Apparatus of Capture

7/31/2019 Apparatus of Capture

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Apparatus of Captureand animated pendants


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In what will perhaps be the most important album o this decade, the reerences are eeting;

one needs to be an archaeologist or anarchist to note the allusions to the game. In Otis, how-

ever, the ourth track on Kanye West and Jay-Zs album, its symbolic prominence is more easily

apparent. Te lyrics are not explicitly about Capture the Flag, but one must allow the identi-

cation o a ludic spirit running through this and other tracks. Looking in particular at Otis - a

song named or the amous soul musician Otis Redding - one sees the creation o an aective

economy that discards much o the conrontational spirit o twentieth century hip-hop in avor

o a more conceptual and ironic approach. In one sense, this is made possible by the success

o the genre and its subsequent incorporation or even recuperation within the mainstream:

the collaborators are exceptionally wealthy, each having assets in the hundreds o millions.

In another, however, this is symbolic o a certain mastery o lyrical cra, a certain proound

intelligence. Te artists are conscious o the ormer dynamic, channeling it to build the latter.

An intensely political album, released in a year that saw widespread civil unrest and political

alienation around the world, the album is hardly a compromise, or even a maniesto. Instead,

we might identiy it as what it is: an instructional manual.

Tis line, spoken by Jay-Z as the song approaches its climax, shows the only gesture making

reerence to the gigantic American ag in the background. Te ag is stylized and was cus-tomised by Italian ashion designer Ricardo isci, but recalls Jasper Johns amous ag paint-

ing, an imperect interpretation that appropriates the US national symbol or the purposes o

culture. In ront o the painting the artists gesture, directed by critically acclaimed lmmaker

Spike Jonze, on oot and in a customized Maybach luxury vehicle. Yet arguments that this is a

celebration o American culture or an example o the possibilities o a supposedly post-racial

culture miss the point completely. Biting satire and taunting satire is deployed against their

enemies, now not simply the police or the casual racist, but the entire vulgar apparatus o na-

tionalism. Te mockery o the ag is a poignant gesture, recalling the poster or Patton, a lm

about the supposed national hero General George Patton: a gure with a penchant or abuse

and ar right political philosophy. Jay-Z has Pattons ag; what is more, he has it in Havana,

a place which American citizens are prohibited by law rom ever visiting. Te artist links his

presence in Cuba with the presence o millions o undocumented immigrants on American

soil, reusing to engage with the discourse around immigration, mocking it completely. While

scholar Angela Davis was orced to ee to Cuba in the 70s, Jay-Zs ight is a symbolic one that

is acclaimed and powerul. Jay-Z takes the ag whether recalls his rst song (My First Song)

or as he advances towards critical acclaim (see video). Tis is the signicance o the ag cap-

ture that has taken place and will take place, in the next round o whatever game :

Welcome to Havana. Smoking Cubanos with Castro in his cabana;

Build your ences, we digging tunnels.

Foreword Te Bridge and unnel Crowd


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BAROQUE CAPTURE

FLEXIBLE DEFENSE


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Scholars, gamers and dissidents alike tend to be most aware o the practical applications o de-

tournement, the method o montage developed by members the Situationist International and

subsequently applied to various media orms. Tis is true or a variety o reasons; this method

was elucidated explicitly in texts such as A Users Guide to Detournement and was practiced

most widely by the groups various afliates at the peak o their impact. Similarly, the practice

o derive - a method o wandering used to explore the aective geography o an environment

-was clearly intended or the physical terrain its authors inhabited. In the work o Debord,however, conceived both during and ollowing the project o the international, we nd a simi-

lar techniques applied in a novel context. While the drive typically deals with physical space

and architecture, and the detournement with images projected or displayed on screens and

walls, in Debords writing style we nd analogous methods applied to theory, history and criti-

cism. Tere appears a moire - a pattern created via intererence - that occurs rom the imper-

ect application o strategy and narrative rom one particular period or situation over another,

substantially dierent moment in space-time. One might juxtapose the strategy o medieval

warare onto modern conict, or produce an experiment: play chess on a board designed or

monopoly. O course, these are merely exaggerations o a common process, since no two mo-ments can ever be identical and the simulation and simulated can never directly map to one

another. What Debord does prolically, however, is expose and exaggerate this disjuncture to

a point where it now cannot be ignored; consequently, through this technique the machinery

exposed is itsel captured.

