
-- THE 1213 CHEAT SHEET --

The following texts are the documents I wrote in preparation for creating 1213 in order to completely work out the plot and the serialised documents encountered throughout the episodes. There are, of course, massive spoilers in this file, so please play through the whole game before reading this.

Deakin's memo and O'Hagan's assessment are slightly expanded and worded differently here and there than in the game. This was because some editing had to be done to the text before it could be squeezed into the game interfaces.



Contents:

1. Timeline
2. Deakin's memo
3. O'Hagans assessment of Westbury








1. TIMELINE

???? AD: TessaLife Research and Development set up a clone farm to provide transplantable organs to the rich and powerful. Since this practice is illegal in the United Coalition, they exploit a loophole by basing the factory and administration on a satellite, TessaLife Orbital, connected to the planet by space elevator. It's a flagrant abuse of power, but the law cannot touch them.

Day 1: TessaLife Orbital opens for business and begin taking orders.

Day 10: All communications with Earth's surface suddenly cease. Telephones, radios, TVs and internet access all solicit no response. The occupants of TessaLife Orbital are baffled.

Day 20: With concerns growing, a member of the security team is sent down on the space elevator to see what has happened. When he emerges from the car, he reports that the atmosphere is thick and muggy and a green haze hangs in the air. He reports seeing a large number of corpses. Then his voice falters and he dies from exposure to a toxic atmosphere. The managing directors of TessaLife Orbital come to the realisation that some kind of catastrophe has befallen the area on which the space elevator stands, and it must be determined how large the afflicted area is. They decide not to inform the rest of the station's crew of the situation, in case of panic.

Day 24: Scouts are sent out from the space elevator wearing spacesuits, the only protective gear available to hand. They are unable to advance far because of the limited oxygen supply, but report that the poison atmosphere seems to extend for a very long distance. They saw no signs of life even from the tallest buildings.

Day 28: The managing directors uncomfortably come to the conclusion that the crew of the station may very well be the only human beings left alive. One or two of them quickly begin to show the first signs of mania. Oxygen is no problem thanks to air recyclers and there are plenty of food supplies, but a plan is needed to keep hope alive. It is decided, then, to instigate a scheme put forward by Administrator Westbury - Project Germ Free Generation. Using the station's existing cloning facilities, Westbury suggests genetically engineering a new breed of human with advanced immune systems allowing them to tolerate chemically hazardous environments.

Day 170: Project Germ Free Generation is showing promise. Using accelerated development techniques, the first batch of children have reached the physical age of 10. They are tutored in English and what basics are required to allow them to perform the task of scouts on the Earth's surface. Toxic gases are routinely pumped into their holding cells, with no apparent ill effects.

Day 248: A hitherto unnoticed error in the genetic codes of the children appears when the children reach the mid-puberty development stage. A mysterious disease begins spreading throughout the containment area. The symptoms seem to vary from individual to individual, with the only constants being mental and physical degradation that causes the clone to waste away into madness and death. About half of the cases survive the illness, but remain in a state of murderous rage and physical wastage. The scientists begin to feverishly research a vaccine for the sickness. Westbury is showing early signs of manic depression.

Day 255: Those children who can be approached are fitted with medicated facial masks to soothe the pain and, unofficially, to hide their growing hideousness.

Day 262: Some of the children are mutating wildly, mostly fatally, but a curious case arises in subject 0916. He demonstrates the ability to mentally control and reverse the mutation of his skeleton, arbitrarily changing his number and arrangement of limbs. With several children already dangerously insane and sealed in their cells, effort is made to keep 0916 content. He is given a large, comfortable room and the best food, but the same mutation that has made his body so advanced is also sapping his mental aptitude.

Day 268: 0916 undergoes a mood swing and attacks and kills several orderlies. His mutation ability makes him almost impossible to control, so the order is made to seal off and isolate cell block 9. 0916 frees the mutated children in the block.

Day 270: 0916 and a small group of mutants break through the seal and begin systematically taking over the rest of the cell blocks. Over the weeks that follow, a small-scale territorial war breaks out between the orderlies and the Germ Free Generation. Security is tightened in the rest of the cell blocks, especially blocks 10-12, on the uppermost level, furthest away from the conflict.

Day 310: Almost all the subjects remaining in blocks 10-12 have either mutated and been sealed into their cells or have perished from disease. Today marks the death of 1114, leaving only two remaining alive and not yet fully mutated: 1108, who has shown no mental degradation but severe physical corruption, and 1213, who suffers from nausea, migraines and memory problems akin to an Alzheimers sufferer. 

