Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Ma Boyong is a prolific and popular fiction writer, essayist, lecturer, Internet commentator, and blogger. His work crosses the boundaries of alternative history, historical fiction, wuxia (martial arts fantasy), fabulism, and more “core” elements of science fiction and fantasy.

Incisive, funny, and erudite, Ma’s works are deeply allusive, featuring surprising and entertaining juxtapositions of traditional elements from Chinese culture and history against contemporary references. The ease with which Ma marshals his encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese history and traditions also makes it a challenge to translate his most interesting works. For example, he has written a thriller set in Tang Dynasty Chang’an that employs the pacing and tropes of a modern American TV show like 24, as well as two wuxia novellas featuring Joan of Arc, in which the tropes and expectations of wuxia are mapped to Medieval Europe. These stories are extremely entertaining for the reader with the right cultural context and shed new light on the genres and sources Ma plays with, but would be nigh-impenetrable for a reader in translation without extensive footnotes.

“The First Emperor’s Games” starts off with the absurd premise that Qin Shihuang, China’s First Emperor, was an avid computer gamer. Once that premise is swallowed, the mapping of Classical Chinese philosophy onto modern video games is wondrous. However, much of the humor of the story depends on knowledge of Chinese Internet culture and ancient Chinese history, so liberal use of Wikipedia may be necessary for some readers.

More of Ma Boyong’s work may be found in Invisible Planets.

THE FIRST EMPEROR’S GAMES

From his magnificent throne in the capital, the First Emperor, Qin Shihuang, issued a new edict: “Now that China has been united, I want to play some games!”

The emperor deserved a break. After conquering the other six states, the Qin Empire had successfully carried out multiple complicated reforms: getting everyone to write in the same script, regrading all roads to be the same width, standardizing units of measurement, and promulgating an all-encompassing encoding for all computer text that subsumed the incompatible encodings used by the former warring states. With this Uni-Code in place, citizens of the Qin Empire could confidently launch any program without worrying about conversion plug-ins or screens filled with random glyphs. Moreover, he had constructed a Great Firewall up north, which shielded the empire from all barbarian attacks as well as pop-up ads.

These tasks had taken up decades of the emperor’s youth. With the world at peace, he needed to take a long, relaxing vacation and play some games, just like any ordinary citizen.

The news that the emperor was in search of quality games soon spread throughout the land and became the talk of every teahouse and tavern. Most greeted the news with joy because a good gamer made a good administrator. It was said that Zhang Yi, the great Qin strategist who had furthered the emperor’s ambition by sowing discord and suspicion among the other six states, thereby dissolving their anti-Qin “vertical alliance,” had adapted his line-breaking strategy from Candy Crush—swipe, match, gone! Back when Zhang had been a student, he had devoted all his free time to playing games instead of studying. Yet, look how far he had risen! Obviously, playing games taught important management skills.

However, a few nobles expressed reservations. They thought of games as addictive, cheap entertainment suitable only for plebeians. A great leader like the emperor should stay as far away from them as possible. Their suggestion for curing the emperor of this “electronic opium addiction” was electroshock therapy. The emperor soon declared the nobles guilty of attempted treason and sentenced them to capital punishment.

But the news generated the most excitement among the contending philosophers and scholars of the Hundred Schools of Thought. These wonks, obsessed with putting their ideas for better government into practice, understood the weighty implications right away. As the head of such an extensive empire, the emperor’s choice of games would inevitably affect his governing philosophy, and that meant a great opportunity for the scholars to persuade the policymaker under the guise of entertainment. Should the emperor become enamored by a philosopher’s game, it was likely that the emperor would push for policies evolving society in the direction of the philosopher’s sagacious ideas.

Soon, the capital was filled with representatives from philosophy start-ups and development think tanks. They lined up before the palace with demos of their best games, hoping to impress the emperor.

