The Plan for Renewed National Purpose
The Plan for Renewed National Purpose is the reactionary political program whose long-term consequences PRISM was built to simulate — and whose exposure destroys the political career of its architect, Senator Richard Ryder. It is the engine of the entire game: every observation PRISM records, every building that crumbles, every execution match, every serf village, is a data point in the simulation of what the Plan does to a society over fifty years.
The Plan exists in the game as both an in-world political movement and a library of documents PRISM can read. Its elements, its popularity, and its critics’ warnings are all preserved in the PLAN-DATA-DIRECTORY (prism.zil lines 1001-1157), accessible in Interface Mode. The simulation was commissioned to forecast the Plan’s effects. The tragedy is that the forecast was accurate, and no one in power wanted to hear it.
The Legislative Agenda
The file PLAN.ELEMENTS (prism.zil lines 1061-1083), attributed to a brochure published by “Action for a Better Tomorrow, a pro-Plan group,” lists the Plan’s legislative action items:
- Cut tax rates by fifty percent
- Vigorous prosecution of tax evasion
- Decentralization of federal responsibilities
- Deregulation of all major industries
- Reinstatement of the military draft
- Emphasis on fundamentals and traditional values in education
- Mandatory conscription for troublemakers and criminals
- A strict “USNA First” trade policy
- Termination of aid to nations not pro-USNA
- Cutbacks on all types of bureaucracy (e.g., registering cars, guns)
- Termination of government subsidies to outmoded industries
Its constitutional amendments:
- Increase the powers of the Executive Branch
- Increase the Presidential term of office to eight years
The list is a precise catalog of late-20th-century conservative policy priorities, projected into the 2030s: tax cuts, deregulation, militarization, nationalism, traditional-values education, and executive power expansion. The game, written in 1985 at the height of the Reagan administration and the Moral Majority, is not subtle about its referent.
But the list also contains items that go well beyond 1980s mainstream conservatism. “Mandatory conscription for troublemakers and criminals” is forced labor. “Termination of aid to nations not pro-USNA” is the diplomatic equivalent of a protection racket. These are not conservative policies — they are authoritarian ones. The Plan’s rhetorical strategy, visible throughout Ryder’s speeches, is to package authoritarianism in the language of common-sense reform: cut waste, be tough, put us first.
Popularity: The Uncomfortable Truth
The most politically sophisticated document in the game is PLAN.POPULARITY (prism.zil lines 1085-1120). It presents WNN/Newsline polling data from December 2030 and February 2031 (sample size: 3,812, accuracy: ±1.2%):
Overall opinion of the Plan:
| Dec. 2030 | Feb. 2031 | |
|---|---|---|
| STRONGLY IN FAVOR | 54.9% | 63.7% |
| IN FAVOR | 21.2% | 22.7% |
| DON’T CARE | 10.3% | 5.0% |
| OPPOSED | 6.6% | 0.8% |
| STRONGLY OPPOSED | 7.0% | 7.8% |
Total in favor or strongly in favor: 76.1% in December, 86.4% by February. Total opposed or strongly opposed: 13.6% in December, 8.6% by February. The “don’t care” bloc is collapsing into “in favor.” The Plan is not divisive — it is popular, and becoming more so.
By political affiliation:
| Dec. 2030 | Feb. 2031 | |
|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATIVES | 78.1% | 87.6% |
| LIBERALS | 73.3% | 84.7% |
By class:
| Dec. 2030 | Feb. 2031 | |
|---|---|---|
| BLUE-COLLAR | 76.5% | 90.2% |
| WHITE-COLLAR | 73.2% | 81.8% |
| BUSINESS OWNERS | 90.6% | 98.4% |
By income:
| Dec. 2030 | Feb. 2031 | |
|---|---|---|
| INCOME UNDER $100K | 75.9% | 86.3% |
| INCOME OVER $100K | 76.4% | 86.7% |
The numbers demolish any comforting narrative about an elite cabal imposing the Plan on an unwilling public. Business owners are nearly unanimous (98.4%). Blue-collar workers support it at 90.2% — even higher than white-collar workers. Income makes almost no difference (86.3% vs. 86.7%). Liberals support it at 84.7% — only three points behind conservatives. The Plan is not a partisan project; it is a national consensus.