Tis logic also drives the simple, perhaps childlike dynamics o the game known colloquially as

Capture-the-Flag. In the most basic variant, two teams are charged with protecting their ter-

ritory in general, specically a ag that can be taken by members o the opposing team and

brought back to their territory. While in enemy territory, players are vulnerable; they can betagged and made to either return to their territory or await rescue in a designated jail. I one

team manages to retrieve the ag without the carrier getting caught they score a point. Based

on a game played by Scouts and other youth groups, the game supports both modication

and elaboration through new rules and boundaries. Each new terrain and ecology in which

the game is played will set its pace and will consequently also reresh its novelty. One builds

a knowledge o allies and opponents, o how groups and teams interact and how a landscape

or architecture might itsel help or hinder a certain tactical maneuver. First and oremost,

however, one builds a knowledge o the alternate worlds starting with the dierence in physi-

cal terrain between various territories. Most signicant, however, is not this environmental

asymmetry but rather the divergence between the aective qualities o each area. A territory

in which one is at risk, outnumbered and quite possibly lost will appear quite dierent to the

same territory or its supposed deender, condent in their power within the environment. Te

space in which the game occurs has been symbolically transormed by it. Gilles Deleuze speaks

o the power o Baroque architecture, which perhaps surprisingly works according to a simi-

lar logic. By a dialectical shearing apart o two spaces, one creates a more ormally intelligible

world structured by its oppositions and perhaps by its incomprehensible boundary. Writing in

relation to Liebniz, the French philosopher asserts that:

the Baroque contribution par excellence is a world with only two oors, separated by aold that echoes itsel, arching rom the two sides according to a dierent order. It express-es, as we shall see, the transormation o the cosmos into a mundus. [Deleuze 1993, 29]


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Capture the Flag works, then, because o its capacity to create a world out o the oppositions

within a certain microcosmic territory. Yet this is true not only within physical space, but

within simulations actualised within a range o mediated spaces. abletop war games oen

ollow this generic pattern, rom complex military simulations to abstract renditions. In tests

o network integrity, security proessionals have developed variants that use hardware instead

o physical architecture and train participants to penetrate or deend systems. Perhaps most

involved and varied adaptations emerge within computational video games, a medium inwhich there have been attempts at emulation across the whole range o genres and platorms.

Perhaps the rst games to directly use the symbolic elements o CF - titled Capture the Flag

[1983] and Bannercatch [1984] - were produced or the Atari home video game system. While

the latter emulated the appearance o classic arcade games o the period, the ormer consti-

tuted a proound innovation in that its author Paul Edelstein, demonstrated a rudimentary

but uid use o raytraced three dimensional graphics. Most contemporary variants can be

compared to these prototypical iterations; they can be delineated based upon whether one

is expected to view the game rom the perspective o an individual participant or rom the

perspective o the team as a whole. As with the aective territories o assault and protection,the oscillation between holographic and applied modes o gaming experience helps to pro-

duce a huge range o variation. Further, while other video games may not directly employ the

symbolic regimen o CF, many approximate certain rituals within it. One might reer to the

philosophical oundations o Deleuzes theory o the Baroque - the monadology o Gottried

Liebniz - in which one sees both indivisible and compound agents known as Entelechies:

they have in them a certain perection (echousi to enteles); they have a certain sel-sufciency (autarkeia) which makes them the sources o their internal activities and, so tospeak, incorporeal automata. [Leibniz 1996, 18]


