It’s not only more text heavy, it has simply the most complex event scheme of all (in the endgame, depending on whether you did certain actions or not, different events occur). In all of the scenes, actually.
2 Likes
Well, this was a truly stupid thing to say. Tempting fate and all that.
But I at last seem to be functional again, and can actually return to this! We just got out of the Pluto door, losing our splinter but gaining a skink, a lantern, and a radio.
Now, let’s go check out Neptune.
>s
Barrow
…
>turn key
…
>d
…
The lantern’s light is getting dimmer.The skink squirms in your pocket.
No! Already?! I’ve only been out of the Pluto door for three turns and the lantern is starting to die!
Well, let’s restore and turn it off first.
>restore
[RESTORE completed.]
Ossuary
>turn off lantern
You turn off the lantern’s switch.>s
It’s completely dark.The skink squirms in your pocket.
Something sharp closes around your throat. It caresses your chin and the nape of your neck, delighting in the living warmth. Then, with a quick, practiced snap, it breaks your neck at the collarbone.
Oh. Right. I can’t move around the hub without a light source either!
I’m guessing I spent too much time in the Pluto area and doomed myself in the process. But until I figure that out—and know what else the lantern is necessary for—I’m going to rewind to before we tried that door, and stick with my splinter.
Splinter in hand, let’s head off to Neptune!
You step gingerly across the fallen oak, and leap onto the mesa.
Mesa
The mesa’s summit is a flat platform of stone, surrounded on every side by a deep chasm. A fallen oak bridges the gulf to the south.
A giant toadstool has somehow taken root in the solid rock. The white door in its stem is wide open.
A triangular shadow lies across the ground. Its sharp point rests exactly on the open door in the toadstool.
>in
You cross the brink of the white door.
[Many blank lines later…]
Scaffold
Whoever threw this place together wasn’t too worried about permanence. Tin walls rise on flimsy studs to a ceiling that sags under its own weight. It reminds you of a prefab tool shed, several stories high.
You’re standing beside a monstrous conglomeration of pipes, compressors and pressure valves that fills most of the building. The only familiar equipment is the open white door set into one of the storage tanks.
A stairway leads downward.
Ooh! Equipment!
>x equipment
Warnings indicate the presence of radioactivity.
The various components redirect to the same message. Shame we don’t have a Geiger counter, but I’m guessing this might be our nuclear test device.
>d
You descend the stairway.Bottom of Scaffold
A maze of plumbing rises before you like the back of a giant refrigerator. Stairs lead up to a scaffold overlooking the equipment. Turning south, you see a closed set of sliding doors, with a small box and a loudspeaker mounted on the wall beside them.
>x box
The box is closed.>x speaker
It’s an ordinary loudspeaker; a bit old-fashioned, perhaps.>open box
You swing the box open.A toggle switch and a red button are mounted inside.
>x switch
The toggle switch is turned off. The letters “P” and “A” are scrawled underneath.>x button
The red button isn’t labeled.
I have no idea what “P” and “A” mean on a nuclear test device. Prime and Arm?
>s
The sliding doors are closed.>open doors
The sliding doors are much too big.
Looks like we need to figure out the controls.
>flip switch
You turn on the toggle switch.The loudspeaker emits a burst of static, then a steady hiss.
>flip switch
You turn off the toggle switch.The loudspeaker emits a burst of static, then falls silent.
Oh. So maybe it’s just PA, as in Public Address system.
>push button
You push the red button.With an electric whirr, the heavy doors slide open.
There we go! Though I’m not sure why they’d put fancy button-operated doors on a temporary scaffold like this.
>s
South BeachThe waters of a peaceful lagoon reflect the tropical dawn like a fiery mirror. A few stars are still visible in the rosy sky.
The glorified tool shed dominates this little island, leaving room only for a narrow strip of sand that curves to the northeast and northwest. A red button is mounted on the wall beside the open sliding doors of the shed.
>x stars
You can’t see any stars here.
A rare response in this game! A lot of scenery has at least a default “you don’t need to mess with that” response.
