Good thought!
This does in fact work—we get back to the Monument with our piece in tow. But it doesn’t count as “solving” this scene and doesn’t unlock the footnote. So I think there’s something else we’re missing.
3 Likes
Progress! But not quite there. Hmm, I assume the bunk can’t be referred to, and there are no windows or anything as you’ve said, so concealment seems tricky. Using the law of parsimony of inventory items, that visa
seems conspicuous since we haven’t used it yet, right? I wonder if showing it to the soldiers might get them suspicious of spies and start hassling the other smokers long enough for us to escape.
We could also try concealing the piece in the visa, maybe - I think the sizes aren’t too far off? Or can we put it in the uniform, or see if something different happens when we are or aren’t wearing it?
1 Like
The visa is what got us into the carriage to the south, actually—here’s what happens if we don’t have it.
Before you get far into the southern carriage, which is full of soldiers of the Russian Imperial Army, you are challenged for your papers. Having none, you feign forgetfulness and go back the way you came.
We can refer to the bunk, and the piece, and nothing else. I’m going to go back and search the bunk and all that to see if anything works.
>x bunk
How glad you are not to have to sleep in here.Your eyes swim.
>search bunk
You find nothing of interest.You cough convulsively.
>look under bunk
Underneath the bunk is an old-style ventilation grille, currently shut.There’s a knocking at the door from the next passenger.
Dammit. I’m still not used to using this verb every time.
>open grille
You slide open the grille. Through it you can see the receding track, and feel the icy air outside.The knocking gets louder and more irritable.
>search grille
Through it you see the receding track.You feel rather ill.
So maybe we can…throw the piece out of the train? Find it later?
Can we see the other side of this grille from the northeast?
> x vent
You can’t see any such thing.
Apparently not.
If we restore and optimize our moves, we can find the vent, open it, put the piece in it, and close it just before we get thrown out of the smoking room.
> put piece in vent
The edge piece is lost to view through the grille. There is a thump, followed by a clang of metal on metal.
So now it’s been…dropped on the tracks behind us, I guess? Maybe we can see it from the back of the train?
Ice, Wind, Rails
You stand on a kind of wrought iron balcony on the back of the train, in the open Baltic air, white wind rushing past, the silvery rails disappearing among drifts of snow in the distance. It is breath-taking, and fearfully cold.A small metal bomb has apparently rolled from the undercarriage onto this balcony.
You can also see an edge piece here.
Oh, nice, so it ended up here, we can—
A BOMB??
>x bomb
A small metal explosive device, with a big frivolous letter B painted on one side. Too small, in fact, to actually harm anyone, though it might well strand the train out here for days.You have no idea how it works or when it might detonate.
Uhhhh
>get bomb
Taken.
UHHHH
>throw bomb off train
You hurl the bomb from the train, and as it smashes onto the ice behind it explodes in a crimson fireball before being doused and enveloped in snow. Soon even that snow is no more than a speck on the horizon. You feel profoundly safer.[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
Whew! I didn’t actually expect that phrasing to work—it was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about how to dispose of a bomb.
I think I’m having trouble visualizing this whole thing. The vent leads down to the rails. But maybe there’s a mesh or something underneath, where you could put the bomb and/or the piece, and then it connects back to…the balcony? But wouldn’t it be lower than the balcony? I thought the piece would just end up on the ground and we’d have to escape the train to find it.
Well. I…suppose we’ve saved history here? Would delaying Lenin by a few days have thrown off the whole course of the Russian Revolution? Defusing the bomb seems like the right thing to do, one way or another.
Let’s see what happens if we go back:
>set clock to 1
You shorten the time left on the clock.Suddenly you are wrenched out into the time vortex once more, and find yourself back…
History isn’t wrecked, and there’s only one place this edge piece can fit, based on its shape:
>put edge at a2
It fits at a2, and suddenly lights up with a picture: a 33 r.p.m. vinyl long-playing record.[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
The steam train is now finally “solved”, and we get the footnote:
[ Footnote c3: ]
C. P. Snow’s first rule of politics was: always be present in the flesh. Lenin was highly surprised to read about the Russian Revolution in the Zurich newspapers for March 14th, 1917. Unfortunately, Germany was in his way. He plotted escape disguised as a Swedish deaf mute, but his wife wouldn’t let him.
