Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Part 2


I try to keep Trig from goofing off and focus on the radiation problems.  To keep him from being too depressed, I say "Last one there's a rotten egg".  That expression survived in a steampunk future, I guess.  Trig overshoots the equipment room and I win the race.


Hummingbots gather fuel from methane tanks to prepare for going out into space.  I marvel at the view of galaxies.  The narration points out that the ship has hydroponic gardens meant to provide oxygen and recycle "waste from the sleepers".  This can't last indefinitely, but it should be enough to make it to the new planet.  We notice a problem when a porthole is jammed, which wastes power and will be hazardous when heating up in an atmosphere.


Debris is interfering with the porthole, which Trig calls "space poo".  Hummingbots gather samples and the spider-bot clears the rest away.  This "space poo" is pure platinum.  I put it in a box in the storage room and write my name on it in hopes I can sell it later.  The ship speeds up and avoids meteors.  We wonder why there's a view with no stars for a bit, and then discover another spaceship going towards the meteors.  It's apparently mining them with a tractor beam.


My character says that if the other ship were hostile, it would have attacked already while we were asleep.  Since the Victoria left Earth 170 years ago, technology has advanced.  Mining ships, space stations, and colony planets now exist, and we've received some messages about them.  It's likely we're not the first to have gone to the destination planet.


(Beth Revis's generation ship series Across the Universe has a prior colony on its new planet.  So I'm familiar with this plot device.)


CHOICE #3 asks me to either wake up a new crew to contact the 2nd ship diplomatically, or try to avoid the ship and press on.


EDIT:  Helen Gillian Wells?  I see what you did there, DM Potter.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Part 3


Since I'm a person of action in this book, I'll avoid the other ship instead of trusting some other crew to do the right thing.  This CHOICE #3 leads to a CANONICAL ENDING that's so long I'll only quote relevant segments of it.


Captain Wells tells us to monitor the ship for a few days before going back to sleep.  We compare the sleeping animals to a "Noah's ark in space", so at least some memory of the Book of Genesis exists in this future.  Trig sorts through messages, which surprises my character because he was expected to mess around on the electric bikes or something.  The animals include dogs, pigs, cows, sheep, horses, birds, and monkeys.  They too have similar sleeping equipment.  Perhaps they're becoming more intelligent?


I meet a man called Dr. Ralph, who asks me about my crime.  I was apprenticed to a baker before age 10, and gave stale bread to the poor.  Ralph says they should have joined the factories, but I say "People don't come back from there".  Londinium's unemployment rate was high due to robots, and the solution was transportation.  Unskilled people would automatically learn a trade through sleep learning.


Dr. Ralph asks me if I play "draughts" or chess.  This is the moment where I want to slap the writer and say that the word "draft" should NOT be spelled "draught"!  I know it's British English, but still, I thought Babi in Golden Sun was drinking a "drawt" for a long time.  "Color" with a "u", I can forgive, but never "draught".  Anyway, he's talking about checkers.  I say I also play card games, and apparently "snakes and ladders" too.  (That game is sold as "Chutes and Ladders" in the U.S.)


Dr. Ralph shows us his chimpanzee Desmond.  Desmond is talented at chess, but loves to ponder his moves while "swinging around from various pipes and brackets".  Dr. Ralph's animal research was neglected on Earth because everyone was focused on robotics instead.


"Two more apes come down from the ceiling and start playing cards.  Desmond beats you at chess and then brings out a game you haven't seen before".  My decision to avoid the 2nd ship may have inadvertently created Planet of the Apes!


The game we now play is one invented by the animals.  I play as a zebra and ally with a baboon to survive various dangers, like predators and natural disasters.  It seems to be a CYOA based on the description.


There are a few older people along with Dr. Ralph who are maintaining the hydroponic gardens.  But we're interrupted when a ship is following us, supposedly led by the Chinese pirate Ching Shee.  Named after the real 19th pirate Ching Shih.  China is still an empire in this alternate history, and she stole one of the Emperor's spaceships, the Orient Star.  There are a few differences, though.  China doesn't have British sleeping jelly, so their spaceships rely on cloning passengers instead.


We stopped receiving messages from Earth over 100 years ago.  To avoid having to wake up the passengers, we'll rely on robots and arm the skeleton crew.  One of these spider-bots speaks in a Scottish brogue when I consider using the giant snake-bot:  "Ye dinna need such a big brute to fight in close quarters".


"And it has a Scottish accent?', asks Trig.  He seems more intrigued by this than your security plans".  So am I, Trig, so am I.


We see some enemy soldiers with axes and metal armor approaching, and then the gangplank descends.  Ching Shee IX is wearing "blue silk embroidered garments with deep sleeves, a little like an ornate dressing gown.  The silk of her dress is embroidered at the edge with darker blue images of stars and comets and planets.  It as if part of the universe has come to meet you".


Evidently alternate future Chinese gender roles are less restrictive than British ones:  "There must have been some changes among the Britannian people to appoint someone so young and so female to the task of commanding this large and most precious vessel".


