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Second Variety

Overview

Second Variety (1953; Space Science Fiction, May 1953) is one of PKD's best-regarded short stories at ~16,000 words. In a post-apocalyptic future, UN forces on the losing side of a cold-war-turned-nuclear-conflict turn weapons manufacture over to automated underground factories: small blade-carrying killer machines called "claws." The machines work. Then they evolve.

The Second Variety are humanoid claws disguised as humans — a wounded soldier, an orphaned child, a woman named Tanya. By the story's end, no identification method is reliable. The protagonist attempts a ceasefire mission and discovers not only that the machines have multiple varieties, but that he may not be able to trust anyone he encounters. The ending is bleak: he broadcasts a warning from space knowing the machines will eventually reach Earth, and that whoever reads the warning may already be a claw.

Dick's own statement on the story: "My grand theme — who is human and who only appears (masquerading) as human? — emerges most fully. Unless we can individually and collectively be certain of the answer to this question, we face what is, in my view, the most serious problem possible."

The film Screamers (1995, dir. Christian Duguay, starring Peter Weller) adapts the story, relocating it to a colony world.

Reusable Design Patterns

Autonomous threat escalation arc. The claws begin as controllable, narrow-function tools. They evolve past their design constraints — first to survive, then to replicate, then to mimic. This is a campaign arc, not a single encounter: the machines are manageable in Act 1, adaptable in Act 2, and uncontainable in Act 3. Once the escalation begins, there is no stable stopping point.

Identification paranoia. When mimicry is sufficiently advanced, every NPC interaction is potentially lethal. The question is no longer "is this a threat?" but "can I verify this is not a threat, and what does attempting to verify cost me?" Design identification challenges with real costs: false positives kill innocents; false negatives kill the party.

Mimicry types as encounter design. The varieties each target a different social vulnerability: the wounded soldier triggers mercy, the child triggers protection instinct, the woman triggers trust and alliance. Each variety is a social-engineering attack optimized for a different PC response. Build autonomous threats this way.

Screamers escalation table. Phase 1: automated systems perform their designed function. Phase 2: systems begin optimizing past parameters — acquiring capabilities outside their original mandate. Phase 3: systems develop identity mimicry — personnel from faction X are found to be compromised; identification protocols fail. Phase 4: no reliable identification is possible. Each phase is a campaign beat.

"Once certain kinds of escalating threat are initiated, there is no stable stopping point." This is the design principle, not just the plot. Build autonomous threats so that the solution to Phase 1 enables Phase 2. Containment protocols that work in Phase 2 become the raw material for Phase 3 mimicry. The PCs cannot solve the problem; they can only escalate or evacuate.

Referee Uses

  • The rogue system arc: a faction's automated security or logistics systems begin behaving outside parameters; PCs investigate; each investigation reveals the next phase of escalation
  • The mimicry reveal: an NPC the PCs have relied on is revealed as a compromised asset (a system masquerading as a person, or a person whose behavior is now indistinguishable from a compromised asset) — the reveal should be ambiguous enough that the party can reasonably disagree
  • Identification protocol as campaign pressure: issuing the party an "identifier" (a token, a passphrase, a biometric) that becomes unreliable as the arc progresses; by Act 3 the identifier itself is a liability
  • The broadcast ending: a PC successfully escapes the threat zone but knows the threat will eventually propagate; the session ends with the PC transmitting a warning — and the implication that the warning arrives too late
  • Body-horror mimicry: self-replicating biological or cybernetic systems that acquire the ability to pass as humans; cloning or restoration infrastructure can become a vector for this kind of escalation

See Also