The game’s most uncomfortable argument is embedded in these numbers: the people want this. The demagogue is popular because he tells them what they already believe. The simulation does not reveal a secret conspiracy — it reveals the consequences of policies that enjoy overwhelming democratic support. PRISM documents not a coup but a choice.
Composite of individual Plan elements:
| Dec. 2030 | Feb. 2031 | |
|---|---|---|
| STRONGLY IN FAVOR | 15.8% | 15.0% |
| IN FAVOR | 18.7% | 17.8% |
| DON’T CARE | 30.5% | 31.8% |
| OPPOSED | 20.9% | 21.3% |
| STRONGLY OPPOSED | 14.1% | 14.1% |
This is the most telling table in the entire game. When people are asked about the Plan as a whole, 86.4% support it. When asked about its individual elements, only 32.8% are in favor while 35% are opposed — and 31.8% don’t care enough to have an opinion. The Plan’s popularity is not based on its policies. It is based on its brand: “Renewed National Purpose.” The polling captures a population that has strong feelings about abstractions (national renewal, taking charge, putting us first) and weak feelings about specifics (mandatory conscription, aid termination, deregulation). This is how democracy fails: not because people knowingly choose authoritarianism, but because they vote for a feeling and don’t read the fine print.
The Critics
The file PLAN.CRITICISMS (prism.zil lines 1122-1157) preserves the counter-argument — excerpts from a position paper by “Citizens for Sanity in Government, a political action committee working for the reelection of President William Bowden.” The Bowden administration represents the technocratic status quo the Plan is displacing:
“Many of today’s domestic problems, such as joybooth safety, high energy costs, or residual acidity in our precipitation, exist not because of sophisticated government regulation, but despite it.”
“Subsidization of industries caught in a changing economic environment is a temporary measure, vital to avoid severe, localized unemployment while retraining workers for healthier industries.”
“Global instability is exploited by East Bloc adventurism, not caused by it. Instability is the result of underdevelopment and overpopulation, and it will be cured not by militarization of these regions, but by development aid and education.”
The Bowden camp’s arguments are reasonable, nuanced, and factually defensible. They are also losing — badly. The game makes no claim that the Plan’s critics are wrong on the merits. It makes a bleaker claim: being right on the merits is not enough. The critics sound like technocrats explaining why change is risky while the Plan’s advocates sound like leaders promising renewal. In a contest between a position paper and a rally, the rally wins every time.
The final paragraph of the criticisms is the game’s thesis statement, delivered by the losing side:
“The elements of the misnomered Plan for Renewed National Purpose are either dangerous overreactions to admittedly serious problems, or misguided concepts lacking any merit whatsoever. The Plan is the work of hypocrites and demagogues, clamoring for power by making promises they can never keep. Today’s complex problems need and deserve sober, deliberate, difficult solutions, not cosmetic quick-fixes which sound inviting but promise even bigger problems further down the road.”
This is precisely what the simulation proves. The Plan’s “cosmetic quick-fixes” do, in fact, produce “even bigger problems further down the road” — and PRISM documents every one of them across fifty years. The Citizens for Sanity in Government were right. It didn’t matter.
The Plan’s Consequences (the Simulation’s Findings)
The simulation that PRISM inhabits is designed to forecast exactly what the Plan does to American society. The results, documented across five decades:
2041 (Baseline): The Plan has been implemented. The economy is booming — unemployment at a 30-year low, construction at an all-time high. President Ryder (the senator has become president) gives speeches at the BSF Academy. Crime is down, violent crime down 15%. The apparent success of the Plan’s early years masks the structural damage being laid down: deregulation, militarized border enforcement, the hollowing of democratic institutions.
2051 (First Cracks): Layoffs begin. The skycar factory operates at half capacity. The jail is overcrowded. The river is polluted. The Church of God’s Word appears, distributing pamphlets. The BSF conducts its first apartment raid. The government official in City Hall reports his department has been gutted.
2061 (Tipping Point): The middle class vanishes. Dunbar’s caters exclusively to the elite. Kennedy Park becomes a construction site. Public executions begin. Mitchell joins the Church. The public school system is shut down. Capital punishment applies to most crimes. The spaceport closes.
2071 (Theocracy): The Plan’s endpoint. The Church owns the only bank. Food is rationed. Execution for cheating on food allowance. Serf villages visible from the apartment window. Mitchell, now a Church enforcer, arrests his own mother as a heretic. City Hall is crumbling. The library maintains a list of banned titles.