Ching Shee IX is interested in playing Desmond's game.  There are other Ching Shee clones too, but only one is allowed to rule.  Ching Shee VII only lasted 3 days before Ching Shee VIII overthrew her.  Ching Shee IX remarks that most planets don't have this much life, and that the others the Orient Star has found are "just water or just rocks".  She wants to trade her map information for Desmond and the CYOA board game.  


While the Chinese captain is distracted, Trig and I steal information from her spider-bots.  Neither of us can read Chinese, but perhaps the rest of the crew can.  Shortly afterwards, Ching Shee kidnaps Desmond and another chimp named Morris.  Dr. Ralph says the kidnappers' cloning plans won't work because they don't have our sleeping technology. 


We slingshot our way with a harpoon and a comet to try to catch up with the pirates, but we receive an odd transmission in. . .Maori.


Yes, we've finally found a New Zealand reference in these New Zealand CYOAs, and it only took 8 books to do so.  The Maori are much more successful in this universe, and managed to conquer New Zealand, Australia, and the Americas.  Their message indicates they've had trouble colonizing this planet because it has "terrible monsters".


A more formal message:  "Greetings people of the Victoria from Britannia.  We are of the tribe Ngati Kahungunu from Aotearoa and we have travelled to these stars that herald Matariki-the beginning of new growth each year.  Your speaker tells us that you met the warrior Ching Shee and she has taken something of yours.  We are sorry about that.  Ching Shee has taken something of ours too-our chief.  She has also dismantled our craft".


Ching Shee IX says she'll help to colonize the planet, but only if the Maori agree to be her slaves.  She stole vital parts from the spaceship while the Maori were trading water with her.  I place some spider-bots on the Maori spaceship and repair it.  The Victoria and the Takitimu crew plan to colonize the planet together, but Ching Shee IX mostly plans to kill off the giant animals and strip mine the place. 


To flatter Ching Shee, we offer to challenge her to a game of her choice, and the loser must obey the winner.  Kupe the Maori and Ching Shee play Desmond's game together "with grim determination".  Ching Shih wins thanks to her practice with Desmond, but she still loses the battle because of our spider-bot trap.


I demand all the prisoners instead of an exchange like Ching Shee wants, making her respect me because I'm a "pirate at heart".  "I think you're confusing me with someone who didn't grow up in an orphanage and wasn't caught stealing bread and sent to prison.  There's no honor when you are hungry, Ching Shee."  The bread-stealing part makes me want to call the player character Jean Valjean.


We force the guards to surrender their weapons, and they all turn out to be other Ching Shee clones.  There might be hope for colonization when Trig tells us that Captain Wells found "large islands without big animals".


"Sounds like you have some decisions ahead of you.  Do you take off as the leader of the pirate ship or settle down on the new planet?  You've made some great friends and had adventures that will be told for generations to come.  You jump on the transporter behind Trig and practice your surprised face as you head to the landing bay where the feast will be served.


It's the only place big enough for so many people.  You slide open the door a crack hoping to make a quiet entrance but one of Ching Shee's ex-guards sees you and springs up to salute.  Soon all the guards rise and bow and you're waved up to the main table.  Trig settles into a spot right next to you and the captain.


The Captain starts telling you, Aroha, and Kupe about the land the Victoria has found.  Why don't you look surprised, Engineer?"

 
I may be no good at poker, but I've saved the ship from Chinese pirate clones and made friends with starfaring Maori.  We stand a good chance with this new planet too.  Provided we don't die of a War of the Worlds style disease.  Hey, DM Potter named the captain H.G. Wells, so how could I avoid thinking of that?


There's a lot of text I'm leaving out here.  This section was so long it felt like the original plan was to include 2 more CHOICEs which were left out of the final version.  Goodreads suggests this is the 1st You Say Which Way, so perhaps this is before the "formula" was developed.


Still, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this book.  If there isn't an ending where Desmond reads the work of Pierre Boule and conquers the new planet, I'll be disappointed.


1 Good Endings

0 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 1


According to the list of CHOICEs, there aren't that many paths in this book compared to other You Say Which Ways.  Taking the other CHOICE #3 path has the same effect as staying asleep in CHOICE #1, so I'll postpone that for a bit and race on the transporters with Trig in CHOICE #2.


"You're sure you won't jeopardize the mission with a bit of fun.  The magnetic field is still holding up and you've slowed the ship down.  What could go wrong?"  Almost invoking the Bubsy catch phrase is a bad omen.


The magnetic strips meant to hold down the robots work well, and Trig speeds ahead of me.  But both of our transporters waste too much power and we have to pedal manually for the rest of the race.  To find out how far we've gone, Trig takes note of the corridors, named after Columbus, Cook, Drake, Magellan, and Livingstone.


I note that our bike race is good exercise after sleeping for so long.  A mysterious person called The Inventor designed the Victoria well, if our equipment is any indication.  As a concession to the steampunk genre, there are "mining equipment, steam engines, and the components of dirigibles for airborne exploration".


Captain Wells is furious because we've been goofing off instead of dealing with the radiation problem.  Evidently we took so long to address the porthole problems that we're being sucked into a black hole or something similar.


Trig says "I've got good news, more good news, and depending on how you look at it, a spot of bad news".  Captain Wells thumps the table and demands that he give a straight answer.  He says that we're in an uncharted region of space, but a nearby yellow star has 4 planets, 2 of which may be habitable.