As his schemes became madder, a way was finally found: the German government (only vaguely knowing who Lenin was) gave 19 Bolsheviks passage, hoping they would cause a stir and get Russia out of the war. To cover costs, Lenin secretly accepted the small fortune of 250000 marks from Germany. (It was paid back in 1923, by which time it was worth only a pocket-full of small change.)
When the train pulled in to St Petersburg’s Finland Station, at 11.10 pm on April 16th, Lenin was met by local dignitaries who gave him flowers and made speeches hoping he would now join the coalition Provisional Government.
To consternation, Lenin made a hard-line speech against compromise of any kind with anybody, then left for Party headquarters - by armoured car.
Lenin destroyed the moderates in a matter of months. Every government in Europe had underestimated him totally.
The young boy grew up to be Dmitri Shostakovich (1907-1975), the greatest Russian composer of modern times (and DSCH was his musical signature). In the game he stands for the bright hope and freedom of talent in the early years of the Revolution, Lenin’s years: but he narrowly escaped the purge, and in 1948 Stalin had him found guilty of “formalistic distortions and anti-democratic tendencies alien to the Soviet people”. Like Pasternak and many other artists, he was harassed for years after.
Lenin did not want Stalin to succeed him. But the crown always dies before the king.
(Dmitri was really 10 years old and wasn’t one of the children on the train - but he nearly was: he was at Finland Station that night and witnessed Lenin’s arrival (see the 12th Symphony). The chits and the smoking queue are genuine, and the Russian troop escort really did share paskha with the Bolsheviks’ children. A diplomatic letter mentions the presence of the British officer but I have no idea what he was doing on board.)
Final footnote: there are still no smoking compartments on the Helsinki to St Petersburg train. Today, smokers stand by the doors at the ends of the carriage.
Save and transcript, as is tradition:
11d.txt (15.8 KB)
11.sav (2.3 KB)
And four possible times to visit next!
4 Likes
When shall we visit next?
- Vinyl record (1967)
- Air Force plane (1954)
- Cabbage fields (1941)
- Snow (1975)
0 voters
1 Like
Once again, nicely done! It’s (almost) always LOOK UNDER and SEARCH, seems like. I’m guessing Black is responsible for the little bomb – B is for bomb but also Black, of course – and derailing (er) the Russian Revolution does seem like something that could change history for the better, though of course given what we’ve seen so far I wouldn’t be surprised if it wound up sticking the world in WWI forever (is there a fail state associated with going back to the present before the bomb goes off, or simply letting it explode?)
Likewise, though at least it winds up being intuitive from a gameplay point of view.
I’m glad I’m not the only one! It is very confusing given the state of geopolitics at the time.
And it’s 1967? OK that’s gotta be Sgt. Pepper’s, right?
4 Likes
I suspect it doesn’t explode until we pick it up, since on the “winning” run I knocked it out during my first visit to the smoke room, and on other runs I’ve had to wait in the queue three or four times.
But if we go back after knocking it out, but before disarming it:
You shake your head, confused. Isn’t this party rather Western, for something thrown by the Imperial Princess Tatiana? Ah well: vodka and slivovicz for all, to toast the new millennium.
*** You have wrecked the course of history ***
Seems the Revolution wasn’t successful and the Tsars got reinstated. I have no idea what would have happened after that.
That’s my guess. I happen to know that this one will also give us a conversation with Black, so I’m voting for it, despite abstaining from the previous polls.
3 Likes
Clearly he was there to stop time travellers from planting bombs in the smoking room. Which is why the time travellers who wanted to plant bombs in the smoking room had to tie him up and throw him in the bathroom.
5 Likes
Well, the snow is currently winning with 60% of the poll, so I will defer to the will of the crowd. Just remember that, in Black’s personal timeline, this is happening after the vinyl record—they think they’ve already explained the things that happen in that scene.