Day 315: After a number of battles, which the mutants eventually win, being genetically engineered to be stronger and more resistant to damage, the orderlies and staff are pushed back to the uppermost level. They seal off all access to the mutant-controlled decks, dubbing them a Forbidden Zone. Effort is redoubled in finding a cure and maintaining the wellbeing of the two subjects that remain. 1213 in particular is put on a daily exercise regime, as keeping him occupied seems to slow his mental degradation.

Day 318: 1108 is shown to demonstrate remarkable boosts in intelligence, problem-solving, recall and logical deduction. This is put down to the same blip in the DNA structure that caused 0916's transformation. His body is still wasting away, but his usefulness is undeniable, and so his wellbeing is placed on top priority, above 1213's. Westbury feels that a breakthrough is just days away. His manic depression is worsening, and he is unrealistically confident in his ability to save 1108.

Day 323: A vaccine for the disease is synthesized, and initial tests seem optimistic. Westbury is elated. After an evening of testing the medicine on blood and tissue samples, he announces his intention to test the vaccine on 1213 first thing tomorrow. 1213 will be the lab rat; 1108 is too valuable to immediately give an untried vaccine to.

Day 324: The vaccine almost immediately stabilises 1213's condition. Junior Administrator Deakin wants to immunise 1108 immediately, but Westbury insists on a few more hours to observe possible side effects in 1213. 1108 passes away just an hour before his vaccination is due. Westbury descends into extreme anger and depression. With the loss of his star exhibit, all he has left is 1213, the sickly amnesiac. 1213's degradation has ceased, but the damage has already been done. He continues to suffer constantly from headaches, nausea and sores. His mental degradation has been severe, particularly affecting his recall ability, and 1213's long term memory is now only about one week in span; everything he is taught he promptly forgets after six or seven days.

Day 326: Westbury, now extremely introverted and reclusive, starts forcing 1213 to run a dangerous hazard course every day. Little damage is done, since 1213 still possesses extreme resistance to injury, but the ordeal is painful and humiliating. Westbury seems to be instigating this solely to work off his own frustration, and takes a perverse glee in torturing 1213.

Day 340: After weeks of daily workouts, these being now the only things he remembers, 1213 lashes out on an orderly in frustration as he moves to take him to the hazard course once again. He very nearly beats the young man to death with his bare hands before more orderlies arrive. Westbury seems almost pleased by this development.

Day 344: Westbury meets with the managing directors to discuss a plan of action. He relates what has happened in the cell blocks, and suggests that 1213 be sent down on his first scouting mission soon. Westbury's sole remaining hope now is that Earth is not completely sterilised, and wants 1213 to confirm this. He is brusquely informed by Chief Administrator Petrovitch that the incident on day 340 has gotten around, and he wants 1213 to be monitored for longer to make sure he is suitable. Westbury decides that all hope is lost. His mania accelerates.

Day 351: Westbury's inclination towards sadism continues when he gloatingly informs Deakin of the truth about the Earth. Deakin leaks this news in a memo to the entire crew before committing suicide.

Day 354: His reasoning ability hopelessly lost, Westbury decides that getting 1213 onto Earth to begin scouting the planet's surface is the answer, and gives 1213 the chance to prove himself by giving him a gun and opening his cell door. If 1213 can demonstrate the ability to adapt and survive while the orderlies hunt him down, Westbury theorises, he will be proven capable to the managing directors. 1213's adventure begins. He murders countless orderlies and breaks the seal into the Forbidden Zone, releasing the mutant children. He battles 0916 and emerges triumphant.

Day 355: 1213 is recaptured in the medical decks, but is freed again by Westbury. Chief Administrator Petrovitch is privately impressed by 1213's progress, and begins to seriously consider beginning 1213's scouting mission as Westbury proposed. Westbury's part in 1213's escape is discovered by the head physician, Dr. Caroline O'Hagan, whom Westbury then murders. Meanwhile, 1213 is struck by severe hallucinations that cause him to run mindlessly around the food court shooting at nothing. This defuses Petrovitch's earlier consideration and he insists on 1213's continued monitoring, much to Westbury's horror.

Day 356: After 1213 wakes in the food court, Westbury herds him through the cloning facility towards the reactor room. He then takes Petrovitch hostage at gunpoint and dementedly attempts to get the administrator's approval for the mission by demonstrating 1213's fighting prowess. A single unguarded statement on Petrovitch's part sends Westbury into a blind rage and Petrovitch is shot dead. In a panic, Westbury hustles 1213 into the space elevator just before the security team arrive to arrest him. Westbury escapes them, but not before being shot in a vital area. He dies painfully of blood loss while holed up in a computer room, and 1213 drifts off to live out his days exploring a shattered world.






