It's as if you've suddenly walked into a luxury hotel. Gold leaf adorns the carvings on the mahogany paneling, reflecting flickering gaslight. The chairs and divans are all velvet upholstery. Oil paintings hang on the wall (aggressively secured by screws): landscapes of dramatic canyons and grazing buffalo herds. The only indication that you're in a train car is the muted sound of the station whistle coming through the heavy damask curtains. It's the sort of gaudy display one might expect from a man like Rupert Redwater, but it takes your breath away all the same. You walk briskly toward a crystal decanter of amber spirits, but decide you aren't bold enough to help yourself to the tycoon's bourbon, and take a seat by the curtained windows instead. The patter of rain and the warm glow of the gaslights sets you to musing again as you wait.This meeting has to go well because...>You're in serious debt to some serious people, and Mr. Redwater is one of the few that can make such problems go away.>Your wife's illness has taken a turn for the worse, and Mr. Redwater employs some of the best doctors in the country>This is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to finally restore your family fortune>Write-in
>>5947288>This is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to finally restore your family fortune
>>5947288>You're in serious debt to some serious people, and Mr. Redwater is one of the few that can make such problems go away.
>>5947288>Your wife's illness has taken a turn for the worse, and Mr. Redwater employs some of the best doctors in the country
>>5947288>>This is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to finally restore your family fortune
>This is the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to finally restore your family fortune
>>5947288>You're Rusty Shackleford- the outlaw with no name, your reign of terror lasting nearly a decade before a sheriff captured you in the early dawn, deathly drunk attempting to sober up in a rented bed. Booking you as the "Pocket Sand Bandit" it isn't long before you're put into the system, and eventually released on parole. An officer looms behind your shoulder menacingly, a constant reminder of the necessity of gaining Mr. Redwater's favor to retain your freedom.
>>5947654
>>5947657>>5947654>Support
>>5947313>>5947336>>5947616>>5947644With the loss of the plantation, and your older brother in a madhouse, the responsibility for the family name falls to you. You've been working tirelessly these last two years for a chance to shake hands with someone of real power and authority. Mr. Redwater is one of the richest men in the country. With all the people moving west or south after the war, his fortune, built on the tracks of Redwater Railway Company, seems in no danger of shrinking any time soon. He seldom takes face-to-face meetings, and those whom he favors have had their lives changed overnight.You find yourself nodding off when you finally hear the sound of boots on the access steps. You quickly rub your eyes and straighten up. The door opens and two men enter. First, a tall, wiry man with a horseshoe mustache and a black hat. He enters as coolly as a tiger, paying you no mind as he beelines to the liquor. The polished iron on his hip winks like broken glass in the lamplight.Then comes Mr. Redwater, huffing and sniffing with the rain, his enormous coat and tophat dripping large drops onto his paneled floor. You begin to stand up but he waves you down with his hat. He's much thinner than in the pictures. His eyes and cheeks are sunken and you note a slight tremor in his hands when he goes to check his pocket watch."Pour one for me too, eh, Zeb?" he says, and slumps into the chair across from you. "Decent weather for a duck," he mutters, and then looks at you. "You're the one Bart's been telling me about.""Yes, sir."The man called Zeb comes around with the drinks and hands one to Mr. Redwater. "You've forgotten our guest, Zeb," Mr. Redwater says. Zeb grunts and mutters something to the effect of "Can get his own damn drink." Then he goes to the fireplace and starts to warm his hands."You'll have to forgive my associate, he isn't used to our lovely New England weather. Normally, I don't travel with such brutes," (he looks at Zeb laughingly while he says this), "but such are the times that they have become necessary. If even Presidents can be fired upon, where does that leave humble merchants like myself?"You clear your throat, unsure of how to reply. Mr. Redwater studies you a moment. "Have you read Darwin? One must read between the lines. The thrust of it is that nature is godless, and that man is not exempt its brutality. Might is right! It is only a recounting of Hobbes, of course, but then, there is nothing new under the sun--as a civil war and a dead president can attest. I'm sure a man of your profession can appreciate the inescapability of natural law, despite all our efforts at civilization." >Soldier: "I was at Shiloh, sir, and Gettysburg. I'm no stranger to the natural state of man.">Politician: "Hobessian cynicism is what keeps me employed, sir, but I prefer to appeal to man's virtues more than his failings.">Merchant: "Quid pro quo is the only law of nature I recognize.">Write-in
>>5948137>Politician: "Hobessian cynicism is what keeps me employed, sir, but I prefer to appeal to man's virtues more than his failings."
