From the Logs of Captain Dave:

The ship approached the fourth planet in the Minoch Synk Albrecht Staren system. I named the planet Minoch Synk Albrecht Staren IV. The system name was translated from ancient Korvlakian for ‘We’re out of names for stars’. This followed the conventional nomenclatures established at the poorly attended Ninth Stellar Conference of Star Naming in Boise, Idaho, which I think is all the way back on Earth.

“Hey Doc, where is Idaho?” I called out.

“I think it’s in the No Hay Ningunas Nombres Mas Para Las Estrellas system.”

“Are you sure?” asked Decker from his engineering station. “I’ve been to NHNNMPLE and I don’t remember an Idaho.”

“I think it’s on Earth,” I said thinkingly.

“I agree completely,” said Doc. Doc was a great doctor. He knew when to agree with me, but he also knew when to challenge my command with the tough medical issues. At least, I’m sure he would if we ever had a tough medical issue.

I am Captain Dave Dombrowski. You can call me Dave. Make that Captain Dave. And these are Captain Dave’s logs, which is me. I am piloting and captaining the exploratory vessel Delineator. Our mission is to explore stuff. There was a really well worded version of the mission statement around somewhere, but I think Decker used the plaque to weld together a small hull breach near What Do We Name This One III.

I manned the autopilot as it maneuvered the ship into orbit around the planet.

“Decker,” I commanded, “call up the visual displays for MSAS IV.”

A stunning panoramic view of the planet appeared on screen, accompanied by a display of planetary statistics. A window popped up offering a low rate on interplanetary exploration insurance, but I closed it. The planet showed signs of intelligent life, but so far no contact had been made.

Decker got up to get something from his bunk. There was a crash as he returned to his seat, and the screen went blank.

“Sorry Dave,” he called out from under his chair.

“It’s Captain Dave, and what happened to the display?”

“Just a second.”

A few minutes later the display flickered back to life. It was in black and white now. The color went in and out as Decker fiddled with something at the engineering station. Finally the picture held.

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s send a transmission.”

“What should we say?” asked Doc.

“Something elegant, yet homey. How about ‘Hey guys, funny to see you here. Please describe your species and civilization to us’.”

“Sounds great, sir.”

“Or maybe ‘So, do you come here often?’. It would be a joke because they already live here.”

“Brilliant again, sir.”

“Hey,” interjected Decker. “Isn’t there a standard message or something we’re supposed to send out when we meet a new species?”

“I think so. I’ll try to find it.”

I searched for the document on my computer console.

“I can’t find it. Is it under Protocols?”

“Try the My Protocols folder,” said Doc.

“No, I think it’s in the Interstellar Messages folder,” said Decker.

“I don’t have an Interstellar Messages folder.”

“Oh. I do.”

“Yeah. Me too,” said Doc.

“Is the document in there?”

“No.”

“I found it,” said Decker.

“Good. Just send it to this console.”

“Ok. Did you get it?”

“No.”

“Ok. I’ll try again.”

“I have two of them now, but neither one of them will open. It says the files are infected.”

“How can they be infected? They both came from the same ship’s computer.”

“Why don’t you just print out a copy and carry it over here and I’ll send it to the aliens,” I said to Decker.

A few minutes later Decker had printed out a nice copy of the Standard Alien Approach Document (SAAD). Unfortunately he tripped on the way over to the pilot’s station and knocked over my coffee onto my console. We didn’t get the message sent for several hours because Decker had to fix the computer and I had to change my pants.

I’m lucky I didn’t scald my Decision Making Orbs. Decker is especially lucky I didn’t scald my Decision Makers. Come to think of it, Doc’s pretty lucky too, because he would have had to treat the injury. Unscalded Decision Makers are a key to good captaining and a benefit to everyone.

We waited for several hours without receiving an answer to our message. I tried sending the message a few more times. Often, if people don’t respond to your first or second message, sending five or six more will do the trick.

I grew tired of waiting. I am a man of action, so I got a snack and went to my quarters for a nap. I awoke an hour later. There was still no response from the aliens.

“Decker, you were on watch when the alien civilization did not respond, so you are responsible. A demerit will be entered in your progress report.”

“You are tough but fair, sir,” said Doc.

I decided to land on the planet’s surface. The atmosphere was probably breathable, and maybe this way we could get some response from the aliens below.

I again manned the autopilot, smoothly allowing it to pilot us out of orbit and into the planet’s atmosphere. We landed in a public square in the middle of one of the large alien cities. I knew it was a public square in a city because that’s what it looked like.

Decker went first, in case there was a trap. I followed, and Doc brought up the rear.

