Ficlet: You Have Died of Dysentery

[bibliodragon]

This started from the thought that Daybreak only happened because the Twelve Colonies never played Oregon Trail. Which of course made it a small leap to the Grade School Galactica 'verse.

Title: You Have Died of Dysentery
Author: bibliodragon
Rating: Gen
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 100


Oh how Billy Adama hated computer time with Laurie Roslin.

“You can’t even buy 1600 worth of bullets! What about food?”

“Hunting.”

“Hunting takes too long. And stop shooting at everything, you can only carry 100 pounds.”

“Games wrong, I could carry more than that in real life.”

“Stop fording rivers! Great, you’ve lost half the party.”

“Kept breaking legs, anyway.”

“The wagon wouldn‘t break so much if you‘d slow the pace.”

“Stop distracting me! Great, now I’m dead.”

“Billy Adama, if I ever had to do this with you for real, I better be dead before the wagons loaded!”

Comments

[sln1.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually familiar with 'Oregon Trail' but I'm satisfied that I worked out what it is from the context. It reminded me of a computer game Dad's cousin had about twenty years ago, which was set in Medieval England and required the player to gather an army of knights, provision the army for battle and then set off to fight, probably the French. This cousin was a teacher but I'm not entirely convinced that this game could have been an educational tool because during one run through, his knight went into a tavern seeking some piece of information and said something to the buxom barmaid which made her slap his virtual face!

But I digress. What a very clever and insightful return to this universe, with this role playing game providing the perfect way to mirror the story of 'our' Bill and Laura - the situation and their differing attitudes. Your last line adds a painful final jolt to wind things up perfectly.

Great work. Thank you

[bibliodragon.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you got it, I was worried it would be hard to follow without knowing first had the evil that is that game. Though there is an online emulator if you want to get really, really frustrated ;).