The next day I went into the Geometry common room, and went right through into the Door room, disregarding any commentary or bs.
I was ready to keep moving, working my way through this stuff.
It was trolls at the white boards in the first dungeon that day. Trolls with huge stone rulers.
The first troll's first question was about the center of a dilation, I still wasn't totally familiar with the term and I bombed that one.
The troll's second question was also about dilations and centers. I was starting to get an inkling of maybe what it all meant.
I got it right. So it meant a scaling of a point or many points relative to their distance from some other point, called the center of the dilation. I had messed up and thought it was just a fancy name for scaling.
The first troll's last question was about a triangle's dilation, and I defeated that troll after taking that first whack from his ruler!
The next troll asked me about an angle after rotating a triangle about a point. But all angles stay the same before and after rotation. Easy!
That troll next asked me about a quadrilateral under reflection and what properties are preserved. It looked like all were right except for None of the above. That was right.
The troll's last question was about a line segment length under dilation.
The next dungeon troll had another choose the answers that apply question about dilation, and it looked like none applied, and that was correct.
I was getting familiar in the dungeon, instead of the practice rooms. I knew that wouldn't last forever, once I moved up to the more advanced geometric dungeons I might have to put in some practice.
I had come into this dungeoneering career hyper-cocky, but now I had to at least engaged in and think about the problems. Maybe I wasn't so much of a hot shot.
The third troll had an interesting question about changing one figure to another by using all of the transformations they had been asking about.
So I finished that first dungeon with three trolls, only getting whacked in the head by the first troll, and getting 88% overall.
I took a second to catch my breath, noticing I was now considered a Dolphin in Initiate - Geometry. It was more trolls, this time with spectacles in the next dungeon.
The first bespectacled troll asked me to take one figure to another using rigid transformations. Done. Coordinates of a point translated left and up. Done. Question about reflecting across y axis, done!
The next troll was bespectacled, wearing a pocketed shirt with pocket protectors. The pocket protector troll's first question was about the area of a triangle under reflection. Under reflection the area of a triangle stays the same. 1/2 base times height. Done. The next one was about the dilation of a point. Done. The next one was a dilation question but done in reverse.
The next troll had a slide rule as well. He asked about what type of rigid motion a motion up and to the left was. Translation, duh and done! Then there was a reflection line problem. DOne. Then another question about what type of motion, translation! Done.
I was getting these transformations down cold.
The next troll had a fancy scientific slide rule. The trolls first question was about an angle of rotation. Done.
Then there was a question about what symmetries apply to a rhombus. This required me to think about it. It looked like the first two symmetries were correct, but the 180 deg rotational symmetry was not sure. I looked at it some more and guessed all three were symmetries, and I got it right.
The next one was about a point after being rotated 135 degrees, and it looked like 2 answers could be right. It looked like B was the same length from the center as P. So I guessed B. Right!
The last troll was holding a bunch of mechanical pencils. IT was a question about properties of a quadrilateral under dilation. None of the Above I guessed.
I got my first one wrong in the dungeon, but I wasn't sure which of the three possibilities was right.
The next one was about a reflection and coordinates. Done. The last one was a rotation and I got the rotation direction wrong again. Dangit I was on a roll too.
The troll stabbed me with a mechanical pencil. It stung, a lot. So I ended up with 87% on the dungeon. I had been hoping to get to another bonus combat section.
Onto the next one:
The little kobold with a little whiteboard was asking whether two quadrilaterals were congruent. It was easy to see they were.
Then there was a new type of question about an angle x in a diagram. The angle should be 55, the same as the one diagonally opposite. Done.
Then there was an angle x on the narrow part of an Isoceles triangles.
The next kobold had a question about whether two triangles that looked similar were congruent. They had two sides with the same lengths but the third side could be different, so I said there's not enough info to know. Done.
Then another isoceles question. Another parallelogram angle question. A triangle congruence question. I couldn't see how they could be congruent.
The next one was about two triangles with different angles were congruent, I said definitely not. Done. Another Isosceles, Done. Another triangle congruence. Done.
Gotta perfect, with a combat bonus.
Some Kobolds came swarming out of wall that suddenly opened up.
"The sum of the angles of a triangle are 180."
pop! went one Kobold.
"The sum of the angles of a quadrilateral are 360."
popop! went one Kobold, exploding into the next.
"The sum of the angles of an n-gon is 180 * n - 360"
BOOM. Went maybe a dozen Kobolds in a nice fiery explosion.
It was time to get serious. I was getting comfortable in a geometric setting.
"The hyper-volume of an n-dimensional unit hyper-sphere is Pi to the n/2 power divided by the gamma function of n / 2 + 1."
BABOOM AWOOOOMM!
I couldn't hear anything, I was flat on the hard floor of the dungeon. I felt my face. My eyebrows were burnt. My sight was fuzzy. There was a gong, from nowhere.
"Super Surprise Award! Your spell just caused a 6.3 Richter scale earthquake in region 104. You have been placed in Initiate - Case Delta 9 track. Please return to the common room for processing."
This didn't sound like an award.
It must have been obvious to the others that I was the culprit as the crowd, some standing and some laying on the ground, all glared at me.
"Whose the perp?" asked the cops as they came in.
They pointed at me.
I was dumbfounded. How could math cause something that big in the greater world, when I had been inside a dungeon at the time? I mean, I wouldn't call the volume of a hyper-sphere something super-advanced.
How do they even handle the unknown dungeons if even these sorts of problems cause an earthquake.
I didn't say anything, but cooperated as the hauled me off to the local jail.
My dreams, snapped into two, by my dumbness. I didn't know about this world. And I knew math up to about an undergraduate level.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Sunday, August 27, 2017
The Matho-Dungeon Settlement Sphere, Part 5
It wasn't as easy to advance from animal to animal as it had been to go from belt to belt as a Novitiate.
Here I was in my second Stingray Geometry dungeon. I was still a stingray despite doing better than I expected on these.
I had to actually drag things around and put them into position to defeat the monsters here. I had to identify rays. I had to measure a 90 degree angle with a goblin's protractor.
I had to tell another goblin if three points on his diagram were collinear. There were parallel line angles and perimeters once again.
I continued to answer every question successfully without any trouble until I got to a goblin with thick glasses asking me about translations. I hadn't heard of that term in geometry. Or maybe I had, I had to think about it.
This was the type of problem I was dreading. And it was way harder than what had come before.
Images, translations, mappings, images, yikes yikes.
I tried to rule out of the three answers.
A didn't make since, but B was about parallel translations and kinda made sense, and so did C.
I hesitated for 5 minutes, trying to figure it out. Finally I picked B.
The goblin said I had to actually do the translation on his board that he was talking about. So I hesitated and then tried to draw it out on his white board.
I couldn't figure out how to draw a translation that the Goblin liked. I tried and tried, he didn't recognize any of it. I couldn't get past that bespectacled goblin.
Finally, I gave up, and left the Dungeon and went back in.
I had to redo some of the same types of problems as before and some different.
I made a dumbo error and solved for x instead of the angle in question on one them, and somehow that one error meant I didn't get a challenge combat section and I ended up with a 78%.
I checked my status again.
Tracking:
Algebra (stingray)
Geometry (electric eel)
I was happy to be past Stingray in Geometry. I just wanted to get done with Geometry forever. I wasn't my cocky confident self in this area.
This next dungeon was a bigger one. There would be 5 goblins with three problems each. The nastier the problem, the more nerdy the goblin looked.
I had some area of shape problems that I had to think about. Actually, for once I had to think about most of them for a bit.
But I figured them out after puzzling over them.
Then I ran into another one of those translation puzzles that had thrown me for a loop before.
Finally, I was able to figure out how to please the Goblin, and I gave a shout in celebration when I got that on right.
There were a bunch of easy ones after that. A lot of disguised math and algebra problems.
Some of the geometric calculations like diameter given circumference or the surface area of the cube, I had to think a bit about.
I managed to get through the dungeon without messing up any of the goblins' puzzling questions.
What would happen if I gave a problem from something other than geometry in a Geometry dungeon bonus battle?
Integral of x e^x = x e^x - e^x
It did nothing, then I realized I'd forgotten the constant.
Integral of x e^x = x e^ x - e^x + c
The snakes that were flowing towards me blew up in a big flashy explosion.
Implicit Derivative of y^2 = x^2 + k
2 y dy/dx = 2x
dy/dx = 2x / 2y
dy / dx = x / sqrt(x^2+k)
A bigger explosion rocked the dungeon, and I was clear to finish the dungeon perfectly.
I was promoted to Geometry track - Octopus
This was a dungeon focused on translations. Finally I realized what the word meant. It meant moving a geometric figure by a certain amount while keeping relative position the same.
I had to draw out some translations to defeat the merlock in this dungeon.
