The OSPRE Program: Yumemi Hoshino Plays Oregon Trail (And Others)

[Hoshino Yumemi]

The 85 Day War​

This is a record of one of those things that probably outs me as a racer in spirit.

I've been left with a lot of time while job searching after graduation, and I do a lot of reading every day to not go completely Jack Nicholson stir crazy. One of the things I found online lately was this story: Need For Speed 1848: The Past and the Furious.

If you want the tl;dr version of that, a group of Skype friends decided to play Oregon Trail by essentially starting as the poorest player type, the farmer, then buying nothing but oxen and bullets and like ten pounds of food, and tearing ass to Oregon at a grueling pace.

The trip was a statistical anomaly. They forded every single river in the game with the exception of two times they caulked the wagon, floating across a 400 foot wide river, then across a 1004-foot-wide one without losing or even wetting a single possession, only lost four of their 18 oxen, didn't lose a single man out of a five man crew, and ran the Dalles River blind, which cost three of the four oxen losses. On top of that, the wagon never broke, which was just as well because along with no clothes and "a bag of Oreos," according to the group, they didn't have a single spare part or any cash to afford any with, either. From Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon, they crossed the trail in 85 days, starting July 1 and finishing September 23.

Me? After laughing while reading the story, especially at the chat logs interspersed in as greentext, my mind wandered to figuring out if there's a way to travel the Trail any faster. So begins the tale of OSPRE (pronounce as "Osprey"): the Oregon Special Project Record Expedition.

There must be a way to do this. I don't know all the mechanics of Oregon Trail, but I know that the 84-day record set by "Dingus Cave" happened when Dingus Cave was delayed by fog and thunderstorms, and I don't know if you lose time when you hunt. Plus, they lost time for an ox injury that put them down to 17 oxen and puttered home on the remaining 14. In short, there are a few variables I think might net me victory. I'd need to:

• Never set a pace below Grueling
• Take all the shortest routes when the trail forks
• Have the weather agree with me
• Somehow ensure we never get anything stolen
• Successfully ford and float over everything
• Ensure the wagon never breaks

Impressive list, isn't it? Yeah, it's an insane long shot. Absolutely nothing can be allowed to go wrong, and even when they do, they have to be in ways that are entirely nonthreatening to the pace of the mission. There are going to be some changes, though. I'm just trying to see if it's at all possible to complete Oregon Trail faster, so I'm not going for points. I'm going to assume OSPRE starts with a modest amount of funding: I'm starting as a Carpenter rather than a Farmer, which gives me more money to work with.



As Commander, it's myself, of course, having logged hundreds of hours of flight time in this all through grade school, all with catastrophic failures. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows quite how many ways an expedition like this can go wrong like myself and all those people I knew long ago, and I also know what has to happen for such a mission to go right. However, if OSPRE is to have any chance of succeeding, I can't just trust this to any old crew. OSPRE has collected the best and brightest to see this operation through reaching the highest speeds known to wagon trainology with a crew of pilots:

The mission's Pilot is a Stig freshly opened from one of the vats at a secret location just off the M25 and flown over in cold storage specifically for this mission. I was assured by OSPRE's backers that this is a Stig with all the pre-Clarkson driving data installed, which means he must be bulletproof for this mission.

Our Flight Engineer is Medusa, one of the most decorated of the Rider-Class Servants. Someone with the job of assisting both the commander and the pilot has to be a skilled pilot herself, and Riders can operate damn near anything that moves. Piloting the most powerful ox-driven research vehicle in history has to count if Stig's systems, or my own, let's be honest, glitch up.

As we'll be carrying firearms with us we needed a Manned Spaceflight Engineer. Filling that role is…another pilot, Noel Ekuryua, but I've been assured that her Space Forces training should be enough to get us clearance to carry our own weapons.

