USH'S MATRIX GAME- The first Campaign Journey (Philosophy Path)- revealed!

And, it was fun. I just read my response, and I was amused. I remember having to think about that for ages.

But Ush, you missed out Assignment 5... The huge fight that I didn't get to play through.

That was afterwards!

Yeah, but it'd show the inclusion of fighting. And cool fighting, at that.

You should put up some of the submissions, unless there's a reason you ain't.

Oh, I thought some people might want to think about it first, see if the vibe is for them. Then I'll put up some answers, and what happened next.

Damn, you fixed the mistake I was going to point out.

Interesting though...I didn't pay any attention at all to what was going on with the Philo path unless someone said they did something really stupid/cool that I decided to check out 😛

It was crazy. But then, I paid little attention to you uncultured combat nuts, too...

Wow, that's more intense than I remember it being. Oh well. That's why I'm a Combat nut.

I wonder where the numbers will fall this time?

I THINK there is a Philo path this time, anyway. Can't give an 100% guarantee, but it seems likely.

The Philosophical path sound good for the character I had in mind:
NOTE: this is my real name I'm using...

Real name: Tomas Christopher Seglins
Alias: TAO

As is the norm, he began life in the matrix and found himself on the path to enlightenment through budhism and learnt the truth through meditation. the rest is just all blah blah blah stuff...

But I went through the rooms and the only one that would really stump me was the last one... the mirrored room...

Well, that was certainly the crux of the matter!

I'm not sure what the others replied. It was intensely difficult.

And no doubt Ush was sitting there laughing like a maniac while we tried to work our ways through it. What did you say, Ush?

I didn't say anything, I was too busy laughing.

Shall I sum up the Philosophy part and then the game plot?

Sure why not...

I'll admit that I care more about the game plot as a whole as opposed to simply the Philo path (😛) but sure.

And I know stuff that you guys don't.....

And I think I'll need to find a good hiding place eventually so I don't get killed.

Well, unless you understand that Philosophy path thing, you cannot understand the central plot point- about what happened with Jericho.

Don't listen to Lana's Nay saying, just tell us allready!

I wanna know what happend. I remmember this whole situation just bugging me. But I liked the mental challenge too. Take it home Ush

You gonna finish up here Ush?

Ok, I'll start working on giving some sort of resolution to this.

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Ok, the 'solution' to the final problem.

Well, there wasn;t a solution, as such. As I had taken pains to mention- and will always apply on the Philosophy Path- it isn't a brain teaser or riddle. There is not a magical right answer.

It was also fixed so it was impossible to die here, even though that meant direct intervention in what some people tried to do. This was win/lose, but I was only pretending that it was life/death.

Winning involved doing two things:

1. Escaping the logic of the situation

(obviously, you had to give a relevant answer)

2. Maintaining your internal logic!

(This was the big one- your answer had to be consistent with the logic and views you presented earlier in the Path. Anyone trying to rampantly change everything they had earlier said in earnest just to try and escape the problem, or who simnply constructed nonsense, would fail).

It was not meant to be staggeringly difficult. It WAS meant to make people think, and put time into it, but basically, if you engaged with the plot and the ideas presented and made an effort to put in a coherent answer, you would win.

That's not to say it went smoothly!

This being the case, I will have a look at several important concepts that the puzzle started to boil down to.

1. Should *I* live?

Considering the normal survival instinct of people in RPs, this one prvoed quite difficult.

It was assumed that most people would immediately try and come up with ways to make sure that they themselves lived, and the other died.

In fact, quite a few people seemed ready to take the self-termination option. This would be an active declaration that you, basically, did not exist- not in any way you recognised. This is such a horrible thing to do and act upon, ego wise, that it was almost shocking that people were willing to accept it! Very Matrix, but quite odd!

(It was about at this point that Fire knew he was in a bit of trouble- his adopted nihilistic attitude gave easy answers to the Path so far, but left him in serious trobule in constucting an argument at this point!)

I tried to dissuade people from the self-termination option unless they were really, really determined to prove it was right. Basically, the set-up of the problem was how to get yourself out of it. After all, if you killed yourself there was a good chance that you had just killed your character, and as Dexx said, he sure as hell wasn't going to risk that.