But then I got a question about what kind of transformation something was. So it was a dungeon about all kinds of transformations. I wanted to say scaling, but the merman had a list and it wasn't on it.
It wasn't translation, rotation or reflection, so it had to be dilation.
That was a short dungeon.
I could do these quickly as long as I didn't get stymied. My second octupus dungeon started with a weird question I had to think on about reflections.
But if I thought about it and worked through it, I was able to figure it out. What a novelty, actually thinking about problems.
The novitiate dungeons hadn't done anything except confirm that I knew my basic arithmetic down cold. But I didn't have my geometry that solid yet.
I was going to run the unknown dungeons someday! I had to learn to fight even when it got tough.
I got hit with a ruler a couple times because of assumptions, and only got 71%, but I was on to Geometry - Lanternshark.
I didn't even know what a lantern shark was.
I left the Geometry initiate dungeon door room, and went to the common room. I had missed questions on half of the dungeons, I could blend into the crowd.
Someone was saying, "I never get the reflection ones, so confusing."
I interrupted, "Me too. I'm so confused about those reflection white boards."
"It's a lot harder once you get past the novice stuff huh?" the guy said. "You may think you're hot stuff based on baby problems from before, but you're probably just going to wash out like the rest of them."
I took that as a sign, and left the facility, going back to my hotel room.
Stingray to Lanternshark in one day. I hoped i'd be able to be a whale somewhere in between finishing the Initiate section.
Tracking:
Algebra (stingray)
Geometry (Lanternshark)
Here I was in my second Stingray Geometry dungeon. I was still a stingray despite doing better than I expected on these.
I had to actually drag things around and put them into position to defeat the monsters here. I had to identify rays. I had to measure a 90 degree angle with a goblin's protractor.
I had to tell another goblin if three points on his diagram were collinear. There were parallel line angles and perimeters once again.
I continued to answer every question successfully without any trouble until I got to a goblin with thick glasses asking me about translations. I hadn't heard of that term in geometry. Or maybe I had, I had to think about it.
This was the type of problem I was dreading. And it was way harder than what had come before.
Images, translations, mappings, images, yikes yikes.
I tried to rule out of the three answers.
A didn't make since, but B was about parallel translations and kinda made sense, and so did C.
I hesitated for 5 minutes, trying to figure it out. Finally I picked B.
The goblin said I had to actually do the translation on his board that he was talking about. So I hesitated and then tried to draw it out on his white board.
I couldn't figure out how to draw a translation that the Goblin liked. I tried and tried, he didn't recognize any of it. I couldn't get past that bespectacled goblin.
Finally, I gave up, and left the Dungeon and went back in.
I had to redo some of the same types of problems as before and some different.
I made a dumbo error and solved for x instead of the angle in question on one them, and somehow that one error meant I didn't get a challenge combat section and I ended up with a 78%.
I checked my status again.
Name: Edmond Bauer
Ranking Status: Initiate (Stingray)
Sphere Ranking: 72,855,273rd (40%)
Lives: 29
Race: Elothean
Race: Streak 3 - Skip three enemies with full rewards for every eleven you defeat without getting defeated.
Class: N/A
Class Bonuses: None UnlockedTracking:
Algebra (stingray)
Geometry (electric eel)
I was happy to be past Stingray in Geometry. I just wanted to get done with Geometry forever. I wasn't my cocky confident self in this area.
This next dungeon was a bigger one. There would be 5 goblins with three problems each. The nastier the problem, the more nerdy the goblin looked.
I had some area of shape problems that I had to think about. Actually, for once I had to think about most of them for a bit.
But I figured them out after puzzling over them.
Then I ran into another one of those translation puzzles that had thrown me for a loop before.
Finally, I was able to figure out how to please the Goblin, and I gave a shout in celebration when I got that on right.
There were a bunch of easy ones after that. A lot of disguised math and algebra problems.
Some of the geometric calculations like diameter given circumference or the surface area of the cube, I had to think a bit about.
I managed to get through the dungeon without messing up any of the goblins' puzzling questions.
What would happen if I gave a problem from something other than geometry in a Geometry dungeon bonus battle?
Integral of x e^x = x e^x - e^x
It did nothing, then I realized I'd forgotten the constant.
Integral of x e^x = x e^ x - e^x + c
The snakes that were flowing towards me blew up in a big flashy explosion.
Implicit Derivative of y^2 = x^2 + k
2 y dy/dx = 2x
dy/dx = 2x / 2y
dy / dx = x / sqrt(x^2+k)
A bigger explosion rocked the dungeon, and I was clear to finish the dungeon perfectly.
I was promoted to Geometry track - Octopus
This was a dungeon focused on translations. Finally I realized what the word meant. It meant moving a geometric figure by a certain amount while keeping relative position the same.
I had to draw out some translations to defeat the merlock in this dungeon.
But then I got a question about what kind of transformation something was. So it was a dungeon about all kinds of transformations. I wanted to say scaling, but the merman had a list and it wasn't on it.
It wasn't translation, rotation or reflection, so it had to be dilation.
That was a short dungeon.
I could do these quickly as long as I didn't get stymied. My second octupus dungeon started with a weird question I had to think on about reflections.
But if I thought about it and worked through it, I was able to figure it out. What a novelty, actually thinking about problems.
The novitiate dungeons hadn't done anything except confirm that I knew my basic arithmetic down cold. But I didn't have my geometry that solid yet.
I was going to run the unknown dungeons someday! I had to learn to fight even when it got tough.
I got hit with a ruler a couple times because of assumptions, and only got 71%, but I was on to Geometry - Lanternshark.
I didn't even know what a lantern shark was.
I left the Geometry initiate dungeon door room, and went to the common room. I had missed questions on half of the dungeons, I could blend into the crowd.
Someone was saying, "I never get the reflection ones, so confusing."
I interrupted, "Me too. I'm so confused about those reflection white boards."
"It's a lot harder once you get past the novice stuff huh?" the guy said. "You may think you're hot stuff based on baby problems from before, but you're probably just going to wash out like the rest of them."
I took that as a sign, and left the facility, going back to my hotel room.
Stingray to Lanternshark in one day. I hoped i'd be able to be a whale somewhere in between finishing the Initiate section.
Name: Edmond Bauer
Ranking Status: Initiate (Stingray)
Sphere Ranking: 66,855,273rd (45%)
Lives: 29
Race: Elothean
Race: Streak 3 - Skip three enemies with full rewards for every eleven you defeat without getting defeated.
Class: N/A
Class Bonuses: None UnlockedTracking:
Algebra (stingray)
Geometry (Lanternshark)
Saturday, August 26, 2017
The Worst Game of Go Ever
Part 10 of the Sword and the Go Stone
Jin had put 12 of the candidates at the 6 go tables, and had them challenge each other first, before he trained them. He milled around, from table to table, with the 13th candidate.
"You're going to know more about Go before you play your first game. You won't have a bye after today," he said to the 13th.
"There are two drawers underneath each table. Take the bag of stones and place it close to you on the table. Look to see what color you have."
12 men pulled out the drawers. First only two them found where they were, and then everyone went to look at the first two and saw how to pull out the small wooden drawer.
Finally everyone had their stones.
"If you have white, you are the challenger. If you have black you are the challenged. Those of you who have white stones, press the challenge button in the middle of the table."
Once again there was a delay as six of them looked for the button. Finally they had all pressed it.
The module was speaking to all of them.
"Yoshitaka Norio challenging Kirishima Shigetoki"
"Hasegawa Akinari challenging Date Takejiro"
"Hiroshima Tamasine challenging Iwai Kamatari"
"Morine Sekien challenging Iwasaki Teinosuke"
"Butch Hoffman challenging Johnie Rayford"
Most of the men were from Toyota's network, but it was obvious some had come from far away, probably to participate in the Sword Master's Challenge, and had already lost that before signing up for this.
"If you have the black stones, you can place them first."
Four of the men started in the exact center, which wasn't part of any opening. There was very little power projection from the center.
Two of the men played on the edge, which was also pointless.
Jin watched one of the games and commentated:
Akinari played K10, the exact center of the board.
White played J10, to the left of black's stone.
"Very tactical, and also stupid," Jin said.
Black played J9, surrounding white's stone from 2 directions.
J11 for white, extending stones, K9 for black connecting his 2.
"All tactical play."
"Oops, I didn't mean to lay that one done," White said, playing E8 on accident.
"Better than what you have been playing. Once you've placed a stone, that's it, no take backs except during practice," Jin said.
Jin continued to rip into the total novices who played without considering any of the beautiful ideas that he loved in Go. They had no idea about Life and Death, openings, balance or anything else.
Takejiro somehow figured out ladders. As white, he realized he could keep trapping black and black couldn't escape because Black had stumbled into a ladder situation .
Finally, after black had wasted a long chain of stones trying to escape, he realized he was going to lose them all. So he decided to go play by himself somewhere else. White's board position was ridiculously strong after he made the ladder finisher to take 11 of Black's stones.