The first to make a presentation was the Legalist school of thought. To be sure, the Legalists had an unfair advantage because their leader, Li Si, was also Chancellor of the Qin Empire. The day after the emperor issued his edict, Chancellor Li approached the throne, a DVD in hand.

(This is, after all, a story from the ancient days, before solid state drives and fast broadband. Appreciate your good fortune as you marvel at how much trouble the ancients had to go through for a game.)

“My dear minister! What have you brought me?” The emperor was dressed in a loose-fitting, colorful shirt, already looking like a relaxed vacationer.

“It’s called Civilization.”

Li Si handed over the DVD—the demo was made in such a hurry that the title of the game had to be written on the back with a permanent marker (albeit in the chancellor’s beautiful seal script). A servant took the disc and slid it into a computer whose case was decorated with golden dragons, and gently pressed the “close” button. As the computer hummed, another servant took the opportunity to place an incense brazier next to the cooling fan, and sweet fragrance soon filled the whole great hall.

A third servant carefully wielded the mouse to begin the installation process. The whole hall waited impatiently as the computer fan sped up and hummed louder.

Five minutes later, the installation was complete. A fourth servant placed a mouse and a keyboard—wireless, nothing but the best in the palace—in a sandalwood tray and brought them to the emperor. A fifth servant knelt before the emperor—his robe was made of the same material as mousepads—and presented his broad, flat back to the throne.

Li Si spoke solemnly: “This game contains the essence of Legalism. The player must assume the role of a great leader and rule with ruthless precision. One must keep the big picture in mind without neglecting micromanagement. The emperor’s will is also the fate of all NPCs.”

“Sounds great!” The emperor picked up the mouse. Naturally, he picked himself as the leader to play on the opening screen.

At first, he did well. From a single city, he expanded to dominate the region. He even successfully won the race for the Pyramids as well as a few other wonders. The Great Wall, as a wonder, was rather useless, but Qin Shihuang rushed to build it anyway.

After that, he went to war. The “Chinese Civilization,” under the leadership of Qin Shihuang, was extremely aggressive. The emperor could not stomach the sight of any city on the map not under his rule. Starting from the Stone Age, he invested most of his resources in military units and was constantly at war. He was having a great time as the game reminded him of his own years of conquest.

But soon, he found the game less than enjoyable. The result of being so aggressive in the early game was that every other civilization viewed him as the enemy. He had no choice but to devote all his resources to military units and buildings. Cities rioted all over the map, protesting high taxes, lack of space, and the constant wars. The fire of rebellion swept the empire.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Li Si broke in. He coughed and tried to make his voice as soothing as possible. “It would be helpful to pay attention to the happiness levels of the citizens in the cities. A few city improvements to promote entertainment may be necessary. Remember, micromanagement. Micro.”

Qin Shihuang brushed this advice aside. He was the emperor! How could he possibly be expected to lower himself to worry about the happiness of some plebeians in a game?

“They are supposed to entertain me, not the other way around.” The emperor adjusted the entertainment expenditure slider all the way to zero, and then sacrificed a citizen to rush a catapult. “The people in the game are also my subjects. They should be glad to be sacrificed for the good of the empire!”

Predictably, this kind of policy did not improve his position. Soon, plagued by invasion and rebellion, his empire collapsed. Angrily, he terminated the game, clicking the mouse so forcefully that the mousepad servant trembled.

Luckily, Li Si had had the foresight to eliminate the feature of the game that evaluated the player’s performance against historical world leaders. Otherwise, it was likely that the emperor would have terminated more than the game.

Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, Chancellor Li backed away from the emperor. He had thought the emperor might choose the Emperor difficulty setting; instead, the emperor had picked Deity without hesitation. Well, that was a glimpse into Qin Shihuang’s character.

The next presentation came from Kong Fu, the ninth-generation descendant of Confucius himself and the leader of the Confucians. The game he demoed was called The Sims.

“This game has its origins in the ancient Zhou Dynasty, and we’re the only ones to revive it,” said Kong Fu proudly. The fact that the Confucians had inherited the uncorrupted source code of the Zhou Dynasty was something the entire school took enormous pride in, including the great sage Confucius himself.