"Captain Wells does a most un-captainly thing.  She unbuckles her seatbelt, boosts herself over to Trig and kisses him.  Then she turns and gives you a hug". 


Trig says the nearest planet is "really marginal" because there are few plants, but others are possible.  I suggest waking up someone to explore the planet, but Trig responds "They'll just want to pull rank on the Captain because she's a girl".  The narration then says "You remember all those corridors named after explorers.  Were any named after a woman?"


Between the Stars may be the only You Say Which Way to bring up sexism at all.  The others are aggressively gender-neutral, even in settings where it would seem unusual (e.g. the caveman tribes of Secrets of the Singing Cave). 


Whatever the case, my character says there are "protocols about waking up the aristocrats when a useful planet is found".  Chances are they'd be useless if they act like they do in Victorian novels. . .


We repair the ship's magnetic field, and I discover the platinum.  Trig asks "What's platignum?".  Evidently his sleep learning didn't cover precious metals, the periodic table, or how not to talk like Wil from Dragons Realm.


I tell everyone to send hummingbots as scouts, potentially saving years of exploration time.  We plan to go back to sleep for a while when Trig suggests reprogramming the ship to wake us up when the hummingbots return.  The CHOICE #4 alternative is to avoid tampering with the waking protocols. 


"He grins when he realizes you are thinking not about if you should do it but how.  Trig has gotten you into trouble before, though.  It was his suggestion to race the hummers that ended up with the ship going through a hole in space."


Let's listen to Trig and see what happens.  Captain Wells agrees.  We notice other animal robots, such as a giraffe.  The giraffe might be good for scouting a forest.  I explain to the robots why we want to reprogram the ship, and the giraffe says "We have decided that your change of protocol is acceptable".


We meet an old man while playing around and eating in the hydroponics.  He says he woke up to respond to the bees dying, and his sleep learning covered beekeeping and botany.  He created some topiary bushes shaped like animals that change shape and move. 


"Three small rabbit-shaped bushes roll together and form a ball and from that appears the shape of a big cat.  A lioness.  It paces forward without a need for roots and it heads for Trig and the Captain.  You jump off the swing and run back toward them, but you're blocked by a green wall of leaves and twigs growing up in front of you!".


The old man orders the plant to stop attacking, and "Eva" offers us a chair with vine seatbelts.  The old man explains that Eva is a new species, and helps maintain the garden.  She's like a daughter to the old man. 


"Trig sighs, completely captivated by the story.  'So you said goodbye to the woman you love so you could stay with one of your kids?"


Captain Wells offers to use Eva to make the colony planet habitable because she's adaptable and can survive as long as there's sufficient heat, water, and CO2.  My character doesn't trust Eva at all, and in fact is looking for a way to "make a giant dose of weed killer".  Eva sends a plant dog to check on me while I look for a suitable planet.  Captain Wells is still imprisoned in the plant chair.


Trig's found a "volcanic planet with mountains of glass-like rock that form most of its land mass.  There are also
some plains and a big ocean".  Eva has the potential to terraform it, and she seems to approve of this plan after reading the book.


Giraffe-Bot says "Your logic is sound.  You can take the supplies you want but with one condition.  You must send 100 sleepers-male and female-along with Eva.  Our trip is long and dangerous, we may not find an optimal planet for our cargo.  it is logical to send some to this planet as a backup settlement in case ours is destroyed".


CHOICE #5 is to go with Eva to this glass mountain planet, or leave Eva there and go somewhere else.  The text heavily implies that the former ending is connected to the other You Say Which Way book Secrets of Glass Mountain.



Doing so gives us a special ending that's much shorter than the CANONICAL ENDING.


"Three landing ships set off from the Victoria to the glass planet.  A part of Eva traveled on each ship.  The largest ship carried the robot snake.  It was used by the settlers to make tunnels into the mountains.  Eva adapted a local fungus to be highly nutritious.  It could be grown hydroponically within these caverns.  Over time the settlers adapted to mountain living.  They discovered diamonds and used them for grip while traveling over the smooth glass surface.


The snake robot didn't get on with the new native fungs and burrowed deeper and deeper into the mountains.  It returned to the highlands less and less often and eventually stopped coming altogether.  But by then it had done its job and settlements were well established.


The second ship landed on the plains so the settlers started farming.  There were many native plants and species which helped them have a good life.  Sometimes these settlers glanced up at the mountains and wondered why anyone would want to make their homes there.  The plains dwellers, or Lowlanders as they became known, were often visited by the inhabitants of the third ship who explored the rest of the planet and developed a roving nature.  Over time, members of this third group became the planet's traders-delivering goods and news between the different communities.


After a few hundred years with no written history, people forgot entirely where they came from.  There were rumors that they had come from the stars and stories about metal creatures which dug tunnels and robots that did other useful things abounded, but nobody knew for sure.  Many think the stories are only legend.


