Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 3


The last ending in the "fly above Utopa with Mike" arc comes in CHOICE #4 when we shoot at the evil eye.  It goes as well as you'd expect now that we know about Kodor's fleet.


"Let's take it out', you say.  'Roger.'  Mike applies gentle thrust to the Scout, maneuvers a shade to starboard, and fires the laser cannon.  You watch in horror and fascination as the evil eye is transformed into intense blue-white light.  The light is so bright that it leaves an afterimage in your brain.  As it fades, you realize that the evil eye is gone, utterly vaporized.  A second later you hear a sharp thunderclap.


'We got it', Mike cries.  'What a weapon, just like zapping a mosquito!'  Mosquito is the last word you ever hear.  Less than a second later, the Scout ship, Mike,  and you are transformed into intense blue-white light.  THE END".


The Perfect Planet continues the gamebook tradition of "the last thing you see/hear is. . ." Deaths.  You can tell in this illustration that Frank Bolle made better artwork for Hijacked! than Leslie Morrill did for The Perfect Planet:  Mike's mouth agape expression looks more like a wooden puppet than a cartoon person.  My character has fair hair and is looking at the disintegrating evil eye.



Results So Far


1 Good Endings

3 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 4


When we walk on the shore after CHOICE #3, the waves on the ocean "make a pleasant musical sound".  What genre of music that may be, I'll have to leave to the reader's imagination.  Mike doesn't think there are any Utopans around since no slaif grows here.  We see mumpa beast tracks, and soon two of them are charging at us!  (Isn't that always the case in this book since CHOICE #1?)  The options in CHOICE #7 are to run into the tall grass on Page 18, or swim into the ocean on Page 51.


Don't know if mumpa beasts can swim, but they can definitely run in grass.  Then again, there might be marine life on Utopa, and chances are it doesn't eat slaif.  As anyone can guess, staying where the mumpa beasts can attack is the cause of Death.


"You dash up the beach and dive into, silky grass.  Rolling over and over, you try to get as far from the mumpa beasts as you can.  But the crazed animals have sharp eyes.  One of them veers toward you.  In a moment its powerful tusks, never used before except for digging slaif roots, dig into you.  THE END".


No illustration of me being gored.  How disappointing.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

4 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 5


"The mumpa beast that chased you is standing on the shore.  Apparently it doesn't like the water, and that fact has saved your life.  But Mike wasn't so lucky.  He lies dead, gored by the other animal, which now stands over him, not knowing what to do after its senseless act".


These are the consequences for swimming into the ocean in CHOICE #7.  It's rare for a companion to be killed as a player character survives in a CYOA.  My character has a worried facial expression upon entering the water.  The mumpa beasts are now hanging their heads "as if they understood that their violence was wrong and useless".  Utopa's so perfect that even the starving animals are remorseful.


I swim close to the shore until I see slaif forests and caves in the cliffs where the Utopans dwell.  They conveniently speak English the standard galactic language, and I tell them I'm from Federation Command and I want to help.  One Utopan woman replies "We cannot go out.  The eye warns us-the evil eye in the sky.  We shall be cursed forever if it looks upon us".  If they contact the Federation enough to speak my language, wouldn't that mean that they'd also know these are spaceships rather than magic spells?


There must have been some disagreement between the cover artist and the illustration artist.  The Utopans on the cover look like green red-eyed goblins, but in the black and white drawings they look closer to small elves.  I try to tell them that the real curse is their fear.  It's confirmed that no other animal on Utopa can pare the slaif, not just my assumption from earlier pages.


CHOICE #8 is to either lie and tell the Utopans that the evil eye has gone away on Page 30, or persuade them not to fear the evil eye on Page 53. 


The cover story is that the Federation has destroyed the evil eye, and the Utopans believe it.  They feed me slaif as they're gathering food, and I think it's "indescribably delicious".  It's as good for Earthlings as it is for Utopans.  The two mumpa beasts that killed Mike are now peaceful, and are about to eat their share.


"Suddenly the air is pierced by a scream.  You look first at the Utopans, then up at the sky-and see an ovoid-shaped object on which is painted a huge distorted eye.  The evil eye!  The screaming Utopans are already running toward their cave.  Panicked by the uproar, the animals stampede.  And you're directly in the path of a mumpa beast!  THE END".


