The army is on the road. The orders are given. You are marching with 400,000 soldiers toward the Kalinga border, watching decisions get made that cannot be unmade. Ethics under pressure means something different when the pressure is this real.
Part of
Ashoka: The War Within →
261 BCE. The Mauryan Empire is at its peak. You are a young advisor to the most powerful emperor in the ancient world, and he has just made a decision that will cost 100,000 lives. Navigate the Kalinga War, witness a king's transformation, and help shape the edicts that will be carved in stone for 2,300 years.
Skills you'll build
What happens in this story4 scenarios
The army is marching. 400,000 soldiers, an empire's full weight bearing down on Kalinga. The orders can't be un-given and the ethics you believed in yesterday feel different when the machine is already moving.
What started with the march just got more complicated. Now you need to recognize sunk cost fallacy in high-stakes decisions and argue against momentum — and the situation is shifting faster than your first approach can handle.
This is the moment you've been building toward. Advising someone powerful who doesn't want to hear what you have to say — except now the stakes are real and there's no rehearsal. What you do next matters.
You've faced the hardest part. Now turn what you've learned into something sustainable — a way to recognize sunk cost fallacy in high-stakes decisions and argue against momentum not just today, but every time this situation returns.
More stories in this course
View all →The Decision
261 BCE. Pataliputra, the Mauryan capital. Emperor Ashoka has called a war council. You are his youngest advisor, and you are about to be asked whether to invade Kalinga. The question is not whether the empire can win.
4 scenarios →The Field of Silence
The war is over. 100,000 people are dead, 150,000 displaced. The emperor walks through the aftermath and says nothing for three days. You walk beside him. What happens when the most powerful person in the world looks at what he has done and cannot look away?
4 scenarios →The Court
Ashoka returns to Pataliputra a changed man. The court has not changed. The generals argue that stopping now would mean the deaths in Kalinga were for nothing. You have eight scenes to help the emperor see that argument for what it is.
4 scenarios →The March
The army is on the road. The orders are given. You are marching with 400,000 soldiers toward the Kalinga border, watching decisions get made that cannot be unmade. Ethics under pressure means something different when the pressure is this real.
Start free →4 scenarios · 25 min · No account required to try