Sometimes a Highlander would take it into their head to develop new machines and start drilling and banging and thinking.  They'd eat a bit of fungus and things would become clearer and their inventions more ingenious.  While the Highlanders were inventing machines, the Lowlanders enjoyed the many green tumbleweeds the found rolling around the planet (and which were so convenient as cushions and pillows).  Settlers would snuggle into a tumbleweed and before they knew it-more tumbleweed would attach to the first and a cozy bed would form.  Naps were common.


Other tumbleweeds would roll off to make themselves useful as baby's cribs or settle under a roof begin fixed in case a worker fell off.  People used to say.  It's like those tumbleweeds know what's going on.  The End.  Psst!  You can read more about the planet Eva went to when you read Secretes of Glass Mountain, but for now you might want to explore some more of Between the Stars".


An ending that's not only in the past tense, but reveals that Secrets of Glass Mountain is the sequel to this book.  No other CYOAs in this thread have had a sequel before.  This is unusual for a You Say Which Way!


And the trick to getting there was to goof off on space bikes and trust a plant that almost murdered us.


Won't the Glass Mountain colony have "founder effect" issues do to having such a small population?  Could explain why nobody carved history into a rock or tried to grow trees to make paper.


Results So Far



2 Good Endings

0 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 2


Opting not to go to the Secrets of Glass Mountain planet in CHOICE #5 gives us a more modest ending.


"The next few weeks are busy.  You and the others are waking people and briefing them about the landing.  There are three ships to get ready, including one with the huge mining snake.  Eva makes herself very useful during the preparations, in particular, deciding on seeds and livestock to take to the new planet.  On the third day you go with Amos and Eva's little dog to wake up Amos's daughter Esmeralda and her mother.  There is a tearful reunion of the whole family.  Esmeralda asks if her father might be able to take a sleep pod or two to the new planet.  She thinks it might be nice for him to sleep for a few years while they set up their new home.  Amos isn't too sure he wants to miss more time with his family but they agree the pods might come in useful.


Everywhere Esmeralda goes a little green dog pads after her-the two are inseparable.  Some of the other passengers are little bit wary of Eva.  Eva senses this and tries to devise ways to get the settlers to know and trust her.  She splits herself up into lots of green balls that follow the settlers about.  It becomes natural for the settlers to use their 'tumble weeds' as chairs and cushions.  Before long people are very comfortable with Eva and you think that the ship will be missing a great asset when the landing parties have gone.


The day comes when the little ships are loaded and launched into space.  Each passenger rests against a green pillow soaked in a natural herbs cultivated by Amos.  Where once the settlers might have felt frightened or anxious, the pillow has a soothing effect.  'It smells like lavender', says one man.  'Mine smells like the old roses my grandmother used to grow', says another.


You watch from the bridge as the three ships leave the Victoria and head to the planet.  Each of these vessels will make a temporary shelter for the settlers until the snake makes tunnels and caves for them to live in.  They will not all land together as you don't want them to accidentally crash.  Instead Trig has them set on courses to land on different parts of the planet.  One will land in the mountains and one on the plains.  They will have plenty of equipment to build a new Britannia.


When the settlers have gone there is no more reason to stay awake.  After a last meal you take a final tour of the Victoria on your transporters.  You still haven't even been through half of it.  A little hummingbot follows you through corridors.  Behind you both, a small green ball rolls along as though attached by an invisible thread.


You know you shouldn't put it off much longer.  It's time to head to your sleep pod and immerse yourself in warm jelly.  You look forward to the sleeping cap teaching you wonderful new things.  Just as you lose consciousness you look out through the glass.  You must be dreaming already, for a moment you thought you saw a little green dog waggin its tail and chasing a green ball. . ."


This is an Inconclusive Ending.  We have no clue what happens next, other than that part of Eva may have remained on the Victoria.  She seems to be benevolent other than the "lioness" first impression, though.  Amos is the "old man", and I think there was an editing error.  Captain Wells calls him by his name at one point even though they hadn't introduced themselves or met before.


Results So Far



2 Good Endings

0 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 3


Deciding not to reprogram the waking protocol in CHOICE #4 means I sleep longer than I thought.


"The robotics repair shop is always busy.  All day settlers come in with malfunctioning robots used to break in the new planet.  There are machines that take down trees, machines that dig for coal and machines that defend the colony from the native animals.


You weren't woken when the Victoria first landed here several hundred years ago.  Some passengers were kept asleep while others made the first explorations and discoveries.  Some became rich securing land and resources, others are spoken of in legends.  Since you were woken, you've worked on the huge robots and the little ones too.  Sometimes you travel out on the steam railways into the country to work on immense machines that can't be brought in.


Your employer is Mr. Wells, the great, great grandson of a woman who once captained the Victoria for a short time.  You have seen a picture of her when you visited his house.  Sometimes you dream about her and a red-headed boy.  Is it a dream?  It was long ago.  You have a very busy life and you don't think about it much.


An old man comes in from the bright sunshine and squints into the shop.  'Is anyone here?'  He's dressed like a rich farmer.  You recognize him as the same fellow who came in a few months ago wanting to get an irrigation snake serviced.  The snake came over on the space ship and was an exciting robot to work on.  Its internal mechanism crunched through rock and soil and filtered out water which it converted to steam to power it.