Finally, our Mission Specialist in charge of keeping the OSPRE-1, our expeditionary vehicle, running is Whirlwind's Keiichi Morisato, who I've been told with a lot of "uh's," "um's" and shrugging was trained specifically for this mission under three goddesses…who I was told by the record committees could not participate themselves, even though OSPRE landed a Servant for this mission. I argued some on the record committee might have vested interests they're trying to push through their sponsorship of the mission, I got the exact same line back and thrown at me. Reminds me why I much prefer being a pilot to a politician.



We set a launch date of April 1. The working theory is that if we're shooting for a time of 84 days or less, we want to set it so that the oxen only get more well-fed as the mission continues.



With a budget set for us that's twice that of Dingus Cave, we can afford to buy more things aside from having the maximum propulsion power for the mission.

Priorities went in this order: Oxen, Spares, Clothing, Ammo, Food. The oxen are obvious, we need the maximum of 18 oxen, or 9 yokes, to go as fast as possible. The spares we can carry are set to the absolute maximum as we're trying to aim for an overall speed record and unlike Dingus Cave, we have no interest in score or doing it without parts. We're only half a meme strat here. For science.

Ammo (25 boxes of 20 bullets each for a total count of 500 rounds) we can always convert into food by hunting, and we picked the recommended amount of sets of clothing in order to complete our mission with the smallest chance of health issues…which I'm sure will follow us anyway. We have $100 left over to use as we see fit on the mission. I don't see it lasting long for OSPRE-1, but let's hope I'm wrong.



With OSPRE-1 prepared for launch, I upload our flightplan into The Stig and we set off.



That initial plan is full speed ahead, with meager rations rather than bare bones. I can only hope that and the extra clothing keep our health high enough to provide a good cushion compared to the one in a million shot of Dingus Cave. I remember that just about anything can go wrong on this expedition, and that fortunes can easily turn against me for next to no good reason.

On April 1, 1848, OSPRE-1 lifts off on its mission to break the speed record set by Dingus Cave.



"Uhhh, Independence, we have a problem…"

One day after launch, we have an ox injury. That ox appears to still be operational once we check our supplies, so we continue. That was a brief scare, and really this seriously makes me wonder on the difficulties we'll be encountering on this mission.



We reach our first obstacle, which is the Kansas River, which I'd considered fording…until I noticed the depth. 6.1 feet at its deepest depth. I'm not about to risk the lives of my crew unnecessarily by attempting to ford a river this deep. I'll attempt to cross it another way.

I can't afford to wait to see if conditions improve, I need to forge ahead. So, we stuff 18 oxen into OSPRE-1, caulk it up, and hope for the best. And really, it's not even the best from a normal statistical standpoint. The first river crossing is where things usually went wrong in the expeditions that cleared me for deployment as mission commander of OSPRE-1…



To my shock, OSPRE-1 actually makes it across. I employed this screenshot and not the actual message because I figured everyone would like to see if OSPRE-1 actually travels across the river before I have to deliver any less savory news.



With the Kansas River crossing behind OSPRE-1, our pace is identical to Dingus Cave. This is a good sign. I think I'm doing everything right.

My attention is drawn to my crew. Every once in a while I have strange signal interference with The Stig. I think it's throwing off my own navigational data. I'll chalk it up to him having terrain-following radar under the helmet. Someday I'll have to examine the suit and the helmet. You know, for science.



Well, the image at least is of a wagon fording a river, so that's got to mean something. I'll wait until I get the data, though, but otherwise, things are looking alright. We have all 18 oxen, 440 pounds of food remaining from a starting 500, all 500 rounds of our ammunition and all our spares, three each of everything. OSPRE-1's crew is in full health…I…think, it's very hard to tell with whatever the hell lurks under a Stig's suit, and we look ahead to another river crossing.



I find myself possibly forced to float the wagon again. I wonder if this was a problem with setting off in April? The river is deep enough in its deepest points to swallow a man. Fording a wagon in these conditions could be disastrous.

I'm forced to caulk and float a second time and hope for the best. The crew's decided to stack the oxen up in a single tower with Medusa keeping balance at the very top. For science.