Here is our grid:
1 2 3 4
+----------------------------------------------------+
|.............ooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo|
a |. Mould oo Record oo Park o|
|......o......ooooooooooooo o oooooo.oooooo|
|ooooooooooooo......o......ooooooooooooo.............|
b |o Invalid .. Dunes .. Plane oo Snow .|
|oooooo.oooooo.............oooooo.oooooo...... ......|
|.............oooooo.oooooo............. |
c |. Glass .. Carriage oo Train .. |
|.............ooooooooooooo............. |
| . o oooooo.oooooo |
d | oo Fields oo |
| ooooooooooooo |
+----------------------------------------------------+
And we’re headed to b4. Two animals to sketch in this one.
>set clock to 59
The clock starts, silently and slowly, and the jigsaw board pulses with a flickering amber light, warm and erratic as though from an oil lamp.>press b4
The piece at b4 presses in smoothly, like a button, then releases. You are sucked up once again into the time vortex. As you slow down, you briefly make out cartoons of the glorious 1911 arrival of Halley’s Comet and then everything begins to change…[Press SPACE to continue.]
Where will we be this time?
Chapter Seven - In The Wilderness
White Place
An absolutely white place, bright but not glaring, like a negative of the black ball.It seems oddly normal for Black to be here - but with such a stricken look?
“Something we’ve done… I swear, it can’t have been me, I haven’t even been there… There’s going to be an accident, I think, I can’t see ahead… can you…?”
Ah yes, we are in…an…orb…?
I don’t think we can see ahead, though?
>black, no
Before you can do anything, the whiteness washes over you, bleaching you away, and then melting into… more whiteness… but much colder. You shiver and get a grip on yourself.Tundra
A shallow hillside cleared of trees. The wind whips up the snow into your eyes, and visibility is low into the grey twilight. The hill descends to a basin from here.A snow goose hisses and croaks as it stalks the frozen earth.
[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
Well, we know our first priority here:
>sketch goose
You sketch in a picture of the snow goose.
It’s just past 10am somewhere in 1975, and according to the KD, there are two pieces to find.
And we have no idea where we are.
>n
You can’t go that way.>s
You can’t go that way.>w
Copse of Fir Trees
The edge of a very thick copse of tall green fir trees, which surround on almost every side. To the southwest is an open doorway into a wood-slatted shed, ancient and decrepit.A mighty fir tree stands out from the dense copse, its branches hung with snow.
Out of reach in one of the lower branches is the snow goose’s nest.
A landmark!
>sw
Woodcutter’s Shed
Shabby, rundown, ramshackle: these are just three of the adjectives appropriate to this uninteresting shed, whose chief virtue is that the wind doesn’t blow inside it.Propped up on one wall is a wooden broom.
A handful of seed is scattered on the ground.
And loot!
>get broom and seed
wooden broom: Taken.
handful of seed: (putting the edition of Pravda into the canvas rucksack to make room)
Taken.
Back to exploring.
>ne
Copse of Fir Trees
The edge of a very thick copse of tall green fir trees, which surround on almost every side. To the southwest is an open doorway into a wood-slatted shed, ancient and decrepit.A mighty fir tree stands out from the dense copse, its branches hung with snow.
Out of reach in one of the lower branches is the snow goose’s nest.
>w
Snowy Forest
You are lost in ragged, snowy woods somewhere on the hillside.
Oh no.
>w
Snowy Forest
You are lost in dense, snowy woods somewhere on the hillside.
Oh no. A maze.
After dealing with the Paris one I thought we’d be done with mazes, but I suppose it wouldn’t be a 90s game without two or more.
>w
Snowy Forest
You are lost in deepening, snowy woods somewhere on the hillside.A snow leopard stalks up to you, with the easy sway of a big cat. You hold your breath.
And just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse—we’re not just in a maze, we’re being stalked by a snow leopard!
Don’t worry, I know how to deal with these things:
>sketch leopard
You sketch in a picture of the snow leopard.
You gotta sketch them. It makes them back down.