“How do I play this?” asked the emperor. He had no interest in history, but he was rather curious about the game.

“Your Imperial Majesty, first, you must create a character, and then guide him through a simulated world. There, he must follow the rituals and enact the rites of Confucianism to give his life meaning. For example, you must visit your neighbors often to increase their friendliness toward you. As the Great Sage himself said, ‘Broaden the respect you have for your own aged parents to the parents of others; expand the love you have for your own children to the children of others.’ The heart of this game is the strengthening of social ties….”

The lecture bored the emperor. If he weren’t on vacation, he would have long ago called for soldiers to drag this pedant out. But he was supposed to be having fun, so he forced himself to endure the long tutorial. Finally, Kong Fu relinquished the mouse.

The emperor wanted to dig a swimming pool, but the game informed him that he didn’t have the necessary funds.

“What a joke,” the emperor muttered. “I possess the whole empire. Are you telling me I can’t afford to dig a hole in the ground?”

“As the emperor, you are the role model for all your subjects,” said Kong Fu. “Living a simple and frugal life is the right path. Spending so much on luxuries will lead to bankruptcy.”

“Why aren’t my neighbors coming to my house to honor me?” demanded the emperor.

“You have to visit them often and shower them with gifts to gradually bring up the level of your relationship. Only then will they come visit you. The game teaches us the importance of kindness and mutual respect, as the Great Sage—”

“Ridiculous!”

The emperor could barely contain his rage. He was the emperor, and everyone else was his subject. Who ever heard of the mighty emperor having to bribe some barbaric tribe with gifts so they’d come to pay their respects? What an insult!

The game was most definitely treasonous.

During the next month, the Qin Empire struck hard at the sale and manufacture of treasonous Confucian games. Thousands of illegal DVDs were confiscated from across the land, and more than four hundred game dealers were arrested. Under the emperor’s direction, soldiers dug a giant pit in the ground—not unlike a swimming pool—and the DVDs and game dealers were tossed into the pit and lit on fire.

The third presenter was the leader of the Mohists. Right away, he said to the emperor, “We Mohists are pacifists. We don’t advocate war and aggression. Thus, we brought a tower defense game. All you have to do is defend, defend, and defend some more.”

The computer screen showed a group of zombies on one side and some plants on the other.

“What are these zombies doing here?” asked the emperor.

“They’re the enemies of the empire.”

“What about these weeds and flowers?”

“They’re the empire’s most loyal guardians.”

Surprisingly, the emperor had a lot of fun—he loved the sight of the corpses of his enemies strewn across the lawn. He did find it rather annoying that he had to wait passively for waves of zombies to approach, instead of actively dispatching a punitive expeditionary garden into the zombie homeland.

“That is correct, Your Imperial Majesty. We don’t need to attack at all. When the enemy realizes that it’s impossible to conquer us, they will stop, and war will end.”

The Mohist was pleased with his progress. It appeared that the emperor was close to being persuaded.

Qin Shihuang nodded at this explanation, but his gaze was glued to the screen as his finger clicked the mouse feverishly. The Cob Cannons and Gatling Peas demonstrated their fierce firepower as zombie after zombie turned to dust.

Five hours later, the emperor’s eyes were bloodshot and his face twitched. Several different servants had to take turns performing mousepad duty.

But the zombies showed no signs of relenting. For just one moment, the emperor’s concentration lapsed, and a small zombie rushed over and ate a few Winter Melons. The defenses of the empire collapsed.

“Fraud! You’re a fraud!” The emperor tossed away the mouse and rubbed his sore wrist. “You told me that a perfect defense will stop the enemy. But I have already gone through six hundred waves of attacks! Why are they still coming?”

“That… that is because you chose infinity mode.”

“I think you Mohists are a bunch of naive fools who know nothing about the bloody reality of the world.”