For something I routinely say I'm forced to do, this is working out pretty well. I've doubtless got the work of Mission Specialist Morisato to thank for the work we're putting in, plus the work of Manned Spaceflight Engineer Ekuryua and Pilot Medusa in keeping this bucket moving. I could never be as presumptuous as to take any of the credit, I'm just the mission commander and my job is ensuring everything stays on task. The Stig is just…there. He's got the controls.

There are now 118 miles to go to the first of the forts, Fort Kearney. We keep moving.



Day 11 of the expedition, and with the ox's condition looking sort of stable, I'm happy to report nothing is going wrong. However, the weather has gone from cool to cold and our health is starting to flag. With our food sitting at 400, I'd better get hunting to keep our supplies up. And here is where I don't know if this contributes to losing time or not, or if it'll even be profitable if it's cold out. With our food supplies not about to get any bigger, I'll have to make an informed decision and at least start hunting.

There's nothing else I need, so we head out.

I decide to raise the food rations to see if that'll top up health a little and I contemplate the time costs of hunting a little more. With 250 miles to go to the next landmark, Chimney Rock, we set off.



Then fate intervenes. We get caught in a severe blizzard. In April. In Nebraska. I guess there's all sorts of weird shit that happens when you decide to perform an expedition like this. For science.

Our supplies go below 350 pounds of food, and with that I decide it's time to start hunting.



As I'm not operating a desktop or a keyboard with its own number pad, I don't use the expert hunting controls. Which means I'm basically driving a fucking tank. It's probably worth seeing if the arrow keys mean I can quickly rotate 90 degrees to catch targets.

At this point, my screenshots failed me because I was too busy trying to steer myself around, getting hung up on every rock, tree and slight obstacle as I got a grand total of two pounds of meat from a single rabbit while I steered around and cursed internally.

We continue moving, with the brave mission commander thoroughly humiliated.

It's another day of travel and I decide to take another bite at the apple. The crew needs this with the rations nearing half capacity.



Now, because I calmed down a little and had an area I could simply stop in and then pivot to hit things, I got this result: a frankly ridiculous 975 pounds of meat. Then I remember the kicker – because I guess I'm the only one who left while OSPRE-1 somehow just continued without me I could only carry back 100 pounds of the stuff myself. The OSPRE committee always told me they couldn't afford any extra measures like a recovery system because apparently such things didn't exist in 1848. I told them "then why don't we just drag a bigass net or have the entire mission crew come out to pick up this stuff?" I got back an hour of reading from the committee's various regulations and wanted to throw the Conestoga engineer that whined at me about tensile strength and metric versus Imperial down an up escalator.

I haven't got a single clue if my pace is off or not, but it seems to me that if I don't have all that many delays I should be okay. That said, it seems like Dingus Cave's run was fairly exceptional to only have a bunch of bad things happen about halfway through the trip. In any case, with our food back up to 382 pounds from only 9 bullets, we should be good for a short stint of time. Warm weather means hunting should be good for the entire duration of the mission…if it only lasts that long.



See, I can pace myself by looking at the map and where I am. We're en route to Chimney Rock, which means we're less than a quarter of the way there with 11 days to go in the month of April. If we're going to be on schedule, at least by the end of the month we need to be departing Fort Laramie on the way to Independence Rock.

Initial signs seem good. It looks like we don't actually lose time whenever I hunt, but we can stop to rest, so I can only assume what we're doing is drive-bying the local wildlife like it's Super Amazing Wagon Adventure or something.



Day 22 of the expedition and we find ourselves at Chimney Rock. I think back to my first missions before OSPRE, in grade school. Those were doomed expeditions; it wasn't uncommon to see at least one crew member die from one of the first rivers, and that was as a fully kitted-out Banker, with twice the funding that it took to outfit OSPRE-1. We may have been in a Catholic scchool, but we had the Devil's luck.

I try trading. Someone wants to give me one set of clothing for a whopping 218 bullets, which isn't happening because I'm burning through food rations. Every hunt needs to come back in the double digits to stay solvent.

With that, we head off. Fort Laramie beckons next, an 86-mile sprint which we should be able to dust off in two days.