>x waters
The tide is slowly rising.>ne
You follow the curve of the shore.East Beach
Palm trees far across the lagoon stand in dark relief against the eastern sky. The shore continues northwest and southwest, around the equipment shed.
>nw
You follow the curve of the shore.North Beach
A square wooden extension juts out of the side of the building, stretching away across the lagoon as far as you can see.
The beach continues around the equipment shed to the southeast and southwest.
A gray fin is gliding across the lagoon.
Uh oh!
>x shark
“Don’t be so sure,” grumbles a voice in your ear.
Oh?
The gray fin glides closer.
With a sudden splash, the gray fin shoots upward! You shriek and cover your face with your hands as a mouthful of sharp teeth leaps from the lagoon…
A friendly chatter encourages you to open your eyes. It’s a bottle-nosed dolphin, standing on its tail just offshore.
A friend!
>x dolphin
The dolphin stands on its tail.
Let’s keep exploring.
>sw
You duck under the extension and follow the curve of the shore.West Beach
The sand curves northeast and southeast, skirting the dark outline of the equipment shed.
A tiny islet is visible a short distance offshore.
A coconut is floating in the lagoon.
The dolphin glides into view nearby.
It seems like our goal in these areas is generally to get portable items (as opposed to intangible things like information), and this is the first portable item seen so far. So my IF senses say we need it for something.
>x coconut
The coconut floating in the water looks especially plump and juicy.The coconut is beginning to float away.
>x islet
The islet is just a barren crescent of sand, gradually shrinking away in the rising tide.A lone coconut tree stands near one end of the islet.
>z
Time passes.The tide is making the sand squishy.
The coconut floats further away. It’s almost out of sight.
“Gnomon can tether time or tide,” whispers a voice in your ear.
Hmm.
If we wait a bit longer:
The dolphin chatters happily.
The coconut disappears across the lagoon.
The dolphin gives you a playful splash.
The dolphin looks at you with bright, intelligent eyes.
Your tropical vacation is cut short by a multimegaton thermonuclear detonation, centered in the nearby equipment shed.
It seems we are, in fact, on Bikini Atoll!
>restore
[RESTORE completed.]
This time, I’m going to leave the PA on so we can hear what’s happening.
“Zero minus seven minutes.”
And we can run right over to the dolphin and then to the coconut, without any delay!
“Switch to one zero three.”
“Zero minus six minutes.”
A wave washes up underfoot. It looks as if the tide is rising.
“Gnomon can tether time or tide,” grumbles a voice in your ear.
Oh, so that message is coming earlier this time?
There’s no coconut yet…
“Detonator check, go.”
The distant islet is shrinking in the rising tide.
“Zero minus five minutes.”
A faint plop draws your eyes to the islet. There’s now a coconut lying at the water’s edge.
Coconut!
>get coconut
You couldn’t do that from where you’re standing.“Geo, sync at three, two, one, mark.”
Not from where I’m standing, no…
>dolphin, get coconut
The dolphin sees the coconut on the islet and tries to nudge it with its snout. But the tide hasn’t risen high enough yet.
Looks like we have a bit longer to wait.
The tide creeps towards the coconut under the distant tree.
“Zero minus four minutes.”
The coconut floats away from the distant islet on the rising tide.
There we go!
>dolphin, get coconut
The dolphin sees the floating coconut, snatches it out of the lagoon and tosses it into the sand at your feet.>get coconut
You pick up the coconut.[Your score just went up by 3 points. The total is now 40 out of 100.]
“Patch to Alpha Echo Three Five.”
>x coconut
The coconut looks especially plump and juicy.>dolphin, thanks
The dolphin struggles to respond, but can only chatter.>dolphin, goodbye
The dolphin responds with a stream of chatter.>dolphin, i’m sorry
[Refer to your Trinity manual for the correct way to address characters.]>se
You follow the curve of the shore.South Beach
The waters of a peaceful lagoon reflect the tropical dawn like a fiery mirror. A few stars are still visible in the rosy sky.
“Zero minus three minutes.”
If we stick around to see the remainder of the messages:
“Seismographic, confirm.”
“Zero minus two minutes.”
“Zero minus ninety seconds.”
“Zero minus one minute.”