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CLASSICAL CAPTURE

II : WARM MACHINES


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Systems emerge through experiment: agents parse aective experiences and a certain logic

into vectors o movement and exchange. Giles Deleuze and Felix Guttari speak o how the rst

orms o society were constructed as a so-called territorial machine that codes ows, invests

organs and marks bodies. Any orm o social organization constituted an eort to deal more

eectively with the perceptions and potential actions - the ows - o constituent elements. As

such, deterministic as it may sound at rst, their perspective actually renders the individual

agent (the monad in Liebniz) more precarious, since it is caught up in increasingly complexand unpredictable systems. Te declension o alliance and liation that the machine under-

takes appears to create what one might call (ollowing Deleuze and Guttari) war machines:

the compound agents o Liebniz. Tese groups might to be said to attain consistency through a

baroque method; internally, they tend towards dissent and diusion, but are once again so-

lidied through any encounter with alterity. Tis also describes accurately the nature o both

teams as a whole and constituent subgroupings in Capture the Flag. As one analyzes the devel-

opment both o real-world and online variants o the game, one begins to notice that in more

advanced versions a process akin to what Deleuze and Guttari call segmentation occurs. A de-

velopment o the social machine, it occurs through a mixture o strategic and tactical thought.Strategic segmentation occurs as decisions are made by the social body to assign players to cer-

tain roles - deensive, oensive or perhaps subversive - in line with their interests and specic

abilities. actical segmentation occurs as agents become amiliar with a specic games dynam-

ics and terrain, allowing to develop certain routines (or even, ollowing Galloway, algorithms)

to increase their potential. A critical allacy in Anthropology destroyed by poststructuralist

thought is the conception that primitive societies have no history. Rather, conicts emerge in

relation to terrain and situation, constituting a history that is dynamic and open social reality.

[Anti Oedipus 150] Tis is also the ludic reality embodied within the scenario in question.

All history can thereore be read under the sign o classes, assert Deleuze and Guttari in sum-

mation o Karl Marx. Perhaps ironically, a history o mediated incarnations o Capture the Flag

can also not avoid discussing the development o class. In the late 1990s, two teams o amateur

designers began to produce modications to the popular rst person shooter Quake. Te latter

team would evolve into Valve and subsequently produce the critically acclaimed Hal-Lie. Tis

would be an apocalyptic survival game set in a desert research acility that would set a new

standard or the use o narrative in game design. Te ormer, however, is more immediately

relevant; building on the relatively novel multiplayer acility o the game engine they developed

a variant o Capture the Flag. Game mechanics were specically balanced to oster coopera-

tion; not only was a capture almost impossible without a team eort, but the game allowed its

players to chose rom a variety o classes which could complement each other in intriguing

ways. Tere was, or example, a medic class that could heal other players, an engineer class

that could build elaborate deences and a spy class that could disguise itsel as members o the

other team; in addition to these support classes, there were a variety o dierent variants on

the soldier such as sniper, pyromaniac and demoman or explosives expert. Obviously, these

classes are hardly analogous to the sociocultural classes described in Marxs economic writings.

Tirdly, they show the amazing potential or synchronicity between dierent modes o gamedesign and development.


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While the developers o Hal-Lie concentrated on developing a compelling storyline and

modiying the original engine to increase its aesthetic and aective impact, the authors o the

eam Fortress modication used their limited resources to rene and balance the ormula

and gameplay dynamic they had created. Far rom competing, the developers varied strengths

allowed them to build a symbiotic relationship. Te eam Fortress developers were invited to

join Valve and produce an updated version o their game using the more modern engine; the

popularity o that and subsequent other modications allowed Valve to become an industrygiant within a decade. Hal-Lie, with its strongly diegetic approach to narrative and slow, cal-

culated pacing bears more resemblance to a Hitchcock thriller than to its popular partner title.

Similarly, games o the eam Fortress ranchise seem more analogous to gladiatorial games or

proessional wrestling than to its critically acclaimed alternative. Yet baroque culture o video

game modication allowed seemingly opposed parties to mutually complement one another.