How many Deaths in this book are going to be mumpa beasts impaling me with their horns?  Wonder if there is a Good Ending in the "Mike dies" timeline.  The cover could be a reference to this ending, but I don't know for sure.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

5 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 6


The Utopans don't know who FDR was after CHOICE #8, so I attribute the "only thing to fear is fear itself" line to "one of our great Earth leaders".  If they don't prepare slaif, they'll die even if they hide in a cave.  One woman volunteers to do it since she doesn't want her child to starve.  She peels off the poisonous skin from more slaif than they can eat, so I eat it too.  Mumpa beasts approach to eat some slaif just before an evil eye approaches, just like in the previous Death.


But the Utopans don't retreat.  They look at the evil eye ship passing by, and thank me with a handshake.  The narration describes it thus:  "If Utopans were capable of aggression, those fingernails could shred your wrist in a single movement, you think".


I return to dead Mike's Scout ship and turn on the radio.  CHOICE #9 is whether to call the Federation on Page 90, or call Kodor's fleet on Page 61.


"For the next hour, the radio beams a continuous full-spectrum, code four distress signal toward Federation Command Center.  Then the transmitting batteries run out.  The days go by, and all goes well.  The Utopans are harvesting slaif, and the animals look much healthier in only a few days.  Many Utopans visit you bringing gifts of trinkets and blankets, and, of course, all the slaif you can eat.  Occasionally an eye ship flies by, but by now the Utopans have overcome their fear and rarely look up when it passes overhead.


Then the signal you've been waiting for comes through:  'Message received.  Battle fleet on the way to deal with enemy.'  You let out a yell of joy, which you cut short when a strange voice comes over the radio:  'This is Kodor, regent of the galaxy.  You have sought to interfere with my supreme rule of the planet Utopa.  The penalty is death.'


The transmission ends.  All is silent.  But you have little doubt that your own fate is sealed.  You can only hope Federation forces will be strong enough to defeat this tyrant before it's too late-and there's no one left alive on the perfect planet.  THE END".


As presented by the text, this is a pessimistic Inconclusive Ending.  The player character still has SOME doubt about survival, not a certain Death.  If Kodor's boasting in the other timeline is true here, then the Federation will lose.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

5 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 7


When I try to contact Kodor by radio in CHOICE #9, he starts his reply "Earthling, your message is acknowledged".  Kodor's invisible flagship will remove its shield so I can see it.  It's a "smooth and seamless" saucer with no apparent wings, thrusters, or engines.


I learn something that I didn't learn in the "fly above Utopa" route:  Kodor seems to be from planet Nantor, since that's where he wants to take 700 slaif plants.  Trading is too inefficient for him, as he insists on destroying all "troublesome creatures" on a planet before gathering plants.  Kodor gives up more easily in this ending because the Speech check is easier.  I tell him verbatim "In fact, if you ask them nicely, I'm sure they'll dig the plants and load them aboard your ship."  There's more to the conversation to that, but Kodor says that even though I'm a "barbarian", that he is so logical he'll listen to this advice.


Zarg Tanz the ambassador offers to withdraw the evil eye ships in exchange for the slaif plants.  And so the cat people learn that intimidation is much more efficient than murder!


But wait, there's more!  There's a long epilogue section.  "Many years have passed since you were a young scout on a mission to Utopa".  I'm the commodore of the Federation.  The Milky Way isn't fully explored, and the specter of Evil Power Masters and Space Vampires still exists:  "And no one can be sure that some evil genius is not at work somewhere, plotting the conquest of the spiral arm that holds the sun".


Carthage, Missouri is a major city in this future with a nearby Lochmoor Space Base.  A report "brings a scowl to your face".  Choose Your Own Adventure heroes are usually too naive to properly scowl, except maybe for Purple Days War veterans. A new animal has evolved on Utopa, "the three-horned zetkgees", which is immune to the slaif's poison!  Because all of Utopa's animals are pacifist, the zetkgees are breeding like deer in America. 


"How dare nature develop a new ecological niche", the commodore is probably thinking.  Didn't expect Edward Packard to examine the innate problems of utopia in The Perfect Planet in this amount of detail.  The closest Earth example to this situation that I (out-of-character) can think of is monkeys evolving to eat fruit before ripening, and gaining the advantage over apes.


