The following is an after-game journal written by the Chief Medical Officer in The Generalissimo is Dead which Sydney Megagamers ran on 23 March 2024.
The Generalissimo is Dead megagame design by Ciaran Sullivan.
This is a summary of events from the perspective of the Chief Medical Officer. I’m going to try and be comprehensive, but I’m sure that I’ll forget a few things here and there, and some things might be a bit out of order. Going in, I had a few objectives – try and help with a peaceful transition to democracy, lower Repression and Legacy, and on a personal note, keep emergency services running properly. I was also suspicious of Internal Security immediately – they were a bunch of goons repressing the people, and not to be trusted. I did make sure to bribe them with a box of Junior Mints to try and keep them sweet. They sadly melted in transit. Ironically, I’d idly thought it’d be funny to give them a box of melted ones, but it turned out they ALL melted, to a greater or lesser extent.
Almost immediately we were approached by BYTC who not-so-subtly implied that there was a ship coming in from a competitor that might be carrying an infectious disease. While dubious, it was our duty to investigate and make sure that there was nothing afoot. It quickly became apparent that they were telling stories to just about anyone who would listen, but still, when there’s a fake bomb threat, you treat it as real just in case. Still, the rumours of this managed to get out, and we soon had the Head of Foreign Intelligence talking to us about this news… along with suddenly soliciting our support for a second airport with state of the art quarantine facilities. Did we NEED a second airport? I didn’t know, so I was non-committal in my support but did say that those facilities are something important in these fraught times. Freedom Corp also approached to reassure us that their vessels were 100% safe, and while I believed them, I told them to make sure that they had all their vaccinations and health records up to date so that we could streamline the process. The people’s health is important!
Throughout all this, we had a fairly comfortable relationship with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Minister of the Interior. They seemed like focused and hardworking individuals, interested in bringing Yugenya forwards and improving our great country. The Ministry of Transport also seemed like dedicated workers, although when I asked them if we needed a second airport and how our current airport was coping they didn’t exactly have a good answer. I was also too late to suggest a name for the airport – I feel like the Neo Yugenya Airport would have been a much better name, and show that we’re moving forward into a brave new world.
My colleague and I were working towards improving the stability of the country, and we found allies in that in Economic Development and Transport, and to a lesser extent the Treasury, who we felt were a little bit too chummy with Internal Security, but I was still willing to accept their aid. We achieved a little TOO much on that front, so we decided to try and save on the budget a little by running more limited services. Unfortunately, things were about to start turning belly up from that point forward.
With the death of the Generalissimo, things became more chaotic. Especially with the way that Internal Security had started breathing down the neck of Economic Development, claiming that there were ‘irregularities’ in their accounts. More jackbooted thuggery, clearly. People were disappearing, among which we found out the Air Marshall’s wife was among them. In hindsight, it might have been a good idea for our Public Safety Officer to investigate, but we had no love for IS and their goons, and ED had always been on the level with us, so we told them that we’d back them if the secret police started to come for them.
Repression and Legacy continued to increase significantly, and I was definitely worried about how things were going. Talking with the Media, they said that Internal Security vetted everything they put out and were hamstrung in regards to their programming. The Revolutionary Guard – whom the Minister of the Interior wasn’t exactly comfortable with – didn’t seem friendly with Security either. When riots started happening in the streets, we ended up having a brief conversation with Security. They said that they could ‘help’ us deal with this, in return for some cooperation with them. It came off as very intimidating to be honest, and our Public Safety Officer pushed back on this, which prompted Security to instantly break off negotiations and put all their forces on Special Operations.
It was on.
We immediately went to Economic Development to inform them of this new… well, development, and started formulating methods of defence. It was at this time that we also learned that Economic Development, or at least some of them, had contacts in rebel forces. Using them would require tanking either Stability or Repression, and although we’d manage to arm a civil militia to reduce the latter significantly, we were on the fence about reducing Stability to that level. I might not have had an explicit objective to keep Stability high, but I wanted to look after the people of Yugenya. The Revolutionary Guard was receptive to aligning with us, the Media wanted to escape from the thumb of Security, though remain neutral otherwise, and Transport seemed more concerned with their airport.
And what of the people rioting in the streets? With how Internal Security had tried to strongarm us and Economic Development, the Public Safety Officer chose to stand his forces down in the face of the rioters, remaining on alert for if Security made a move against us and Economics. And I took note of how the secret police had deployed to fight protesters, and deployed my ambulances in an attempt to protect them from the undoubtedly zealous and cruel jackbooted thugs that were on their way. It even made the news!