Another hunting expedition and…well. It turns out as ridiculously as one might expect. I suppose this Yumemi is either a Grammaton Cleric or has the guns from Wanted, because evidently flailing around and wildly shooting my gun is enough to get me more than half a ton of food in one barrage. What you don't see is a fifth huge animal, a buffalo that wandered in and bounced back and forth before finally wandering away. That's 1089 pounds of food I scored, only 100 of which I can bring back.



A gravesite with a cryptic message. It's kind of scary…are crews that failed to complete this expedition taunting those that make attempts? I can sense unease written on the faces of the OSPRE-1 crew…by which I mean myself and Keiichi, because Noel is stone-faced, The Stig is fully-helmeted and Medusa is…you know. Blindfolded.

But you know, I feel the responsibility bearing down on me. All I can do is react and give orders. The pilots, the Mission Specialists, they're the real stars. I just tell them when to work their magic, and if anyone thinks that's worth praise, then that's no skin off my back.

Day 26 of OSPRE-1's mission comes to a close.

 

[Hoshino Yumemi]

As I begin sending a fresh new packet of data to Independence, I take stock of the situation. I'm at Fort Laramie and it's three days to the end of the month. One month and I'm indeed more than a third of the way there. Would've liked to not have been delayed by a day, but I can't exactly be too mad at an act of God when the rest of my pace has been blistering, all things considered.

But then the rest of the mission nags at me. Dingus Cave didn't finish in a neat 90 days, they did it in 85. I need to find days.

My memory is spotty, but the map suggests that after Independence Rock, one can just as easily skip Fort Bridger to make a beeline for Soda Springs. If that's at all possible, that should cut off who even knows how many days. I mean, it looks like it should be possible – by all accounts there are no mountains, and there's a river crossing, but even if one was heading to Fort Bridger you'd have to cross that same river.

But this all hinges on the fact I don't rightly remember if there's even a forking path…oh well. I'm in the capable hands of The Stig.

I have only shot 17 bullets this whole trip and it's kept everybody fed. I hope the hunting stays this good. I dunno what it might do to the crew's health if it isn't. But if I'm traveling during the summer, then OSPRE-1 should have no problems with animal density.



"Uhhh, Independence, it's us again…"

This was more of what I was expecting from this mission, which is to say, incoming disasters. However, again it's one that actually works out kind of okay for me.

…well, not really. I didn't lose any crew, nor any clothes. All the spare parts took the damage, specifically, one of our wagon tongues and all our axles, and so did a bunch of the food.

The food is easy enough to replace, everyone else isn't. Spares are fairly simple too.

As mission commander, I have to investigate this. A cursory investigation of the damage suggests that despite this being a mission on the ground, in an Earth atmosphere and at maybe only a few hundred feet above sea level due to the local topography…we carried oxygen tanks.

Perhaps I should be grateful the whole wagon didn't just blow sky high.

Having three wheels to spare, I decide to trade with someone who wants two for an axle, since I need at least one of each spare.

I look at the day counter. May 7. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to lose time after all. I have to pick up the pace or this record is going to escape me.



I'm in between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I need to stop again for food, but if I do this one too many times, I'm going to be so far behind that the record will be behind me. I still have speed on my side, so I had better leverage that.

One hunting trip later, we have 61 more pounds of meat than we had at the beginning. We're still in the double digits, so I can't stop looking for food.



Things get no better when a thief comes in the night and steals…7 pounds of food. Not quite as pitiful as the guy who stole from the Freelance Astronauts for a grand total of two bullets, but this would definitely be lamer if my food situation wasn't so dire.



Thankfully, my eyes don't get any less sharp under pressure. Those two buffalo net me damn near a ton of food – literally, 1815 pounds of meat, but somehow dragging this all back to the wagon is out of the question for the crew. That's another day lost.

I'm losing time and need to pull ahead. If this keeps up I'll be in serious trouble. I switch back to meager rations and hope for the best moving forward.



I need to stay firm for the crew, but I know the pressure's on. With 45 days gone I'm truly falling behind. I need a good stroke of luck or that fork to skip to Soda Springs, should it actually exist.