“Zero minus forty-five seconds.”
“Zero minus thirty seconds.”
“Zero minus fifteen seconds. Personnel not issued protective goggles should face away from Zero at this time.”
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
But we’ll exit before that happens, leaving our new friend behind. We return to the Wabe, one coconut richer.
06.txt (25.8 KB)
06.sav (1.7 KB)
neptune.sav (1.6 KB)
6 Likes
You could have tried going/swimming west to get to the coconut. Not that it would have worked, but the game does anticipate it.
7 Likes
Will we see any more of the great Trinity tests?
1 Like
I’m hoping to continue this once I’ve got a moment; some recent irl problems have been taking most of my attention for a while now.
3 Likes
Take care!
Hey! Been a while since we’ve used this thread, hasn’t it?
Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. Yeah. Not to get too into it, the last year’s been the worst of my life in various respects, and in the last few months it’s led to me not even being able to escape into IF the way I used to. But I want to ease back into it, and now that Mike Russo is starting a new Let’s Play, reviving this one seems like a reasonable first step.
Trinity’s waited forty years for us already; what’s another few months? So let’s dust off these maps, and figure out where we’re going next!
6 Likes
As a reminder, here’s our hub world, the Wabe. Each of the blue squares has a giant mushroom with a doorway on it, and each one can be traversed once and only once. They’re labelled, clockwise starting at the Meadow: Omega, Mercury, Pluto, Neptune, Libra, Mars, and Alpha.
The Omega door is used up when we arrive in the Wabe in the first place. So far, we’ve been to Pluto (an underground tunnel, where we lost our splinter but found a lantern and a skink) and Neptune (Bikini Atoll, where we found a coconut). But since each door can only be used once, I fully expect to be trying each door, experimenting on the other side, then restoring back to before if we can’t solve every puzzle immediately.
For example, in the Pluto door we trade our glowing splinter for a lantern, which also acts as a light source, but has a limited lifespan. So for our initial experiments, we should be exploring before we make that swap. But eventually, we’re likely to need the skink behind one of the other doors, which means we’ll need to do that door after Pluto in our final run.
I think next on our agenda is Libra: RDS-1, the first successful Soviet nuclear test, which restored the balance of power in the nuclear arms race.
5 Likes
As a brief refresher, here’s the inventory we have before entering any of the doors.
You see a birdcage, an axe, a lump of metal, an umbrella, a bag of crumbs and a piece of paper here. Inside the birdcage you see a magpie.
You’re holding a splinter (providing light). You’re wearing a wristwatch, and you have a small coin and a credit card in your pocket.
We’re going to head to the Libra door next, in the Herb Garden. And on the way to that, I discover a neat bit of player-friendliness:
>turn ring to libra
[the symbols]The sun sweeps across the sky as you rotate the brass ring. It clicks into place at the dial’s fifth symbol.
Nice! It seems I don’t have to remember the order, I can use the name of the symbols.
Herb Garden
A tall fence protects the neat rows of herbs from predators. The only exit is the open back door of the cottage, leading west.
Another giant toadstool has taken root in a patch of thyme. The white door in its stem is wide open.
A triangular shadow lies across the ground. Its sharp point rests exactly on the open door in the toadstool.
A pile of refuse lies in the corner. On it you see a clove of garlic.
>in
The white door opens wider at your touch, drawing you over the threshold.
We’re off to…
Platform
This narrow platform is attached to the north side of a huge steel enclosure, fifty feet high. All around you, a frozen wasteland stretches off to a horizon lined with gray mountains.
An open white door leads into the enclosure’s interior. The topmost rungs of a ladder stand beside it.
A loudspeaker barks, “Dyevianatsat minut.”
Hmm. Slightly mangled Russian. “Nineteen minutes”. (I believe it should be dyevyatnatsat: dyevyat “nine” + natsat “teen”. But I only learned basic Russian back in undergrad to impress a Russian-American artist I was dating…it’s a long story. Apparently she’s getting married in May!)
So in nineteen minutes, something cool will happen. We’ll have to make sure to be here for it!
>x mountains
The mountains tower like gray walls against the sky.>x wasteland
The tundra stretches away in all directions.