Wait. That means they’re probably gonna come after us.
Thankfully, the Minister of the Interior was trying to soothe tensions on his end. He’d been having a conversation with the Minister of Internal Security… and decided to bring us all before him. He said that he’d be willing to let bygones be bygones, bury any ‘evidence’ that he had against us… as long as we supported him in an upcoming policy that they were submitting. He wasn’t going to tell us what it was, however. More intimidation.
As soon as he left, we all agreed that Internal Security had too much power and they had to be disbanded. Individual compartments could be doled out to other areas if they were necessary – for example, justice moved to Health and Safety – nullified if not. I went to Freedom Corp in the hopes that they might want to help put an end to Internal Security’s scheming. They listened, but they both wanted money and more information about what they would be opposing. I couldn’t provide either, but at the very least it would give them something to think about.
After that meeting, I’d come back to hear about another debacle that was going down. The Secretary was being accused of corruption by both Foreign Intelligence and the Treasury. It sounded like he’d been very blatant in sabotaging the long-suffering airport project. While I didn’t care too much about helping the Treasury, who seemed to be aligned with Security, corruption’s no laughing matter, and they DID help us with improving the stability of the nation. At the very least I didn’t want them to go against us. As it so happened, I was in possession of a pair of twos – worthless for buying aid from the Americans, but enough to make a strong arrest play by forming a 4 of a kind. Sadly, this isn’t Balatro, so we couldn’t go with a 5 of a kind. I agreed to support the arrest.
In the meantime, rioting was still going on, and Public Safety decided to go even more aggressive against Internal Security, actively deploying the police and the fire engines against Security’s thugs. I wasn’t so sure about the fire engines, but I’d said at the start as the Medical Officer only the ambulances were my field. One of the fire engines got destroyed in the process, unfortunately. My colleague was absolutely paranoid at this point that he was going to get arrested with the high profile actions he was taking, and was pressuring Economic Development into hurrying up with their plans to abolish Internal Security. It also sounded like Communications was being leaned on harder in the meantime, and we admittedly ignored them a little bit while planning out our arrest of the Secretary.
There were a few nasty policies that came up here, other than the Internal Security one. The one about crushing the protesters was of concern to us – while it was causing problems, certainly, they were also causing problems for Security, and we didn’t want them to come to undue harm. The latter one passed, making us very concerned it’d free up Security to deal with us. The Internal Security policy we were told to vote for, however, failed spectacularly. It looked like the Americans had come through after all, along with hardly anyone wanting it to succeed in the first place. It was clear that there was weakness there, but even a cornered animal can lash out. The arrest order came out, and I was surprised to see that the Minister of the Interior was actually supporting the Secretary. Had we made a huge mistake and helped eliminate an ally? I also found myself with all the twos right at the end. One of our co-conspirators, not wanting to be seen publicly supporting the arrest, had engineered for one of the corporations to sneak me their cards right at the end without informing me. I had the power to send this man, who might be a friend, to the gulag, or let him walk free, despite strong allegations of corruption from people who were NOT Internal Security.
I quickly considered my options, and placed my cards down in support of the arrest. Corruption was corruption, and it is a disease that infects society like a cancer, and I was going to excise it, even if the treatment itself is like a poison. Little did I know that there were other cancers growing, and that this act would also create the most corrupt thing in Yugenya; the state owned Yugenya Corporation.
Naturally, the Minister of the Interior wanted to have a talk with me after this, but instead of yelling at me over this act, he had come to confront me about allegations of corruption and embezzlement in my own department. Internal Security had pointed to finger at us, blaming US for the woeful state of Yugenya’s budget. US! Our budget was tiny! I’d even been helping save a few dollars by having ambulances sent to reserve! I pointed him at the current deployment board, which had 4 units of secret police deployed in Civil Suppression duty. That was a cost of -2 Budget EACH, and significantly increased Repression. Internal Security was trying to set us up, blaming US for THEIR profligate waste. They’d also destroyed one of our fire engines and likely killed or arrested the crew. The Minister was shocked by this, but apologised quickly.
At this point it was becoming clear that merely disbanding Internal Security wasn’t going to be enough. Economic Development was going for a full blown coup, with the support of us and the Revolutionary Guard. Communications was being completely shut out from their offices, unable to do their job. In the process of working out what was needed for the coup, I found myself unable to help directly with that. That just meant that I needed to do something else in order to assist. With the cards that would be needed for the coup, I figured that would leave people short in other areas of policy, and I wanted to get my hands on a Joker. This time I did have something that Freedom Corp wanted – a relatively high value Heart card. Useless for the coup, but great for spiking any policy that Internal Security might want to pass.