The commodore wants to name a ship after a Greek letter, or perhaps a Nexomon villain, but can't spell.  So I set out for Utopa "at metaspeed" in the Omricon.  Looks like the word "meta" became annoyingly trendy even by 1988.


What follows is not an ending, but CHOICE #10 with four, count em, FOUR decisions!


Page 67:  Kill the zetkgees
Page 71:  Build a wall
Page 94:  "If you decide to turn your ship into sort of a Noah's ark. . ."
Page 73: "Let nature take its course"


I'll go through these in order, but I'm rooting for nature to take its course.


I'll probably get court-martialed for zetkgees population control, but I am more successful than the Australians during the Emu War.


"Call up the Space Fleet', you order.  'I'm not going to let the only perfect planet in the universe go to wrack and ruin', you tell your staff.  'We'll take out the zetkgees and restore Utopa to what it was!'  The next day dozens of Space Fleet fighters criscross the Utopan landscape, firing shafts of deadly light at the hapless zetkgees.  The remains of their bodies pile up in dreadful heaps.  But despite the fantastic capabilities of your fighter craft, many zetkgees escape into dense undergrowth or into caves, and many other animals are hit by mistake.


Terrified by the mayhem, the mumpa beasts stampede and cause vast damage to Utopan villages.  Other animals jump over cliffs or into the ocean to escape the deadly peril.  The surviving Utopans take to caves.  You watch the progress of your campaign on the video monitor.  But you're sickened by what you've done.  Ruefully you call off your forces and head your fleet back toward Earth, leaving Utopa in rotting ruins.  There's no such thing as a perfect planet, you think as you stand looking out at the stars, and there never can be.  THE END".


An elderly Kodor sits on his throne on planet Nantor and looks at his computer, pondering my inefficient manner of culling wildlife.  Or that's what should have happened in the last line. 


The narration says much of the Milky Way is uncharted, let alone other galaxies.  How does Commodore 64 know Utopa is the only perfect planet in the universe?  The Sombrero Galaxy might have a surplus of them.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 8


Building the wall in CHOICE #10 works better than Australia's "rabbit-proof fence", but Edward Packard tries to cheat the player out of a Good Ending with a philosophical technicality.  The comparison might be more apt than I thought going into this ending, since Utopa's day side landmass has to be qualified as an "island-continent".


"We'll separate the zetgees from the other creatures', you tell your staff.  'I'm not willing to exterminate a whole species of innocent animals.'  You order up a shuttle craft.  Moments later you land in the midst of the largest community of Utopans, now settled in the northwestern edge of the island-continent.  You find these poor creatures confused and frightened.  Many have fled from other areas that have been overrun by zetkgees.


The Utopans are primitive in their ways and quite superstitious, but they're also quite intelligent.  They readily understand that they're in danger of being wiped out by the rapidly multiplying zetkgees.  When you outline your plan to erect a wall that will seal off the peninsula from the rest of the island continent, they quickly agree.


You issue orders for a brigade of construction robots to build the wall.  Most of the Utopans and the other animals are thereby saved from being starved out by the zetkgees, who keep multiplying until they've eaten almost all the slaif on their side of the wall.  From then on, the zetkgee population drops until it's balanced with the food supply.


The Utopans and other animals continue to live the way they used to on their side of the wall, while the three-horned zetkgees occupy the main part of the island continent.  Utopa is once again at peace.  But it can no longer be called a perfect planet.  No planet can be perfect when its stability depends on a wall.  THE END".


Or else no planet can be perfect when its stability depends on all animals eating a poisonous plant that can only be prepared by humanoids.  I'll count this as a Good Ending since life on Utopa continues to thrive.


Notice how judgmental the narration is to the "primitive" and "superstitious" Utopans when they're the ones who had The Perfect Planet, not the spacefaring civilization. . .


Results So Far


2 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 9


The Noah's Ark option in CHOICE #10 comes a bit too close to Genesis when there are literally two mumpa beasts onboard.


"You order a large transport ship-which you nickname the Ark-to land in the middle of the island continent.  Your robot teams set about digging up slaif plants and bringing them aboard.  You've already obtained the permission of Federation Council to relocate a few Utopans onto the planet Oroa, Deneb sector, except for the three-horned zetkgees.  Some of the mumpa beasts pace back and forth and paw the ground at the sight of your approaching robots.  But eventually two docile mumpas clamber aboard the Ark.