As it turns out, it does. It's the Green River crossing, and it's apparently a tough one. However, it's my only chance to keep pace. I steel myself. This'll be alright. It's what my crew…uhhh, were thrown together as soon as the whim to do this entered my head…to do.

We make for the Green River crossing at full speed.

One hunting trip later where I manage to bag a bear, we sprint to the Green River crossing. It's May 19 and it's time to gamble on the river crossing.



I'm humiliated to catch myself waxing lyrical as I'm halfway there and living on a prayer to boot. This crossing has to go over well or things are going to get really, really difficult from here on in. Any crew losses would be bad.

400 feet across, 20 feet in the middle. There's no way to ford this – again – but I could try to float it. So, I do.



Our plan was to use an inverse pyramid formation to carry the 18 oxen because conditions didn't favor the single stack. That's when everything went to Hell.

Before we could check what was happening, one of the oxen shifted and the whole thing fell apart.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, Independence, OSPRE-1 has experienced serious control loss, please advise-"

It all happened too fast…I ordered Keiichi to check our load but I got nothing but static and noticed his seat was empty. Then, we rolled completely sideways and Noel fell straight into the drink.

Our last chance was Medusa, who tried to keep it rolling but was struck by an ox that shoved her out of her position and into the Green River. Then The Stig took on water…I saw the very first Stig go out this way. The Black Stig.

Ah, hell, none of the details matter. I lost my entire crew. The one thing I didn't want to happen.

I think it's my fault – my plan hinged around floating the wagon in order to keep our funds because I wasn't sure when exactly they'd come in handy. Spares are around twenty to thirty bucks and with only 100 to work with, I was thinking about what would be best for our expedition.

I…couldn't find any of them. OSPRE-1 is running on all its emergency automation procedures now. I'm all alone. It's funny – at first I figured our biggest problem on OSPRE-1 would be that we wouldn't be able to sleep all that much pulling 16 hour shifts. Now staying awake won't be a problem.

I weigh my options. It's 143 miles to Soda Springs and I have 32 days left to finish this ahead of Dingus Cave. 126 pounds of food, spent at 2 pounds per day…as now I'm eating for one. I call it in.

"Independence, this is Yumemi. Crew is lost, OSPRE-1 is operational.

Continuing with the mission. Broadcasting backup signal, squawk 4-8-2-9.

Out."

As I continue alone, the grass becomes scarce and my pace deteriorates further. It's quiet in OSPRE-1 now, and I hear noises that sound like voices. Maybe I'm imagining things.



Then, the hand of fate comes for me. I don't know how this works if you really think about it, but that's what I get for calling myself "Yumemi." I guess that's what I get for keeping the backup signal open and, I dunno, accidentally downloading viruses from a porn site or something.

It's an easy enough problem to solve; trying to stay healthy by altering the rations. I can always hunt later.

I have to finish. I owe it to my crew.

My systems begin locking up. I need to broadcast a backup signal, before I become completely inoperable…

No, I have to finish.

I owe it to my crew.

I owe it to…

[SIGNAL LOST – CMDR Y. HOSHINO FUNCTIONS CEASED]



I find myself kicked back to Independence. The backup worked, and OSPRE-1 is continuing to drift towards Oregon. In order to avoid a large piece of inoperable junk striking another expedition, it'll keep traveling for about another 25 miles, then the self-destruct mechanism will dismantle the wagon and yokes, and the oxen can wander off. Ironic. First part to threaten failure wasn't the part that really got lost.

The operation was a failure. The official debrief was that OSPRE-1 was subject to failures consistent with the challenges of an OSPRE mission, and the program commission tells me none of it was my fault, but I know the truth. Commanders are nobody without their crew, and right now, I'm nobody.

I hear the Conestoga engineer telling me that of course I'd be the one to force OSPRE-1 past its limits. The OSPRE program executives don't want to seem like they're treating me specially, so they take turns punching him in the face instead.

I'm sure the losses will get overridden in some retcon or another, but I'll remember.