Sapphire Lung
released on Jun 04, 2019
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In 1906 The American Muckraker and Socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a fictional story about an immigrant worker in the meat packing industry based upon Sinclair's own investigative work on the conditions of said industries in Chicago.
The work was intended as a broader endorsement of Socialism but the public took this aspect much less than the described conditions of the state of their food manufacturing process. Famously, Sinclair said "I aimed for the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Indeed though Theodore Roosevelt disliked Sinclair, he commissioned an investigation into the practices of the Meat industry which resulted in the 1906 Federal Meat Inpection Act. Sinclair himself was of the opinion that the Act didnt go far enough, and passed the cost of Inspections on to the tax payers, instead of making those same factory owners pay for it. Indeed 100+ years later whilst our meat is produced with more oversight, the broad dynamics of poor working conditions, skirting of regulations and making the government pay for the excesses of capitalism remain depressingly similar to Sinclair's time.
Sapphire Lung is an interactive fiction piece about a made up illness known as Sapphire Lung. The player character is a Union Doctor, a concession obtained from the mining firm to make sure the workers get regular inspections for health issues from the toxic fumes they are exposed to on a regular basis. Its quite short, 10 minutes or so maybe depending on reading speed maybe longer or shorter. It quite succintly establishes both the value of organized labour in offering some protection from the horrible working conditions imposed by the nature of the work and the desire to pay as little as possible by the owner class, but also makes it clear that its nowhere near enough, as well as very lightly mentioning worker infighting and the ease with which Business can use their power to leverage worker desperation to make its problems go away (the manager attempts to bribe the MC to not report anything unfavourable, if there are health issues detected the plant doesnt get a bonus etc etc).
The prose is fairly competent and the fictional disease is an interesting idea if somewhat underdeveloped, maybe it could have used being a longer story with a richer lore but it works fine for what it is. I guess what I'm saying is you should read The Jungle and Sapphire Lung
The work was intended as a broader endorsement of Socialism but the public took this aspect much less than the described conditions of the state of their food manufacturing process. Famously, Sinclair said "I aimed for the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Indeed though Theodore Roosevelt disliked Sinclair, he commissioned an investigation into the practices of the Meat industry which resulted in the 1906 Federal Meat Inpection Act. Sinclair himself was of the opinion that the Act didnt go far enough, and passed the cost of Inspections on to the tax payers, instead of making those same factory owners pay for it. Indeed 100+ years later whilst our meat is produced with more oversight, the broad dynamics of poor working conditions, skirting of regulations and making the government pay for the excesses of capitalism remain depressingly similar to Sinclair's time.
Sapphire Lung is an interactive fiction piece about a made up illness known as Sapphire Lung. The player character is a Union Doctor, a concession obtained from the mining firm to make sure the workers get regular inspections for health issues from the toxic fumes they are exposed to on a regular basis. Its quite short, 10 minutes or so maybe depending on reading speed maybe longer or shorter. It quite succintly establishes both the value of organized labour in offering some protection from the horrible working conditions imposed by the nature of the work and the desire to pay as little as possible by the owner class, but also makes it clear that its nowhere near enough, as well as very lightly mentioning worker infighting and the ease with which Business can use their power to leverage worker desperation to make its problems go away (the manager attempts to bribe the MC to not report anything unfavourable, if there are health issues detected the plant doesnt get a bonus etc etc).
The prose is fairly competent and the fictional disease is an interesting idea if somewhat underdeveloped, maybe it could have used being a longer story with a richer lore but it works fine for what it is. I guess what I'm saying is you should read The Jungle and Sapphire Lung