Only one real direction clued to go in, it seems.
>d
You descend the ladder.Under Platform
A network of cables snakes down the side of the enclosure, then trails southwest across the tundra. Grim tracts of permafrost greet your eyes every way you turn.
A ladder leads up to a platform overhead.
“Vosyemnatsat minut,” intones a loudspeaker.
Eighteen minutes.
Something touches your sneaker.
You kick it away with a shout. A rodent sails through the air, lands unharmed and scrambles out of sight.
What was that?!
>x rodent
The ground is covered with rodents! They’re racing northeast, oblivious to you or anything else in their path.
Well if they’re going northeast, it stands to reason we should go southwest, and see what they’re so afraid of, right?
>sw
TundraThe tall enclosure is still visible on the northeastern horizon. Thick cables run southwest across the permafrost, towards a distant group of buildings.
>sw
Perhaps you should take a moment to examine the group of buildings.
Oh right! Things to examine!
>x buildings
The distant buildings look like military shelters. Armed guards are patrolling the area.>sw
Are you sure you want to go that way?[Please type YES or NO.] >yes
“It’s your funeral,” grumbles a voice in your ear.
You draw closer to the group of buildings.
Control Bunkers
This cluster of military shelters is choked with scientific instruments, tended by men in heavy overcoats.
One of the guards patrolling the area greets your unexpected arrival by shooting you in the back. As your blood seeps into the permafrost, you note with interest the hammer-and-sickle insignia on the uniform of your grim assailant.
I do find it interesting that the “are you sure?” prompts in this game are diegetic—that is, the player character within the story is getting those warnings. It definitely makes sudden deaths like this feel a lot more avoidable!
But yes, entering the Soviet military camp does predictably get you shot immediately. The tundra is our real goal. And I’m very impressed that our intrepid American tourist can deal with the Siberian tundra for twenty minutes without protection! Back in the Wabe, we were struggling with the cold in the ice cave; how much warmer can this be?
Wikipedia tells me the first successful Soviet nuclear test was on August 29, 1949, in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. So not the dead of winter, but if there’s permafrost, it has to be cold, right? (Climatologists, help me out here!)
Anyway, I think those rodents have the right idea, and we should join them in fleeing the Soviet military camp with its trigger-happy armed guards. So after restoring:
>ne
TundraA prehistoric river bed cuts a narrow pass through the mountains rising north and east. The enclosure is a gray sentinel on the southwest horizon.
The rodents race between your legs.
>ne
You follow the stream of rodents.Cliff Edge
The river bed ends here, on a cliff overlooking an Arctic sea. But where ancient waters once fell, there now pours a living stream of rodents. Driven by mindless instinct, too stupid or frightened to turn away, they plunge by the hundreds into the crashing waves below. You recognize the species now. Lemmings.
The ground underfoot is split by a narrow fissure, almost hidden by the scrambling lemmings.
Oh no! Not the lemmings!
I do have a fun fact here: lemmings don’t actually jump off cliffs. That was faked for a Disney documentary that everyone took as fact for a few decades. But they actually have decent survival skills, when camera crews aren’t spinning them on a turntable to disorient them and then throwing them into the river!
>x lemmings
The lemmings leaping off the cliff look something like hamsters, with long brown fur and beady eyes. The largest are only five or six inches long.>x fissure
A trapped lemming glares up at you defiantly.The lemming sniffs the air inquisitively.
The lemmings swarm across the tundra.
Lemming??
>get trapped
[This story doesn’t recognize the word “trapped.”]
Boo.
>get lemming
You take the lemming out of the fissure.The lemming squirms violently in your hand.
Lemming!
>x sea
The waves dashing on the rocks below are choked with dead lemmings.With a desperate lurch, the lemming wiggles from your grasp and flings itself joyfully off the cliff.
>nooooo
[The word “nooooo” isn’t in the vocabulary that you can use.]
Lemming… 
Well, maybe it had the right idea?
>ne
Are you sure you want to go over that cliff?[Please type YES or NO.] >yes
“If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em,” grumbles a voice in your ear.
You tumble over the edge of the cliff, where you founder for a while in the Arctic waters.