2. DEAKIN'S MEMO


From: Junior Administrator Deakin

To: All staff


From somewhere far below me I can hear the moans and screams of the mutated children in block 7. I am sitting at my desk with a gun barrel to my throat, trying to think of a reason not to pull the trigger. But I am weak, and I may not have the courage, so I am fearfully putting off my decision by writing this testament. My world has rapidly gone insane, and the things on which I relied have been stolen from me and reduced to ashes. I am sending this memo to the entire crew because you will all find out eventually, and I would not wish another to find out in the same manner as I.

It was Westbury who finally told me. I had suspected something odd about our situation almost since Project GFG began, but it was only yesterday that I summoned the nerve to confront him directly. And he told me. It is widely known that stress has taken its toll on the administrator, but even I was surprised at the easiness and apparent relish with which he relayed this information to me.

Almost everything we have been told about Project GFG was a lie concocted by the board of directors and the small group of people who knew the truth from the beginning. At around day 10 of TessaLife Orbital's running time, you all may remember that our access to telephones, internet and all other communication media was suspended. The reason given for this was that we were beginning work on a covert government project that required utmost secrecy. This was an utter fabrication on the part of the board of directors. Project GFG was not government sponsored, but was the sole brainchild of Westbury and the other administrators. 

On day 10 of our operations, some kind of cataclysm took place on the Earth's surface. The extent of it is still not known, but judging by the communication blackout it would certainly reduce population to a tiny percentage, if it was not a total extinction level event. The Earth's atmosphere is poison now, incapable of supporting human life. The reason why our communication was cut off was because there was no-one with whom we could communicate. All the letters we have sent our friends and loved ones over the past year did not leave the station, but met with incineration in the reactor ports.

The cause of the disaster is still unknown. All we could do was try to salvage this tragedy. Hence Project Germ-Free Generation, or GFG. It was not, as was implied, some immoral attempt on the government's part to breed super-soldiers. In reality, our administrators tried to create humans with immune systems advanced enough to survive in Earth's new atmosphere, giving us a race of scouts tasked with exploring the ruins and discovering what remains of human civilisation. Had this scheme worked, perhaps we would have been told the truth then, when there was room for a certain optimism in rebuilding our race. But the scheme did not work. As we are all aware, the virus we cleverly called Yellow Death killed or irreversibly mutated the entire Germ-Free Generation save one. And while 1213 could easily survive in a toxic atmosphere, he is too sickly and brain damaged from the virus to be of any real use. There are now not enough resources to begin the project anew, especially not now most of the quarantine decks are infested.

I am not one for drama or hyperbole, and I am reasonably confident in the statement that I have nothing left to live for, now. There is nothing left on Earth but death. There is nothing left up here but a wasted existence, the inevitable diminishment of our supplies, and a lonely end. Writing this has helped focus my thoughts. 

Some of you may think me a pessimist. Some of you may wish to go on. Maybe crops could be cultivated on board the ship, maybe the toxins will eventually dissipate, maybe some kind of existence could be eked out. But I feel that, as a child of modern-day sensibilities and technology, this would not be a society in which I could be anything more than a burden. Between death or continuing a life of misery on a few tiny slivers of hope, I choose death.

In a few minutes, I will send this memo, then move on into the darkness, and I pray history will forgive my exit, if indeed there will be any more history. 

It feels like a cliche, and I feel stupid just writing the words, but whatever scores you had to settle, whatever allegiances you owed, they are no more, and the slate is clean. Your destiny is in your own hands now. Do not dwell on the past. Concentrate on your uncertain future, and whatever triumphs and falls may await you.

I wish you luck.

James Deakin
Junior Administrator






3. O'HAGAN'S ASSESSMENT OF WESTBURY


From: Head Physician Dr. Caroline O'Hagan

To: Chief Administrator Petrovitch

Keith,

Regarding your request for Westbury's known history and my own personal opinions on the man, I enclose a document I wrote on the subject last night. I'm afraid I got a little carried away, as this is a topic that has been on my mind lately, but I trust it serves your purposes.

-Carol


Daniel Westbury was born into an extremely high-profile family. His father was a senator, his mother a celebrated TV chef, and their wealth was nigh on limitless. Inevitably, he was spoiled as a boy. At primary school, he was admired for his wealth and had a small entourage of tag-alongs, and would delight in bullying the poorer children. When he grew older, his parents pulled strings to have him enrolled at the age of 12 at one of the United Coalition's most prestigious high schools. Unfortunately for the boy, this was a school that prized academic achievement over popularity, and the young Daniel Westbury was slightly dim, with no discernible talents or ambitions. 