Continuing west eventually takes us back to the Tundra where we started, and the connections may be random, because I definitely saw the same adjective more than once (we went through “ragged” woodland twice). Knowing the venerable precedent of Colossal Cave, there’s probably one room in the maze that has a vital puzzle piece in it that we need to find. If so, though, I haven’t found it yet.
Here’s our current map and transcript—edges that lead nowhere go into the maze. I think I’ve tried every direction from every room now, in case there’s another trick like the “southeast” at the very beginning, but haven’t found anything notable.
12.txt (14.0 KB)
What next? My current thought is to whack the nest down with the broom, and maybe distract the goose with the seed, but there are two pieces to be found.
EDIT: Nope, the nest is too high to hit with anything, and the tree is too smooth to climb, though the goose is easily distractible with the seed.
2 Likes
We might also have a clue to where we are, though: snow leopards are native to Central and South Asia. Did anything big happen in 1975 in Tibet?
2 Likes
I get a general cold war feeling.
2 Likes
>THROW [?]
Sadly the nest is too high up for throwing as well as attacking. I suspect we’ll have to climb up somehow but I’m not sure how.
I did stumble into one new discovery, though.
Snowy Basin
The snowy basin of the hillside, almost unnaturally flat in these sculpted, rocky hills. A tricky path across the permafrost climbs uphill.
Unnaturally flat, you say? As if the snow is covering something?
> brush snow
You uncover a flat metal disc area beneath the snow. A shaft is sunken into it.[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
A shaft that we can climb down, like a manhole? Maybe a way to access whatever is under this place?
> x shaft
A sleek metal installation drilled into the hillside.> d
In your own best interests, that command will be disregarded.
It’s interesting from a literary standpoint when the narrator comments directly like this, but from a game standpoint, that’s also really unhelpful. Why can’t we go down? Is the shaft smooth and unclimbable, so we’ll fall to our death? Is it too small to fit into and we’ll get stuck? Is there molten lava at the bottom?
LOOK gets us a little bit more detail:
In the centre of the basin, where the snow has been cleared, is an open metal shaft, about ten feet in radius, within which is darkness.
The metal disc which surrounds the shaft has a ring embedded within it.
To be honest, I’m having a lot of trouble visualizing this. That’s a twenty-foot-diameter hole—surely the snow would have fallen down into it? Surely we would have fallen down into it, walking around here?
That ring is clearly important, since it gets its own paragraph, but we can’t examine it separately from the disc:
The disc and ring are cast in one piece, and are inseparable. The centre of the disc houses a ten-foot wide shaft.
This would be a good place to attach a rope, but alas, we don’t have one.
How should I be imagining the shaft, do you think? If it’s really a huge hole in the ground, then what were we brushing the snow off of? And what about it makes it so dangerous to descend?
2 Likes
Er, I’m kinda picturing it like this given the context:
EDIT: Puzzle-wise, can we use the seed to lure the goose into the maze? Maybe it has a better sense of direction than we do (or maybe it’ll distract the leopard)….
(Also there wasn’t much going on in Tibet in 75 I don’t think - or at least, not much the west knew about since China occupied it in 1959. I’m guessing we’re in a remote part of the USSR given that we’re above what appears to be an ICBM silo - not sure what would be happening in 1975 to make this a specific time and place relevant, though).
3 Likes
See, that picture makes some sense to me, but I’m not sure how we opened it by brushing off the snow—especially since there’s no lid described now.
ARGH. I thought I’d brute-forced all the directions, but no: I didn’t try up and down. (Or in and out, for that matter.)
If you go up from the Tundra, you find a new area:
Rocky Crags
The crags on top of the hill are rough outcrops of granite, surrounded by dangerous drops on most sides. The snow beats against your face and you crouch low to hide from the wind. The landscape is like Siberian tundra, but even Siberia goes through the motions: nature and life surround you.An old coil of cable hangs over one of the crags.