Black continued to hang out by himself in the lower right corner.
White played some good moves for a beginner, taking territory in the lower left. Black made moves in the lower and then middle right, and then came back to the fight in the middle. White came back too.
"Looks like Takejiro might be on his way to 1-2, way to go. There's a long way yet to go. Akinari, you've got a lot to learn."
Jin continued to be blunt in evaluating the novice game.
White was trying to claim everything on the left, and everything up top, leaving black with only the bottom left.
Black tried to intrude into the bottom left.
Later, black tried to get too aggressive there, but recognized he was going to get laddered so didn't help out his doomed stone this time.
Takeijiro and Akinari went off and did there own thing for a long time, but Takeijiro had way more territory.
They made random looking moves here and there, respecting each other's territory. Black should have been trying to get inside white's space, but he wasn't
Black's own space was so filled by black tiles, that white was better off just building up his own space.
Finally black had done everything he could in his own space, and started passing while white tidied up his own.
The final score was Black 50, White 103.5, an utter blowout.
Some of the other games were even more ridiculous. Jin looked and saw two games where players were trying to completely fill in their territories.
Jin watched as white completely filled in his territory, black took everything, and then black lost on time.
"Don't fill in territory. Your territory is points that are not occupied by a stone, but are safely protected by nearby stones. If you fill in territory, you take away your own liberties."
White won four games, Black won two.
"Kawaida, take Shigetoki's spot."
The board showed the relative plus/minus of the matchups. If they hit plus 5 against a higher ranked opponent they would move up in position, but since this was a special circumstance with all 1-1 players, Jin and Sandra would hand pick the players to move up.
"Think of it this way, if you have your army everywhere, then there's no place for your people to live," Jin said to Shigetoki. "Place your stones to provide nice little villages for your people to live. Connect your villages and challenge your opponents villages."
Jin went to watch Hoffman playing Rayford.
"All those squares on the board, they are potentially your color's citizens. Don't get too distracted with fighting in one place that you forget you can hang out elsewhere."
Two players finally got in a ko situation. Basically a situation where they would have been able to go back and forth taking the same stones, but the game didn't allow them to repeat a position they'd already seen. The module even said, "You can't place a stone at F1 because that would repeat a position that has already happened before.
They kept making moves elsewhere, and then taking the ko back once the position had changed.
Finally Hoffman won, and the rest of the games ended one by one.
"So you all know just how clueless you are without training? Now I will show you what you need to know.
Jin had put 12 of the candidates at the 6 go tables, and had them challenge each other first, before he trained them. He milled around, from table to table, with the 13th candidate.
"You're going to know more about Go before you play your first game. You won't have a bye after today," he said to the 13th.
"There are two drawers underneath each table. Take the bag of stones and place it close to you on the table. Look to see what color you have."
12 men pulled out the drawers. First only two them found where they were, and then everyone went to look at the first two and saw how to pull out the small wooden drawer.
Finally everyone had their stones.
"If you have white, you are the challenger. If you have black you are the challenged. Those of you who have white stones, press the challenge button in the middle of the table."
Once again there was a delay as six of them looked for the button. Finally they had all pressed it.
The module was speaking to all of them.
"Yoshitaka Norio challenging Kirishima Shigetoki"
"Hasegawa Akinari challenging Date Takejiro"
"Hiroshima Tamasine challenging Iwai Kamatari"
"Morine Sekien challenging Iwasaki Teinosuke"
"Butch Hoffman challenging Johnie Rayford"
Most of the men were from Toyota's network, but it was obvious some had come from far away, probably to participate in the Sword Master's Challenge, and had already lost that before signing up for this.
"If you have the black stones, you can place them first."
Four of the men started in the exact center, which wasn't part of any opening. There was very little power projection from the center.
Two of the men played on the edge, which was also pointless.
Jin watched one of the games and commentated:
Akinari played K10, the exact center of the board.
White played J10, to the left of black's stone.
"Very tactical, and also stupid," Jin said.
Black played J9, surrounding white's stone from 2 directions.
J11 for white, extending stones, K9 for black connecting his 2.
"All tactical play."
"Oops, I didn't mean to lay that one done," White said, playing E8 on accident.
"Better than what you have been playing. Once you've placed a stone, that's it, no take backs except during practice," Jin said.
Jin continued to rip into the total novices who played without considering any of the beautiful ideas that he loved in Go. They had no idea about Life and Death, openings, balance or anything else.
Takejiro somehow figured out ladders. As white, he realized he could keep trapping black and black couldn't escape because Black had stumbled into a ladder situation .
Finally, after black had wasted a long chain of stones trying to escape, he realized he was going to lose them all. So he decided to go play by himself somewhere else. White's board position was ridiculously strong after he made the ladder finisher to take 11 of Black's stones.
Black continued to hang out by himself in the lower right corner.
White played some good moves for a beginner, taking territory in the lower left. Black made moves in the lower and then middle right, and then came back to the fight in the middle. White came back too.
"Looks like Takejiro might be on his way to 1-2, way to go. There's a long way yet to go. Akinari, you've got a lot to learn."
Jin continued to be blunt in evaluating the novice game.
White was trying to claim everything on the left, and everything up top, leaving black with only the bottom left.
Black tried to intrude into the bottom left.
Later, black tried to get too aggressive there, but recognized he was going to get laddered so didn't help out his doomed stone this time.
Takeijiro and Akinari went off and did there own thing for a long time, but Takeijiro had way more territory.
They made random looking moves here and there, respecting each other's territory. Black should have been trying to get inside white's space, but he wasn't
Black's own space was so filled by black tiles, that white was better off just building up his own space.
Finally black had done everything he could in his own space, and started passing while white tidied up his own.
The final score was Black 50, White 103.5, an utter blowout.
Some of the other games were even more ridiculous. Jin looked and saw two games where players were trying to completely fill in their territories.
Jin watched as white completely filled in his territory, black took everything, and then black lost on time.
"Don't fill in territory. Your territory is points that are not occupied by a stone, but are safely protected by nearby stones. If you fill in territory, you take away your own liberties."
White won four games, Black won two.
"Kawaida, take Shigetoki's spot."
The board showed the relative plus/minus of the matchups. If they hit plus 5 against a higher ranked opponent they would move up in position, but since this was a special circumstance with all 1-1 players, Jin and Sandra would hand pick the players to move up.
"Think of it this way, if you have your army everywhere, then there's no place for your people to live," Jin said to Shigetoki. "Place your stones to provide nice little villages for your people to live. Connect your villages and challenge your opponents villages."
Jin went to watch Hoffman playing Rayford.
"All those squares on the board, they are potentially your color's citizens. Don't get too distracted with fighting in one place that you forget you can hang out elsewhere."
Two players finally got in a ko situation. Basically a situation where they would have been able to go back and forth taking the same stones, but the game didn't allow them to repeat a position they'd already seen. The module even said, "You can't place a stone at F1 because that would repeat a position that has already happened before.
They kept making moves elsewhere, and then taking the ko back once the position had changed.
Finally Hoffman won, and the rest of the games ended one by one.
"So you all know just how clueless you are without training? Now I will show you what you need to know.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Sephiroth Go
Part 9 of The Sword and the Go Stone
The Sephiroth's trip back to Shinamo would take 5 months. Michael learned Go terminology, tactics and strategy, while continuing to soundly defeat both of us when we challenged him
Jin and Sandra spent a lot of time playing against each other, and they were getting better as they did. Jin was definitely better, but Sandra still managed to win about 30% of the games they played.
Neither had beat Michael yet.
When they got bored of Go after days full of long intense sessions, Michael had them running laps around the ship's corridors. He even let them access the dojo and practice fighting with virtual swords.
They were getting better as they got into better physical shape, but their techniques were still bad.
I had programmed a part of myself inside the module, activated by a relay network so that Toyota's border scanners wouldn't detect my presence. Every so often, when Exeter was slow and nothing of note was happening, I would check up on the ship and Sandra, Jin and Michael.
Sandra's play had improved to the point that she might win some bigger tournaments if she came back to Google's network. But Jin's had improved too, he could win a LOT of tournaments, even on New London.
Michael's level of play was actually dropping a little as he learned human names for concepts he knew intuitively. But he was still way better than Jin and Sandra.
I don't like cheats, but I was willing to let that go since he was leaving Exeter for good.
I waited for a week after the Sephiroth passed into Toyota network space, before I tried to make contact. Luckily, Toyota either didn't detect my intrusion, or didn't do anything about it.
I had video feeds of the cargo bay, but I couldn't track what they were doing elsewhere on the ship.
Eventually, I realized from the module's readings that it had been unloaded on Shinamo. I deactivated my connection until needed.
-o-
There had already been activity at the site of the Go Master's Challenge on Shinamo. Michael watched as the Go module's building was unloaded and slowly brought to the ground.