What changes as games advance in scale or scope is not the nature o this exchange, but

rather the degree to which it is incidental. Following Quake, it became increasingly common

practice or developers to produce support or include tools to create additional levels, envi-ronments or characters or their games. With a range o notable exceptions, modications

have since generally been permitted, i not actively solicited by producers. Tis is true or two

reasons; rstly, because the enormous amount o playbour or venture labour conducted by

ans is an enormous source o revenue or developers, in that it increases sales and popular-

ity o their game without any substantial urther investment. Producers have generally been

successul at recuperating modications that develop any substantial success or independent

ollowing into more standardised and polished titles. Further, gaming has advanced to a point

whereby even the runaway success o a particular independent project poses no direct threat

to major studios, which own distribution mechanisms, servers and proprietary technologies.Te damage to a studios brand that would result rom them attempting to shut down all but

the most controversial projects would generally ar outweigh the benets o intellectual prop-

erty deense. In Capture the Flag, a solid strategy involves capturing or disabling a substantial

portion o the opposing team beore attempting a capture o the ag itsel. Another winning

strategy involves the negation o class, whether it takes the orm o the hard delineation

made possible within video games, the strategic designation as an attacker or deender, or the

desired afliation with a particular role; the more exible and dynamic team normally wins.

Winning rounds o a particular game is not the same, however, as being the beneciary o the

game itsel. In all variants, it is the ag itsel that benets rom its inclusion and valorisation

in yet more complex systems incorporating yet more aective energies. Deleuze and Guttaris

observation about the becoming o the State could easily be applied to the ag itsel:

its internalization in a eld o increasingly decoded social orces orming a physi-

cal system; its spiritualization in a superterrestrial eld that increasingly overcodes,

orming a metaphysical system. [Deleuze and Guttari 1984, 222]


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ROMANTIC CAPTUREIII : CAINS ARCADE


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In an essay and book o indescribable importance, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard speaks

o what he calls Simulacra and Simulations. Far rom analysing the specics o simulation,

however, the theorist uses its mechanics as analogy or description or the world we inhabit:

the real is produced rom miniaturized units, rom matrices, memory banks and command

models. Baudrillards perspective recalls pre-modern conceptions o reality; in scholastic phi-

losophy, reality is synonymous with perection, something that is completely produced accord-

ing to plan. Tis is not necessarily the plan o the agents, but o the system; that being said, it isnot the system that makes the machinery, but us. (the deserts which are no longer those o the

Empire, but our own.) A recent video premiered at the 2012 DIY Days estival in New York by

lmmaker Nirvan Mullick tells the story o Caine Monroys simulation. Caine - a nine year old

boy rom Los Angeles - has produced an entire arcade out o cardboard boxes in a spare garage

at his athers auto repair shop. With the transitions brought about by digital media, business

is slow at the arcade; most o the physical trafc passing through his athers store has now

shied to online orders on the auction site E-Bay. As such, Caine sits bored in the arcade until

the arrival o Mullick, who develops a proound respect or his creation and plays several o

the games. Deciding that his discovery is worthy o popularity and signicant reward, Mullickorganizes a ash mob through sites such as Facebook, Reddit and umblr. With the assistance

o the boys ather, he organizes a surprise or Caine; dozens o eager supporters show up to

eagerly await his arrival and the chance to play one o his homemade games. In many ways, it

is difcult to be critical o this project; the lm is emotionally gripping and brings a tear to the

eye o many. Furthermore, an online undraising campaign conducted alongside the non-prot

lm raised over $100,000 to acilitate Caines University education, presumably in Engineering.

On the other hand, the history o Social Media campaigns seemingly suggests that they should

not be trusted, regardless o their positive appeal or intentions.

o simulate is to eign what one hasnt, writes Baudrillard. In early 2012, a group afliated

with the Squatters Network o Brighton began organizing public, real-world games o Capture

the Flag in various locations across the city. Te game used as its board or map relatively

large segments o the urban environment, including many unconventional or architectur-

ally notable areas. For many o the young participants, it was their rst experience playing a

real world incarnation o the game, though a air number had played some orm o mediated

variant. Te rules were thereore cobbled together rom the recollections o experienced play-

ers, with gaps patched by the inductive reasoning o players beore, aer and during breaks

in the game. One can only speculate as to the reasons or the popularity o the project: rstand oremost, it was a means o entertainment that required no money, private space or prior

experience. Te games provided a means to meet others in the local area with similar interests,

thereby building and strengthening the social network or milieu o those involved. Follow-

ing the rst game, tags were introduced, making it slightly more difcult to capture opposing

players and easier to distinguish them rom teammates or bystanders. In addition, maps were

introduced marking boundaries and - beginning with the third game - detailing rules and sug-

gesting possible locations or the ag. Tese modications were made necessary due to the

growing number o participants and the difculty o establishing or rening rules mid-game.