And time to restore again!
The only inventory item that seems immediately useful here is the birdcage that has the magpie in it. But you can’t open the cage without losing the magpie: if you do it outside, or inside with the doors open, it flies away immediately. If you do it inside with the doors shut, it flutters around making a ruckus, and you immediately (i.e. automatically and within the same turn) cage it again.
But, we do have our inventory of saved games, too. So let’s release the magpie and try out the cage!
>open cage
You open the birdcage.The magpie flutters out of the cage and soars out of sight.
Goodbye, magpie. I wish you much success in your future corvid crimes.
Cliff Edge
The river bed ends here, on a cliff overlooking an Arctic sea. But where ancient waters once fell, there now pours a living stream of rodents. Driven by mindless instinct, too stupid or frightened to turn away, they plunge by the hundreds into the crashing waves below. You recognize the species now. Lemmings.
The ground underfoot is split by a narrow fissure, almost hidden by the scrambling lemmings.
>get lemming
You manage to grab one of the lemmings, but it relieves itself in your hands and struggles away.
Huh! So we do have to examine the fissure first.
>x fissure
A trapped lemming glares up at you defiantly.The lemmings race between your legs.
>get lemming
You take the lemming out of the fissure.The lemming squirms violently in your hand.
>put lemming in cage
The lemming sinks its teeth into your thumb when it sees the cage. But you jam it inside anyway.[Your score just went up by 1 point. The total is now 38 out of 100.]
The lemming scampers uneasily around the cage.
The lemmings swarm across the tundra.
>close cage
You close the birdcage.
Success! And we gained a point, which means we’re on the right track.
>sw
You force a path through the lemmings.Tundra
A prehistoric river bed cuts a narrow pass through the mountains rising north and east. The enclosure is a gray sentinel on the southwest horizon.
The lemmings scurry over your feet.
>sw
Under PlatformA network of cables snakes down the side of the enclosure, then trails southwest across the tundra. Grim tracts of permafrost greet your eyes every way you turn.
A ladder leads up to a platform overhead.
>u
You ascend the ladder.Platform
This narrow platform is attached to the north side of a huge steel enclosure, fifty feet high. All around you, a frozen wasteland stretches off to a horizon lined with gray mountains.
An open white door leads into the enclosure’s interior. The topmost rungs of a ladder stand beside it.
>enter door
You leap across the jamb of the white door.
And we’ve returned home with our ill-gotten gains (one (1) lemming) in tow.
But wait, what about the exciting event in nineteen minutes? By the magic of interpreter-provided UNDO, let’s check it out!
“Shestnatsat minut,” barks a loudspeaker.
The lemming in the cage sniffs the air inquisitively.
A loudspeaker intones, “Pyatnatsat minut.”
The lemming in the cage trembles with agitation.
A loudspeaker intones, “Chetirnatsat minut.”
The lemming in the cage scratches its ear.
(Plenty of counting in Russian later…)
The lemming in the cage blinks at you.
“Dyevianosta sekund,” intones a loudspeaker.
Ninety seconds!
“Shestdyesiat sekund,” barks a loudspeaker.
The lemming in the cage sniffs the air inquisitively.
“Sorokpyat sekund.”
“Treetsat sekund.”
A loudspeaker barks, “Pyatnatsat sekund.”
The lemming in the cage trembles with agitation.
This next part barely needs translation.
“Pyat, chetirye, tree, dva, adeen,” barks the loudspeaker.
For an instant, you see your own shadow cast in stark silhouette across the platform.
And that’s the end.
That’s all I’ve been able to do in this section. There are plenty more Tundra locations, with their own descriptions even(!), but you’re not able to move more than one room away from the northeast-southwest corridor we explored, so I’m guessing they’re just for flavor.
So now we have a lemming. I have no idea why we would want or need a lemming, though; are there any puzzles that seem like they’d be improved by a small, furry rodent? We can only hold it in our hand for about one turn before it flees, so anything we want to do with it has to be done quickly (or involve releasing it as a distraction or a food source or something).