There was a workout building, a small office building with the grandmaster's office, lead mentor's office and program administrator's office, and a large conference room.
A new Combine AI was in it's building on the north side of the compound.
The Go Master's Challenge compound was only a half mile from the Sword Master's Challenge.
As the top-ranked challenger in the challenge, Michael would take the GMs office. Jin would take the Lead Mentor position, and coordinate himself and Sandra and eventually other mentors (4-1s and up). Sandra would coordinate with the Combine AI at the center to run the program.
The Sword Master's Challenge had housing for challengers near that compound, and while Michael was gone, he noticed they had added a new wing to the housing compound.
Finally, he was sitting in Sandra's Program Admin office. She was reviewing the candidates for SMC who already were waiting. They had all been cleared of any computer cheating by the Combine AI, but the module was going to scan them now.
It was time to bring them in and introduce them to the program and then do that.
"You'll be the first person to meet the candidates. Give them the details about the program, and the cheating scans that the module will be doing. I'll be their drill instructor, putting the fear of God in them, and getting them into good physical shape, to keep up with Shinamo standards.
Then Jin will be their teacher and mentor, you can work with him on that as well. I'm going to stay strictly in the role of scary authority figure. Maybe I'll have a sit down conversation with someone once they make a 4-1 rank or so."
"I'll go bring them into the compound then," Sandra said.
"Introduce yourself, tell them about the testing, then march them on foot to the compound, and have them go in, in pairs, to be tested."
"Yep, OK," Sandra said.
-o-
Sandra was used to 4 mile runs after running almost every day onboard the Sephiroth. The ground was a lot more rough and uneven than the ship, however.
When Michael said housing, she had expected a single story building, or maybe two stories. The building in front of her was 4 stories tall, and separated into two wings.
She passed a few candidates or challengers as she entered through the revolving door. She noticed the sheathes on their hips, confirming they were from the sword program.
Sandra was wearing a red robe like the ones the 7-1 sword masters wore. The belt had one silver star on its buckle. The red was for world 7, one star for level 1. Michael said the Compound AI had some suggestions for new outfits for the Go Master's Program but it had wanted to wait and talk with Sandra and Jin before designing them.
She ran into a group of 2 blue robed men and 3 purple robed men at the elevator. They both did a double take, and she wasn't sure if it was the red robe, or the fact that she was a woman.
"Is this a joke?" one of them finally said as the reopened the elevator twice, standing there.
"I am Sandra K, Go Master's Challenge Program Coordinator. Oh, and 7-1. I will be coming here and gathering candidates for the Go Master's Challenge from the other wing. I hope you would be respectful to myself, Grandmaster Michael M and Lead Mentor Jin W."
"Go, what is that even," one of the blue robed world men said.
"Michael M, man. Remember, the second best fighter in the program?" another said.
"Oh crap, he's a grandmaster of your program now?"
"Yes," Sandra K said. "If you ever get tired of swords... Anyway, I've got things to be doing."
She left them, and took the elevator to the basement, where Michael said the world 1 candidates and challengers would be housed.
There was no one milling by the elevator in the basement. I turned left out of the elevator, and went down the hallway towards the Go wing of the basement.
There were 13 candidates standing there, having a good time, chatting and eating.
"Welcome Candidates!" Sandra shouted.
The men all stood up and formed three lines.
"You are trying out for the Go Master's Challenge. I understand many of you don't even know what Go is. It is a complex and subtle board game played on 361 squares in a 19 by 19 grid. When you play, you will either be placing the white stones or the black stones. You want your side's stones to control more territory at the end of the game. So it is a war game, subtle and powerful, full of threats and counterplay, more similar to martial arts than you may think.
Computer cheating is prohibited at all times. Computer cheating is using an ai or any other computer device to assist you during play, or using an AI to reprogram your neural structures to be more effective at Go. Any AI or computer assistance before or during a challenge will result in your termination from this program.
So your first step in the program is to follow me back to the compound, where the module will check your brain and your possessions to make sure you are abiding by this rule.
Follow me."
There were thirteen men and no women amongst the 1-1s. Shinamo was an almost completely male-only monastic style colony. But Michael had reassured me that Toyota's new policies meant gender equality was expected. Go Master's Challenge would be a prototype for bringing monastically minded women on colony.
The men followed me to the elevator. Sandra sent seven in the first elevator trip up, and she went with the rest after that.
They followed in silence as they walked back to the Go compound.
"This is the Go building," I said, once we got to the compound. We were standing outside the module building.
"You will do all of your challenges, Go practice and over-the-board mentorship in this building. There is a dumb AI known as the module inside this building. The module runs the Go system, and also checks for computer cheating. You will go in twos into the Go building to be checked," Sandra said.
Sandra pointed at two candidates at a time as they went into the module building, and then came back out a few minutes later. She did this again and again until the last candidate was in and out.
"You will have a world and a level in the Go Master's Program. Right now you are all world 1, level 1, what we call 1-1. You haven't even jumped over your first koopa yet! Grandmaster Michael M is the best Go player you will ever meet. He is the grandmaster of the program, and the only world 8 challenger in the program. He is 8-1. Master Jin W is the lead mentor for the program. He will be teaching and mentoring you about Go, I will be assisting him. Master Jin W is 7-2.
I am your Program Administrator. I will bring in all the new candidates, inform you of any promotions or demotions in rank, and answer any questions you may have. I am Sandra K, 7-1. The world is more important than level. 8-1 is higher rank than 7-4. So it is Michael M first, then Jin W, then myself and then all of you.
You will be going through a week long initiation, where you are challenged both physically and mentally. I will give you notice that you have been promoted to 1-2, that is world 1 level 2 at the end of that week. If you have not been promoted to 1-2 by the end of the week, your Go Master's Challenge is over for now. You will be eligible to try again in 3 months.
If you make it to 1-2 by the end of the week, you can continue. For now there won't be any 1-3s ahead of you, so you will continue to challenge other 1-2s and receive challenges from 1-1s. If you lose to enough 1-1s you will revert to that rank and be eliminated from the Challenge.
The best of the 1-2s will claw there way up to 1-3, and so on. We will instruct you regarding who you are allowed to challenge as the weeks go by.
As for now, get a good night's sleep, and be ready for an early start tommorrow morning. Dismissed!"
-o-
Jin had woke up around 7 Sephiroth time to see that it was 9 am local. The Senior Challengers' Building was small for now, but the Compound AI would make it bigger as needed. Sandra K and Michael M were already out and about, when Jin got ready. He put on the Red robe with the 2 silver star belt, shaved, ate a whole nutrition meal bar for breakfast, and went to the module building.
It was the candidates first day playing Go and his first day teaching.
A lot of Elite Amateurs taught, but he had been on the track to being a pro early, and he had funding so he continued to play full time and started making enough money to stuck with it before too long.
Sandra had taught for a year before she became Pro, so it seemed weird that he was being asked to teach instead.
The candidates were all sitting outside the module building doing sit ups with their hands on the back of their heads.
"You're going to keep doing sit ups until your instructor gets here. He's probably sleeping in just to make you work more," Michael was yelling walking around at the candidates. A few of the candidates were obviously already in great shape, but some of them were struggling.
"Go down all the way, not just a little way. Rest your chest on the dirt, and then up all the way. Do you want to be singled out for extra reps, do you?!"
Jin approached the class, bowing to Michael.
"And.... STOP. Candy Asses, Master Jin is here to teach you sorry saps how to play Go! You're listening to him now!"
The Sephiroth's trip back to Shinamo would take 5 months. Michael learned Go terminology, tactics and strategy, while continuing to soundly defeat both of us when we challenged him
Jin and Sandra spent a lot of time playing against each other, and they were getting better as they did. Jin was definitely better, but Sandra still managed to win about 30% of the games they played.
Neither had beat Michael yet.
When they got bored of Go after days full of long intense sessions, Michael had them running laps around the ship's corridors. He even let them access the dojo and practice fighting with virtual swords.
They were getting better as they got into better physical shape, but their techniques were still bad.
I had programmed a part of myself inside the module, activated by a relay network so that Toyota's border scanners wouldn't detect my presence. Every so often, when Exeter was slow and nothing of note was happening, I would check up on the ship and Sandra, Jin and Michael.
Sandra's play had improved to the point that she might win some bigger tournaments if she came back to Google's network. But Jin's had improved too, he could win a LOT of tournaments, even on New London.
Michael's level of play was actually dropping a little as he learned human names for concepts he knew intuitively. But he was still way better than Jin and Sandra.
I don't like cheats, but I was willing to let that go since he was leaving Exeter for good.
I waited for a week after the Sephiroth passed into Toyota network space, before I tried to make contact. Luckily, Toyota either didn't detect my intrusion, or didn't do anything about it.