There is strong evidence to the effect that Daniel's doting parents acquired some illegal cybernetic mind expansion implants for their beloved son, but their influence was enough to ensure that any investigation was swiftly halted. At the age of 16, Westbury's grades suddenly skyrocketed until he was a straight A+ student. After graduating, universities fell over themselves to offer him a position. Westbury chose to study biochemistry and computer science at Cambridge, and it seems he learned more than the intended syllabus on the latter course. It also seems he cultivated some rather left-leaning associates while at higher education, and fell in with a subversive group of online terrorists.

When we first discovered Westbury, he was hacking into the major TessaLife corporate mainframe, waltzing through the virtual security systems as if they weren't even there, but his arrogance caused him to leave a trail for us to follow, and suddenly we had the evidence needed to arrest him. But the CEO of the time was a pragmatist who knew talent when he saw it, and like many corporate businessmen, felt that everyone had their price. Westbury's price, it seemed, was a six-figure salary and a job, in return for details on his subversive friends. They all began lengthy jail sentences, and Westbury began work the following Monday morning as a developer at TessaLife's computer science division.

I will not mince words. Westbury was TessaLife's best employee. He possessed a photographic memory and an IQ in the low 200's, which seemed to confirm the lingering rumour that his parents had had his brain illegally augmented.  He created software that revolutionised the industry and anchored TessaLife's spot as a market leader. When he completed his biochemistry PhD, he requested a transfer to our biochemical division, which was quickly granted. Westbury was the golden boy. He could do anything he wanted.

It's a myth among the staff that Westbury came up with the proposal for a clone farm. He is unpopular among a lot of the lower-downs and it suits them to think he had the deviousness to suggest a highly illegal practise. In fact, TessaLife had been knocking around the idea for a clone farm for at least three CEOs, but the legality of the situation always forced them to back down. Human cloning was still illegal in all sectors of the United Coalition. It was Westbury, with his trademark thinking outside the box, who came up with the idea for TessaLife Orbital. Officially, it was a weather research satellite, but everyone knew what it really was, even the law, but they knew they couldn't touch us in orbit. That's what made it so beautiful.

Clone farming is a highly lucrative trade. The rich and powerful put down a deposit, and the farm clones them a body with no higher brain functions for use in organ harvesting should the need ever arise. A lot of us were unhappy about it, but the wheels were already in motion. TessaLife Orbital was set up, and Westbury was an obvious choice to sit on the station's administrative team, along with myself and an assortment of TessaLife scientists and bureaucrats.

I do not believe for a moment that Westbury knew that it was going to happen, but even so... I wouldn't be surprised if he'd somehow known, subconsciously. There's definitely something supernatural about Westbury's intellect. He was shocked when the disaster occurred, he couldn't have faked that, I know. But the fact that only ten days passed from our arrival on the station to the incident gives one pause for thought.

When we learned of the... incident, I remember Westbury seemed to be the only one who kept his head. All of us who knew were in a state of high emotion. Everyone went through the stages of fear, anger, despair, and everything else. We felt helpless, without direction or reason to go on. When Westbury announced Project GFG, so maddeningly calm, a lot of us latched onto it just to have hope. We all went along with it without question. Westbury just seemed so confident, and we got confident by association.

Westbury's biggest flaw is his arrogance. Most of the time, he succeeds, and a certain pride is understandable. But when he fails, he takes it badly. I've received psychiatric training as befits my position, and Westbury's actions when the Yellow Death started breaking out indicated a textbook case of manic depression. As more and more of the children died, he sank further and further into this mood. We should have tried to get him off the project then, I know, but Westbury was our leader, and a lot of us needed there to be someone else in control. We were terrified of taking responsibility. 

When only 1108 and 1213 were left, and someone noticed that a mutation in 1108 akin to 0916's had caused his intelligence to inexplicably rise, I noticed a curious friendship develop between him and Westbury. Perhaps he recognised a kindred spirit in someone who had been made a genius artificially. Then 1108 died, and I could tell Westbury blamed himself, because it was he who had ordered a few more hours of observation on 1213 to ensure the vaccine was safe. After that, he became very sullen and introverted. I saw and heard very little of him.

I'd heard rumours that Westbury may have been doing things to 1213, unpleasant things, but I did nothing. He clearly needed to blow off steam somehow, and it wasn't like 1213 was really hurt by whatever he was put through, or could even remember it. That sounds like such a terrible attitude, now that I come to write it down. But I kept hoping Westbury would somehow get better, and we'd have someone to follow again. Now, we're all just kind of lost. I've started to draft a new action plan with some of the others, and hopefully Westbury can be persuaded to assist at some point.