Players: Jerome, James, J.C, and Aaron(Me!)

Our pig picture starts with a political scandal some where in the DC area. The pallet included The scandal breaking, The Spin, The congressional hearing, the 2022 Riots, and finally a suicide. The 2022 riots gave us a time frame of the near future opening up a whole slew of possibilities for different technology systems. The bookend point toward a very grim future for sure, how else would a suicide feel? On our first pass we added a scene relating to the scandal to flesh it out a bit more. Turns out that voting machines in the future can still be rigged.

The first focus was a Senator named Toni Gamboge, she ended up being, according to Montog Adams, the Edward Snowden of the game, the last honest senator in Washington D.C. (I feel like those commas are not in the right place) The first scene ends with the group finding out that the big scandal is that voting machines in 2022 can still be rigged despite 512 petabyte rotating encryption from random number generator, on boot. (Got it? Good.)

Next we move to the investigation by a private detective, because one of our Minuses for the game were any and all 3 letter agency. This left the door open later for talk of 4-letter agencys, which was just fine. Detective Ronald Pinky was responsible for the investigation, using the information from the trace on Montog Adams when he first called the senators office, Pinky tracks Adams to a Small B&B in Bangor Maine. Detective Pinky is found with his head smashed in during the next round. The investigation is taken over by Detective Scarsgard, and newbie Detective Harkness.

Both of the detectives continue where Pinky left off and while trying to solve his murder, begin looking into the voting machines by talking to the manufacturer of the machines themselves. Sparon tech is conveniently located in Maine as well. They both talk with the CEO, Mr Hammersmith, and PR manager of Sparon tech and, while having some amazing coffee, Det. Harkness lets it leak that the voting machines have been rigged. Sparon Tech Legal department is quickly summoned and the interview is shut down with the Detectives not learning much.

Senator Lynch has a teleconference with Mr Hammersmith in order to ascertain exactly what they are dealing with, towards the end of this conversation it is revealed that the data has been released, there encryption was broken by a quantum computer and that somebody has published Sparon Tech voting machine source code to the Web. Mr Hammersmith end the call with a feeble "But were not open source".

As the investigation proceeds, the 30,000 pages of data covering all 534 congressional members and high ranking government officials is released to the public. This causes a huge uproar in the DC area with the Guy Fawkes party taking to the streets. Meanwhile Sen. Gamboge calls a congressional hearing to get this all ironed out. Sen Lynch attempts to present false evidence at the hearing but is quickly found out due the info all ready being online. The conclusion of the hearing pushes the rioters into overdrive and they begin marching on the White house. Various four letter agencys are called into quell the unrest.

The President is in the oval office with the Leader of the fighting force, the head of the special ops team that has infiltrated the Guy Fawkes organization, and Sen. Lynch. They are arguing over what can be done to disperse the crowds. The Fighting force leader hears over his ear piece that Sen Gamboge is attempting to quell the angry mob by giving a speech of some sort. It is finally decided that something must be done about her and the president himself gives the order to take her out. The first gunshot rings out causing mass panic in the streets, thousands are injured and hundreds are killed.

In the End of it all, on our last focus, The Suicide. It turns out that Gamboge and Hammersmith had been in on it the entire time AND were sleeping together. Gamboge is injured by the gunshots at the riots, Hammersmith commits Suicide in his office by slitting his wrists, and the president is over come with shame about his actions and resigns from office. All in all a pretty awesome game.

This was my first time playing microscope and it was far and away the best story game that I have played. Thanks to Jerome, James, J.C and the rest of the folks for a wonderful welcome into the Seattle story games community. I cant wait till next week.