>>5948137>Merchant: "Quid pro quo is the only law of nature I recognize."
>>5948137>Scholar: "Didn't Darwin also say that in men, ants, and in plants, all 'will adapt the structure of each individual for thebenefit of the community'?"
>>5948137>Scholar: "Didn't Darwin also say that in men, ants, and in plants, all 'will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the community'?"
>>5948137>>Soldier: "I was at Shiloh, sir, and Gettysburg. I'm no stranger to the natural state of man."
>>5948167Changing my vote to:>>5948206>Scholar: "Didn't Darwin also say that in men, ants, and in plants, all 'will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the community'?"
OP here. I'm locking in the Scholar choice because I like it so much (plus its winning). However, since this wasn't in my notes (I'm not panicking I promise), I'd like to get some more information:Where did you study?>The Sorbonne in Paris, a renowned center of theological study, which has only recently expanded its curriculum to less divine pursuits.>The University of Virginia, a thoroughly modern institution free from the influence of religious doctrine, which the war has sadly leveled to brink of destitution.>Harvard College, the premier institution of higher learning in these United States. The finest classical education money can buy.>Write-inWhat did you study?>Law>Medicine>Theology>Write-inWhat is your name?>Nathaniel Cross>Jebediah "Jed" Flint>James Hawkins>Write-in
>>5948289>The University of Virginia, a thoroughly modern institution free from the influence of religious doctrine, which the war has sadly leveled to brink of destitution.>Botany>Douglass White
>>5948289>Harvard College, the premier institution of higher learning in these United States. The finest classical education money can buy.>Law>Alderman Jacobus
>>5948298>support
>>5948289>Sorbonne>Theology>Father Abraham "Goulash" Kennedy - the nickname was earned by local homeless and poor whom he fed every week at his old church
>>5948289>The Sorbonne in Paris, a renowned center of theological study, which has only recently expanded its curriculum to less divine pursuits.>Biology >Douglas White
>>5948289>Harvard College, the premier institution of higher learning in these United States. The finest classical education money can buy.>Medicine>Douglas White
>>5948289>The University of Virginia, a thoroughly modern institution free from the influence of religious doctrine, which the war has sadly leveled to brink of destitution.>Law>Jebediah "Jed" Flint
>>5948289>>The University of Virginia, a thoroughly modern institution free from the influence of religious doctrine, which the war has sadly leveled to brink of destitution>>Law>>Jebediah "Jed" Flint
>>5948289>The Sorbonne in Paris, a renowned center of theological study, which has only recently expanded its curriculum to less divine pursuits.>Sociology>Leonard Graves
"Didn't Darwin also say: 'In social animals it will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the community'? Nature is not so red in tooth and claw as Hobbes would have us believe. Humanity, like the humble formica, has survived by cooperation, not conflict. It is the principle upon which our great nation is founded, and why it endures intact--in spite of a civil war and a dead president.""'If each in consequence profits by the selected change'--don't forget that part," says Mr. Redwater, taking another sip of his drink. "The individual must profit, or the community will perish."You open your hands in a gesture of concilliation. Mr. Redwater seems disappointed by your surrender, but this isn't the Rotunda. You haven't traveled two hundred miles to argue moral philosophy with a businessman, and Mr. Redwater, for all his refinement, does not seem like the kind of man who would take his lumps gracefully. You speak no more on the subject and the conversation moves swiftly (albeit reluctantly) to other matters."I was told you'd studied law at Virginia," says Mr. Redwater. "When did John add Darwin to the curriculum?""Professor Minor's is a great legal mind," you say, "far beyond the reach of the more primitive natural sciences. Natural law has always fascinated