Since locations varied each game, the maps assisted participants in becoming amiliar with the

environments they navigated.


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Beginning with the h game, increasingly complex modications were attempted; the circle

o acilitators also widened to accommodate new umpires. I you shoot the brain, you kill the

ghoul, developed by anya B. and Lily J.S., attempted to simulate an apocalyptic zombie thriller

using asymmetrical teams; the initially smaller zombie team had the ability to capture hu-

mans and turn them to their side, while the humans had to recover a certain amount o boxes

and deliver them to a scientist. Te game was played at night in a park; while the humans had

to wear head-torches and the boxes were illuminated with glowsticks, the zombies appearedonly as shadowy gures.

In many ways, it makes sense that squatters and their allies would appreciate this model o

game. Developed by scouts, it sought to teach youngsters about orienteering and navigating

their environment. By playing it within an urban environment, the games ocus is changed

slightly; rather than training scouts or jungle exploration, it trains them or urban subteruge.

Te ability to critically appraise architecture and passages through the urban sprawl, to move

covertly past buildings, to use communication networks and dynamically orm afnities; these

are all requisite skills. Further, the networks ability to mobilise large numbers o people - aswas necessary to conduct a game - also would be required due to legal and political challenges

to their practiced liestyle. Tough eam Fortress Classic - the CF modication or the game

Hal-Lie - became supremely popular, it was not this but rather another title that would prove

to be the most popular modication or that game, cementing Valves ascension and dramati-

cally inuencing the video game industry. Counterstrike posed a similar, team-based model

o gameplay, with several notable modications. While eam Fortress and its successors

employed a antasy aesthetic, Counterstrike was supremely realistic and prooundly topical.

In the mod - released only three years aer 9/11 - one team would play a team o terrorists,

charged with blowing up a target or protecting hostages. Te other would be an elite group o

paramilitary commandos, charged with liberating hostages or deending certain sensitive loca-

tions. Tere were no classes, but a reward system allowed players to purchase better weapons

based on their and their teams perormance. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a players

death in a round was nal; aer being killed, the player entered ghost mode and was le to

watch other players perormance, while talking to other dead players. Counterstrike was thus

innovative, perhaps even constituting a new mode o modication; while other developers had

mapped a real-world game onto a media platorm, Counterstrikes developers had mapped a

game back onto the real world. Using Jean Baudrillards denition o realism, the game is su-

premely realistic; it is a simulation o a simulation. Yet the game also ullls the project o real-

ism, perhaps o gaming itsel: it shows the true nature o the world through its approximation.


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POSTSCRIPTCAPTURED FLAGS


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My point with this short essay was to explain a game I have thought intensely about, both in

terms o strategy and tactics, but also more generally with regard to the theoretical underpin-

nings o such a game. Presumably, the idea originated in reerence to medieval warare, where

knights and their ofcers would charge their troops with the task o deending their own or

assaulting the enemys standard. Te standard itsel was indicative o strength and morale;

while a detachment could obviously ght on without its standard, its absence would suggest

insecurity, weakness, impaired conditions. Such a practice continued through the nineteenthcentury; though ags have largely disappeared rom the battleeld, this is more because the

battleeld itsel has been diused. As such, we see ag burnings and brandishing in street pro-

tests and civil unrest. Te importance o the embassy is paramount, as recent events have clear-

ly demonstrated. Yet the conditions o warare have changed and continue to change. With

the Cold War and conicts o the wenty First Century, cultural warare once again outpaced

conventional warare. As such, one struggled to convince not just weapons designers but also

scholars, composers and playwrights to deect.

Tis investigation was accompanied by a project; a plan or a yet-to-be-attempted game.Noticing the way other game modications had been derived (drive-d?) rom video games, I

thought back to some o my avourite underappreciated modes and models I have experienced.

