From the introduction: The aliens have won. Humanity will be eaten; the planet, obliterated. But the aliens love keepsakes. They’ve picked your small town to simulate for all eternity as a memento of their conquest. But the simulation keeps collapsing, and the aliens have no interest in an unstable keepsake! They’ve selected a group of you as representatives to suggest some fixes, but if you can’t all agree on which parameters of the simulation to change to make it work, they’ll just consume you and move on. So many worlds to conquer!