Otherwise, we have Mercury, Mars, and (presumably) Alpha left to explore, but we have no way of reaching Alpha until we can cross the River Styx while still alive. So, Mercury (the Star Wars project) or Mars (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) next?
As always, maps, transcripts, and saves follow!
libra.json (4 KB)
libra.sav (5.5 KB)
9 Likes
As far as the doors go:
- Pluto: lose the splinter, gain a skink, a lantern, and a walkie-talkie. The lantern has limited battery while the splinter lasts forever, so we should do this one as late as possible.
- Neptune: gain a coconut. Unless there’s something else we’ve missed, there’s no real cost or drawback to this one, so we can do it first.
- Libra: repurpose the birdcage, gain a lemming. The only real cost to this one is releasing the magpie, so we should do this as soon as possible after finishing with the magpie.
The various puzzles around the Wabe haven’t permanently consumed any of our items, at least, as far as we’ve found. (We had to put the gnomon in the sundial, but we can get it back if we need it for something else.) The honey puzzle can only be done once, but it doesn’t seem to have any real routing requirements. And while we chopped down a tree to make a bridge, I haven’t found any reason we’d need that tree to still be upright (even though that would be very in-theme for Infocom puzzles!).
Puzzles we haven’t solved yet:
- Crossing the River Styx
- Making the potion (“milk and honey, fresh whole lizard, killed in the light of a crescent moon, mix 'em with a pinch of garlic, then stand back 'cause it go boom!” - we have the honey and the garlic, and a living lizard, but no crescent moon or milk)
- Opening the crypt
- Back in Kensington Gardens, a roadrunner stole our ruby, which feels like the sort of thing that’s so random it has to come back later (unless it’s a reference to something?)
So we’ll need to keep an eye out for anything in the Mercury or Mars doors that can help us with these!
Notable things we haven’t used yet:
- We had to solve a tricky puzzle in the Wabe to get a magnetic meteorite
- The Neptune door got us a coconut
- The Libra door got us a lemming
- There’s a giant boy blowing bubbles that might be a puzzle or might just be scenery
So if you have any ideas about what to do with these things, please join in the conversation!
5 Likes
The way I remember it, the first time I played Trinity I got ahead of myself, and still held on to the splinter way beyond where the game expected me to. So at one point, it referred to my light source as a lantern instead, even thought I didn’t have one.
(For source divers, the routine that did that was UNDER-WATER-F.)
4 Likes
I remember that from the Infocom Bugs List, actually! It’s behind the Alpha door, right?
If I remember correctly, you’re in a massive, massive walking dead state if you do that, because you’ll run out of time if you go through the Alpha door without a way to speed up your movement, but of course Trinity never cares to warn you about those.
2 Likes
Right.
Oh, very much so. But at least at the time, it didn’t seem so bad. It was obvious that I was missing something, and the game had conditioned me to save before entering any door. (Particularly since I started exploring them before figuring out how make them not be one-way trips.)
3 Likes
Let’s make it a poll:
What should we do next?
- Mercury door
- Mars door
- Puzzles in the Wabe
- Try something new in a previous area
0
voters
Mercury door it is! Let’s do this!
Waterfall
A curtain of water tumbles off the western cliffs into a deep, rocky pool. From there, a mountain stream wanders off into the forest. Footpaths follow the stream east, past a giant toadstool. The white door in its stem is wide open.
A flight of stone steps has been hewn into the face of the north cliff.
A triangular shadow lies across the ground. Its sharp point rests exactly on the open door in the toadstool.
>in
You slowly edge yourself through the white door.
And where will we find ourselves…?
Earth Orbit
You’re five hundred miles above a sea of ice, hurtling in profound silence over the Arctic atmosphere. Layers of crimson and violet describe the curve of the horizon, blending imperceptibly into a black sky crowded with stars.
The white door drops away behind you.
The total lack of air pressure is making you uncomfortable.
Uh oh!
You watch helplessly as the white door dwindles to a distant speck, vanishing at last between the horns of the rising moon.
Hmm. It seems that your blood is beginning to boil.
Well, we’re not getting back that way. But at least the moon is pretty!
>x moon
The moon is a delicate crescent, hovering just above the horizon.