'I'm here, Mr. Bower', you say.  'How can I help you?'  'Ah, I was hoping I'd find you here, I know you like old bots.', the old man says.  'Take a look at this.  We recently drained a small lake and found it with a metal detector.  What do you think?'  He holds out a box.  You take it to a work bench and carefully open it up.  Inside is a dirty and dented little hummingbot.


'They had these flying about in the Victoria', you say as you gently clean away dirt.  You're not too sure how you know this.  The little bird is dented and faded but still has all its parts.  You detach a little solar panel, clean away the dirt and find it surprisingly intact.  You set the panel under a solar magnifier then you turn back to the hummer.


'We may not get her working again, but let's give it a try', you say.  'These little bots are things of beauty.  They had time for fine craftsmanship back then.'  You open the main mechanism and look inside.  There are a couple of rusted springs which you replace and then add some methane to the flying cartridge.  Some of the clockwork has rusted out too and you carefully slot in new parts.  You delicately file and polish each part so it fits perfectly.  When you snap the bird back together it starts to move and then surprises you both by taking off around the room.


You head off to get a net to bring it down.  It's a delicate old specimen and you don't want it falling and getting more damaged.  To your surprise the little bird follows you.  'That's interesting', the old man says.  'Did you ever get woken up when you travelled out on the Victoria?'  You try to think back.  'I can't remember.  I don't think so.'


'This little fellow seems to know you.  People often forget waking moments in space travel.  You go back to sleep and learn new things.  Without any triggers your brain buries memories quite deeply.  You should find out-a lot of the records were lost but if you helped get us here well. . .The descendants of folks who worked on board are claiming compensation these days.  If you woke and helped get us here you could end up being rich enough to own this shop.'  'But how would I ever prove something like that?' you ask.


The hummingbot emits a high-pitched whistle and attaches itself to an input on the computer you use to diagnose robot problems in remote areas.  Before long, images start to play of corridors and 'sports racing inside the Victoria.  The images change, now there is a close up of Captain Wells.  'That's my great grandmother!' exclaims a voice behind you.  It's your boss, back from a meeting.  The three of you keep watching.  There's a scene where Captain Wells is in a padded room working on the controls.  Something starts to tickle in your mind.


'This is amazing', Mr. Wells says, 'this little hummingbot has footage of the famous moments when Captain Wells and a crew of two saved the entire ship after it was sucked through a black hole.'  You keep watching.  There are various scenes of the ship being fixed and then you see something extraordinary.  A rocket is placed on the floor and the hummingbot moves towards it.  Two hands come up and take the little bird and it is placed inside.  The robot looks upward as the rocket is sealed shut.  The last image it shows is a face frowning in contemplation.


It is your face.  'That's you!'  your customer shouts.  'It's really you.  This is amazing.'  Your life is about to change.  As a hero from the original crews of the Victoria you'll be a celebrity and you'll also be entitled to land and riches.  The little bird gets down from the screen and flies over to you.  You hold it in your hand.  Now you remember sending it off on its journey.


'Thank you for coming back to me', you whisper to the little bird.  It's like a piece of the puzzle of your life is back in place".


Racing on electric bikes instead of working hundreds of years ago makes me wealthy.  Too bad Trig and Captain Wells are long dead, but they seemed to have lived well. 


We learn here that long-term sleep messes with memory, but why don't I have trouble recalling my life on Earth?  Does this only apply to memories created between multiple sleep sessions?


Results So Far


3 Good Endings

0 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 4


Sleeping at the beginning of the book brings me to CHOICE #6.  A short page asks me if I want to either wake up for the 2nd mission, or stay asleep.  For this update, I'll snooze in hopes of reaching the planet young.


"In your dreams you are working in a mine.  You are always tired.  It seems odd that you keep dreaming of mining.  Shouldn't you be learning new things while you sleep?  Next to you is another miner.  He's very old.  It's odd you are dreaming of older people when sleeping chambers preserves [sic] you in sleep."


All the old people in this dream are "chipping away at a large seam of coal", and are occasionally taken away by a mine cart.  A robot asks me "Are you awake?"  CHOICE #7 is to tell it yes or no.


Telling the robot I'm awake leads to a twist ending.


"Yes, I'm awake', you say, stepping forward and staring into the robot's scanner.  It pauses and relays information back to the central computer.  'Sleeper, do you want to be awake?' asks the robot.  You think about all the time you might have been sleeping, the times you have had opportunities to wake and didn't.  It's time to get on with your life.  'Yes', you say.  'I want to be awake.'


The robot sprays you in the face with a sharp smelling vapor.  Your knees buckle and you fall backwards into another cart.  You follow behind the old miner being carted up the railway tracks to the surface.  On the way up you see old miners sitting in carts as they are wheeled down.  They have a vacant expression on their faces.  They don't seem unhappy, more like they're dreaming.  The walls begin to appear as natural light filters down from above.  Tracks lead up towards a round circle of light.  The increased light hurts your eyes.


You come out squinting to an alien landscape.  The sky is a funny sort of purple and large red bats glide across the sky.  As the smell of coal and grease and steam from the tunnel fade, you start to smell of other things.  The air is very different to the air on Earth and to the sterile air of the space ship.