I had video feeds of the cargo bay, but I couldn't track what they were doing elsewhere on the ship.
Eventually, I realized from the module's readings that it had been unloaded on Shinamo. I deactivated my connection until needed.
-o-
There had already been activity at the site of the Go Master's Challenge on Shinamo. Michael watched as the Go module's building was unloaded and slowly brought to the ground.
There was a workout building, a small office building with the grandmaster's office, lead mentor's office and program administrator's office, and a large conference room.
A new Combine AI was in it's building on the north side of the compound.
The Go Master's Challenge compound was only a half mile from the Sword Master's Challenge.
As the top-ranked challenger in the challenge, Michael would take the GMs office. Jin would take the Lead Mentor position, and coordinate himself and Sandra and eventually other mentors (4-1s and up). Sandra would coordinate with the Combine AI at the center to run the program.
The Sword Master's Challenge had housing for challengers near that compound, and while Michael was gone, he noticed they had added a new wing to the housing compound.
Finally, he was sitting in Sandra's Program Admin office. She was reviewing the candidates for SMC who already were waiting. They had all been cleared of any computer cheating by the Combine AI, but the module was going to scan them now.
It was time to bring them in and introduce them to the program and then do that.
"You'll be the first person to meet the candidates. Give them the details about the program, and the cheating scans that the module will be doing. I'll be their drill instructor, putting the fear of God in them, and getting them into good physical shape, to keep up with Shinamo standards.
Then Jin will be their teacher and mentor, you can work with him on that as well. I'm going to stay strictly in the role of scary authority figure. Maybe I'll have a sit down conversation with someone once they make a 4-1 rank or so."
"I'll go bring them into the compound then," Sandra said.
"Introduce yourself, tell them about the testing, then march them on foot to the compound, and have them go in, in pairs, to be tested."
"Yep, OK," Sandra said.
-o-
Sandra was used to 4 mile runs after running almost every day onboard the Sephiroth. The ground was a lot more rough and uneven than the ship, however.
When Michael said housing, she had expected a single story building, or maybe two stories. The building in front of her was 4 stories tall, and separated into two wings.
She passed a few candidates or challengers as she entered through the revolving door. She noticed the sheathes on their hips, confirming they were from the sword program.
Sandra was wearing a red robe like the ones the 7-1 sword masters wore. The belt had one silver star on its buckle. The red was for world 7, one star for level 1. Michael said the Compound AI had some suggestions for new outfits for the Go Master's Program but it had wanted to wait and talk with Sandra and Jin before designing them.
She ran into a group of 2 blue robed men and 3 purple robed men at the elevator. They both did a double take, and she wasn't sure if it was the red robe, or the fact that she was a woman.
"Is this a joke?" one of them finally said as the reopened the elevator twice, standing there.
"I am Sandra K, Go Master's Challenge Program Coordinator. Oh, and 7-1. I will be coming here and gathering candidates for the Go Master's Challenge from the other wing. I hope you would be respectful to myself, Grandmaster Michael M and Lead Mentor Jin W."
"Go, what is that even," one of the blue robed world men said.
"Michael M, man. Remember, the second best fighter in the program?" another said.
"Oh crap, he's a grandmaster of your program now?"
"Yes," Sandra K said. "If you ever get tired of swords... Anyway, I've got things to be doing."
She left them, and took the elevator to the basement, where Michael said the world 1 candidates and challengers would be housed.
There was no one milling by the elevator in the basement. I turned left out of the elevator, and went down the hallway towards the Go wing of the basement.
There were 13 candidates standing there, having a good time, chatting and eating.
"Welcome Candidates!" Sandra shouted.
The men all stood up and formed three lines.
"You are trying out for the Go Master's Challenge. I understand many of you don't even know what Go is. It is a complex and subtle board game played on 361 squares in a 19 by 19 grid. When you play, you will either be placing the white stones or the black stones. You want your side's stones to control more territory at the end of the game. So it is a war game, subtle and powerful, full of threats and counterplay, more similar to martial arts than you may think.
Computer cheating is prohibited at all times. Computer cheating is using an ai or any other computer device to assist you during play, or using an AI to reprogram your neural structures to be more effective at Go. Any AI or computer assistance before or during a challenge will result in your termination from this program.
So your first step in the program is to follow me back to the compound, where the module will check your brain and your possessions to make sure you are abiding by this rule.
Follow me."
There were thirteen men and no women amongst the 1-1s. Shinamo was an almost completely male-only monastic style colony. But Michael had reassured me that Toyota's new policies meant gender equality was expected. Go Master's Challenge would be a prototype for bringing monastically minded women on colony.
The men followed me to the elevator. Sandra sent seven in the first elevator trip up, and she went with the rest after that.
They followed in silence as they walked back to the Go compound.
"This is the Go building," I said, once we got to the compound. We were standing outside the module building.
"You will do all of your challenges, Go practice and over-the-board mentorship in this building. There is a dumb AI known as the module inside this building. The module runs the Go system, and also checks for computer cheating. You will go in twos into the Go building to be checked," Sandra said.
Sandra pointed at two candidates at a time as they went into the module building, and then came back out a few minutes later. She did this again and again until the last candidate was in and out.
"You will have a world and a level in the Go Master's Program. Right now you are all world 1, level 1, what we call 1-1. You haven't even jumped over your first koopa yet! Grandmaster Michael M is the best Go player you will ever meet. He is the grandmaster of the program, and the only world 8 challenger in the program. He is 8-1. Master Jin W is the lead mentor for the program. He will be teaching and mentoring you about Go, I will be assisting him. Master Jin W is 7-2.
I am your Program Administrator. I will bring in all the new candidates, inform you of any promotions or demotions in rank, and answer any questions you may have. I am Sandra K, 7-1. The world is more important than level. 8-1 is higher rank than 7-4. So it is Michael M first, then Jin W, then myself and then all of you.
You will be going through a week long initiation, where you are challenged both physically and mentally. I will give you notice that you have been promoted to 1-2, that is world 1 level 2 at the end of that week. If you have not been promoted to 1-2 by the end of the week, your Go Master's Challenge is over for now. You will be eligible to try again in 3 months.
If you make it to 1-2 by the end of the week, you can continue. For now there won't be any 1-3s ahead of you, so you will continue to challenge other 1-2s and receive challenges from 1-1s. If you lose to enough 1-1s you will revert to that rank and be eliminated from the Challenge.
The best of the 1-2s will claw there way up to 1-3, and so on. We will instruct you regarding who you are allowed to challenge as the weeks go by.
As for now, get a good night's sleep, and be ready for an early start tommorrow morning. Dismissed!"
-o-
Jin had woke up around 7 Sephiroth time to see that it was 9 am local. The Senior Challengers' Building was small for now, but the Compound AI would make it bigger as needed. Sandra K and Michael M were already out and about, when Jin got ready. He put on the Red robe with the 2 silver star belt, shaved, ate a whole nutrition meal bar for breakfast, and went to the module building.
It was the candidates first day playing Go and his first day teaching.
A lot of Elite Amateurs taught, but he had been on the track to being a pro early, and he had funding so he continued to play full time and started making enough money to stuck with it before too long.
Sandra had taught for a year before she became Pro, so it seemed weird that he was being asked to teach instead.
The candidates were all sitting outside the module building doing sit ups with their hands on the back of their heads.
"You're going to keep doing sit ups until your instructor gets here. He's probably sleeping in just to make you work more," Michael was yelling walking around at the candidates. A few of the candidates were obviously already in great shape, but some of them were struggling.
"Go down all the way, not just a little way. Rest your chest on the dirt, and then up all the way. Do you want to be singled out for extra reps, do you?!"
Jin approached the class, bowing to Michael.
"And.... STOP. Candy Asses, Master Jin is here to teach you sorry saps how to play Go! You're listening to him now!"
PT
The Sword and the Go Stone, Part 8
Sandra K had grown up playing Go, focusing on the mental and psychological world of competition. Sandra K had been trained to get enough exercise to stay physically and mentally healthy, but by no means was she up to Shinamo standards of training.
The cold air was hurting her lungs as she gasped for breath. The ship Sephiroth was due back in two days, and after three weeks of brutal training runs and weight lifting, she didn't feel any more prepared.
Sandra K had mentioned to Michael that if they wanted to keep any Go culture at all, they should bring at least one more go player to Shinamo.
She didn't think Jin W would be interested, but he was the only Pro she knew well who was still on planet by the time she asked around.
So Michael, Sandra and Jin were downstairs in Uno's secure room.
"It's like a ranked ladder," Michael was saying. Instead of general league and tournament play, you challenge players near you in rank, and you have a mentor who is substantially better but not too much better. Most likely you would be mentoring players and receiving and giving challenges.
"There's a series of leveled tiers. I would start at 8-1, you and Sandra would be somewhere in the 7-1 to 7-4 range. It's like those old games that have 8 worlds and 4 levels per world."
