1. Background Briefing
“Welcome, and thanks for volunteering for this difficult and dangerous assignment. Before sending you off into this world where violence is the rule, where nothing is quite as it seems, and where terror lurks in wait at every corner, we felt it was necessary to provide some information that might keep you safe and help you understand what you may come across. But prepare to be astounded. You will never believe that a world like the one we are about to describe could ever exist.
“You will visit a parallel world to our own, where there are two very large countries who just can’t seem to get on with each other. Their names are really irrelevant, but for the sake of identification let’s call one of them ‘R’ and the other ‘A’. These two countries are similar in many ways. Both are large federations of smaller states, both are governed by a president elected by all the people voting in one large election, and both have a rule that presidents have to stand aside after a given period and let someone else have a go. So you are able to tell who is who, let’s call the president of R ‘PR’ and that of A ‘PA’. Short and logical acronyms these may be, but as the action unfolds you may discover something quite apposite in these two titles.
“Both presidents are remarkably similar. PR (the president of R, remember) is ruthless, arrogant, unprincipled and incredibly clever. PA is ruthless, arrogant, unprincipled and unbelievably stupid. When we say PA, we should really call him the current PA. While PR’s intelligence, aided a little by his ruthlessness, meant that he has been in power for over twenty years in spite of his country’s time-limited mandate rules, PA on the other hand has only held office for a few months, and there are those who feel he won’t last much longer. Previous PAs have not been dissimilar to the current incumbent, in the main a little less stupid, and of varying degrees of arrogance and ruthlessness.
“A word of warning! Words, especially adjectives, are not very reliable and can easily mislead. Where we say ‘ruthless’, another may say ‘determined’, ‘arrogant’ can be interpreted as ‘self-confident’ and whether a person is unprincipled or not very much depends on your own personal moral standpoint. So, when it comes to characters of these two presidents, don’t just take my word for it. You should make up your own mind as you find out what these two major political players get up to.
“I did say that the two countries didn’t get on, but that perhaps that needs a bit of clarification. There are many other countries in this parallel world apart from R and A. Some are big; some are small. Some are rich; some are poor. All of them think, mistakenly, they are important. Each of them belongs to either the R camp or the A camp, and the only real thing that matters about them is which of these two great powers they support. They all think, also mistakenly, that they are autonomous, when in fact their actions are ultimately determined by R or A, according to which side of the fence they sit on. They are allowed to make dissenting noises, for the sake of appearances, but in the end they have to support the game strategy of their masters in this battle of the superpowers. The objective of this game is not clear, but one rule appears to be that the country, R or A, which is winning is the one that seems to be mostly getting its own way.
“In order to control their own side and to thwart the activities of the other side, R and A both have security services. We can call them RSS and ASS respectively. As you will see, the security service of A is a bit of an ASS, at least currently. Some advice! Tread carefully. Both the RSS and the ASS are us ruthless and unprincipled as their presidents. They will try every trick to deceive you and get you on their side.
“This is only a very short introduction to what you will find as you progress on your travels. The rest I will leave to your own intelligence, analytical skills and basic cunning. You’ll be starting a few years back in the past, before the current PA took office. I wish you good luck, and invite you to turn the page and begin.”
Contributed by James Gault from the novella Amazing Adventures of Agent T
“Welcome, and thanks for volunteering for this difficult and dangerous assignment. Before sending you off into this world where violence is the rule, where nothing is quite as it seems, and where terror lurks in wait at every corner, we felt it was necessary to provide some information that might keep you safe and help you understand what you may come across. But prepare to be astounded. You will never believe that a world like the one we are about to describe could ever exist.
“You will visit a parallel world to our own, where there are two very large countries who just can’t seem to get on with each other. Their names are really irrelevant, but for the sake of identification let’s call one of them ‘R’ and the other ‘A’. These two countries are similar in many ways. Both are large federations of smaller states, both are governed by a president elected by all the people voting in one large election, and both have a rule that presidents have to stand aside after a given period and let someone else have a go. So you are able to tell who is who, let’s call the president of R ‘PR’ and that of A ‘PA’. Short and logical acronyms these may be, but as the action unfolds you may discover something quite apposite in these two titles.
“Both presidents are remarkably similar. PR (the president of R, remember) is ruthless, arrogant, unprincipled and incredibly clever. PA is ruthless, arrogant, unprincipled and unbelievably stupid. When we say PA, we should really call him the current PA. While PR’s intelligence, aided a little by his ruthlessness, meant that he has been in power for over twenty years in spite of his country’s time-limited mandate rules, PA on the other hand has only held office for a few months, and there are those who feel he won’t last much longer. Previous PAs have not been dissimilar to the current incumbent, in the main a little less stupid, and of varying degrees of arrogance and ruthlessness.
“A word of warning! Words, especially adjectives, are not very reliable and can easily mislead. Where we say ‘ruthless’, another may say ‘determined’, ‘arrogant’ can be interpreted as ‘self-confident’ and whether a person is unprincipled or not very much depends on your own personal moral standpoint. So, when it comes to characters of these two presidents, don’t just take my word for it. You should make up your own mind as you find out what these two major political players get up to.
“I did say that the two countries didn’t get on, but that perhaps that needs a bit of clarification. There are many other countries in this parallel world apart from R and A. Some are big; some are small. Some are rich; some are poor. All of them think, mistakenly, they are important. Each of them belongs to either the R camp or the A camp, and the only real thing that matters about them is which of these two great powers they support. They all think, also mistakenly, that they are autonomous, when in fact their actions are ultimately determined by R or A, according to which side of the fence they sit on. They are allowed to make dissenting noises, for the sake of appearances, but in the end they have to support the game strategy of their masters in this battle of the superpowers. The objective of this game is not clear, but one rule appears to be that the country, R or A, which is winning is the one that seems to be mostly getting its own way.
“In order to control their own side and to thwart the activities of the other side, R and A both have security services. We can call them RSS and ASS respectively. As you will see, the security service of A is a bit of an ASS, at least currently. Some advice! Tread carefully. Both the RSS and the ASS are us ruthless and unprincipled as their presidents. They will try every trick to deceive you and get you on their side.
“This is only a very short introduction to what you will find as you progress on your travels. The rest I will leave to your own intelligence, analytical skills and basic cunning. You’ll be starting a few years back in the past, before the current PA took office. I wish you good luck, and invite you to turn the page and begin.”
Contributed by James Gault from the novella Amazing Adventures of Agent T