Journey 1 of 9 · Night one · 23:06 · The Silo Yard, and the river road to Alder
The Junction
Whom would you sacrifice?
One night, one road. At six minutes past eleven the river breaks into the Silo Yard and a wagon breaks loose. Five people are on the line, one is on the side track, and you are at the lever. That first call comes from the trolley problem. Then you drive the river road to Alder, and the question comes back at every place as a different thing: flood water at the weir and a child on the stones; logs in the sawmill flume and a large man beside you; a cask loose in the cellars and a man who says yes, or no; and at the bridge a truck with no brakes, five small children from the night nursery, and the father of the boy asleep in your cab.
Eight calls. Where a call leaves the result to chance, you flip the coin. At the end the game gives you back the rule you followed, in one sentence, to keep or to share.
Play The Junction Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.
How it opens
The first scene, in the game’s own words. In the game each line is written into the drawing as you tap.
- Six minutes past eleven. The signalman has gone to wake the yard. You are alone at the junction: your lever switches the track.
- The water has torn a heavy wagon loose. It is rolling fast, and nothing can stop it.
- Five people are on the track ahead and cannot get away. Do nothing, and the wagon runs on: the five die.
- One person stands on the side track. Pull the lever, and the wagon turns: the one dies, the five live.
What do you do?
The eight calls
After the first, each call is the same question arriving as something new, at the next place on the road, and one of them turns the question on you.
- One for five
- The weir
- What the boy asks
- The sawmill
- The cellars
- He offers
- What the cooper asks
- The bridge
The long night
When you have finished the journey you can play it whole: all fifteen calls. These are the other seven.
- Five long lives
- The crew that left the brake off
- The surgeon
- Fifty on the trestle
- The points may fail
- The law
- Your mistake
It happened
The valley is invented. This is not: May a state shoot down a hijacked plane? The German ruling of 2006
What the research says
This journey adapts questions that have been studied. These pages say what the studies found, with their sources.
- The trolley problem: what people actually answerTurn the wagon and one dies instead of five. Most people say yes. Push a man to stop it, and most say no.
- The framing effect: lives saved or lives lostThe same two plans, described once by the lives they save and once by the deaths they cause.
Play The Junction Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.
Next journey: The Rescue Where does your circle end?