Sandra didn't get the reference and neither did Jin.
"It's a Toyota network thing I guess," Michael continued. "Over time, we'd get a solid core of mentors for beginners at around world 4. Mentors for 2 and 3 from world 5. Mentors for 4 from 6. For 5 from 7, and for 6 from 8. World 7 and 8 wouldn't have mentors, but that would be very few players. And we don't call them players anymore, we call them challengers.
"Just as an example from the Sword fighter discipline, I challenged our grand-master repeatedly over a 2 year period, trying to defeat him. I think even he, as perfect as he was, rose to greater ability through the challenges. I got so much better, it was ridiculous. It was adaptive in response to each wrinkle in the fights. So instead of rarely playing the same player twice, you can rise in skill by challenging someone of the next level up, and being challenged by someone just slightly weaker.
"In addition, for the new world 1 challengers, we give them something of a boot camp, challenge them physically as well as mentally. Try to push them past the mindset of just casually playing a game, or just casually hanging out at a dojo. The people who stay will be interested in playing at a whole new level."
Jin W said, "Well I would like to get in a series of games against Sandra, and against you. I've never trained against a neurally maximized player. Do you think you lost your sword fighting ability when you went through that?"
"I would fight like a Go master now. It might be interesting to see, but I wouldn't be as good as I was before," Michael said.
"There's one more thing. Hey Uno! Toyota network is interested in purchasing a Go tournament module like the ones you guys use. Is it possible to adjust the system to work for a ladder / challenge type of system? And what kind of price would you charge. I have access to an extensive amount of funds from Shinamo's colonial account."
Uno's avatar appeared before them. "Google Corporate is interested in a trade. They will provide a Go module modified for use with ladder / challenge systems, if Shinamo or Toyota corporate are willing to provide a 2 person team and a similar module for any form of martial arts."
"The Sephiroth is patched in to Exeter. The Combined AI can respond to your offer when they arrive. I think that would be acceptable."
Sandra said, "Jin, what do you think?"
"I'm interested in the challenge / ladder type of idea, and maybe I can bring it back to Google's network after we've got the program well-developed on Shinamo. I'm in," Jin said.
The three of them discussed plans, worked out, and Jin and Sandra played go at the Go center. Michael sent a message ahead to the Sephiroth, who relayed it back to Shinamo Combined AI. Two days later, when the Sephiroth arrived, they had an approval to make the trade between the two colonies and the two colonial networks.
Finally, Uno invited me to the secure compound alone, to hear about the modified Go module that was being loaded onboard the Sephiroth.
"Sandra K," Uno said. "The module you will be using is already customized to work like Michael has planned. Candidates will be challenged on their physical and endurance prowess during the 1st "world", as requested. Mentoring assignments will be granted in accordance with the plans.
"The module is very customizable, and while Michael has root access to configure it, I have given you super-root access. I still am a bit suspcious of this whole plan from Toyota network's perspective. If anything goes shady, ask the module to do a detailed scan for computer cheating. This will activate a small sub-space receiver for communication between you and I. It will be slow, and the network will eventually notice it once you turn it on, but I can guide you in an emergency."
"I don't think I need to worry, but thank you. I don't get this compatibility thing you mentioned with Michael. I've never been into sword-fighting, and Michael is quickly becoming a good friend, but I just don't see anything more there. I'd much rather spend time with Jin W, and talk Go, if I'm being honest."
"I wonder if the fact that he doesn't know anything about Go explicitly bugs you Its just all implicit knowledge. Now, more about this module. During the early phases of your project, all of the new students will be world 1 level 1. So they won't have anyone to challenge that's just a bit better. In that case, the Module will take the candidates that are better than most of their 1-1s and make them 1-2 after they demonstrate consistent victories. After a while, it will do the same among the 1-2s, picking a few 1-3s, and over time, as the number of candidates grows at the top level before you get to your three, the module will pick the best and promote them.
So over the first year or two, challengers will be spread upward bit by bit until they cover the gap from 1-1 to 6-4, and then 6-4s can start challenging you and Jin."
"OK, I was curious about that. What martial arts is Exeter getting in return?"
"Shinamo is sending an Akido module customized for our style of leagues and tournaments. I have agreed with Shinamo that we will be sister colonies and share information on how each others' projects are going. Good luck Sandra K."
"Thank you for everything, Uno. I appreciate it," Sandra said.
Then she went back to the spaceport, to Sephiroth, and boarded the corvette. Sephiroth was designed for travel speed, primarily. The module took up most of the ship's cargo space, but on the bright side, they were able to activate the module as soon as they left.
The module was embedded inside a small building, technically, it was the building that had barely fit, but in order to run its anti-computer cheating checks, the module had wires and sensors running througout the building.
It was only big enough to support six Go tables, two 80" digital displays on the left and right walls and a few benches for onlookers.
Both displays had a remote next to them for interacting with the module's security and configuration systems.
As soon as they could, Jin and Sandra went to the cargo hold, and activated the module.
The left display showed the rankings.
Michael M - 8-1 * - Grandmaster
Jin W - 7-2 * - Executive Master
Sandra K - 7-1 * - Master
"I wonder how we set up a challenge," Sandra said, looking at her rank relative to Jins. It was fair considering his tournament record, but she wanted to challenge him and test the system out.
"Let's sit down at a table and see," Jin said.
They went to the table marked #1. The go stones were available in two drawers that could be pulled out from the table.
There were three buttons in between their clocks. Practice, Unranked Play and Challenge. Sandra pressed the challenge button.
"Sandra K 7-1, you are challenging Jin W, 7-2, is that correct?"
"Yes," she said to the module.
The clocks were set to 60 minutes each.
"Jin W, as the challenged, you have your choice of color, which do you pick?"
The sound was coming from the table, rather than out of nowhere like Uno talked, it was weird and different than what she was used to.
"Black"
Jin would go first then. They started out much like many of their games had gone. In intricate sections of play, Jin eked out small advantages, bit by bit.
I made the situation complex, and both of our clocks were getting low, when the table announced we had reached the period to get 20 more minutes on our clocks.
Jin used all of that time to maneuver into a winning position, it was a good quality, intense win. I hadn't even noticed Michael come in.
"Just think how much more intricate your matchups will be a year from now," he said after the game was over. "If its anything like my Kenjutsu."
"We've played, what, 15, maybe 16 games against each other?" Jin said.
"How big is that gap between the best sword-fighters and yourself or your 8-1?" Sandra asked Michael.
"I spent 11 years of intense study and challenges to get to where I was," Michael said.
"Think about the first few people who try the Go Master's Challenge. The only thing I can compare to is new players who come from non-go playing cultures and join Exeter's leagues. They're playing against 8 year olds in the Novice division and getting absolutely destroyed. A new Go player is utterly lost. They make moves to put their own pieces in atari. They aren't even aware of eye shape yet," Sandra said.
"That reminds me, can you start teaching me these concepts while we play a game. I mean a real game," Michael said.
"Play Jin first. Jin can concentrate on beating you, and I'll teach you the concepts. I want to see just how much better your neural-programming is then his training," Sandra said.
"Let's go for it."
They set up a challenge between Jin and Michael the same way as before. There was more time on the clocks for this one. Each player had 90 minutes now.
"What's with the clocks?" Sandra asked.
Michael spoke up. "I had your Uno program different clock settings into the module by world. Plus I broke out World 1's settings by level. The clock settings are based on the higher ranked person being challenged.
1-1 is 20 minutes per side, no extensions.
1-2 is 25 minutes
1-3 is 30 minutes
1-4 is 35 minutes
World 2 is 40 minutes
World 3 is 45 minutes
World 4 is 50 minutes
World 5 is 55 minutes
World 6 is 60 minutes
World 7 is 60 minutes with a 20 minute extension after 60 turns.
World 8 is a special grandmaster challenge: 90 minutes, plus a 20 minute extension after 40, 80 and 120 turns.
This way, challengers can enjoy a sense of progress as they understand go more, and the many novice games at the start won't take so long."
Jin and Michael started playing. Michael was very fast with his early moves, but they all looked good.
"So the point of the game is to take territory. What territory is, is any area of the go board that you can protect from enemy intrusion, that you control.
You protect an area from intrusion by having two eyes. Each area is called a group in Go.
A liberty is the spots left, right, up and down of a square. If you place a stone, and it takes away all the liberties of one of my stones, you capture that stone. In addition, if a group of stones are all connected by these orthogonal liberties, and you surround that group, so that the group as a whole has no liberties, then you can remove that whole group.
An eye is an empty space surrounded by stones of one colour, which cannot be occupied by the opponent, unless the surrounding stones themselves are captured in the process.
If you have one eye, your opponent can surround your one eyed group, and then play in the empty space of the eye and take your last liberty, so that you lose all those stones.