Otherwise, landing goes smoothly.  The most difficult problem you have is in deciding which Utopans to bring aboard.  Finally you select a few fine representatives of these primitive humanoids.  The rest must be left behind to face the rising 'flood' of the three-horned zetkgees.  When the loading is completed, the Ark takes off and sets course for Oroa, which you hope will become the new perfect planet.  Perhaps it will be that for a while, you reflect as your ship streaks back toward Earth.


But you know that someday a new problem will arise.  It could come at any time:  a problem like that caused by Kodor, or by the multiplying zetkgees, or some problem you can't even imagine.  For in truth, the idea of a perfect planet is only a dream.  THE END".


What ever happened to those evil eye birds from Utopan myth?  Surely it wasn't The Perfect Planet then.  Did they become extinct?


We have no idea what Oroa's ecology is like, and chances are that either Utopan species will overwhelm their native life, or the Utopan colony will die out quickly in an incompatible environment.  And Utopa itself may survive if its ecosystem comes back into balance.  If zetkgees can evolve slaif poison immunity, maybe other species can too.


This can't be a Neutral Ending, since those only happen when you might as well have not gone on the adventure.  Inconclusive Endings are meant for imminent if uncertain danger, though it might be appropriate here for this specific context.



Results So Far


2 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 10


The correct option in CHOICE #10 really is what I thought it would be:  let nature take its course.  The commodore rationalizes this by thinking "a planet that needs to be saved can't be called perfect to begin with".


"Nearly ten years pass before a passing Scout craft sends back new word about Utopa.  You're now president of the entire Federation, and, of course, extremely busy with your work.  At first you toss the dispatch aside.  You don't really want to read about the Utopans and other animals that must have starved as the three-horned zetkgees overran the island-continent.  Then curiosity gets the better of you, and you pick up the dispatch:


TO FEDERATION COMMAND:
RE:  UTOPA


Upon landing, I found that the Utopans and other animals were all alive and in good condition.  The excess zetkgees died from eating a plant that was harmless to all other forms of life.  This plant had sprung up where large areas had been stripped of slaif by the zetkgees.  Slaif is now growing back everywhere, and Utopa is growing more perfect every day.

Scout A-7


THE END".


How can it become "more perfect" if the book's premise is that perfection is a static state?  Oh well, I'm president of the Federation and all is going well on Utopa.  As close to an Ultimate Ending as The Perfect Planet's hero can get.  Mike is still dead, however.


Results So Far


3 Good Endings

5 Deaths

1 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 11


To advance the story, I need to make our hero fail to understand what the mouth of a river is in CHOICE #2.  While moving upstream I "hear a faint sound" close to the shrubbery.  It's rapids that are too fast to cross, so chances are Mike hasn't landed here.  CHOICE #11 is to keep following the trail past the rapids on Page 107, or turn back and walk downstream on Page 46.


A rock wall is eroded enough that I can climb it.  Utopa's low gravity makes it easier to ascend the handholds and footholds, and also softens the fall.  I'm bruised and have an "aching leg and ankle", but the descent wasn't fatal like it would have been in another CYOA.  This does mean that CHOICE #11 is a false CHOICE, since the next page is 46 even when I follow the rapids.


While reading this part, I joked in my head that Mike would be killed by mumpa beasts on the way back.  These CYOAs are becoming too predictable:  "Where's Mike? you wonder.  Oh, no!  His body is lying in the grass only a few hundred feet from the Scout.  The mumpa beasts must have gotten him while he was exploring near his ship.  What a disaster!"  My character's ignorance of elementary school geography has ended my companion's life.  And Mike's ship can't take off again.


Fortunately, Mike's supplies are still intact, especially "forty-two vitro bars" for nutrition.  Like in a modern video game, he left a log behind that explains the plot.  Mike knew all about Kodor's plan, including the evil eyes and his invisible spaceship.  Federation ships are coming, "but they have many parsecs to travel".  If they're measuring distance in parsecs rather than light years, Utopa must be farther from Earth than I thought.  Mike and I were the only Deneb sector scouts. 


Page 72 mentions local wildlife in the bushes that hadn't appeared in other endings, such as "tree snarps" and "web-footed queetars".  Maybe Dr. Seuss traveled to Utopa?  The zetkgees also show up, but this must be before they evolve the mutation to eat the slaif poison.  The mumpa beasts here are too famished to charge at me.