With this cable you can climb down the shaft:
Metal Shaft
Out of the wind, but still bitterly cold, this is a cylindrical shaft lined with metal. A just-climbable cable leads upward to a tiny circle of light through which grey-white sky can be seen.A huge silvery missile, with a United States flag painted on the side and the serial code WDID-51, lurks in this silo, pointed at the sky. Perhaps this isn’t Siberia after all.
[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
Huh, so we’re in…where would America have missile bases in the tundra? Alaska?
Would you believe it, there seems to be an access hatch on the side, made of some grey metal.
Grey?
> open hatch
You open the missile.> in
In the Serpent’s Mouth
You do pick the safest places to go: this time, a cramped compartment inside the nuclear missile, whose only (but very inviting) exit is to west.And wouldn’t you know it, there are three conspicuous buttons here: red, green and blue.
The missile begins to vibrate and your stomach lurches. Perhaps these events are related in some way.
Perhaps, and this is an even nastier thought, this is the accident you and Black concocted between you.
Uhhh.
> press red
(the red button left)
“This widespread deterrent implementation device is now armed,” says a disembodied American voice.
Oh no oh no oh no
> press green
(the green button left)
There is dull clanging sound from without.“Please do not press this button again,” says a disembodied American voice.
Oh no oh no
> press green
(the green button left)
“Please do not press this button again,” says a disembodied American voice.
oh no oh NO
> press blue
“This widespread deterrent implementation device is now disarmed,” says a disembodied American voice.
…did that do it? Are we safe?
> out
Metal Shaft
Out of the wind, but still bitterly cold, this is a cylindrical shaft lined with metal. A just-climbable cable leads upward to a tiny circle of light through which grey-white sky can be seen.A piece of the hatch has come away, and the rest stands open.
You can also see an edge piece here.
The missile vibrates in a sinister, active way.
Let’s get out of here!
Actually, wait, first…
> get edge piece
Taken.[Your score has just gone up by one point.]
Now let’s get out of here!
We scramble back to the surface, and—
The missile explodes out of the shaft in the hillside, streaking upwards, billowing white smoke, climbing a plume into the sky.
Phew! That was a close one!
This cable might solve another puzzle for us, too:
> throw cable at nest
You throw the cable and it loops around the branch, hanging down either side into your hands.> climb cable
You pull the cable, wrenching the springy branch down until it’s about half as high as it was, and the nest just about within reach.> get nest
(Letting go of the cable in the process… which is unfortunate since, as a result, the branch gives a mighty swing back, hurling the cable away high into the air.)The nest is too high up.
Oh. Or maybe not solved quite yet.
What should we do now?
12c.txt (5.7 KB)
1 Like
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem interested in leaving its room. I haven’t found any way to make it move elsewhere.
1 Like
While we ponder this puzzle, you may be wondering—what happens if we don’t disarm the missile before it launches?
You shake your head, confused. What is this monument doing in the middle of wild, radioactive scrubland? Why are you still alive, when almost all the human race has perished? There’s only time now to toast the new millennium with an empty glass.
*** You have wrecked the course of history ***
The bleakest ending yet, but one I can absolutely believe! And this time it’s absolutely our fault—we set off the missile in an attempt to get the puzzle piece, rather than any of Black’s meddling.
And if we don’t get out of the missile before it launches:
The missile takes off, white smoke billowing beautifully out of its flanges, shaking and pressing you into the floor with the G-forces. You desperately slam the hatch shut. This gives you eight more precious minutes of life, until it explodes in an incandescent fireball somewhere over western Canada.
*** You have died ***
I do wonder, is this an actual nuclear near-miss? Looking at the list of Broken Arrow incidents (and the list of global nuclear near misses), I don’t see any missiles getting launched in 1975, and searching for the serial number of the missile gets me nowhere. But the fact that there is a specific serial number is tantalizing.
Also, if it explodes over western Canada, does that mean it launched from the continental US rather than Alaska? Or was this one intended to launch eastward rather than west? I’m not sure where exactly our missiles were aimed in the 70s (except the USSR of course).
1 Like
Regarding the text in bold, what happens if you pull the branch even lower?
1 Like
Let’s find out!
