Journey 7 of 9 · Day four · 09:00 · The works office, and a day on the works road

The Reconstruction

When should you obey?

Day four, and the valley has to reopen its roads. The engineer says Highfield bridge is safe; an hour ago you watched it shake. Then the works truck takes you round: an apprentice's reading at the pumping station, five engineers on the embankment, an order on the radio from two hundred kilometres away. At six you are back at the bridge, and the order being questioned is your own.

Six calls about when to obey an expert, a majority or a rank, at four places in one day. The last report carries your name.

Play The Reconstruction →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.

1. Day four, twenty past nine, and the rain keeps its own hours. The valley must reopen its roads, and you sign the orders.
2. Highfield bridge is the only way to the school shelter. The flood damaged it, and there is a steel brace on it now.
3. Marion, the engineer, has measured every support. She reads from her clipboard: “Safe to reopen.”
4. An hour ago you watched a light truck cross, and the bridge shook under it. You have no numbers, only your eyes.
5. Wait for a second check, and the shelter’s food stays all day on the near bank.

What is your order?

The six calls

After the first, each call changes one fact, and one of them turns the question on you.

1. Her numbers, your eyes
2. The apprentice’s reading
3. All five agree
4. The order from far away
5. Your signature
6. The report at nine

The long night

When you have finished the journey you can play it whole: all twelve calls. These are the other six.

• The old regulation
• A necessary gauge
• He freely agrees
• He changes his mind
• Your position is at stake
• The colonel’s sandbags

It happened

The valley is invented. This is not: Stanislav Petrov and the false alarm of 1983: what would you have done?

What the research says

This journey adapts questions that have been studied. These pages say what the studies found, with their sources.

• Obedience to authority: the Milgram experimentsHow far people went on hurting someone because a person in charge told them to.
• Conformity: when everyone else gives the wrong answerThe Asch line experiments: how often people went along with a group that was plainly wrong.

Play The Reconstruction →Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.

Next journey: The Court What do people deserve?