I spoke earlier o Counterstrike and eam Fortress Classic; both eatured a buggy and generally

unworkable attempt at a VIP protection mode, where one player would play a celebrity or pol-

itician and the others would either assault them or deend their escape. I elt that making the

ag a subject brought up interesting themes in relation to the transition rom archaic Imperial

Structures to modern Liberal States, rom the personal to the abstract. As such, I drew upon a

range o cultural sources including: David Lynchs adaptation o Dune, Eugene Ionesco's play

Exit the King, the discography o emotional hardcore bands exas is the Reason and At the

Drive In, the rap compilation in opposition to anti-immigration bill SB1070, the lm Predator,

and many more. What emerged was an abstract action game involving role playing and anta-

sy, strategy and detournement o the urban spaces we pass through. I eel my hardly canonical

and somewhat haphazard addition builds on a legacy o cultural scouting and capture.

o close, I nd interesting that the ways in which the song mentioned in my oreword, Otis,

has gone on to inspire a range o derivative works, including a piece by a duo in Atlanta work-

ing with ar less ashionable equipment and a piece by a pair rom Caliornia that transpose

the song into a meditation on the experience o Asian-Americans. Another video, produced by

rappers in support o the campaign against SB1070 - a controvertial bill passed by the Arizona

State Legislature that would allow law enorcement ofcers to stop and check the papers o

anyone that they might suspect o being an illegal immigrant - is o particular interest. In it,

musical artists and poets rom a diverse set o racial, ethnic, national and class backgrounds

discuss the allacies o the impending legislation, questioning the motivations o its authors

and speaking o its undamental contradictions, its undamental opposition to values such

as liberty and social justice. Artists use musical dierent styles, but also dierent approaches;

some analyse the state, others threaten it. Others make particular appeals to dierent demo-graphics: youth, migrant communities, white allies, the legislators themselves. Tat being said

and considering recent incidents o interracial violence dissected by the media, the artists

stand united and proud o the assorted ags they have captured.


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APPENDIX

& BIBLIOGRAPHY


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Appendix AEXAS IS the REASON : an imperial elegy.

An end is a very delicate time.

Know then that it is the year one thousand nine hundred and seventy seven. Te known galaxy is ruled by the

God-Emperor o exas, Archbishop o Austin, ransormation Master o Lubbock and President o the Lone StarFederation.

Yet the Empire is not what it used to be. Te logic which helped solidiy its arcane structures and complex in-

stitutions has reached the point o collapse. Te economic system which once aorded such opulent rituals has

collapsed, while industries have been sabotaged by unknown, indecipherable orces. Food riots are more common

than meals, schools have been transormed into arsenals. Te hospitals have been overrun by those seeking a

panacea or the misery: junkies and suicides. Some will no doubt talk ondly o the ruler at some point; the magi-

cal galleries and grand public works projects that marked the earlier, happier part o their reign. Yet as o now

they have ew riends; unable to venture out into the country, they have withdrawn within their palace and are

seen only by the most trusted o bodyguards. Despite their paranoia, their ortications and their tenacity there

remains a certain hint that their days are numbered.

As we speak, a cacophony o invisible societies, secret guilds and guerilla squadrons are making their prepara-

tions. One could barely begin to count all those who have lost a limb, taken a bullet or dyed their hair or the

insurrection. Teir anger grows and resonates, shaking the very oundations o the Empire. A silence has allen.

Nobody will speak or think to announce it because everyone will already know. Te air is thick with elegy. Te

palace is stormed: like a dream... like a silent lm. Te revolutionaries will nd a crown, but no king; a mountain

o shredded documents and sorry statues.

Te challenge is as ollows: the EMPEROR or EMPRESS (1) is surrounded by a ew o their closest BODY-

GUARDS (3) and, i they can nd them, a ew other spies who might choose to act as scouts or SPIES (0-4).

BODYGUARDS and SPIES have the same abilities and powers, but only three BODYGUARDS can be within 50

FEE o the EMPEROR/EMPRESS. Tey get SUNGLASSES and IES, while their commander will have some

sort o interesting costume and illumination (bike lights!) and several tags. All other players are REBELS, and

have WO AGS (color doesnt matter), one to be worn on the belt and the other to be worn around the head

or arm. I an AGEN - a BODYGUARD or SPY - touches a REBEL, the REBEL is ARRESED and must reeze,

placing their hands up. I they are touched by another REBEL, they are UNARRESED and can move again. I

however they are not reed within ten seconds, an AGEN can EXECUE that rebel by removing their waist tag.

