Welcome to the last week of Pandemic! I wish we’d had more time to explore the world we’ve created (and destroyed), but the world moves on whether we want it to or not.

For the last week, I’m asking you to do something BIG.

Current Issues:

• Urban destruction
• Continued displacement of millions of people
• Government and military popularity – as the crisis continues, favorability ratings (which may already be at all-time-low figures) will in almost all cases trend downward.
• Rebuilding infrastructure (physical buildings/roads/etc.)
• Rebuilding economic infrastructure and the global economy
• The Great Revelation of vampires living among us
• The extinction of the human race? (Through predation, conversion, or the inability to compete with vampires, who are stronger, faster, and smarter than humans.)
• The redrawing of cultural and social structures to adapt to the Revelation
• The persistent worry (paranoia?) that vampires are merely the first to come out. What else is out there?

So, it’s time for you, each of you, to do something grand, something historic. You may wish to work with your national/regional group, with your peer group, with selected others, or by yourself.

Your grand gesture/action/statement will be the deciding factor in the game. As with the Unrest Behind Bars simulation, I’ll give you each a scorecard to note particularly effective play and writing. This time you’ll be deciding whose final action “wins” the game.

In the prison simulation, we could use the final mediator’s report as a measure of who-got-what and could thus tell who was most successful in persuading the group (and most importantly, the mediator) that their claims were just. In this simulation, with the world in turmoil, it’s impossible to predict what will happen, and it’s foolish to try to set forth a single “winning” condition or state.

Instead, I’d like you to think about the state of the world and of the various countries and regions, and what action:

1. Makes the most sense
2. Is the most persuasive (and depending on the message and the action, what it means to be persuasive, and what will be required to achieve persuasion, will differ)
3. Gives you the greatest sense that this really is coming from the person whose name is at the top; that is, how well has the composer/player established her authority and sense of voice?
4. Impresses you the most (and I’m going to leave the questions open of what it means to impress you, what features can or should be impressive, and whether you are positively or negatively impressed)

You’ll have until Friday at midnight to post your final Pandemic! act to The Weekly Journal. I’ll give you the Pandemic! scorecard in class on Wednesday, and I’ll expect you to fill them out and bring them with you to class on Monday when we return from spring break. I’ll have collected your weekly posts to the Journal and will have feedback on your weekly posts as well as your final act.

As always, if you’ve got questions, let me know.

E-mail me your “worst-case scenarios” by Friday at 5pm. I’ll e-mail each of you with your mission for next week.

By 5pm on Monday you need to have read all of the public documents posted this week. I’d like for you to select the 1 document that you think is the best, and post a comment below with the URL and title of that document.

Then, post a BRIEF description of what made that document the best.

So, the new simulation blog is up and running (and looking good, if I do say so myself!):

If you haven’t already, make sure you’re a member of the blog (you should have received an e-mail inviting you to become an author for http://050pandemic.blogspot.com/. Accept the invitation, and if you don’t already have a Google/Blogger account, set that up (it’s free). Then, log into http://www.blogger.com and you should see The Weekly Journal as a blog on your “dashboard.” You can click on the blue “New Post” button to start posting.

Alternately, you can just go to The Weekly Journal and click on the “Edit” link under the “N” in Journal. That should take you to your sign-in page on Blogger, and will allow you to post to the blog, or to edit one of your previous posts.

You should have, by now, posted your “About-My-Country/Region” report/post/memo/etc. to The Weekly Journal. If you haven’t yet, get it posted ASAP!

For next week, here’s what you’re working on:

• Executives: Create a “preparedness report” describing your country’s/region’s current ability to respond to a global pandemic.
• Scientists: Create an “action plan” for identifying and responding to a global pandemic.
• Military: Prepare a report detailing your country’s/region’s current military capability for responding to a global pandemic.
• Populace: Compose an essay or op-ed or letter (or any form that makes sense to you) that answers the question: “What is most important to me?”

Your Google Documents should come in very handy here, as the scientific and military reports will be excellent resources for the executives to draw upon in creating their documents. The executives are, in other words, analyzing and synthesizing the more focused reports of the scientific and military communities. At the same time, the executives will also want to keep in mind the values and fears of their people.

On Monday, please have a draft of your document (in electronic form). We’ll begin workshopping our work on Monday, and you’ll need to have something to be able to workshop it.

After the workshop, you’ll have until Wednesday’s class to revise and/or complete your document. We’ll be posting them to The Weekly Journal in class on Wednesday and will have our first real round of simulation play!

On Wednesday we will also begin discussing Challenges — special, optional projects (or additions or tweaks to the weekly project) that you can complete for bonus points!