for a short story/concept i am working with, the main character (and if it were a game, the player) is in the end faced with a dilemma to either do what they are supposed to do, or do what they FEEL they are supposed to do. The scenario is a little bizarre, for that matter the whole concept is. Computer programs interact inside of computer hardware in their own world, which for all intents and purposes mimics ours. The reader of the story/player of the game isn't told this fact. It just comes as a realization that they are computer programs inside a computer as the story/game goes on. The protagonist, Roy, is designed with the purpose of destroying the computer world, built in as a failsafe mechanism. Until he is told to do this function, he just goes about his life like all the other inactive but running programs. He is at his desk job one day when he receives an email that contains a message for him to begin his function, promptly the next day. As he goes home, a glitch or possible malevolently caused error makes a child's toy fall out of the sky and knock him on the head, which gives him amnesia and he forgets that he is supposed to destroy the world tomorrow. This is where the problem for the reader/gamer lies. As the story goes on, Roy (and the reader/player) eventually finds out that he is supposed to end the world. Based on the decisions of Roy (or the player if its a game) at the end of his journey across the computer he must decide whether to destroy the world or to save it. The problem is, for the life of me I can't think of even any basic, generic reasons why i should choose one way or the other. Well, i take that back. He has motivation to fulfill his purpose once he remembers it, but what are some good counter arguements to that? I suppose I could make some socio-political observations, that perhaps he should or shouldn't save the world because it does or doesn't deserve it, or something to that effect. In the end, I may just make the choice already made, in which case Roy decides to make his own independant decision and just reset the computer, setting the whole process in motion again from the beginning of "time." Can anyone help me come up with some good reasons why or why not the protagonist would choose to follow his programming, or rebel instead?

Is there anything in gameplay you can do to distinguish one choice from another? When I go on a crusade in an RPG, it's because the game has ticked me off or motivated me to choose to fight evil. Maybe villains have taunted me and told me that I can't beat them; or maybe some puzzle stands in my way that I've been told by a nemesis that I'm too stupid to figure out. The game has provided me with a good reason to crusade and join the side of light (or whatever), shown me the effects of my actions, and given me acknowledgements which reinforce them once I'm done.

But if it also wants to tempt me with the darkside, it may offer high risk, high reward anti-social behavior that oppose the previous elements, yet also offers its own reinforcements (NPCs that beg for mercy, or riches to be easily had by stealing or slaughtering).

What I mean is that if I play as a bad guy or good guy its because the game has first addressed something that I care about psychologically, then provided me with the gameplay to reinforce my choice. I don't choose good or evil if it doesn't change either the game's outcome or experience. For the former to work, I've got to have enough gameplay and care about the world to be emotionally invested (that later I'd say is gameplay, or the experience of the game).

A good reason for the player to not destroy the world would be emotional attachment to the people of said world. Take the cartoon series Reboot for instance, during the adventures of Bob (who lets say is your protagonist on a mission to destroy the world) has many crazy and grand adventures with Enzo, Dot, Fong, and even Megabyte. The question for the player then is, Do i want to destroy these people who i've had adventures with and saved/been saved countless times with? On the other hand, if the player chooses a more evil path he doesn't garner the emotional attachment to the characters and may be much more likely to destroy the world for whatever greater purpose you have in mind. You could potentially make the child who own's the toy who hits him on the head a good foundation for such emotional attachment.

I see the possibility for good story conflict here. On the one hand, if the player doesn't destroy the world and reset it, people in the real world outside the computer could be killed/injured or some other malevolent event, but on the other hand if he does reset the world everyone in the virtual world would die. At this point it would be a matter of which world the player should choose, and which one he is more emotionally attached to.

If he is a failsafe then why would him not fulfilling his purpose be considered good? The problem to address is why he must "destroy" the world, and how this is accomplished. Does he start a killing spree? Detonate nukes? Have some "magic" powers that allow him to accomplish this task that he is only aware of after he is told to do the task?

You say this is a virtual world simulation ala thirteenth floor. Thus there should be an outside influence and reason for the world to exist. With this there is a reason for destruction of the world since its what the "gods" declare. Roy cant combat this because the "gods" can do as they will since they control the very simulation (which could be changed without them knowing it). There is no real loss if the entire system is rebooted because the programs would only know the state they are given. They would not know the system was restarted, simulation sped up or slowed down, etc.

Why do you choose a childs toy? What is the reasoning behind it? Would the developers of the world realize that the system's failsafe was not working correctly and attempt to restart from a backup to see what caused the failsafe to fail? What is the failsafe for, ie what event would cause the failsafe to do something?

The problem is that the world is a simulation just like any video game we play. Even if the world had ai advanced to be considered life, it is still under the influence of the simulation and its creators. Basically its difficult to have the programs rebel against their design with good reason.