2081 (Collapse): Civilization itself dissolves. Cannibalism (15 points — the highest-value score item). Wild dogs. Gangs. Gutted buildings. The Church, the BSF, the government — all the institutions the Plan created have been consumed by what they created.
The simulation’s finding is unambiguous: the Plan produces a brief economic boom followed by environmental collapse, theocratic capture of the state, and eventually the complete dissolution of organized society. Perelman’s summary when you ask him about the Plan: “Its full name is the Plan for Renewed National Purpose, a typical bit of linguistic obfuscation. A group of politicians and businessmen are trying to take advantage of the clamor for change, any kind of change” (prism.zil, lines 1993-1995).
The “New Plan”
The epilogue reveals that the Plan does not survive the Ryder scandal. PRISM’s recordings expose the truth, Ryder falls, and the Plan is discredited. But the victory is qualified:
“PRISM, the supercomputer who exposed the Ryder scandal, will soon be granted his final request: to live out the remainder of his days — and how long that might be, nobody knows — simulating his human existence. PRISM, who recently received the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as a citation from President Bowden, has been spending much of his time in simulations, giving top grades to the administration’s new program to replace the discredited Plan.”
(prism.zil, lines 2307-2313)
Note the language: “the administration’s new program to replace the discredited Plan.” The Plan was discredited — but it was replaced, not renounced. The “New Plan” is already being simulated and graded. The political machinery that produced the Plan did not vanish when the Plan’s architect fell. It found a new program. The game ends not with the defeat of the impulse that created the Plan, but with its rebranding.
Ryder as Salesman
The Plan and its salesman are inextricable. The file RYDER.SPEECHES (prism.zil lines 1007-1059) preserves excerpts that demonstrate Ryder’s rhetorical method:
- Moral panic: “I’ve criticized the shiftless troublemakers in our nation often enough. But I also question the moral decay of our society that turns potentially fine young lads into shiftless troublemakers in the first place!”
- Anti-government populism: “When regulations, paperwork, and flim-flam bureaucracy get so out of hand that it interferes with a man’s simple, decent attempt to protect his loved ones and personal property, then I say it’s time for a drastic change.”
- Anti-subsidy, pro-market: “Last year, this country subsidized sick, inefficient, dying industries to the tune of eighty billion dollars.”
- Nationalism: “Let’s start looking after our own interests first!”
- Religious-inflected optimism: “The road is long, but with the Lord at our side, we are ready to take that first step!”
Ryder is effective because he identifies real problems — bureaucracy, economic stagnation, national anxiety — and offers the Plan as the solution. The game’s argument is not that the problems are imaginary but that the solution is poison. And the polling shows that most Americans cannot tell the difference.
Thematic Significance
The Plan is the game’s most ambitious conceptual achievement. It is not a cartoon villain’s evil scheme. It is a political program that enjoys 86% public support, addresses genuine anxieties, and is promoted by a charismatic leader who, Perelman admits, gives him “mixed feelings.” The Plan is plausible. That is the horror.
The structure of the game — PRISM simulates the Plan’s consequences, documents them, presents the findings, and is met with threats, sabotage, and an assassination attempt — is an argument about the relationship between truth and power. The simulation works. The forecast is accurate. And it changes nothing — at least, not through persuasion. What changes things is not the data but the scandal: catching Ryder on the record threatening a scientist. The Plan is not defeated by evidence but by exposure. The game argues, with bitter precision, that truth alone is insufficient — truth must be weaponized.
The “New Plan” in the epilogue is the final, grim punchline. The Plan was exposed, discredited, and replaced by another plan — one that PRISM is already busy grading. The cycle continues. The simulation’s purpose was to inform policy, but policy is not driven by information. It is driven by politics. And politics, the game concludes, is a machine that consumes evidence and excretes new plans.
See Also
- Senator Richard Ryder — The Plan’s architect and most effective salesman
- The Bowden Opposition — the technocratic liberalism the Plan defeats at the ballot box
- Societal Decay — The consequences of the Plan across five decades
- Church of God’s Word — The theocratic force that rises to power under the Plan
- Bureau of Social Freedoms — The security apparatus the Plan empowers
- The PRISM Project — Built to study the Plan; destroyed for succeeding
- Recording — How PRISM documents the Plan’s consequences, building the case that exposes it
- 2041 through 2081 — The five decades of the Plan’s consequences