Scenarios don't have to be about the future. We can learn from
the examination of past experiences, exploring how alternative
options may have played out. These are often referred to as
"counter-factual" exercises, as they are intended to play out in
ways contrary to historical fact, giving participants insights
into both how decisions are made and the complexity of events.
Pax Warrior, a computer simulation-documentary on the 1994
Rwandan genocide, is designed to be just this sort of counter-
factual exercise. In Pax Warrior, the player is given the role
of a UN Peacekeeping commander in Rwanda, and is asked to make a
series of increasingly-difficult decisions about how to respond
to evidence that something awful is taking place. There isn't an
obvious "right answer" in the simulation; seemingly-correct
choices can have unforeseen (yet utterly plausible) results, as
the text in the image here shows. The goal isn't necessarily to
stop the genocide (although that would obviously be an ideal
outcome), it's to ed