Think about things like this. Say you are given a task. This task cause you to feel a void like hunger/desire. You know that completion of the task will fill this void (ie feeling of satisfaction, being content, happy, etc). No matter what the task is, you will attempt to complete it. This is how mother nature gets animals to procreate. You feel an urge to complete a task which when complete gives you good feelings. The stronger the urge, the greater the comfort felt upon fufilling the urge.

This is why smoking is so addictive since the brain begins to crave the nicotine causing you to smoke to feel comfort. Even though in reality you are not actually causing comfort instead you are merely bringing yourself to a normal state since the brain has been changed by the nictoine.

Even if roy felt great discomfort at the thought of losing his friends, it would be outweighed by his urge to do what he was designed to do. Kinda like a drug addict might go without food so he can buy drugs.

It will be very important to relay this sort of motivational things to the reader/player so that they can attempt to feel what roy might be feeling. You must realize that roy sees his world a bit differently then we do. We could not comprehend having to destroy the world upon recieving an email from "god". Which is basically what is happening to roy.

There was a movie about a family who had to kill demons. Unlike most stores like this which have the family doing this for generations, the father had a vision from god while he slept (like your email to roy). He would notice signs which led him to weapons (ie an axe, chains, etc all normal items). He would also have visions about who the demons were and how to kill them. The father had two sons. The story is told from one of the sons perspective, and we dont see any of the visions nor anything supernatural. The first act he commited was killing his wife because she was a demon. This helps get the audience to seriously consider the sanity of the father. Then we get see this man randomly kidnapping then murdering people based on visions he has had. He is also teaching his sons. One son (the younger one) believes his father, and sees that the people they kill are demons. The other son does not see the demons and thinks the father is crazy. During the course of the movie you have to side with the son or the father. Most people would side with the non believing son. We are led to believe that the younger son is merely imitading his dad because he is still too young to know any better (approx 8-10). Especially since we dont see anything supernatural. The sons had to dig a pit and build a cellar to bring the demons to so that they may dispose of them. The parts were then buired. At one point the non believing son is locked in the pit because he is going against the wishes of god. This helps further the belief that the father is mad because he would not be freed unless he would help his father. Eventually the son is freed because the father finished his work. I am a bit foggy on the details on the end, but basically the believer son kills the non believer son. Also the believer son kills the cop investiagting the murder. This is where we get the hints that the father was not crazy and there really were demons being vanquished. I forget exactly how, but the cop reveals he knows that he is a demon and that his non believing brother was a demon. It was a bit mosr clever then "yes i am a demon as yoru brother, blah blah blah", but you get teh idea.

This story is very similar to what roy needs to do, except he must destroy the world because of what "god" told him. He feels that "god" is real and that this task he was given is what must be done for the good of everything.

I hope this gives you some insight and help in focusing the story and getting the effect you want (ie the reader does not want roy to destroy the world, but later understands why he must). Perhaps using a friend of roys as the center of attention instead of roy may make this easier. Since now its the friend trying to convince roy that he is crazy and needs help. The reader will easily identify with roys friend because they dont know the whole story yet and think its crazy to destroy the world. You could even have roys friend be teh cause of the amenisa through a clever accident that the friend does (ie "accidentally" causes roy to be hit in the head). You can even use the knock on the noggin to help enforce that perhaps it was the knock on the head that may have caused roy to become abnormal (ie wanting to destroy the world). Remember just because roy is the main character dont mean we have to tell the story from his viewpoint.

qazlop gives some good suggestions to ponder, but I'll turn the whole thing upside down with regard to his last comment: tell the whole story from Roy's point of view and only from Roy's point of view.

Remember that you can't take away what you have given in the beginning of the story. If you first tell what happens before Roy loses his memory, the reader/player should also lose their memory regarding the beginning of the story, which is a bit awkward and indeed quite impossible to achieve, so maybe you'll want to start at the point of waking up after being hit on the head. Otherwise the reader/player won't see things from the very subjective Roy's point of view.

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Original post by Chokki The scenario is a little bizarre, for that matter the whole concept is. Computer programs interact inside of computer hardware in their own world, which for all intents and purposes mimics ours. The reader of the story/player of the game isn't told this fact. It just comes as a realization that they are computer programs inside a computer as the story/game goes on.

Ok, so the reader/player won't know it's a virtual world. Now, the important question is, does Roy or anyone else in that virtual world for that matter know it is a virtual world? Also, does the amnesia of Roy make him forget that it is merely a virtual world? (Of course, if you tell the story from precisely Roy's point of view, it would be a logical conclusion that Roy doesn't know this either since the reader/player won't know it.)