Te REBEL must all to the ground convincingly or ve seconds, aer which they can get up. o return to the

game, however, they must nd and be RECRUIED by a MASERMIND (2-4), who is a REBEL that has access

to ADDIIONAL AGS. I this MASERMIND is ARRESED, however, they must reveal their secret to their

interrogators and give up all tags. SPIES might try to nd the location o the MASERMIND to improve their

teams chances o success. I, however, a SPY is ambushed and touched by two or more REBELS, they can be held

HOSAGE and must act like an arrested rebel. Tey cannot, however, be killed. In addition, there maybe one or

more characters rom the MEDIA. (0-2) Te ultimate trickster, they can help the REBELS or BODYGUARDS byrevealing the location o the EMPEROR or MASERMINDS. Tey cant be arrested or killed, but might get pep-

per sprayed or have their camera broken. Tey get a NEWS VAN that is cleverly disguised as a BIKE.


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Te starting location or the EMPEROR is the PAVILION PALACE, seat o the exas Empire.

Te nishing location is the CENER OF HE LEVEL, where the helicopter will be arriving to take the Emperor

into exile in East Hastings.

I the EMPEROR reaches the extraction point beore the time limit runs out, the EMPIRE wins. I the REBELS

catch the EMPEROR or prevent their escape, the REBELS win.

Q: Wait, I dont get it, what am I supposed to be doing?

A: Depends who you are. I youre a REBEL, try to nd the EMPEROR and take their tags (assasinate them)

without getting stopped by a BODYGUARD or a SPY. I youre a BODYGUARD, protect the EMPEROR with

your lie so you can draw a pension rom their Swiss Bank Account. I youre a SPY, try to nd the MASER-

MIND or clear the route ahead or your boss, Jack Bauer style. I youre the EMPEROR, try to keep your under-

wear clean and make it to the chopper on time.

Q: What happens i Im a REBEL and get touched by an AGEN?

A: You put your hands up and reeze, unless an AGEN drags you somewhere (which theyre allowed to do).

Count down rom ten in an honest way, preerably aloud, then put one hand down. Youve been through thesystem and have been ound guilty o disorderly conduct, or which the penalty is DEAH. An AGEN can carry

out the sentence by pulling your tag, or leave you to rot. I they leave you, you can return to the game as soon as a

REBEL touches you or the AGEN is no longer close (lets say 50 eet?).

Q: I Im executed, do I get my tag back?

A: No. Te AGEN keeps it. You can get another one rom a MASERMIND.

Q: Wait, did you say REBELS could FREEZE an AGEN?

A: Yes, but only when theyre not near the EMPEROR. I two REBELS are able to touch a SPY beore they are

touched by them themselves, the SPY has to put their hands up. Tey have to then be guarded by a REBEL at all

times, or they are allowed to escape. Tey can be moved, but only a ew eet.

Q: Im lost and cant nd a MASERMIND/the EMPEROR. What can I do?

A: I you want, you can call the MEDIA (number BA) and try to get inormation rom them. Most likely, how-

ever, they will give your inormation to the other team, so dont trust them.

Q: Whats the time limit? What are the boundaries?

A: Not quite sure yet. Teyll be announced soon, though!

Q: Are there sae zones?

A: Yes, the immediate vincinity o the cowley will probably be a SAFE ZONE or REBELS, while REBELS arent

allowed in Pavilion Gardens or the LEVEL* (*=except i the emperor is there)

Q: Do you need any help running/promoting/balancing the game?

A: Yes.

Q: Should I bring anything?

A: Extra ties, sunglasses and lights would be useul!

Q: Did you invent this game?

A: Yes. But it draws inspiration rom all sorts o places. See the wall or details. Also, thanks to anya and Lily or

coming up with the amazing Zombie Apocalypse game and to Dan and om or making Capture the Flag so awe-

some!

Q: Will it work?

A: We can only hope!


17/17

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Documents

Apparatus of Capture