Forty-four days after landing on Utopa, I receive a message from a Federation stealth ship.  It takes me to a Federation flagship called the Rama.  Did Edward Packard read Arthur C. Clarke before writing The Perfect Planet?  Admiral Herbert Gordon, "a portly balding man with twinkling blue eyes", asks me questions about Utopa until an officer says that Kodor's flagship has landed on Utopa.  Kodor's robots are harvesting whole slaif plants, and I think he might leave peacefully.  But the evil eyes are still besieging Utopa, and Admiral Gordon thinks we should destroy Kodor's flagship.


CHOICE #12 is whether to tell the Federation to attack on Page 96, or tell them to wait for it on Page 76.


Admiral Gordon is skeptical about my plan, since "we don't know what powers Kodor has", but my character says "we need the advantage of surprise", as if cat people aren't aware of the concept of stealth.  Kodor's "awesome ion shields" can detect "nonpalpable waves" from electronics, so photons can be blocked in a millionth of a second.  It wouldn't be cheap science fiction without technobabble.


Our hero suggests attacking from multiple points simultaneously, since a "magnetic storm would occur" if the enemy's analysis happens too quickly or something. 


"Violent flashing streaks of light dance around Kodor's ship.  You fix your eyes on the computer simulation on the video screen, not on the live image, because too much of what is happening is in the form of nonvisible electromagnetic radiation.  In slow motion you watch Kodor's ship being blown to atoms!"


Destroying Kodor draws the attention of an even more powerful and disdainful entity.


"A cheer goes up throughout the Rama, but it's cut off abruptly when a synthesized, projected voice fills the room.


'This is the voice of Aldebaran, lord of the galaxy.  In destroying Kodor you destroyed nothing more than a fly.  Having shown yourselves to be creatures that snap at flies, you have proved yourselves on a level with frogs.  Return to Earth.  Henceforth it shall be your pond.  Never Venture Forth Again.'


'What is this?' Admiral Gordon yells.  'We're not going to follow these orders!'  But already some mysterious force has set the Rama in motion toward Earth.  The crew struggles in vain to regain control of the ship.  The admiral's eyes meet yours.  You know you won't see the perfect planet again.  THE END".


If Aldebaran is so superior to Earthlings, why did he give himself an Arabic star name that means "The Follower"?  And is he the monarch that Kodor is the "regent" for?  I guess I'll have to count this as a Bad Non-Death Ending because although Utopa is saved, humanity now has an omnipotent enemy.


Results So Far


3 Good Endings

5 Deaths

2 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Choose Your Own Adventure:  The Perfect Planet Alternate Endings Part 12


It's too much of a gamble to attack Kodor in CHOICE #12, so let's wait and see what happens.  For around 72 hours we monitor Kodor's robots, which gather 700 slaif plants from one grove.  There are still thousands of slaif groves on Utopa's day side.  Now that they're no longer needed to intimidate Utopans, all the evil eyes return to the flagship, and Kodor sets off in the direction of the star Aldebaran.


In Admiral Gordon's next speech, he speculates that Kodor "may have been no more than a sophisticated drone, one of millions perhaps-space bees, buzzing around, gathering honey".  Does this mean that Kodor's personality is inconsistent between routes as if this were an R.A. Montgomery gamebook?  Previously he wanted to wipe out all animal life on Utopa, but here all he wants to do is steal the slaif plants and then leave.


Edward Packard's favorite character gets the last word.


"About three weeks later your spaceship breaks through the Earth's atmosphere and sets down at the Lochmoor Space Base near Carthage, Missouri.  As always, you're overcome by a joyous sense of wonder and appreciation on landing back on your home planet.  A few days later you meet with your old professor Dr. Nera Vivaldi.  She is, of course, eager to hear about your trip to Utopa.


'It's strange', you say.  'Even though Utopa is a perfect planet, and Earth is extremely imperfect, I'd much rather live on Earth than on Utopa.'  'I feel the same way', Dr. Vivaldi says.  'The truth is, perfection is only an illusion.  Dealing with imperfection is what life is all about.  THE END".


Perfection is only an illusion, yet Dr. Vivaldi stated as a fact that Utopa is The Perfect Planet in one of her lectures!  Could Utopa's reputation be the greatest marketing campaign in the Milky Way?


Results So Far


4 Good Endings

5 Deaths

2 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

2 Inconclusive Endings