After all, we mortals are not omniscient (well, at least when we define omniscience of knowing everything as opposed to knowing everything that can be known). We do not know if our reality is just a bitsteam on the tape of a Turing machine; it could be. Put yourself in the role of Roy: what would you do if you got an email that told you to destroy the known world? Also, if the reader/player is not ever really told whether the world is just a virtual one, the more interesting things get, as they wouldn't know if Roy was just losing all sense of reality or actually doing what he was really supposed to do.

On the other hand, imagine that an angel descented from the heavens in the real world and told us that we are just bits on the Great Universal Hard Drive and it was the time for the Ultimate Low-Level Format? Sure, it sounds funny now, but who'd be laughing if it was true? What I'm trying to say here is that even if we were all convinced that we are virtual, would that make our existence any less valuable to us? Would you be willing to die for entities that no one on your plane of existence can't ever really sense (spiritual manifestations and visions aside)? Would you die for entities that do not exist but you have been led to think they do? Will there be afterlife for us? Will there be afterlife for Roy? Such are the questions that should occupy Roy's mind whether or not he knew that he was just a program. Well, either that, or then you could have your virtual world be populated by utter nihilists; most software I've used don't seem to have a consciousness, even though some programs just refuse to die no matter how hard I try to shut them down (maybe I have Roy on my computer, who knows? [disturbed]), forcing me to reboot the computer [grin].

It's really a mind-staggeringly philosophical dilemma centered around the concept of uncertainty. What if? For a bit of a twist in the plot, why not have Roy to be a skeptic or a phenomenologist, questioning or even denying the existence of even his own world (the virtual one), let alone the external one (the "real" one).

Just my take on this.

I can see this virtual world as being a representation of what our world will become. A program designed to predict the fate of mankind. The program has determined that mankind will cosume all the earths resources and destroy all life upon it. With this relevelation the program set about destroying mankind in an attempt to save rest of life on earth.

Roy is the failsafe to stop such an eventuality. Does he destroy the world in which he exists and save a world he has no knowledge of and can never be a part of?

If he turns his back on his creators and saves his world can he guarantee that his world would continue to exeist in the absense of it creators?

(sort of 'War games' meets 'Matrix')

Wow, I really appreciate all the feedback that's being given.

Without taking the time to give credit for each individual aspect of what's been said that i've liked, i'll take the pieces that hit well with me and i'll write them in a possible scenario for this story.

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Introduction
Roy is at work one typical day, bored as any typical office job employee would typically feel. Counting numbers, writing memos, talking with another employee about whether or not anything they did actually meant ANYthing. Suddenly, Roy's computer chimes that a new email message from upper management is waiting in the inbox. Roy opens it to see a single number 1 written in the message, as well as an attachment.

Roy breaks off his conversation to investigate why upper management is screwing with him this time, and what attachment could they be sending around. Probably some pics of the bosses' kids or something, he mutters to himself. He clicks on the attachment, and Roy's screen flickers twice. The look of apathy on Roy's face quickly changes to solemnity. In an instant, Roy's purpose becomes clear. although to Roy at this very moment he knows what he is to do, no one else is aware of these events.

Roy walks outside of the office building and crosses the street to his car, when suddenly a window squeegee from the window cleaners on the building falls off and smacks him on the head. He's knocked out. Maybe a minute later, he wakes back up and gets too his feet. "That was weird," he thinks to himself. Roy goes home.

If Roy had not been hit on the head, this is how events would have occurred.
1. The world undergoes initial shut-down phase. That night, all non essential programs/people would go to bed, fall asleep, and be absorbed by the beds into nothingness. Or the very floor they're standing on, for that matter.
2. The next morning, Roy would wake up, get in his car, and proceed to the world control room, inside the deep recesses of the office complex he works at.
3. Roy would wait there as the buildings, ground, and everything else absorbed themselves into nothingness.
4. If everything else was properly shut down, Roy would flip off a light switch and the world would fade into blackness.

But because Roy suffers the amnesia, sleeps in, and doesn't get up to do his job, this is the timeline of the story.
1. The world undergoes initial shut-down phase. That night, all non essential programs/people would go to bed, fall asleep, and be absorbed by the beds into nothingness. Or the very floor they're standing on, for that matter.
2. Roy does not wake up, because its normally his day off. He sleeps in.
3. Initially many buildings and objects begin to stop their usual processes and "melt." But because Roy is not where he needs to be, they don't finish the process. The computer is currently crashed, which is causing many programs to act oddly. Much of the environment is now in a surreal Salvador Dali state, making it dangerous to travel through. Essential programs that were not shut down before are beginning to become degraded, making them also dangerous.