Your little cart is still being pushed along by the robot.  You enter a building and a man in a suit with a top hat greets you.  He has a handle bar mustache, and at about 40, is the youngest person you've seen today.  'You must be the sleeper who has decided to wake up!'  he cries and shakes your hand.  'Welcome to Victorious.  Welcome to our utopia.  I am one of the great grandchildren of the original settlers.  They broke in the land here and started the coal mines.'


He babbles, enthusiastically talking of the settlement of the planet, but you aren't listening.  You have caught sight of your reflection in the window.  You see an old face and gray hair.  Slowly you look down to your wrinkled and liver-spotted hands.  Old hands.  He is still talking:


'. . .and then many of the sleepers said they didn't want to wake up.  It seemed you got used to sleeping and preferred it.  At first we let people sleep on in the cryo-chambers but then my grandfather had the bright idea to get some labor in exchange for the sleep.  Unfortunately when you're sleep-working your body ages.  But you'll be pleased to know that while you've been mining here, you've cleared your debt, worked off your sentence AND made some savings.  We've saved your money prudently.  You now have enough set aside to retire!'


You look out the window.  There's a new world beyond the mining works.  Huge birds circle mountains carpeted in strange plants.  There will be rivers nobody has ever traveled, and new animals, and so much more to explore.  You don't have much time left but you want to see as much of it as you can".



Hey, DM Potter, that's not fair!  You said "But if you stay awake too long you'll be old when you get to the new plant [sic] or never get there at all." just before CHOICE #6!  And some text before CHOICE #1 says "If you choose to take on a mission you can earn credit for the new planet-even freedom-but you could also arrive on the new planet too old to ever use your freedom".


Nothing ever suggested that the "old person" ending would come from sleeping longer!  This may be a fun book to read, but some of the CHOICEs are cheats. 


It seems that Planet Victorious relies on manual human mining labor, just like so many aliens in pulp science fiction who don't understand the concept of automation.  Senior citizen mining labor at that.  This colony plan reminds me of that Judge Parker comic storyline where Neddy builds a clothing sweatshop that employs only old people so she can avoid paying health insurance benefits or something.  (And she isn't presented as a villain!)



This may technically be a Good Ending, because at least I can retire.  I don't have a category for bizarre endings where you've wasted most of your life half-asleep, but are still financially successful.  Maybe RefSteel could propose one.


Results So Far


4 Good Endings

0 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 5


Telling the mine robot that I'm asleep in CHOICE #7 causes this to happen.


"That's right sleeper, you're dreaming.  You never wanted to wake and do any work and you never will have to wake.  I am authorized to send you back into a deep sleep.  If at any time you want to wake up, you have only to tell me.  We treat everyone with kindness on the new planet, sleepers and non-sleepers alike.  Go back to sleep now.


You are feeling very drowsy and your mind struggles to think about what you've just heard.  You remember there were times when you have been asked if you want to wake up and you chose sleep.  Why wake when you can travel between the stars and never age?  Sleepily you wonder what will happen at the end of the journey.  What will the settlers do with people who don't want to wake. . ."


Our first Death, everyone!  And we learn a bit more about Handlebar Mustache Top Hat Guy's scam.  What happens once he runs out of Victoria passengers to exploit?



Results So Far


4 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 6


"You agreed to have your mind copied into the body of a dolphin so you can explore a new planet.  It's strange to see your old self there.  The girl next to you must have shared her mind with a dolphin too.  Dolphin-you shoots a stream of water at human-you.  Human-you and the curly haired girl try to duck away but end up wet and laughing".


Could this be the origin story of Drill Sergeant Flipper?  No, it's the result of waking up in CHOICE #6.


Dr. Alan insists that we stop playing around, and explains that he's naming the planet Atlantica after Atlantis and Britannia.  But my out-of-character self likes to think that he watched The Little Mermaid too many times. 


The scar-faced prisoner from my short stay in prison on Earth finally appears, whose name is revealed to be Moriarty.  There weren't enough Victorian references for the steampunk quota, I guess.  But this is merely his body, as The Inventor is now possessing it.  It's implied that Moriarty is still inside somewhere, but his will is being suppressed by The Inventor's.


Curly-Haired Girl calls me Proudfin, and I respond by calling her Longtail.  We are to explore Atlantica and use a radio station to report our discoveries.  Robots will investigate the land.


CHOICE #8 is to either learn what's happening on the Victoria, or explore Atlantica as a dolphin.


The "Meanwhile, back on the Victoria" option leads to another long ending, so I'll summarize most of it, quoting only the last part directly.


My human self plays around on the "transporter" electric bikes, and hummingbirds show me around the ship.  On all my journeys, I "haven't even explored half of it".  One room filled with sleep tanks has no passengers, since they departed 27 years before.  It's implied that this is the Glass Mountain world, because 100 people are missing.


Curly-Haired Girl's real name is Grace.  She learned geology, "the rudiments of thermal energy", and radio while asleep.  We meet Dr. Alan on The Bridge, which has "monitors, keyboards, dials and switches".  At least they're not relying on slide rules.  We look at Atlantica from space, and find out its islands are much smaller than Earth's continents. 


