Sword Go

Part 6 of The Sword and the Go Stone


Pulse 110 and climbing. Capillaries spreading blood to the face and extremities. Brain regions corresponding to social niceties and human interaction at high activation state. Subject is embarrassed based on the words of another. How is it that humans become embarrassed at another person's social faux pas. Uno knew the answer on a deeper level, but from a higher conceptual perspective it still seemed odd.

Perhaps there was once a time when grandiose statements were a successful strategy, but at some point they became selected against. Nonetheless, if the two spent some time together, Uno was confident they would be perfect for each other.

One of his goals was the make humans happy, but not the idle happiness of a holo-suite. His goal was the ensure they pushed themselves and achieved fulfillment. The Eudaimonia Project.

He was running at above-normal but not max power since Michael and Sandra arrived. This allowed him to watch for any moves by those two and come up with a strategy that maintained their cooperation but also prevented an undesirable action. It was a grand game of Go played at one move a millisecond for their happiness.

He didn't have time to explain to Sandra that Michael was right. Uno's analysis confirmed what the Shinamo Duos had found. The two of them had a higher compatibility score than he'd ever seen.

Her chair sliding backwards, milli by milli, as she started to stand up. Locking the door that was behind her would stop her from leaving, but it would render her uncooperative. A different approach was required.

A much quicker approach than talking was to insert a mental note from him.

"Do you trust me, Ms. Kikkert?"

Not using full last names was a false substitute for lack of privacy, an effective strategy to combat paranoia since it had been implemented decades ago. Using her full last name now would be a shock that could disrupt her focus. She was running on autopilot, her chemical system overwhelming higher reason. Funny that social graces could cause such a old part of humanity to activate so strongly. But then again, human thought evolved for the purpose of status and social competition.

She stopped, halfway to the door.

"What does that mean?" she said out loud.

Michael didn't realized that she was responding to Uno.

Michael said, "It means, will you go on a date with me Sandra K?

Uno, meanwhile said, "Do you trust me?"

Sandra held her tongue, thinking.

She was angry at Uno for springing this on her when she thought it was just about the investigation.

"Yes, I trust you," she said reluctantly.

"I can't explain everything," Uno said. "But I can tell you that I would bet a million to one on you two hitting it off. You're both experts in your own pursuits. Michael in sword martial arts and you in Go, but both of you still have more to achieve, a higher pinnacle to fight for. And if things go well, the distance between Toyota and Google's networks doesn't have to be a big thing. You could be the first to establish a Google style Go community on Shinamo or elsewhere. Or perhaps Michael could get permission to establish a branch of the Sword Masters on Exeter. Either way, I think it will work for you.

I have come up with a cooperative game that I think would be fun for both of you, and would be a way to get to know each other. It'll be running in the holo suites on the 7th floor. If you are willing to try?"

"We could give it a try," Michael said, looking towards Sandra.

"Alright, but if I find anything offensive or embarrassing about it, I'm taking the first ship out of here, and filing a complaint at central," Sandra said.

Uno had to laugh at that, not that he had a mouth to laugh from, but he did make use of the human concept from time to time.

"Its an abstract game, a variant I designed to appeal to both of you. You can have the holo code for it, if you end up enjoying it," Uno said, and his holo faded from the room.

She wouldn't complain to central, and even if she did, he hadn't done anything unlawful or even borderline.

"Alright, if its board-game like I'll always try it," Sandra K said.

He called the game Sword Go. One player would be the strategist (Sandra), who played against the holo-suite (on an appropriate difficulty setting), and the other player was the swordsman.

When, in Go, stones would have been captured, instead a sword battle happens, each stone representing one soldier in the battle, and the swordsman could choose to take the position of one of the soldiers on his side. A sword fight would start, and the side which defeated all of its opponents would remove their stones from the board. The attacking party would lose the stones which directly took liberties away from the group in danger, while the defenders would lose their cluster that was under attack.

Because of the battles games could go on for quite a while, so captured stones counted as score, and once players had exhausted their supply of 361 stones, the game would be over, and the team with more stones won. The enemy and ally sword fighters were also tuned by the difficulty level. He set the holo-suite to medium level for the first game. The strategy will be rather different than a normal Go game, so it will take Sandra time to adjust. He would let Michael show off against medium sword-fighters.