Maybe Make Some Change

For this week’s consideration of electronic literature, a standout was the interactive, code-based piece Maybe Make Some Change.  Like many works, the stark realities that brought about its existence are confronted well in its execution.  The story is based on the real conflicts of young soldier Adam Winfield during his time of service in Afghanistan.  Winfield was a member of a rogue company reportedly ordered to carry out systematic killings of civilians by his commanding officer Calvin Gibbs.  Adam was threatened with death if the plans and acts were revealed.  The piece, based in controversial and dishonorable wartime conduct, represents the emotional strain and difficulty of the situation well.  

         Given the background of the story, Reed's delivery of the events are certainly a form of electronic literature. The story progresses as the reader makes decisions using certain verbs and nouns highlighted in the text. Maybe Make Some Change is technically classified as a work of interactive fiction. Nonetheless, the events in which the work is formed around are very "real" issues. Though interactive, and not proceeding without user input, the user’s interactions are limited.  The soldier the interactor is portraying can only do what he “knows.”  New “abilities” are unlocked based on the interactor’s responses to events, and the use of these new choices yields tremendous variations in story and response.  Like code, a specific syntactical order is required in order for the piece to proceed.  When such an order is not present, the code responds with messages similar to that of an interrogator or prosecutor.  “Tell me exactly what you did and what you did it to.”  As the story moves forward, the decisions you make may be reflected in a different voice, that of warnings and recollections from fellow soldiers.  There is some support for the understandable ambiguity of a wartime scenario.  The digital and interactive elements allow the interactor to experience that difficulty, especially when your only choice is to shoot.  Backgrounds from first person shooters further this sort of ambiguity, potentially theorizing that the training of these individuals has built their responses as a predictable and dehumanizing reaction to the situations they find themselves in. The conflict these young men and women find themselves embroiled in is much more complicated than that. The reality of war is something only a veteran can understand. The detachment, and remote understanding of war, is what leaves this case in the dark. Perhaps these are a few of the underlying thoughts associated with the war in the middle east, leaving America with one question. Maybe make some change?