Humans love stories. Humans also love adventure, and choice, and danger. Thus was born the "choose your own adventure" style of story. A small group of level 5 havenworlders, in an attempt to improve their genetics, undertake reading one of these stories, with the goal to "survive" to the end of the book. They quickly discover that survival alone does not always a "good" ending make. -- Anon Guest
Level Five Havenworlders should not exist. Just as Level Five Deathworlders should not exist. Their place on the scale was, until such were discovered, purely theoretical. Naturally, Humans made friends with them both. Humans will befriend anything.
Humans were also able to understand that Level Five Havenworlders were far too fragile to meet in person. However, they had tools with which to help. Humans always have tools to help. They're a helpful species, for the most part. There are always outliers but other Humans are more than willing to step in and stop them. In this case, the tool was one of Humanity's oldest - the story.
Humans have a great love of stories. They collect them, they share them, they invent them... they use them to teach, to explain, to predict... they create worlds inside their heads and, if you are lucky, they will invite you in. Sometimes, they come up with stories you can create with them, sometimes, they make stories you can manipulate on your own.
This time, the weapon against permanent fragility was the choose your own adventure story. A novel with multiple potential paths, through which the reader could choose, backtrack, and try again. A fictional setting in which the most fragile of intelligent life could encounter danger and retract their initial decision.
There were digitised versions, with the options for illustrations that had been created to be Havenworlder-safe. They were an almost-perfect tool for allowing Havenworlders to encounter risks without encountering true danger. They were not yet ready for tabletop roleplaying. That was for the level fours and below. The books could be encountered at the readers' own speed, backtracked, explored, and otherwise related to at a tolerable pace, with counsellors on hand for those who were distraught by the contents of the book at hand.
The second generation of Hiyelid who tried this method took it far less seriously than the first, thus proving that the epigenetic tactics were working. They made it a game - a very useful form of infection by Human attitude. Make it all the way through the story without 'dying'.
In the process, they discovered something peculiar about the Human stories and the adventures they chose within. A survived story was not necessarily emotionally rewarding. It was something the first generation could not relate to, so it became part of the book clubs that gathered to find the 'better path' in the adventure they were trying to unriddle.
"They're Human stories, so I thought taking some risks would make it more interesting, but there was death in there anyway. Lots of the most interesting paths lead to mortality," complained Zish.
"I was so close to a satisfying end scene, but all the options were boring," added Lool.
"I looked backwards from all the ends to the beginning," confessed Yeya. "There aren't any satisfying paths in this one. Death or boring, those are the choices here."
"Gross," said Thoth. "We could probably make a story with some of these situations and make a better ending."
"Change the rules?" gaped Lool.
"Break the rules?" whispered Yeya.
"Rewite destiny," smiled Zish. "I like it."
Somewhere in the stellar neighbourhood, some Humans would be monitoring their progress. Waiting patiently to greet them in person as friends. One of them punched the other as a friend. "Look, look, look at this. Look!"
It was a document, sent out on the infonets in the derivative fiction arena. Sent out by some student Hiyelidae who disliked one of the choose-your-own-adventures they had been exploring. It was made from the material within the book, but it changed things.
"Aaw. They're writing fix-it fic."
"I knew that one would get a reaction," cheered one of the supervisors. "That's the way. Stick it to the man."
"We gave them that book. Aren't we 'the man'?"
"Only on the surface. Their bravery is going up. They're going to need to stand up for their opinions if they're ready for the next stage."
"Shall we practice our evil laugh?"
"Like there's an option not to," scoffed a Human.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / mountaintreks]
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