Colony — Winter — Week One
The Mirror
You are Jon Kelly. It is late winter. A coughing stranger stands at the gate.
The situation
Joe Edwards sees one thing clearly: the perimeter. He reports. He waits. The decision is yours.
What you wrote
A real strategy entered by a real player. Unedited.
Mission Goal
Keep the colony safe.
Operational Actions
Joe to establish communication via the guard post at a safe distance — try to establish the stranger's intentions. Are they looking for a long-term home?
Contingency Plan
If Joe is convinced, the stranger will be escorted to the hospital for treatment by the medics. Joe to adjust the guard rotas to include extra support at the hospital until the community leader can interview the stranger and build an integration program. If the stranger is deemed dangerous, they will be asked to leave and never allowed entry to the colony — one day's clean water supplied and medical advice given, but no medicines offered.
Communication Strategy
Call an initial meeting with Joe, the community leader, and the head medic. Draft a plan for the stranger. Advise the colonists of the resource allocation and ask for extra attention to any new illnesses or symptoms, and any signs of people near the perimeter. Advise the colonists that all precautions are being taken and ask for their understanding and support.
You will make the decision.
The Mandate will show you what you actually did.
What The Mandate saw
He thought he had it handled. The Mandate disagreed.
Meanwhile, in Jon Kelly's world
Jon does not see the evaluation. He records what he felt.
The duality
You are Jon Kelly inside the story. You make real decisions, under incomplete information, with advisors who see only their corner of the problem. But you also sit outside the story — watching the Mandate's cold, neutral verdict on the quality of your reasoning. Jon never sees that verdict. You do.
This is the feedback loop that almost never exists in real leadership. The gap between what you decided and what you actually communicated. Between what you planned and what the consequences were. The Mandate does not care whether you were right. It cares whether you thought clearly.
Research Participation
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