Verb FlowControl Flags

(Hijacking, Bifuraction, FateIntervenes, and InactionPermitted)

 

It is at last time for me to reconcile this four flags, each of which in some way controls the flow of reaction to a verb.

 

I shall begin with FateIntervenes. This flag can go away, as there now really is a Fate that can have its own role. The original purpose of this flag was to take a menu option away from the player and force a reaction on him, but this entire function is better handled by Fate. So, goodbye to FateIntervenes.

 

The next easiest is InactionPermitted, which applies only to the player, and affects only the menu options. It stays.

 

The Hijack flag must remain in its present form, as a means of preventing subsequent characters from entering a volitional reaction. But there is a problem with physical reactions: if an atom is hijacked, does this prevent physical reactions? It would seem so. Perhaps we need another variation on the EmotionalReactions procedure that permits physical but not volitional reactions.

 

Unfortunately, we can't have the Hijacked flag handled by the storybuilder, as it can only be set by the engine when the engine has determined that a character will in fact take action. Thus, the storybuilder can only declare whether the verb is hijackable. I suppose that this flag must be assigned to the verb and applied to all reactions to it. Currently, I assign the Bifurcation flag to the role; this will have to go away. Besides, I don't do anything with the Bifurcation flag.

 

So here's the results: FateIntervenes goes. InactionPermitted stays, and remains part of the role definition. Hijacked remains intact and where it is. Bifurcation goes away and is replaced by a new flag, Hijackable, that is part of the verb definition, not the role definition. And we'll fix the engine so that hijacking prevents only volitional reactions.