me, however, and the shelves of the Rotunda are not so discriminating in taste, as much to my own benefit."Mr. Redwater nods slowly, his eyes narrowed. It's rumored that Mr. Redwater never attended college, his numerous degrees--from Harvard, from Yale, from Oxford across the sea--were all honorary by way of generous endowments. "Even less discriminating now that's in ashes, eh?"If a lesser man had said that, you would have punched him in the mouth. The University was your last bastion, without it, without Professor Minor's deferrment of your student fees when you became unable to pay, without the education you recieved there--in law, in morals, in the ideals of freedom and honor--you'd have ended up as nothing, a bum. You master yourself with a deep breath. "They are rebuilding it, sir. The Rotunda will be restored to its former glory, perhaps one day even surpass it.""Without the institutions which have sustained it for nearly a century," says Mr. Redwater, "I doubt it will be the same.""I don't know of which institutions you speak, sir," you say, forcing your voice to remain level, "but I can assure you that the University of Virginia is not so fragile as to be undone by a single fire." Try as you might, you cannot stop yourself from raising your voice a little there at the end, attracting the undue attention of Zeb, whose hand falls casually, as if unconsciously, to his six-shooter.Mr. Redwater merely smirks, raising his glass. "To the Cavaliers, then. May they tilt once more." And he drains the glass. It is well that Mr. Redwater moves the conversation to business. You don't know that you could've endured his condecension for a minute longer.1/2
>>5949409"Bart told you something of the nature of this venture, I trust?" says Mr. Redwater."He said you were looking for a governor.""Governor is a bit... well, but why not? Governor it is. You'll be the governor of a town, Mr. Flintlock. A town which I have a vested interest in seeing succeed."Your heart begins to race. Which one of Mr. Redwater's railroad towns will it be? The bigger ones will launch you into immediate prominence, and it is that which you prefer, to prove yourself worthy in the ring. You nod, waiting for Mr. Redwater to continue."The place is called Coyote's Crossing," says Mr. Redwater. He turns over his empty glass, then trails a path with his finger on the table, stopping somewhere halfway to the rim of the glass. "My railroad is here, you see, and the plan is to extend it... well, never mind that, the point is, I want Crossing to be a stop along this path. The problem is, it's in terrible shape. I need someone to go in, and, well, civilize the place. Now, I have two other towns," (he traces two circles on the table near the glass), "which are equal candidates for this honor. When the railroad gets near enough, I'll have them direct toward the most prosperous of the three. You understand the game? Of course, you Mr. Flintlock."You nod, but your stomach is churning. You've heard of Coyote's Crossing, and it's not a place you'd want to be caught dead in. It's a lawless, godforsaken hole, where brigands, whores, and indians come to roost, not a place for any self-respecting citizen. But you can't let Mr. Redwater see your doubt. "I understand, sir.""The winner of this little game would win my eternal gratitude, whatever its worth, and promise of future work of a more ambitious nature.">Agree to the terms. It's not what you expected but chance to work for Mr. Redwater is too good to pass up.>No deal. If you're going to do this, you'll do it for full ownership of the town as your reward. Nothing less.>Counter-offer. You'll buy the town outright with a loan from Mr. Redwater, with your life savings as down payment.>Write-in
>>5949410>Agree to the terms. It's not what you expected but chance to work for Mr. Redwater is too good to pass up.
>>5949410>>Agree to the terms. It's not what you expected but chance to work for Mr. Redwater is too good to pass up.
.... and dead
>>5954090Sad. It was off to a very promising start.
>>5949410>Counter-offer. You'll buy the town outright with a loan from Mr. Redwater, with your life savings as down payment.
