Simplicity of Dark

I wrote that I don't enjoy making prank calls, and it reminds me of talking to Frank about Knights of the Old Republic, a game which lets you can play a Jedi, for good or ill.

So I said, "Playing the Dark Side is easy and hard. I mean, knowing which choices to make easier, but it's so hard to actually do it." I think Frank words were, "What are you talking about?"

Take something from the near beginning of the game for example: you open an abandoned apartment's door, and there's a generic-looking woman hiding there. She tells you she slapped some guy in a bar who made advances and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She drew some blood when she hit him. He's part of the crime syndicate. He lied to say she attacked him unprovoked and put a bounty on her head so he wouldn't loose face. You can choose to say, "You know, maybe I'll just kill you and take that bounty for myself." If you do, your fellow soldier points out that, sure we could use a little money, but killing some innocent woman is not the way to do it. Cpt. Carth's a bit whiney and annoying, but he has a point. I mean, it's just so wrong.

Just to be clear, none of these people are real. It's all just spots of glowing screen and vibrating speaker diaphragms. These people only move and make sounds because of inexorable processes directed by patterns of millions of tiny differences on magnetic plates no bigger than my hand that spin inside my computer, patterns designed by people I have never met. I know this.

Killing the woman is still hard.