It is at this point that if this were a game, the player would gain control of Roy. Roy doesn't know any of what's happened, nor for the first little bit does he care. He finds the bizarre world he's now in to be funny, so he just plays around with it for a while. Eventually though, Roy goes outside and checks his mail box. It's the same message he received on his computer the day before, but now that he's been hit with amnesia it doesn't mean anything to him.
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err... yeah. now i'm just rambling at this point. I know it doesn't really address the moral issues that are the reason why i posted this in the first place, but hopefully it will help express a bit better what i had in mind for the premise.

A lot of people have answered well why you would want this guy to make the decision he does whether to destroy the world or not, I want to just add one thing on the how.

Oftentimes, when a character (and I am speaking as a dramatic screenwriter here) has the end all of be all decision that is in essence, the turning point in the character's mind and destiny that also happens to concurrently (often by design) coincide with the fate of the environment around them, there is usually a device that is utilized dramatically through which they have the choice presented to them to do or not do the decisive action.

This very device (design of your choosing; and an array of them you should design) can help you with the 'why' aspect simply by toying around with the how the character does or does not destroy the world, giving you in essences 'tests of reasoning through character action; given that you have the character either making the decision emotionally or intellectually, if they are a rationally constructed character.

In Neo's case, it was the love of Trinity and her final declaration of it (remember she had to hide it the whole movie long; and this was by design. One could say it was the best way to heighten the tension of the often boring love element subplot, but it served a deeper, dramatical mechanical purpose of triggering Neo's return to the living, and in the emotional moment of her love, the rational problem of the confusion in the audience about "hey wait a minute, Neo's "the one" - he can't die" was solved. (Remember, this is my take and opinion on it only, I am not a professor of screenwriting at USC Cinema-Television in the Lear School of Screenwriting)

So, how your character would implement the destruction of the world in a very detailed and descriptive way, and then that way shifted around, so several methods of how the character would destroy the world (and I don't mean the how in terms of what you have described in your narrative, I mean the how in how it is going to physically look and behave in-scene, in action onscreen) is going to, at one point in your toying around with the versions and scenarios of how they would actuate the world destroying moment(s) is going to mesh with two things.

One, the part of the character biography (which you've hopefully written in extensive detail in order to have a lot of consistent and impulsive behaviors to resource in terms of broading appeal and engagement and empathy with a wide array of players who have invested in your character, but themselves possess different personalities) is going to resonate (possibly more than one to several, in which you need a clearer and more detailed character bio, becuase that will mean you character is too flat, does not possess enough flaws and humanism for a character with real 'character') and you are going to go, "ah, that's how he is going to destroy the world, that way there, because it fits with the way he works an a representation of a person!"

Two, because you have designed your character's personality (not one of those one dimensional, flat characters we tend to see - you know the kind: "Let's get some!!!") to become as large a factor in the gameworld as somebody with the potential (or capability) to destroy it, then the gameworld and the character are so enmeshed on so many levels (some you may reveal through exposition to the player(s) or not, depending on your artistic choices, or necessary dramatic ones; it's your call, you're the writer/designer; this is the testing side of design - to see what works and what rings true) you had to, by design, place in the gameworld along the way certain symbols, objects or experiential interactions the character's biography (as a personality that thinks, responds, acts and interprets the context of it's world) was defined by. Those symbols, objects, experiences and resultant experiences from interaction had among them something I shall call 'seminal' - the major experience token.

For NEO, it might have been 'whoa', but it also might have been his belief in Morpheus's belief in him, it could have easily also have been his sunglasses, or his final understanding that there is no spoon. It could have been all of them, because the writer knew that the audience (and players I believe too, are a bunch of different people, and need different psychological 'handles' to hang on to for continuing to suspend disbelief and have empathy for a character. For Luke Skywalker, it could have been his jedi sword, it could have been his love for his father, it could have been his 'do not try' dilemma character challenges, or whatever.

The point is, that when push came to shove in the last inning of play, something the player recalls as a seminal and formative perception defining activity, object or relationship that is the very thing they recall at the moment of truth that helps them make that decision whether or not to destroy the world or not, or save it, or continue the battle against the empire for another several films, whatever.

So, oftentimes, engineering the story as an in scene, in action, in the now context can magnify and focus on the sole and essential aspect of all the character biographical and story contextual elements necessary to be present at the time the decision is or is not made as a function of story, and this can directly or vicariously point at the function of character necessary to make the decision in the first place, and that my friends, is motive in character in action, and that should get you to the why by way of how.

See how sneaky and useful really drilling down into functions of dramaturgy and character design can be when it comes to what to put in and what to put out. Someday, maybe I will tell you all about the relationship between the Master Author's format and pacing, action, dialogue, scene setting, ensemble and plot.

HTH,
Adventuredesign