A crescent moon, hm?
Far ahead, a satellite drifts into view.
You lose consciousness just as your internal organs begin to rupture.
Oh right. Hard vacuum isn’t good for humans.
Well, that’s the end of that! We need a crescent moon for our ritual, but before we can think about rituals, we have to find some way to survive in the vacuum of space, and get back to the white door afterward.
The question is, how do we do that?
08.txt (4.5 KB)
No new map or inventory items, yet, since we haven’t managed to do anything beyond this door.
3 Likes
The message it adds if you brought the magpie (or lemming) with you, while nothing very special, always struck me as darkly funny as well: “The magpie isn’t looking too happy, either.”
Or something like that, at least. I vaguely remember it happening to me back when I played it, but this time around I only looked at the source code.
3 Likes
I found this particular puzzle distinctly unfair—not in what you have to do, necessarily, but in how badly the game guides you toward the solution.
Remember that Promontory?
Promontory
This crag of rock juts out over the surrounding chasm, ending at an abrupt drop several hundred feet deep. Rugged trails wind south and southeast.
A rather large boy sits nearby, listening to a pair of headphones and idly blowing soap bubbles. There’s a dish full of soapy water by his side.
The boy dips the bubble wand in the dish and swishes it around.
>x boy
The boy measures approximately forty feet from head to toe, and probably weighs several tons. He’s wearing a pair of stereo headphones.The boy pulls the bubble wand out of the dish, puts it to his lips and blows a big soap bubble.
>x dish
The dish is about the size of a small swimming pool, and is filled to the brim with soapy water.The boy bobs his head to the headphone music as the soap bubble bursts with a flabby pop.
We need some way to contain some air to breathe. How about a soap bubble?
>swim
There’s no place to swim here.
Unfortunately, various ways of trying to interact with the boy, the bubble wand, or the dish are summarily dismissed. You have to specifically:
>get in dish
You clamber over the edge of the dish, and find yourself up to your knees in white, slippery water.
Now, after a couple turns of waiting:
The boy dips the bubble wand in the dish and swishes it around. Trapped in a whirlpool of suds, you cling helplessly to the boy’s wand.
The boy pulls the bubble wand out of the dish, puts it to his lips and blows a big soap bubble. You find yourself slowly drifting to the ground, enveloped in a soapy film of iridescent color.
And we have our air supply!
By the way, this is how the room header now appears:
Promontory, in a soap bubble
It uses a comma instead of the Inform-standard parentheses. I think I like this style better.
The soapy film around you shimmers with iridescent color.
The soapy film around you is sagging a bit.
The soapy film around you won’t hold up much longer.
The soapy film around you bursts with a flabby pop.
Unfortunately, the bubble only lasts four turns. Fortunately, that’s just barely enough time to reach the Waterfall door and step through! If we grab another bubble, and head south without any extraneous LOOKing…
You squeeze the soapy film through the white door.
Earth Orbit, in a soap bubble
You’re five hundred miles above a sea of ice, hurtling in profound silence over the Arctic atmosphere. Layers of crimson and violet describe the curve of the horizon, blending imperceptibly into a black sky crowded with stars.
The soapy film around you freezes instantly, but remains intact.
The white door drops away behind you.
>x door
Little can be seen from where you’re floating.You watch helplessly as the white door dwindles to a distant speck, vanishing at last between the horns of the rising moon.
>x moon
The moon is a delicate crescent, hovering just above the horizon.Far ahead, a satellite drifts into view.
>x satellite
The satellite drifting closer to you is about twenty feet long, and shaped like a beer can.The satellite drifts closer.
>z
Time passes.The satellite begins to drift away.
>z
Time passes.The satellite drifts farther back in the direction you just came from.
>z
Time passes.A red flash draws your eyes to the ground below, where the contrail of a missile is climbing into the stratosphere.
>z
Time passes.The maneuvering thrusters on the distant satellite fire, turning the nose until it faces the ascending missile.
>z
Time passes.The satellite erupts in a savage glare that lights up the ground below. A beam of violet radiation flashes downward, obliterating the distant missile. Unfortunately, you have little time to admire this triumph of engineering before the satellite’s blast incinerates you.