“Don’t forget to close the airlock behind you,” I commanded.

“This air tastes kind of stale. What’s the gaseous composition, Doc?” asked Decker.

“I don’t know. You ran the tests.”

“Me? I thought you ran them.”

“Well, somebody had to run them or Captain Dave wouldn’t have let us out on the surface, now would he?”

“Don’t worry about it, guys,” I said reassuringly. “The air tastes fine to me.”

“Did you run the tests?” asked Decker.

“Decker, don’t question me in front of the men. We’ll discuss it later.”

“You’re the Captain. You can gamble negligently with our lives whenever you see fit,” said Doc. I always appreciated his support.

We left the square and began walking down one of the streets. The buildings on each side of the street were made of stacked white spheres. Each sphere was big enough to be a small building on a human settlement, maybe a toolshed, or possibly even a garage, but not a two hovercar garage. That would be too big.

We walked for quite a while without seeing any aliens. We still did not know what these creatures looked like, but it looked like they were pretty advanced. I went over to one of the white building bubbles and poked it with my finger. It flexed at my touch. I knocked on the side of the bubble, trying to attract someone’s attention. It didn’t make a very loud noise, so I kicked it. My foot bounced backwards pretty hard, but I finally got a good sound out of it. Still no aliens.

Decker tried shouting, and Doc littered on the sidewalk to see if maybe the aliens were neat freaks but nothing worked.

We came upon a differently shaped building. This one was fatter and rounder. It had a dull gray color to it, and a door. The door had no handle. I was about to kick it when Doc opened it by pushing gently.

The room inside was buzzing with machinery. Giant tubes ran into an open pit in the center of the room. There was machinery on all sides of the building, as well as several computer consoles.

“All right. Let’s spread out and have a look around. Decker, you go examine that machinery over there. Doc, you examine something too. If you meet an alien, speak slowly to him. If he doesn’t understand you, talk louder.”

We split up to examine things. A few seconds later, there was a resounding crash, accompanied by a yelp of pain.

“Sorry Dave,” Decker called out from beneath a pile of machinery. One of the tubes had come loose and was oozing bright green goo out onto the floor. Alarm bells sounded. Oddly enough, they sounded a lot like they did on Earth. The buzzing and whirring machinery came to a sudden halt.

We looked at each other in silence. After a few minutes Doc remembered to go check on Decker.

“It’s Captain Dave,” I said when my wits returned.

A few minutes later an alien came scurrying into the building from outside. It was maybe four feet tall, with a head that looked like a fuzzy cooking pot. The creature screeched at us, and gestured angrily with its four arms. I named him Elmer.

“Hello,” I said. It ignored me and went scuttling back into the machinery. Decker had pulled himself out of the wreckage and was standing next to us. It was a good thing, because I think Elmer might have screeched at him too.

We watched the alien work. Periodically, it would turn its cooking pot shaped head towards us, jibber rapidly and flap its arms. It was probably cursing at us. Once when it found a particularly badly mangled piece of equipment, it screeched and pointed and flailed for several seconds. Doc flipped it the bird. Boy, that really set it off. It squeaked and screeched and twirled around, pointing and flailing. It was all we could do not to laugh.

After maybe an hour the pipe was reattached and the machinery started working again. Then Elmer just ran off the way he had come in, and left us standing about where we started.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s spread out and have a look around. Decker, you go examine that machinery over there. Doc, you examine something too. If you meet another alien, speak slowly to him. If he doesn’t understand you, talk louder.”

Before we could resume our examining, another alien entered the room. I decided this one was a girl. I named her Wilma.

“Please refrain from attacking our food supplies,” Wilma growled. She had a gravelly voice and a Scottish accent. “Interstellar war would be very bothersome at this time.”

“Hello,” I said.

Wilma the alien said nothing.

“We are travelers from a great distance,” I said slowly.

Wilma nodded and twirled an arm.

“We have a spaceship.” I was a little bit louder this time.

“That’s great. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Wilma said.

“Hey, wait. Where did you learn to speak Galactic Standard?” Decker asked.

“I was alerted to your arrival. Our computer contacted your computer, and I downloaded the language in the time it took for poor R’gath to come here and clean up the aftermath of your attack.”

“Elmer,” I corrected.

“Why do you have a Scottish accent?” asked Decker.

“I’d'nae have the faintest idea wat yer talkin’ aboot.”

“Why is everyone here so rude?” asked Doc.

“Well, what do you expect? You three interstellar arseholes come barging in here and interrupt our games by attacking our food dispensing system, and you expect us to be pleased?”

