Our Microscope game followed human explorers who are brought to near-ruin by the failure of their terraforming equipment, and, as they adjust to a new and sometimes dangerous world, gradually develop deep physiological and cultural interconnections with the oceanids, a species of tentacled sea dwellers. Humans teach oceanids how to tell stories - and, by extension, to lie (among other practices). Oceanids teach humans how to move cyclically with the ocean currents, dissolving human concepts of location, family, and land ownership and creating a new, enmeshed vision shared by all (human and oceanid) people. Over time, they even learn to link physically to help each other breathe in their nonnative habitats, giving each other the ability to live and move across both land and sea.

Our final scene was an extremely awkward exchange between sea dwelling diplomats and an anthropologist from a non-symbiotic human society, recently arrived by starship. Her attempts at understanding the culture in which she arrived were so profoundly limited by her own biases that she essentially referred to one half of the diplomatic partnership (an intimate physical and relationship unit, in addition to their political role) as the other half's pet. Playing through detailed and alien cultural misunderstandings was a great time, and felt like a very fitting use of Microscope's Scene element.

Thank you so much to Jeff, Connor, and Ben for helping create this story! I did some quick doodles of our diplomat(s) and anthropologist below.