaffrey understands people and how they think. As soon as there is an opportunity for power there is someone standing by to try to seize it. This means infighting which is something I just can’t stand. If you’ve got enemies on the outside then why fight amongst yourselves? If you’ve got more than enough to fret about in the area of aerial bombardment then why play politics?

Who knows, maybe I’ll pick the books back up at some point. When I’m older and more cynical perhaps. And hey, maybe I’ll play Agora all the way to the end. Since I get to have a faction all to myself I’ll have a nice control on any political infighting they want to start up.