players: Fred (governor), Ben (savior)

We went with a highly relevant political landscape: a newly dominant Yellow party with unclear yet outspoken agendas (tea baggers), who split off from the weakened Red party (republican fringe) and took power from the now eclipsed Blues (democrat minority).

The health issues confronting the colony were water (scarcity and impurity due to cost cutting by the rampantly down-sizing Yellow government), transportation (mining rail system, also poorly maintained) and communication (news media held by a single government funded monopoly, which everyone suspected of just being a propaganda mouthpiece of the government).

Lots of good civic issues addressed. The only downside was that my Kelly was a little too perfect. She was cool, smart, and an excellent mediator, and I was waiting for a few 1's to roll along and force me to resort to lies. Instead I got some utter failures at the beginning (1's on the first roll), and then _awesome_ rolls for the entire middle of the game. Finished at 40+ in all three starting health markers. So what if there's now some over-crowding and a rising crime problem? That's for the next generation to handle.

My favorite issue/resolution was probably breaking up the government-funded news monopoly (a Blue legacy) and fostering community journalism. Kelly's credo was that once you had honest investigative journalism, it would help solve all of society's other problems by getting the truth out there.

My rampant good dice rolling also gave me an idea for a rules hack to let the Savior get into more trouble if they wanted. Et voila:

[Mars Colony] "Questionable Methods" option

I enjoyed the game, and think all of my questions regarding play style were answered (thanks Ben!).

Intriguing rules proposal --- it would be interesting to see a much shadier Kelly Perkins making backroom deals and intentionally using misinformation.