Editing 623: Oregon
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|The "another video game" at the title text is still not explained. Oregon was not overpopulated, but maybe this is a reference to the end of the gold rush.}} | |
+ | {{w|The Oregon Trail (video game)|The Oregon Trail}} was an early educational video game that was designed to teach children about the trials and hardships faced by pioneering settlers. The actual {{w|Oregon Trail}} was an overland track leading from Missouri to Oregon, and in the video game, player started his or her journey in 1848. | ||
− | + | Most players were grade-school students. The game was very popular, and thousands of players played it monthly. In their youthful wisdom, most players brought the minimum amount of food and planned to hunt for their meals. Large animals (bison, bears, etc.) were very easy and rewarding targets, while smaller prey (rabbits, squirrels, etc.) were harder to obtain and provided less food. | |
− | The | + | The comic tries to document, as though in an historical fashion, what would have been the result if that was really how people had prepared for their journey on the Oregon Trail. With no other supplies or sources of food, the land would soon have been stripped bare, all large game slaughtered for meat, with hunger, starvation and disease soon to follow. {{w|Dysentery}} in particular was very common in the original game and perhaps the most infamous way to die, hence its listing as the most prominent epidemic. |
− | + | The title text makes things rather recursive. In this alternate reality, hundreds upon hundreds of people fleeing ''from'' the overpopulated Oregon becomes the focus of another video game, much like ''Oregon Trail'' in our universe. | |
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− | The title text makes things rather recursive. In this alternate reality, | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | + | :[Timeline, with relevant images next to each date.] | |
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− | :[Timeline, with relevant images next to | ||
− | |||
:1805 | :1805 | ||
::[Two men stand at the edge of a cliff. One has a walking staff.] | ::[Two men stand at the edge of a cliff. One has a walking staff.] | ||
Line 35: | Line 27: | ||
:1841 | :1841 | ||
− | ::Oregon | + | ::Oregon trail established |
:1843 | :1843 | ||
Line 45: | Line 37: | ||
:1849 | :1849 | ||
− | ::[ | + | ::[Two men with rifles aim at something.] |
::Overhunting begins to devastate ecosystem | ::Overhunting begins to devastate ecosystem | ||
− | ::Dysentery epidemic | + | ::Dysentery epidemic |
:1850 | :1850 | ||
− | ::[Tombstones | + | ::[Tombstones. Bodies.] |
::Shooting deaths skyrocket | ::Shooting deaths skyrocket | ||
::Typhoid epidemic | ::Typhoid epidemic | ||
Line 57: | Line 49: | ||
:1851 | :1851 | ||
− | ::All mammals larger than squirrels wiped out by overhunting | + | ::All mammals larger than squirrels wiped out by overhunting. |
::Massive famine | ::Massive famine | ||
:1852 | :1852 | ||
− | ::[Sun low over a land, devoid of life. Scattered remains of corpses | + | ::[Sun low over a land, devoid of life. Scattered remains of corpses.] |
::Last survivors flee | ::Last survivors flee | ||
::Oregon territory abandoned | ::Oregon territory abandoned |