It was at this point that I learned that a high profile member of Communications was due to get arrested. I didn’t know that it was THIS turn, thinking that it was next turn, as the person telling me had been vague, but I knew I wanted to help. A strong media is important for democracy, and it would also be another blow against Internal Security. I hatched a scheme to stage a medical emergency and have him spirited away in an ambulance to someplace safe, away from those who would do him harm. I was told that this would likely require a Diamond card to properly pay the crews. That was fine; I had a Joker that could be traded for a Diamond. Or perhaps I could have used that Joker to have a CIA extraction team move in instead. However, the plan didn’t go forward as the reporter didn’t agree to the extraction, believing that he would be able to fight the arrest warrant. With that, time elapsed, and we moved on.
At this point, I was a little bit miffed when the policies turned up and there was one that would have been nice to contribute Hearts to, but nothing I wanted to spike with a Joker. At which point we were informed that an arrest was underway. It was the reporter, who I had thought we still had time. It didn’t look very good at all to me, but of course, there was another use for Jokers. I quickly slipped him one in support, and it looked like there were indeed many other supporters of a free press. With 4 Jokers and a face card, he had a Royal Flush. A Full House was not going to be able to beat that one. And now, the coup was underway. Internal Security’s days were numbered.
However, who should I end up having a discussion with but the Supreme Court Justice of Internal Security himself? According to him, he wanted to defect. He’d been working to release important prisoners, and would much prefer to work together with us at Health and Safety. All he wanted to not be prosecuted afterwards. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him, but I directed him to ensure that he’s got evidence of everything that he’s done to help the people and to start supporting the coup immediately. That would mean buying red cards from the corporations. If he did that, then I’d be sure to ensure that he’s treated as a collaborator. I didn’t want kangaroo courts after the coup anyway – justice must be impartial. If it turned out he was an oppressor, however, at the very least we could consider these actions right now as an attempt to make amends and reduce his punishment. We’d also get more help in getting the cards we needed for the coup.
After directing him to speak with the Public Safety Officer, who was VERY eager to get the Supreme Court Justice on our side, I went to speak with Freedom Corp about buying red cards. They weren’t inflating the cost of them nearly as much as I thought they would, but sadly it did also look like they were playing both sides. And I couldn’t afford their price. BYTC seemed uninterested in dealing with me, so I made sure to rally support at the Economic Department, urging people to throw in their red cards now as the policies coming up weren’t going to be important. Later on I followed up with the corps about our defector, and they confirmed that he had gone to them to buy red cards, though unsuccessfully, so I was at least satisfied he was genuine.
He really did end up at our table by the end of things, telling us that Internal Security had left him behind. I didn’t realise at the time that he meant that they were ‘fleeing the country’ or else I’d have asked our Public Safety Officer to deploy the police to watch the borders. I told him that I’d followed up on what I’d asked him to do and it didn’t sound like there was any bad blood there. We went to Freedom Corp together and combined we had enough between us to buy another red card to put in the deck. Despite them playing both sides in the matter, they also threw in a little extra support for our side right at the end. The deck was very stacked, and while I was sure there were a lot of red cards in there, it was still very possible for there to be a streak of black cards, causing the coup to collapse.
Finally we came to the end of the game. With hardly anybody voting on policies at this time, none of them went through, and we also saw a couple of resignations in the council, one of which was our own Minister. The reason for this was surprising, however – it looked like China had made a serious play. Our leaders were selling out our country to China! Even more evidence that a coup, while sad to have to undertake, was the right thing to do.
Things were incredibly tense and it came down to the wire, but ultimately, the coup was successful! Public Health and Safety and Economic Development were celebrating at their hard fought victory, and were looking forward to rebuilding their hollowed out nation as a beacon of hope and prosperity. At which point the Revolutionary Guard’s leader decided that he was going to take charge, with the backing of Foreign Intelligence. It definitely took all of us off guard, along with several members of the Revolutionary Guard themselves, who had been genuine about promising democracy and freedom. But as is too often the case, the ones with the guns are the ones with the power. The Generalissimo is Dead! Long Live the Generalissimo!
While it looks like we’re all going to keep our jobs, and Public Health and Safety’s responsibilities have been expanded, the country’s in shambles, foreign powers have taken control of important land and resources, and the new dictator’s only concerns are for getting a new corvette. Perhaps it might be a good idea to see about defecting to America and maybe becoming a professor at one of their medical universities...