The emperor summoned his guards to chase the Mohist away—but he did remember to go to the garden and water all the plants.

As the days passed by, school after school came to present their best games to the emperor. The School of the Military brought Call of Duty; the Agriculturalists brought Harvest Moon; the School of Names (also known as the Logicians) brought Ace Attorney; and the School of Yin-yang came up with something called The Legend of Sword and Fairy. But all the games failed after a single test-play by the emperor. Nobody could figure out what the august sovereign would enjoy.

Meanwhile, something else happened that seized everyone’s attention. Because he couldn’t find a game that truly pleased him, the emperor decided to take his carriage and go on a sightseeing tour. When his procession passed through a place called Bolangsha, a giant iron hammer fell out of the sky and crushed a decoy carriage. The emperor, enraged, vowed to find the assassin and punish him severely.

At first, the investigation went nowhere. It was only after the emperor had executed three chief investigators that the fourth official assigned to the task managed to discover some clues. Based on the trajectory of the hammer, the impact crater, and the scatter pattern of the debris from the decoy carriage, he deduced that the assassin had to be a skilled player of Angry Birds.

Not that many people could afford a phone capable of playing this game—remember this was a long time ago—and the narrowed list of suspects soon led the investigation to a young man named Zhang Liang. However, Zhang managed to prove his innocence against the prosecution. As a native of Han State before the unification, he claimed that he was thus by association a person from Hanguk, or Korean. And as all gamers knew, Korean players dominated StarCraft, a feat impossible without lots of dedicated practice. Thus, he couldn’t possibly have spared any time to waste on Angry Birds. The logic was really unassailable, when you thought about it.

Just when the whole empire was stunned by this courtroom turnabout, a Westerner named Xu Fu came to save the day.

Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Xu Fu came to see the emperor in a crisp new suit and well-polished shoes, looking like an iconic member of the global elite.

“What game have you brought me?” asked the emperor. He saw that Xu Fu was carrying a tiny thumb drive.

“Something that you have never, ever, ever, ever seen. It’s absolutely amazing.”

Xu Fu stuck the thumb drive into the emperor’s computer, opened a PowerPoint slide deck, and gave a polished presentation.

“But these are just slides,” said the emperor. “Where’s the game?”

“Your Imperial Majesty, a state focused solely on immediate, tangible benefits will not flourish for long. We must look far beyond the horizon and invest in the future to ensure lasting prosperity.”

“What are you getting at?”

“The game I’m presenting to you is a peerless work of genius. However, it’s still under development on the vapor-shrouded island of Penglai. Now, if Your Imperial Majesty would be willing to invest a small amount of venture capital to kickstart the process, I guarantee that within a year we’ll have a beta version, and in three years we’ll be on the market. As I’ve shown in the PowerPoint, this is an incredible opportunity: low risk and high reward.”

“But…” The emperor hesitated. Xu Fu’s speech was tempting, but it felt wrong to hand over money without getting a game back. Everyone else had shown up with finished products.

“Indecision is not a trait great leaders should cultivate,” intoned Xu Fu. “An opportunity like this may be gone the very next moment.”

Qin Shihuang was finally convinced. He prepared a fleet to sail for Penglai Island, laden with treasures that represented his investment in the game. Xu Fu promised that he would return in one to three years with the best game in the universe for the emperor.

“I await your good news!” the emperor called from the wharf.

Xu Fu showed his gleaming teeth and waved vigorously from his ship. “No problem! You can trust me!”

As the ships disappeared below the horizon, the emperor suddenly realized that Xu Fu had never told him the name of the game. He turned to his trusted advisor Zhao Gao. “Did Mr. Xu ever mention to you the name of this vapor-shrouded game?”

Zhao Gao said, “No. But… I did steal a look at his laptop.”

“So what is the name? Tell me!”

“Let me see… Ah, I have it. It’s called The Real Duke Nukem Forever.”

“What a great name!” said the emperor, sighing as his mind filled with glorious visions. “I can’t wait to play it.”