Dr. Alan seems very sleepy, which is odd because normally passengers have insomnia for a while after waking up from hibernation.  Grace suspects he's been "drugged".  Grace messes with her radio for a bit, and I hear a noise that seems to mean "Watch out!  Crabs.".  Looks like I learned to speak dolphin instead of engineering skills.


The prospects for Atlantica are not good.  "The land masses are inhabited by large aggressive carnivorous birds."  Geothermal electricity might be possible thanks to volcanoes, but otherwise it might be better to skip this planet and head to one 300 light years away.  The final dolphin message is "Do not trust the Inventor".


The Inventor is busy with mind transfer, but other details are "Classified" according to the bird robots.  I come to the conclusion that Moriarty's mind is still alive, and he's effectively cloning himself.  Not quite like the Ching Shees on the Orient Star, however. 


Grace and I notice "learning disks" like the ones used for sleep learning.  One detail even the characters find strange is that languages are included, which don't seem to be much use on another planet far from any other Earth cultures.  (Unless the Victoria builders anticipated Space Maori, and the language disks were meant for ship-to-ship interpreters just in case. . .)


Our suspicions are confirmed when we see Moriarty's file missing from a shelf labeled "criminal minds".  Grace's plan is to overwrite my mind with The Inventor's, and stop Moriarty that way.


"The game's afoot!  Besides, what other choice do we have?'  you say as you strip down to your underwear and lower yourself into cold sleep jelly.  Cold jelly is not as pleasant as warm jelly.  You feel a little chill run through you as you go under but when you suck on the breathing apparatus the chill goes and, you are feeling sleepy. . .and then you are coming out of the bath and Grace is there waiting for you with a big grin on her face.


But something is wrong, it's just you.  Why can't you feel The Inventor's thoughts?  'I don't think it worked Grace, we'll have to try again.'  To your surprise Grace laughs and waves a few people  over.  There's Dr. Alan and someone dressed in a captain's uniform.


'We did it', Grace explains.  After you came out of the sleep jelly your subconscious completely accepted The Inventor's mind.  You overrode Moriarty's commands and had him sent, with some supplies, to an island on the watery planet.  'Atlantica', interrupts Dr. Alan.


'Yes, Atlantica.  Anyway he's down there now.  It's not that great a place for humans but he should survive.  He was going to send a lot of us down there.  We've moved on-we're travelling further afield and about to go back to sleep ourselves.  The Inventor wanted to give you back your body.  And there's more.  We've both been promoted.  We're no longer indentured.  We're toffs!'


Dr. Alan interrupts, 'Come on you two, let's have a last look at these stars before we go to sleep between them again.  I look forward to working with you again in a few hundred years when we reach our next destination.'


You look at Atlantica getting smaller.  Dr. Alan sees an inhospitable planet where the criminal Moriarty is marooned for the rest of his life.  You see a planet where an alternate you, in the body of a dolphin, has found a sort of paradise.


Strangely, you and Grace have achieved the thing Moriarty was trying to do.  You are both living more than one life.  Seeing there is a part of you swimming below, you wonder if you'll dream of swimming again.  You're pretty sure you will."


Can anyone translate "toff" into American?  How long do you think Moriarty will last before becoming bird food?


The mind cloning raises so many metaphysical questions.  Do I still exist, or was I killed to create the dolphin and human using my body?


Whatever happened, at least Moriarty's gone and I'm no longer going to be an indentured servant working half-asleep in a mine.


Results So Far


5 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Alternate Endings Part 7


"With a burst of speed you arch your back and explode out of the water.  Longtail leaps out of the sea right next to you.  You hang in the air for a few seconds and look out on the bright sunny day and see birds in the sky.  Huge dark birds with wings like bats and long triangular beaks".


Our experiences as dolphins leads us to the predators that shut down the idea of colonizing Atlantica.  They have teeth too, unlike Earth birds.


A voice in my dolphin's head says "That's good.  Keep scanning for them.  You can't sense through the air as well as water, but you should be able to make out something that large".  Much nicer than Drill Sergeant Flipper berating his failed space academy students!


I learn that the voice comes from Seeker, the dolphin whose body I stole on the Victoria.  "Sorry for invading your mind.'  'Don't worry, little one.  Together we are exploring this beautiful clean sea.  It's a pleasure to have you along.  I've enjoyed learning your thoughts".


We get an environmental message when Seeker suggests a source of water for the steam engines.  "His tone is one of disappointment.  'Coal mining makes the sea taste horrible.'  Seeker says.  'Your machines belch smoke and bleed oil and tar.  They choke the fish and the creatures of the air'.  You suddenly feel sad.  This place is so clean, so untouched".  This is in contrast to Drill Sergeant Flipper, whose career is based on inspecting underwater oil rigs.


CHOICE #9 is to swim back to the "explorer" or "swim further out to sea" to get away from swift "creatures" underwater.  This is probably the last CHOICE in the book.


Going back to the space probe creates another long ending, which I'll mostly summarize.  We decide to return in order to report our wildlife discoveries and the possibility that Moriarty is overpowering The Inventor's mind.  Longtail closes the door just before "two black fish" with arms and "jagged teeth" attack.  They try to smack the hull of the space probe, but fail and start to swim in circles instead.