You pull the branch down a little further
So far so good—
but just as the nest comes down to snow level, the snow goose swoops by and pecks viciously at your feet, defending its nest. You howl with pain and let go of the cable, so that the branch springs back and hurls the cable away into the air.
Ow ow ow!
The goose hisses complacently and returns to its foraging.
Fortunately this is a puzzle I have a good idea of how to solve! Let’s go back, and first…
> drop seed
The seed scatters over the ground, and the snow goose begins to peck at it.
Now with the goose distracted, we can…
> throw cable at nest
You throw the cable and it loops around the branch, hanging down either side into your hands.> pull cable
You pull the cable, wrenching the springy branch down until it’s about half as high as it was, and the nest just about within reach.> pull cable
You pull the branch down a little further, and the nest dislodges neatly onto the snow, falling to bits, one of which seems to be a jigsaw piece. In your excitement, you let go again, and the branch springs back, hurling the cable up away into the dim grey distance.
I think we’re done here—we’ve sketched two animals and the KD says we’ve got all the pieces—so let’s make our way back to the Monument. I don’t see the time window anywhere, so we may have missed it; we’ll have to use the clock.
This time, thankfully, we haven’t wrecked history by triggering mutual assured destruction, so we can place our jigsaw pieces in peace! One edge and one corner. Also, “the air is steamy and tropical” inside the Monument now. I don’t remember that from before—is that new?
Our edge piece goes at c4, “the full moon in a blue sky”, and the other at d4, “a shipping barge in a canal”. So it’s time for the eternal question:
When to now?
Here’s our new footnote:
[ Footnote b4: ]
The cold war reached its height in about 1985, when warhead stockpiles peaked at about 70000, despite the fact that both sides had regarded 300 as an absolute deterrent, and had even signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty acknowledging this.
The test had been the Cuban Missile Crisis, at a time when America still had considerable nuclear superiority: aides on both sides believed “we would never see another Saturday”, but deals were struck at the last minute: a public Russian climb-down, and a private concession to all their demands. Afterwards, Khrushchev said to a provoking journalist: “What do you mean, who won? Common sense won. Humanity won.”
The closest brush with accidental war came in 1983, when a weak Russian leadership could not convince the West that it wanted disarmament (and was badly rattled by speeches by Reagan and Thatcher on moral crusades and the need never to disarm). The US held a major exercise, Able Archer 83, testing its ability to launch an all-out first strike against the USSR: which went to maximum alert genuinely believing the end was nigh.
Afterwards, a puzzled Reagan said: “I don’t see how they could believe that, but it’s something to think about,” and he did: his rhetoric was never the same again.
So perhaps this particular day in 1975 isn’t in our history books because we managed to disarm the missile! It’s if we hadn’t that it would have been a major turning point (the cold war going hot).
1 2 3 4
+----------------------------------------------------+
|.............ooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo|
a |. Mould oo Record oo Park o|
|......o......ooooooooooooo o oooooo.oooooo|
|ooooooooooooo......o......ooooooooooooo.............|
b |o Invalid .. Dunes .. Plane oo Snow .|
|oooooo.oooooo.............oooooo.oooooo......o......|
|.............oooooo.oooooo.............ooooooooooooo|
c |. Glass .. Carriage oo Train .. Moon o|
|.............ooooooooooooo.............oooooo.oooooo|
| . o oooooo.oooooo.............|
d | oo Fields oo Barge .|
| ooooooooooooo.............|
+----------------------------------------------------+
12d.txt (14.7 KB)
3 Likes
Now I have not one but two questions for everyone. First, what time period should we be visiting next?
- Vinyl record (1967)
- USAF plane (1954)
- Cabbage fields (1941)
- Moon (1972)
- Canal (1956)
0 voters
Given the dates, I have a pretty good guess what the moon represents, but I’m not sure about the canal.
The other question is about these let’s-plays in general. Drew (@kamineko) is gearing up for a let’s-play of Infocom’s famous and famously-difficult Spellbreaker. Do you want to wait until this one is done before that one launches? Or are you good following multiple of these at the same time?
4 Likes