If you have two eyes, your opponent can't do anything, because if they try to take one of the eyes, they just lose their stone, since you still have a liberty through the other eye. Plus you aren't allowed to make a self sacrificial play like that.
There are more complexities to the eye situation, but teaching new players about eyes, groups and liberties is crucial beginner stuff.
The group must surround at least one empty point, and it must be a chain. So any stones that are diagonally next to a group are not part of the group, only orthogonal connections count."
"What's orthogonal?" Michael asked.
"Orthogonal is any set of directions that are all at right angles with each other. In this case it's the up-down and left-right directions on the board," Sandra said.
"I lost some of these things when I got neural programmed," Michael said. "What about bigger strategic questions?"
"Well, I think Go has the best balance between tactics and strategy. You can win the battle in one area of the board and lose the war. Or you can play so removed that you lose too much and your strategic plans can't make up the difference.
You can respond to a tactical move with an establishing move in a different area of the board. After your opponent has taken a Ko, if you can make some large threat on the board, they are forced to respond and you can take that Ko back. It's called a Ko threat"
Sandra watched the two play, and she had a hard time figuring out who had the advantage. She continued to explain to Michael a glossary of Go and some tactics and strategies. I explained white's 6.5 point Komi, and how to score games and figure out who won. Yeah the module does the scoring, but its good to know for the endgame.
It wasn't obvious that Michael was winning until late. Suddenly I saw that Jin was going to lose by a lot.
"Impressive," Jin said. "I had no idea I was being crushed until half way through."
"You figured it out half way? I didn't until near the end," Sandra said.
"I've seen some of the best pros of New London do something like what Michael tried. They didn't pull it off as well, and I couldn't pull it off, but I was able to recognize it."
Sandra took a shot at Michael and lost more quickly than Jin. Then they all went and got some rest while the ship continued trucking along in hyperspace.
Sandra K had grown up playing Go, focusing on the mental and psychological world of competition. Sandra K had been trained to get enough exercise to stay physically and mentally healthy, but by no means was she up to Shinamo standards of training.
The cold air was hurting her lungs as she gasped for breath. The ship Sephiroth was due back in two days, and after three weeks of brutal training runs and weight lifting, she didn't feel any more prepared.
Sandra K had mentioned to Michael that if they wanted to keep any Go culture at all, they should bring at least one more go player to Shinamo.
She didn't think Jin W would be interested, but he was the only Pro she knew well who was still on planet by the time she asked around.
So Michael, Sandra and Jin were downstairs in Uno's secure room.
"It's like a ranked ladder," Michael was saying. Instead of general league and tournament play, you challenge players near you in rank, and you have a mentor who is substantially better but not too much better. Most likely you would be mentoring players and receiving and giving challenges.
"There's a series of leveled tiers. I would start at 8-1, you and Sandra would be somewhere in the 7-1 to 7-4 range. It's like those old games that have 8 worlds and 4 levels per world."
Sandra didn't get the reference and neither did Jin.
"It's a Toyota network thing I guess," Michael continued. "Over time, we'd get a solid core of mentors for beginners at around world 4. Mentors for 2 and 3 from world 5. Mentors for 4 from 6. For 5 from 7, and for 6 from 8. World 7 and 8 wouldn't have mentors, but that would be very few players. And we don't call them players anymore, we call them challengers.
"Just as an example from the Sword fighter discipline, I challenged our grand-master repeatedly over a 2 year period, trying to defeat him. I think even he, as perfect as he was, rose to greater ability through the challenges. I got so much better, it was ridiculous. It was adaptive in response to each wrinkle in the fights. So instead of rarely playing the same player twice, you can rise in skill by challenging someone of the next level up, and being challenged by someone just slightly weaker.
"In addition, for the new world 1 challengers, we give them something of a boot camp, challenge them physically as well as mentally. Try to push them past the mindset of just casually playing a game, or just casually hanging out at a dojo. The people who stay will be interested in playing at a whole new level."
Jin W said, "Well I would like to get in a series of games against Sandra, and against you. I've never trained against a neurally maximized player. Do you think you lost your sword fighting ability when you went through that?"
"I would fight like a Go master now. It might be interesting to see, but I wouldn't be as good as I was before," Michael said.
"There's one more thing. Hey Uno! Toyota network is interested in purchasing a Go tournament module like the ones you guys use. Is it possible to adjust the system to work for a ladder / challenge type of system? And what kind of price would you charge. I have access to an extensive amount of funds from Shinamo's colonial account."
Uno's avatar appeared before them. "Google Corporate is interested in a trade. They will provide a Go module modified for use with ladder / challenge systems, if Shinamo or Toyota corporate are willing to provide a 2 person team and a similar module for any form of martial arts."
"The Sephiroth is patched in to Exeter. The Combined AI can respond to your offer when they arrive. I think that would be acceptable."
Sandra said, "Jin, what do you think?"
"I'm interested in the challenge / ladder type of idea, and maybe I can bring it back to Google's network after we've got the program well-developed on Shinamo. I'm in," Jin said.
The three of them discussed plans, worked out, and Jin and Sandra played go at the Go center. Michael sent a message ahead to the Sephiroth, who relayed it back to Shinamo Combined AI. Two days later, when the Sephiroth arrived, they had an approval to make the trade between the two colonies and the two colonial networks.
Finally, Uno invited me to the secure compound alone, to hear about the modified Go module that was being loaded onboard the Sephiroth.
"Sandra K," Uno said. "The module you will be using is already customized to work like Michael has planned. Candidates will be challenged on their physical and endurance prowess during the 1st "world", as requested. Mentoring assignments will be granted in accordance with the plans.
"The module is very customizable, and while Michael has root access to configure it, I have given you super-root access. I still am a bit suspcious of this whole plan from Toyota network's perspective. If anything goes shady, ask the module to do a detailed scan for computer cheating. This will activate a small sub-space receiver for communication between you and I. It will be slow, and the network will eventually notice it once you turn it on, but I can guide you in an emergency."
"I don't think I need to worry, but thank you. I don't get this compatibility thing you mentioned with Michael. I've never been into sword-fighting, and Michael is quickly becoming a good friend, but I just don't see anything more there. I'd much rather spend time with Jin W, and talk Go, if I'm being honest."
"I wonder if the fact that he doesn't know anything about Go explicitly bugs you Its just all implicit knowledge. Now, more about this module. During the early phases of your project, all of the new students will be world 1 level 1. So they won't have anyone to challenge that's just a bit better. In that case, the Module will take the candidates that are better than most of their 1-1s and make them 1-2 after they demonstrate consistent victories. After a while, it will do the same among the 1-2s, picking a few 1-3s, and over time, as the number of candidates grows at the top level before you get to your three, the module will pick the best and promote them.
So over the first year or two, challengers will be spread upward bit by bit until they cover the gap from 1-1 to 6-4, and then 6-4s can start challenging you and Jin."
"OK, I was curious about that. What martial arts is Exeter getting in return?"
"Shinamo is sending an Akido module customized for our style of leagues and tournaments. I have agreed with Shinamo that we will be sister colonies and share information on how each others' projects are going. Good luck Sandra K."
"Thank you for everything, Uno. I appreciate it," Sandra said.
Then she went back to the spaceport, to Sephiroth, and boarded the corvette. Sephiroth was designed for travel speed, primarily. The module took up most of the ship's cargo space, but on the bright side, they were able to activate the module as soon as they left.
The module was embedded inside a small building, technically, it was the building that had barely fit, but in order to run its anti-computer cheating checks, the module had wires and sensors running througout the building.
It was only big enough to support six Go tables, two 80" digital displays on the left and right walls and a few benches for onlookers.
Both displays had a remote next to them for interacting with the module's security and configuration systems.
As soon as they could, Jin and Sandra went to the cargo hold, and activated the module.
The left display showed the rankings.
Michael M - 8-1 * - Grandmaster
Jin W - 7-2 * - Executive Master
Sandra K - 7-1 * - Master
"I wonder how we set up a challenge," Sandra said, looking at her rank relative to Jins. It was fair considering his tournament record, but she wanted to challenge him and test the system out.
"Let's sit down at a table and see," Jin said.
They went to the table marked #1. The go stones were available in two drawers that could be pulled out from the table.
There were three buttons in between their clocks. Practice, Unranked Play and Challenge. Sandra pressed the challenge button.
"Sandra K 7-1, you are challenging Jin W, 7-2, is that correct?"
"Yes," she said to the module.
The clocks were set to 60 minutes each.
"Jin W, as the challenged, you have your choice of color, which do you pick?"
The sound was coming from the table, rather than out of nowhere like Uno talked, it was weird and different than what she was used to.
"Black"
Jin would go first then. They started out much like many of their games had gone. In intricate sections of play, Jin eked out small advantages, bit by bit.
