The Forgotten Sentry is an interactive theater project commissioned by Simon Fraser University PhD researcher Ben Unterman to test the emotional impact possible in virtual spaces.

Using the rich tool set of Second Life, audience members were able to experience live voice-over actors performing a narrative with an ending determined by the audience themselves. In this short play, a young soldier guards a check point leading to a city, preventing the spread of infection from outlying areas into the population center.

The soldier is lonely and afraid, having lost contact with command and running low on supplies, he is beginning to lose touch with reality. The soldier’s checkpoint is tested three times. First by an older man recently released from prison, then by a biker woman who shoots at him and then finally by a mother and child who want to pass. The mother and child are persistent and do not back off, putting the soldier in a moral dilemma that the audience gets to vote on through their user interface.

Does the solder let the woman and sick child pass and contaminate the city or does he use lethal force to follow his orders from a command that he no longer has contact with? Both endings were available to play out after the decision was made by the audience members. What you are seeing is an edited version of video documentation of a live theatrical performance.

Concept and Direction by DC Spensley

Script by Nena St Louis

Starring Milton Lim, Buffy Beale and Wythcwhisper

Animations by Medhue Simoni

Sim services by Joyce Bettencourt and SUDO

Shot in the virtual world of Second Life 2014