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RATCATCHER – PAST SIMULATIONS
["'DAD'S GONNA KILL ME," SPRING 2015]
ESSENTIALS
WISE WORDS
"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten."
-- B.F. Skinner
READINGS
CURRENT WORK
PAST
SIMULATIONS
'DAD'S GONNA KILL ME!
Spring 2015
'Dad's Gonna Kill Me! follows the exploits of two Marines who get caught up in the 2004 invasion of Fallujah, Iraq. The two are lifelong friends from their days as children in Harlan, Kentucky, where the lore of their parents and their life-and-death battle, in 1955, with the Queen of Mountain Moonshiners, Madge Beauchamp was part of their education growing up (these events are recounted in the previous simulation, My Family's Always Been in Whiskey ).
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Stymied by an apparent leak in the crypographic resources of their respective units, the two friends have learned to trust no one but themselves and eventually fall back on the strategy of the code talkers of World Wars I and II, native Americans who conversed in obscure Indian languages on the battlefield, confusing and puzzling the enemy. But the "language" they come to rely on is an elaborate verbal and viisual code known only to the moonshine runners and used by them to mark routes and throw off pursuing ATF agents.
'Dad's Gonna Kill Me! was the first simulation in the series to comprise more undergraduate than graduate students. The course was offered, with the encouragement of Dr. Jimmie Manning, Director of Undergraduate Studies, as COMS 496C (Special Topics in Communication Theory), although three graduate students also registered under COMS 608. This left us with 28 students, which is far, far too many for a successful simulation. For the next iteration, Nothin' But a Man, we have decided to cap the course at 15 (experience has taught me that 12 to 15 is the optimal number).
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Fun Facts and Trivia
-- This was the first simulation whose events were linked to the events and characters of a previous simulation. The two chief protagonists, Robert Glenn (R.G.) and Jennifer "Junior" (J.J.) were the children, respectively, of moonshine runners Johnny "High Shot" Watson (modeled after NASCAR demigod Junior Johnson [Robert Glenn are Junior's real names]) and Jennifer/James Dandy, the cross-dressing teen who pretended to be a boy in order to run 'shine, both characters from the immediately previous simulation, My Family's Always Been in Whiskey.
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-- 'Dad's Gonna Kill Me! is (so far) the only simulation to involve spirit messages from beyond the grave. The two soldiers from Blackwater Security, Mike and Ike, who are killed in the first scenes of the simulation, later reappear with another ghost to relay key contact information to a "wise mountain woman" in Harlan that enables an emergency message to be relayed to R.G. and J.J. prior to the Fallujah incursion.
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