“I was on a mission to survey an interstellar arsehole once. The pull of gravity was so strong, not even light could escape,” I informed everyone.

“That’s an interstellar black hole,” said Decker.

“Are you sure?”

“Wait,” interrupted Doc. “Did you say something about interrupting a game?”

“Of course. I happen to know R’gath was on level 67 in the G’tak Binth Saga, and now he’s probably fallen behind. Someone could have snuck up and stolen his magic cloak while he was away. As soon as you all are in a game, I am going to penalize you at least half a level for the disruption.”

“Are you playing Gortex Bling Saga as well?”

“Hmmph! G’tak Binth is a game for repairmen and those without taste. I play Arteus Prime. It’s an interstellar exploration game.”

“Ooh, that sounds like fun,” I said.

“Yes. I command a starship. I am on level 39, but the levels are much harder, so don’t compare me to R’gath. I am constantly encountering new life forms and learning to communicate with them. Many of them are quite believable, unlike your distressingly clichéd forms.”

“Do you play all the time?” asked Doc.

“Of course, unless we are interrupted. Everyone has a task that they must perform outside the game from time to time, but none of us are very happy about it. In the game we are unaware of the existence of an outside world. The computers and the robots take care of everything else.”

“Fascinating,” said Decker.

“You want to give it a try?” asked Wilma the alien. She was really being a lot friendlier now that we were talking about the video games that had sucked the life from her civilization.

Wilma led us out of the grey egg and into one of the white bubbles. She showed Decker how to select a game, program for life support, and interact with the console. There was a bubble with a console available for Doc, and one for me as well.

“I have to get back to my game now,” said Wilma.

“Thank you, Wilma. You’ve been a great help,” I said.

Wilma tilted her head. “My name is A’rgth, and we have seven genders.” She walked out of the bubble.

“Be careful, Decker,” I said. “These things seem to be pretty addictive. Doc and I will wait for you outside. You keep us appraised on your Personal Computer Widget.”

“I left my PCW on the ship.”

“Oh. Well, come out in a few hours and tell us if you’re addicted.”

Decker went into the bubble and sat down in a comfortable looking white chair. Another disgruntled alien with a head shaped like a cooking apparatus scuttled out from some unseen corner and helped him to adjust a helmet around his head. A screen lowered in front of him. Controls emerged from the white chair. The alien led him quickly through the menus, then scurried off to return to its own game.

We couldn’t really see the screen in front of Decker very well, but it looked like he was going through a sampler program of some of the more popular games. Doc and I waited in the street for a while, but we were getting bored, and Decker looked like he was having so much fun.

“Maybe you should go in there and get him, Doc,” I said commandingly.

Doc returned a few minutes later.

“He seems pretty unresponsive. I tapped him on the shoulder, but that didn’t work. I did look at his screen, and his game looked pretty cool. Then an alarm went off. I think it’s a real faux pas to look at someone else’s game screen.

“What was he playing?”

“It looked like he was in a giant game of space battle chess, only in four or five dimensions. It looked like a good computer engineer game. Anyway, you want me to drug him and drag him out of there?”

“No, that seems too reliable. Maybe you can join the game he’s in and get him out that way.”

“Brilliant idea, Captain. You wait here and get us out if anything goes wrong.”

So Doc went into his bubble and pretty soon I was standing on the street alone with nothing to do. I really felt the need to go exploring. Hey, Wilma said there was a game where you could be a starship captain. Wouldn’t that be fun! I’ve always wanted to command a ship and explore the stars. Think of all the fascinating civilizations I’ll encounter!

I decided to play for a few minutes until Decker and Doc were ready to go. They would surely find me when they lost. I stepped inside my own personal bubble and started the console. The whole room lit up with graphics.

This was going to be fun. I’ve always wanted to explore.

After a few weeks it was clear my crew and I were hopelessly addicted. I had to save them. Here is what I did.

Decker played for a week or two, but, being a computer guy, he could not resist tampering with the programming structure of his game. Of course, he set up programs to protect the integrity of his own console, but his experimentation with the underlying structure caused the console next door to freeze.

That console was Doc’s. He realized that we were trapped by the video games and that we could very well spend the rest of our lives here if he didn’t take action. After several minutes of indecision, he grudgingly decided to save the crew. He drugged Decker and me, and dragged us back to the ship on a cart.

We had to go for several weeks with nothing stronger than solitaire (yes, it’s still on every computer). Even then, I played for six hours.

The planet of the all-consuming games was a perilous trap. Only through my strong leadership and actions, even while drugged, were we able to escape and continue our mission, which has something to do with space.