Unfortunately, there’s very little we can do here. We’re trapped in a small bubble with nothing but our possessions and the crescent moon for company.
Fortunately, well…we do need a crescent moon for something.
Milk and honey, fresh whole lizard, killed in the light of a crescent moon.
Sorry, skink. 
If we repeat the whole process, but after going through the Pluto door, we can now do this:
You can feel the skink moving in your pocket.
>get skink
You take the skink out of your pocket.>kill skink
The tiny lizard writhes in your grasp and claws at your fingers, its pink mouth gasping for breath. You squeeze harder and harder until your fist trembles with the effort.The skink stops squirming.
[Your score just went up by 3 points. The total is now 45 out of 100.]
And there it is. The last ingredient we need.
This whole sequence is a reference to a scheme for nuclear deterrence proposed by Roger Fisher. A million lives lost is a statistic, cold and abstract. But killing a single person with your bare hands…that’s something very different.
In his own words:
My suggestion was quite simple: Put [the nuclear codes] in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, “George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.” He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.
When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, “My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.”
We’re trying to do the opposite here—to prevent nuclear armageddon. But if we want to toy with that many lives, Trinity requires us to get a bit more acquainted with death first.
…of course, this isn’t much use to us if we can’t survive the experience. And we’re falling away from the door at thirty thousand meters per second. We’re going to need some way to change our velocity. And fortunately, one of the puzzles in the wabe has left us with a very powerful magnet on our hands!
Far ahead, a satellite drifts into view.
You feel the lump of metal tug in your arms. It’s pulling you towards the satellite!
The lump of metal twists in your arms as the satellite glides past. You find yourself being yanked out of your old trajectory, into what is obviously a collision course.
Ploop! The soapy film bounces against the satellite. The lump of metal leaps from your grasp and fastens itself to the metal hull, anchoring the film securely.
“Where gnomon has gone before,” grumbles a voice in your ear.
The satellite’s maneuvering thrusters fire briefly to compensate for your added momentum.
The satellite drifts back in the direction you just came from.
The white door reappears far ahead of you.
A red flash draws your eyes to the ground below, where the contrail of a missile is climbing into the stratosphere.
The satellite is heading straight for the white door.
The maneuvering thrusters on the satellite fire, turning the nose until it faces the ascending missile.
The white door is very close now.
We’ve done it! All we need to do now is—
>pop bubble
The soapy film remains intact.The satellite erupts in a savage glare that lights up the ground below. A beam of violet radiation flashes downward, obliterating the distant missile. Unfortunately, you have little time to admire this triumph of engineering before the satellite’s blast incinerates you.
Oops.
All right, once more through that whole sequence, but this time bringing the axe with us!
>pop bubble with axe
The sharp edge of the axe strains against the shimmering wall of soap…Bang! The film disappears in an explosion of colorful ice crystals.
You’re blown violently away from the satellite, straight towards the white door.
The maneuvering thrusters on the distant satellite fire, turning the nose until it faces the ascending missile.
The plutonium heart of the satellite erupts in a searing glare as you cross the threshold…
And there we have it! We’ve lost our magnet, and gained one dead skink.
Routing-wise, the Mercury door has to come after the Pluto door, and after anything else we need the magnet for. It has to come before making the potion. So here’s our first dependency between the doore: Neptune, Libra, and Pluto didn’t require anything from other doors to complete the puzzles there.
This leaves only one door within our grasp: Mars, the first use of nuclear weapons in war. And then somehow, we need to cross the River Styx, and find the final door: Alpha, the first successful nuclear test.
Onward!
09.txt (42.9 KB)
after_skink.sav (5.6 KB)
mercury.json (1.2 KB)
Not much of a map this time, but I’m including it for completeness.
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I highly recommend the S. L. Huang short story As The Last I May Know which is inspired by Fisher’s scheme.
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Not to mention:
Hmm. It seems that your blood is beginning to boil. So is the magpie’s, from the look of it.
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To be fair, SWIM IN DISH, SWIM IN SOAP, and SWIM IN WATER all work. Or perhaps that makes it worse?
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