I made the situation complex, and both of our clocks were getting low, when the table announced we had reached the period to get 20 more minutes on our clocks.
Jin used all of that time to maneuver into a winning position, it was a good quality, intense win. I hadn't even noticed Michael come in.
"Just think how much more intricate your matchups will be a year from now," he said after the game was over. "If its anything like my Kenjutsu."
"We've played, what, 15, maybe 16 games against each other?" Jin said.
"How big is that gap between the best sword-fighters and yourself or your 8-1?" Sandra asked Michael.
"I spent 11 years of intense study and challenges to get to where I was," Michael said.
"Think about the first few people who try the Go Master's Challenge. The only thing I can compare to is new players who come from non-go playing cultures and join Exeter's leagues. They're playing against 8 year olds in the Novice division and getting absolutely destroyed. A new Go player is utterly lost. They make moves to put their own pieces in atari. They aren't even aware of eye shape yet," Sandra said.
"That reminds me, can you start teaching me these concepts while we play a game. I mean a real game," Michael said.
"Play Jin first. Jin can concentrate on beating you, and I'll teach you the concepts. I want to see just how much better your neural-programming is then his training," Sandra said.
"Let's go for it."
They set up a challenge between Jin and Michael the same way as before. There was more time on the clocks for this one. Each player had 90 minutes now.
"What's with the clocks?" Sandra asked.
Michael spoke up. "I had your Uno program different clock settings into the module by world. Plus I broke out World 1's settings by level. The clock settings are based on the higher ranked person being challenged.
1-1 is 20 minutes per side, no extensions.
1-2 is 25 minutes
1-3 is 30 minutes
1-4 is 35 minutes
World 2 is 40 minutes
World 3 is 45 minutes
World 4 is 50 minutes
World 5 is 55 minutes
World 6 is 60 minutes
World 7 is 60 minutes with a 20 minute extension after 60 turns.
World 8 is a special grandmaster challenge: 90 minutes, plus a 20 minute extension after 40, 80 and 120 turns.
This way, challengers can enjoy a sense of progress as they understand go more, and the many novice games at the start won't take so long."
Jin and Michael started playing. Michael was very fast with his early moves, but they all looked good.
"So the point of the game is to take territory. What territory is, is any area of the go board that you can protect from enemy intrusion, that you control.
You protect an area from intrusion by having two eyes. Each area is called a group in Go.
A liberty is the spots left, right, up and down of a square. If you place a stone, and it takes away all the liberties of one of my stones, you capture that stone. In addition, if a group of stones are all connected by these orthogonal liberties, and you surround that group, so that the group as a whole has no liberties, then you can remove that whole group.
An eye is an empty space surrounded by stones of one colour, which cannot be occupied by the opponent, unless the surrounding stones themselves are captured in the process.
If you have one eye, your opponent can surround your one eyed group, and then play in the empty space of the eye and take your last liberty, so that you lose all those stones.
If you have two eyes, your opponent can't do anything, because if they try to take one of the eyes, they just lose their stone, since you still have a liberty through the other eye. Plus you aren't allowed to make a self sacrificial play like that.
There are more complexities to the eye situation, but teaching new players about eyes, groups and liberties is crucial beginner stuff.
The group must surround at least one empty point, and it must be a chain. So any stones that are diagonally next to a group are not part of the group, only orthogonal connections count."
"What's orthogonal?" Michael asked.
"Orthogonal is any set of directions that are all at right angles with each other. In this case it's the up-down and left-right directions on the board," Sandra said.
"I lost some of these things when I got neural programmed," Michael said. "What about bigger strategic questions?"
"Well, I think Go has the best balance between tactics and strategy. You can win the battle in one area of the board and lose the war. Or you can play so removed that you lose too much and your strategic plans can't make up the difference.
You can respond to a tactical move with an establishing move in a different area of the board. After your opponent has taken a Ko, if you can make some large threat on the board, they are forced to respond and you can take that Ko back. It's called a Ko threat"
Sandra watched the two play, and she had a hard time figuring out who had the advantage. She continued to explain to Michael a glossary of Go and some tactics and strategies. I explained white's 6.5 point Komi, and how to score games and figure out who won. Yeah the module does the scoring, but its good to know for the endgame.
It wasn't obvious that Michael was winning until late. Suddenly I saw that Jin was going to lose by a lot.
"Impressive," Jin said. "I had no idea I was being crushed until half way through."
"You figured it out half way? I didn't until near the end," Sandra said.
"I've seen some of the best pros of New London do something like what Michael tried. They didn't pull it off as well, and I couldn't pull it off, but I was able to recognize it."
Sandra took a shot at Michael and lost more quickly than Jin. Then they all went and got some rest while the ship continued trucking along in hyperspace.
Harry Potter Themed Basketball GM
I've been toying with the idea of setting up a multi-team solitaire in Basketball GM with the Harry Potter teams I made for the game.
The rosters are randomly generated, but I am doing a redraft of all players with each team having restrictions and/or tendencies on who they can pick. I figured it might be a fun way to get some narratives and story ideas flowing.
The player names are drawn from a list of harry potter first and last names so there are a lot of similar named players to Harry Potter characters.
The rosters are randomly generated, but I am doing a redraft of all players with each team having restrictions and/or tendencies on who they can pick. I figured it might be a fun way to get some narratives and story ideas flowing.
The player names are drawn from a list of harry potter first and last names so there are a lot of similar named players to Harry Potter characters.
Team Groups
Student Teams
These teams stick to players 25 & under, and largely don't resign free agents unless they are still very young.
Gryffindor Lions
Slytherin Serpents
Ravenclaw Eagles
Hufflepuff Badgers
Beauxbatons Veelas
Durmstrang Wizards
Ilvermorny Crows
Castelobruxo Caipora
Koldovstoretz Flying Trees
Mahoutokoro Petrels
Uagadou Mountains
Salem Witches
Broom Flying Academy
Euro-Glyph Languages
Professors
The Hogwarts Professors are in the Student division, but they are different. They try to keep their roster the same as much as they can from year to year, and prefer to sign players from the student teams, especially, the Hogwarts student teams.
Hogwarts Professors
Ministry
These teams are unrestricted as far as players. They don't raise up prospects much, but prefer to let the schools do that and then sign them in free agency.
Auror Elites
Mysterious Unspeakables
Muggle Artefact Investigators
Magical Creatures Caretakers
Quidditch Teams
These teams have a "Seeker" who is the best on the team, some Beaters, bigger guys and the chasers.
Chudley Cannons
Puddlemere United
Appleby Arrows
Ireland Shamrocks
Bulgarian Fire
Magical Creatures
These teams each have their own niche based on their nature.
Goblin Bankers - Team is structured to make tons of money each year.
Centaur Augerers - Pursues luck in the draft / picking prospects that have high potential but lower overall.
House Elf Socks - Prefers shorter players
Troll Clubs - Prefers big guys
Dragon Inferno - They either rampage the world, and go all out to sign the best and take the championship, or stay with their treasure and save money and hope for stardom in the draft. Boom or Bust, no in between,
Wizengamot
The Wizengamot is another special case. They prefer to sign older players whenever possible, and trade for older players from other teams looking to get rid of their declining old players.
2016 Pre-Season
Pre-Season Power Rankings
| O | P | T | Team | W | L | L10 | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | - | 1 | House Elf Socks | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 2 | - | 2 | Wizengamot Judges | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 3 | - | 3 | Magical Creatures Caretakers | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 4 | - | 4 | Ireland Shamrocks | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 5 | - | 5 | Hogwarts Professors | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 6 | - | 6 | Appleby Arrows | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 7 | - | 7 | Puddlemere United | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 8 | - | 8 | Auror Elites | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 9 | - | 9 | Bulgarian Fire | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 10 | - | 10 | Chudley Cannons | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 11 | - | 11 | Mysterious Unspeakables | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 12 | - | 12 | Durmstrang Wizards | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 13 | - | 13 | Hufflepuff Badgers | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 14 | - | 14 | Muggle Artefact Investigators | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 15 | - | 15 | Troll Clubs | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 16 | - | 16 | Euro-Glyph Languages | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 17 | - | 17 | Gryffindor Lions | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 18 | - | 18 | Mahoutokoro Petrels | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 19 | - | 19 | Slytherin Serpents | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 20 | - | 20 | Ilvermorny Crows | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 21 | - | 21 | Castelobruxo Caipora | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 22 | - | 22 | Goblin Bankers | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 23 | - | 23 | Koldovstoretz Flying Trees | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 24 | - | 24 | Uagadou Mountains | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 25 | - | 25 | Beauxbatons Veelas | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 26 | - | 26 | Broom Flying Academy | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 27 | - | 27 | Salem Witches | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 28 | - | 28 | Ravenclaw Eagles | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 29 | - | 29 | Dragon Inferno | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
| 30 | - | 30 | Centaur Augurers | 0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0.0 |
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