Document metadata
type: workshop-module
status: open
module: RW-02
title: Samuel's rapid resource burn
gate: What categories of action let Samuel credibly consume $15 million within days while trying to control the colonization process?
prerequisites: RW-01
RW-02: Samuel's rapid resource burn
Purpose
Make Samuel's collapse feel like the inevitable economic expression of his obsession rather than an arbitrary countdown.
Established
Samuel receives $15 million after separation. He has no access to the process-provided systems previously used against Sylvan. His obsession with taking control of the colonization process exhausts the allocation within days.
Four possibilities
- Access market: Samuel purchases temporary access, specialists, computation, influence, and intermediaries at rapidly escalating prices. Concrete, but needs boundaries preventing illicit restoration of old systems.
- Competing operations: he launches several mutually interfering takeover attempts because he cannot tolerate choosing one path. Character-rich, but must not make him suddenly incompetent.
- Adversarial pricing: legitimate independent resources become more expensive as risk, urgency, and failed attempts accumulate. Plausible, but the process cannot secretly rig every price.
- Self-financed proof: Samuel spends heavily to stage demonstrations that will persuade institutions he already controls the process. The proof consumes more than the attempt itself. Strong thematic fit, but needs real operational stakes.
Central author gate
What categories of action let Samuel credibly consume $15 million within days while trying to control the colonization process?
Choose a primary spending engine and one secondary accelerant. Exact purchases and daily totals can follow later.
Scene test
At the start of a day, Samuel still has enough money to stop. By evening, a failed attempt convinces him that spending twice as much tomorrow will prove the theory was right.
Adversarial test
The spending must follow Samuel's intelligence and obsession. He should recognize individual costs accurately while remaining unable to abandon the total objective.