What If: Jurassic Park

Stage 4: Welcome to Jurassic Park/The Doctors

Out of the game, a few months have passed since the dead drop, and we are now in mid-May 1993, a few weeks away from the opening of Jurassic Park. Back in the game, Jurassic Park is nearly ready to open but InGen investors aren’t happy.

Your employee email inbox is overflowing with emails from the InGen corporate offices. Apparently a terrible accident has occurred at Site A which resulted in the death of an employee. The emails include details about a lawsuit filed against InGen by the deceased employee’s family. An email from InGen lawyer, Donald Gennaro, lists several experts John Hammond has invited to come to Site A and make sure the park is safe for opening. He says he wants to make sure that these are the best people to come to the park. He also says he will be accompanying the group on the tour of the facility, so he wants the heads up on who he’ll be dealing with. Gennaro also includes links to a couple websites.

Following the first link leads to Dr. Grant’s Facebook fan page. Not many fans, only 57. There aren’t many posts on the page either, only a few from early 1991 about Hadrosaurs. There is also a brief bio in the page ‘About’ section:

Dr. Alan Grant is said to be one of the world’s most renowned paleontologists, his specialty being the hadrosaurs, and other duck-billed dinosaurs such as Maiasaura.

Players who check back often over the next few weeks will start to see new updates from Dr. Grant. The two most important updates will foreshadow events and occur during the events of the movie.

I received a phone call from a man named John Hammond today. He was very excited and talking fast, telling me about a park he was building. I couldn’t really understand him, the phone lines out here aren’t very good. I think he was inviting me to come tour the place or something. Anyway, I told him I couldn’t talk right then because we just got some new equipment in (more on that later). He stopped talking for a moment and said he’d be in contact soon.
I have no interest in visiting an amusement park. Maybe I’ll send Ellie in my place. -AG

Soon, the page will be updated with this:

You won’t believe who showed up at the site today! John Hammond, CEO of InGen, the man who called me a few days ago! Ellie and I are going away for the weekend, apparently Mr. Hammond wants to fund our research in exchange for us coming to check out his theme park. We leave in a few hours, so I’ll be out of touch for a while. When I get back, I’ll try to answer all of the questions that I can. That is, if they don’t have use sign non-disclosure agreements or something like that. -AG

The second link leads you to Dr. Ellie Sattler’s Twitter page. Dr. Sattler is a paleobotanist, so most of her tweets are about prehistoric plant life and how the animals and other plants interacted with each other. Her most recent tweets are about working with Dr. Grant on a dig site in the Badlands near Snakewater, Montana. In several tweets she describes a new device that just arrived, some sort of ground penetrating sonar unit, or “Fossil-Finder”. The Fossil-Finder will allow the group to locate buried fossils without digging. In another, she shares a laugh with her followers about Dr. Grant’s phone call with John Hammond.

A third link takes you to a profile page on the Santa Fe Institute Mathematics department’s site. An image of Dr. Ian Malcolm stares at you with a rundown of a few of Dr. Malcolm’s theses, as well as an advertisement for his upcoming book, “Chaos Theory: The Mathematics of the Butterfly Effect”. You can read a few excerpts from the book as well as send an email to Dr. Malcolm. You will receive an “out of office” response that reads:

I’ll be out for a few days. You won’t be able to reach me where I’m going, so I’ll get back to you when I return.

-Dr. Ian Malcolm

Stage 5: John Hammond’s Weekend Soiree

We’re nearing the end of the viral campaign, as it’s now June 1993. The final stage of the viral will lead players to a big payoff. After reviewing the websites sent to you by Donald Gennaro, a new email appears in your inbox with travel documents. There is a flight plan for the InGen corporate helicopter, showing various destinations including the Santa Fe Institute and Dr. Grant’s dig site in Montana. As well as a trip manifest showing who is going to be flying in on the helicopter: John Hammond, Dr. Grant, Donald Gennaro, Dr. Sattler and Dr. Malcolm. A second flight plan and manifest for the InGen corporate jet shows that two more guests will be joining the group: Mr. Hammond’s grandchildren, Tim and Alexis.

A message in the body of the email reads:

Mr. Hammond wants everyone to know that the unfortunate death of the Jurassic Park employee who was attacked by one of the animals last month will not be the end of our endeavors here. At the request of the investors and InGen Board of Directors, Mr. Hammond will personally be escorting a group of guests to the island this weekend to get their views on the park and any possible advise they have to increase the safety of our guests and staff. As you can see from the trip manifest and the profiles Mr. Gennaro sent out, these people are highly qualified and they will be a great addition to the Jurassic Park team.

Mr. Hammond also wanted to invite you to come check out the park as well. If you’re available, please follow the link below and register for the chartered trip to Isla Nublar this weekend! – Jurassic Park HR

Following the link in the email, you will be taken to a site, asked to log in and are awarded the “Welcome to Jurassic Park” badge to celebrate completing of the game. After, you will get to register for an advance screening of the movie (in select cities).

So what did you think? Would you have been a part of the Jurassic Park ARG? I must say that I had a great time writing this piece and I hope you had as much fun reading it. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below, I’d love to hear them.

The Jurassic Park Ultimate Trilogy is available now on Blu-ray and DVD!