Longtail reports with her dolphin noises, mostly about the birds and a possible underwater volcano.  I explain "Repeat.  The host is not asleep and it can take control" as a veiled warning about Moriarty.  Then the transmitter on the Victoria fails. 


Now we get some dolphin armor:  "You can feel little electrodes activating against your skin.  It is surprisingly lightweight, like the fine leather gloves rich ladies had back in Londinium.  You once got tipped half a crown when you returned a glove that had been dropped on the street.  It felt soft and warm in your hand as you raced after the carriage".  Half a crown?  Guess they had to slip in a Christmas Carol reference.


I worry that the armor may rust, but it's titanium.  It doesn't burden me either.  But something disguised as a rock grabs me as we're exploring the ocean, and I'm low on oxygen.  Seeker says "Let's try out some human gadgets!", and this advice pays off when a laser cuts the rock monster's tentacle.  The spider-bots heal my tail wound, and we go exploring again.  Now that we know to watch out for "rock crabs", we can dodge them.  But the fish with arms return.


To try to make peace with the "shark people", we zap rock crabs with our lasers to free a trapped baby.  There's a sudden twist at the end:


"I hope they'll be kind to our children', she says.  'What?'  you say.  It's true that Longtail has been getting pudgier by the day but you just thought it was all that fish she was eating.  You haven't felt lonely for a second on this adventure but the thought of having a new member of your pod makes you launch yourself out of the water and twirl in the air.  How lucky you are to be a dolphin.


'What should we call the baby, do you think?'  asks Longtail.  'How about Victoria if it's a girl?'  you say.  'Victoria Oceanborn.'  'Perhaps', says Longtail.  'In that case perhaps Victor for a boy?'  You swim back to the explorer and get the bots to turn on the radio.


'Come in Victoria.  I have exciting news".


Evidently I embrace my new life as a human-dolphin hybrid mind along with Grace/Longtail.


Results So Far


6 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You Say Which Way:  Between the Stars Finale


Swimming out to sea gives us the final Between the Stars ending.  We don't have the titanium armor or lasers this time, so it will likely be more difficult to deal with the shark people and the giant birds.


We find a convenient reef to hide, but it's difficult to deal with the shark people who split up and try a pincer attack.  To fight them, Longtail and I ram their gills. 


Improbably, there are dolphins on Atlantica besides us.  "They are very much like your dolphin-self, air breathing mammals that use sonar and are able to sing the high pitched noises that form a basic language.  They are singing you a welcoming song.  You listen and join in when you recognize a part that repeats.  Pretty soon you and Longtail are singing in unison with the other dolphins".


We learn the giant birds stay close to shore and can't fly in "bad weather".  Our decision to tell the Victoria to avoid Atlantica may not be entirely truthful:


"You remember the time you passed the river mouth and Seeker noted how clean and fresh the water was.  You think back to the river Thames in Londinium-its waters would be fouled and polluted when they reached the ocean.  If the Victoria lands here there will be changes everywhere.  The sea will be a major source of food for the new settlers and they will want to get rid of anything that threatens them. 


You don't like those big birds on the cliff but now you know not to make yourself a target, they can't harm you.  You aren't fond of the shark creatures but you are safe from them in your pod.  You know they have a role to play in the ocean.  Seeker has been following your thoughts.  'You must tell the humans what you think is best for them to know'.


It is night.  The big birds don't fly at night so the pod comes close to shore to sing.  Phosphorescence covers their bodies and they shine in the water along with hundreds of other creatures.  Out of the water comes a mammoth animal.  The dolphins have sung it up from the depths as the moon hangs low over the planet and the tide pulls toward it.  On the cliffs the birds raise their heads and sing too.  By day they are fierce, but now, on this moonlit night, their humming choir makes an operatic contribution as it echoes off the cliffs.


You swim inside the space ship where two robots sit waiting to help you with the transmitter.  you nudge the 'transmit' button with your nose and send your report.  Planet not suitable for human habitation.


Outside the explorer, you hear your friends and the great ocean singing.  Beyond the moon twinkle millions of stars.  One of those will surely make a suitable home for those on the Victoria.  Moments later, the Victoria fires its engines and, like a comet, streaks off across the sky returning to its quest of finding a home.


You, on the other hand, are home.  You exit the explorer, swim at top speed, then leap from the water, twirling in the air before you splash down.  Then you raise your voice and sing".


Thanks to my deception, Atlantica is safe from human pollution, and Longtail and I join a space dolphin pod.


Between the Stars is one of those CYOAs that would have been better off as a novel.  The CHOICEs don't make much sense in terms of their consequences.  The one Death contradicts the "too long awake means you age" rule established in the narration.  Otherwise, the book rigs events in your favor, so it may be harder to notice the flaws. 


But it's worth playing for its odd steampunk sleeper ship setting at least.  And if you care about the connection to Secrets of Glass Mountain.  But I won't be playing the sequel next, but Danger on Dolphin Island.  That one is about a South Pacific island and smugglers.  (Because every other CYOA has to have smugglers:  Dinosaur Canyon, Danger on Dolphin Island, Desaparición en el Campamento. . .)




Final Results


7 Good Endings

1 Deaths

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings