Meeting the Master

The Sword and the Go Stone, Part 7


This sword go game wasn't quite as stupid as Sandra thought. If all the battles went the way of the surrounding stones beating the surrounded, It would be a lot like regular go. On the other hand, if Michael was truly as good at swordplay as she was at Go, he could probably win in every situation and make it pointless But on a third hand, Uno would tune the difficulty just right, she figured.

The stones were not all the same type, even if they were all white and black. Michael and I were playing as white, so the sim would go first. Black had 10 black stones with tiny gold crowns on them, 30 black stones with silver crowns, and 141 plain black stones. I had 10 white stones with gold crowns, 30 black stones with silver crowns, and the rest plain.


"Ok," Uno's voice filled the room. "Michael, Sandra. The gold and silver stones are stronger sword fighters, your samurai so to speak. The plain stones are minions, without as much skill. This primarily affects the stones that are controlled by the simulator. Michael, in each engagement, you will automatically be taking the place of the strongest white stone, so Gold if there's a gold white stone, or silver, or plain. Take the Gold-class sword, silver-class sword or plain sword depending on which stone you are taking the place of in the battle.

Remember, a battle happens whenever stones would have been taken in normal Go. If the surrounding stones win the battle, the same thing as normal go happens, the surrounded stones are gone. If the surrounded stones win the battle, all of the surrounding stones that were taking away liberties from the surrounded, are gone.

Once both sides run out of stones to place, or pass consecutively, the game is over. Because of the battles, we are playing a variant of capture go scoring.

Remember Sandra, this is very different from normal go, in that if your surrounding 10 stones with 11 stones, its not a guarantee, its going to take some good fighter. You will have to a adjust a lot more than Michael for now, but I do think it will be fun for you both."

I sat at a go table with my virtual opponent, who was dressed up like a shogun. It was all just a simulation, but the moves were real. I needed to get a feel for how well Michael could fight, so I played more tactically, and aggressively than I would ever play in normal go. I would have a change to take some stones, and then my opponent would have the same chance to surround.

It was ten white stones against 4 black. Neither of us had used and silver or gold stones yet, except I used a silver stone for the final liberty that initiated the fight.

there was a flashing green light on the battle floor where Michael was supposed to stand. The local go situation was replicated with young grinning sword fighters wearing white robes. The battle put Michael at the front of the pincer, but there was a boot at the back and where two white fighters were fighting side by side.

The simulator flashed green, yellow, "Fight!"

Even for being the plain white and black stones, the computer generated fighters were good. They knew how to attack and defend and coordinate with each other. White had the numbers, and Michael got past his first foe's target when the enemy tried to block the white fighter on his side.

Having a surround was very good for sword fighting, as well as go, Sandra K realized. Maybe Michael had been seeing surrounds and escapes in a somewhere similar way to her this whole time, even though he was pursuing a different profession entirely.

With friends already encircling the enemy, Michael proceeded to strike two more swordsmen down while the simulated friendlies took out the last swordsman.

4 stones captured was surely nice, but now Sandra's opponent had a similar chance to take five of her stones. Her five were arranged like a stair step, trying to connect with another group. Black had nine stones facing off against her five. None of them were silver or gold on either side.

"The silver sword ain't bad. This one is a bit rusty," Michael said.

Now the tables were turned. Michael was wearing a belt that buzzed when the simulation considered him defeated. Then he would have to step away for the rest of the fight.

His position was at one of the ends of the stair, surrounded by three black side fighters. I had put him in a tough situation.

Michael weaved his way out of the surround, and while two of his other white fighters fell quickly, he managed to work against the three on one situation and bring it down to two to one.

Other black fighters made quick work of the rest of the friendlies just as Michael finished off the first three. Facing six enemies, he preferred a style of fighting by movement. He used the space of the room to keep the enemies guessing, and over a period of 20 minutes managed to defeat them. Those nine tiles were all off the board, in her captures pile.

Sandra decided to play good solid Go, on the understanding that there would be fights anyway.

They only got maybe a quarter way through the game before they decided to take a break.

"Uno," I asked. "How long do you think a full game would take to play?"

#1 responded, "Depending on the style of play, perhaps 40 hours."

"Let's go hang out with some of my favorite pros," I said to Michael.

"I don' t think this world is going to accept me. I had the compound AI on Shinamo give me neural programming for go while I slept at night. Everything I know about Exeter says its about the unprogrammed brain, about entirely human efforts to learn and play games. Actually it wasn't the plan I wanted. Shinamo is very similar. An entire planet of martial artists, when a computer system could just program their mind and body into a fighting machine. So its actually similar to Exeter. Its about figuring it out yourself, and enjoying the community."

"Why did you want to meet me so bad, other than the, uh, compatibility thing?"

"Let me tell you a story," Michael said.

...

I was high up in the Sword Masters' Challenge, which is a self-sustaining collective of sword fighting experts who accept new recruits and also hone and refine their skills to dizzying heights.

I came from Facebook's colonial network, but I always wanted to learn martial arts, the real stuff, not the McDojos. So I transferred my billions of Facebook points for 3 Toyota points. You see, the Toyota network covers almost everything for a gratuity, but you need a point when you want something special, like a transfer to different world, or a variety of in depth things. I believe the richest person in the Toyota network has only maybe 1200 points.

Anyway, I went to Shinamo, and immediately failed 4 times at the Sword Master's Challenge. So I went around the colony world, and learned from all the other subcultures there. Finally five years later, I tried the Sword Master's Challenge and made it past the sink or swim stage. I was challenged and crushed by the best, and had to claw my way up each rung of the ladder.

Instead of the league and tournament structure like you have here, we had more of a ladder structure, as we each challenged a more skilled foe than ourselves, and also tried to keep our spot by fighting off those below us. In addition, we had responsibilities around the compound, paying the bills, that sort of thing.

Before all this happened I reached a rank of 8-3, basically among the top 6 to 10 fighters in the Challenge. Our leader is a 9-1. I started fighting him in the ladder sometimes, when the other senior fighters were busy with chores or other fights.

He was just impossible to even touch in a fight. He was so far ahead of me, I felt like I had another 10 ranks to go to get close. I pushed my training and my technique work to a whole new level I had never reached before.

I couldn't even fight like that right now, because I've lost that mindset, that grace of form and perfection when you are facing the impossible that responds and moves into your shadow. The battles became more like a dance as I got better.

I became Coyote 9-1's best sparring partner, number two on the ladder. I think the others had given up when they started fighting him, or they had tried for a while and then given up. They had many more years of experience than I, but I could dispatch the 3rd best fighter with ease.

Finally I got called into the AI building by the Sword Master's Challenge's own Compound AI.

Ace, Maria and Alex were the nicknames for the three parts of the compound AI.

"Coyote doesn't want to fight you anymore," Ace said.

"Body and Brain surgery together has made Coyote the engine of perfection for the SMC program. He doesn't learn the way you do. He's already had it all along. He started SMC 137 years ago, and his body is regularly re-harmonized to prevent aging," Maria said.

Alex said, "You will not find any more satisfaction in pursuing martial arts. We know that you are a competitor, a professional, a striver, not a teacher or trainer."

"Your understanding is deeply internal and personal, and will be difficult for another person to receive and accept."

"You do have some form of craving to create something which has never been seen before."

"We do not have the resources to do such a thing. But we are willing to pay you Toyota points, if the Toyota HQ AIs find an interesting proposal. Do we have permission to fax a brain and body scan to HQ?" Alex said plaintively.

I idly agreed to this, and left the AI building behind me.

I hadn't taken a day off in the two years since I started battling Coyote on the ladder.

It was time to take one.

I ended up chasing the lava flows in Shinamo's volcano island chain on the Central Ocean.

I was watching lava spew and flow down a ravine from a hilltop 800 meters away. The sound, the smell and the sight of the lava was calming for my grief-stricken heart. That battle with Coyote had been my life's work, I felt. If I had been able to defeat the AI's perfect creation.

"Michael! Matsuko! Please Report to Central Compound AI Building. Please take the Air car."

An air car was landing behind me on the hilltop. I hadn't rode in an air car since I was 12. They were expensive, and Shinamo was against lazy transportation methods. I climbed into the gleaming silver sky car.

The speed limit for air cars on Shinamo was just under the speed of sound at 250. I had never heard of an air car breaking the mach limit. When I buckled up my seat belt, the air car lifted up into the air, and in an ascending climb, shoved me back into my seat with a vicious jolt.

I looked up at the gauge as I saw the speed climbing fast. The roar of the wind, the crack of a sonic boom, wait what?

We were going mach 4 by the time we got above the clouds, finally the pressure against my back eased up. Sky cars were not particularly aerodynamic, so this thing must be burning through fuel at a reckless rate at mach 4.

It only took 2 hours to get to the AI Compound Building.

The tiny Toyota flag out front was replaced with a much bigger Toyota flag.

"Michael! The backup AI has been flash updated with data and AI programming from HQ, You will be speaking with Abe, who is representing HQ."

I followed the directions to the server room of the backup AI. A hologram popped up.

It was a well-dressed Japanese man in a business suit. The man bowed.

Michael bowed.

"We always wonder how well transplants from the other corporate networks will do at Toyota, but we are pleased to say you have thrived and reached the highest standards of excellence with us. What I speak of is the highest of classified material.

"I'm sure you are at least familiar with Google's network. But I doubt you have heard of Go. It is a board game that once was played by emperors and peasants alike. Just as our martial arts traditions are an important part of our cultural heritage, so Go traditions were once part of our heritage."

"What does some board game have to do with me?" Michael asked.

"I know today, there's not a lot of board gaming in Toyota's network. We've got immersive full scale war simulators, all kinds of AI research and development, physical fitness and martial arts and some other areas we are known for, but not Go, or board gaming in general.

"When computers first started to defeat people in Go, the best players could recognize the brilliance to the computer's moves and began abandoning traditional ideas and heuristics to play computer style go.

"After a few more years of improvement, the best humans couldn't understand the computer's moves anymore. Go began its long slow decline over decades.

Japan was the first to embrace post-scarcity thinking, and left a lot of old stuff behind, but pushing your body to its limits was always something popular in Japan, and actually in post-scarcity the number of monasteries funded by their monk's stipends exploded. Go was seen as stuffy and boring, and it died out completely.

In England a small diaspora of Asian Go players introduced the game to intellectuals. A small segment of a small section of those people longed to cut away the alienation and dismissal of human skill in post-scarcity society. They built an enclave of humanity in London. People had to do everything themselves, no computer assistance. Go became very popular to pass the time, and all computer devices were banned.

Google's political and economic power was challenged in America and in other old strongholds, but in the isolated England, Google came to the fullness of power.

After space colonization was in full bloom, and a few subcultures had established colonies where they could live their own way. Finally, these self-reliant types from England established New London colony, and tied into Google's network.

There was steady conflict with the people who wanted to bring modern conveniences in, but eventually Google themselves established a new principle. They preferred that the centralized AIs would be the only computing devices on planet. The subculture became google's culture. People who worked on AI development had access to these things, but otherwise you would just talk with your colonial AI or compound AI.

The colonists on that colony and others that followed in its design, have relearned Go on their own, without the help of wikis or computer assistance. The New London group of Go players, wherever they are now, have their own style of Go different than anyone else, just as a result of interacting with their own groups and not others.

Toyota wants to reestablish a Japanese tradition of Go, and we want you to be our point man."

"I don't know anything about Go!" I said.

"We want you to take Coyote's place, and your second to be someone from the New London group. We want you and her to start the Go Master's Challenge."

"Her," I asked quizzically. "Have you already picked someone for me, I'm not really into working with women after living in a male only group for so long."

"We started paying for information on Go players in the top Go colonies on Google's network. Professionals. Players whose expertise in Go is at least in the same sea as yours in fighting. We would say that her style is similar to yours from two years ago. She is still clawing and climbing the league and tournament results tables against the other pros. She has a deftness under fire that is eerily reminiscent of your own style.."

"I take it the go master's challenge will be Coed then?" I asked.

"Sword Master's Challenge is grandfathered in. Go Master's Challenge must follow the latest rules. It will be a ladder and hopefully you will take inspiration from the pre-existing group, but its direction is up to you."

They showed me a picture of you, and they commentated a game where you dismantled threat after threat and won.

"The plan is that you will be flash programmed for Go over the next three weeks. You will not be conscious, your conscious mind has to be completely unaware of how to play the game in order to fool Exeter's anti-computer training sensors. Sephiroth is already inbound for Shinamo, it will arrive in 3 weeks."

"You will have 5 months onboard the Sephiroth while it makes the journey to Exeter. Plan out the Go Master's Challenge. There is a lot you won't be able to do until you talk with Sandra K. You can subconsciously play the game but you can't teach it yet. Your role is the alpha to inspire fear, dedication and drive in the best players that come to you. Sandra will be the primary teacher until you can recruit a dedicated great teacher. Sandra K is still a competitor like you, so she will primarily just keep the level of the community high by example.

When you arrive on Exeter, register for the tournament that's starting on the 42nd."

"42nd, what?" I interrupted.

"They make more days in a month, or less, to match the planets' orbital period. There are 65 days in some months, and 66 in others on Exeter. The orbital period corresponds to roughly 787 rotational periods.

"If everything goes right you will be placed in the beginner's division, because your conscious brain knows nothing about Go. Oh, also, everything you are learning about Go from listening to me will also be wiped away. You will literally have no clue about the game until you sit down to play it."

"Why this Sandra K?"

"As an AI, we can play Go better than anyone, design a better sword fighter than any human and many other things. We also understand human relationships better than humans do. This Sandra K is more compatible with you than any pairing we've seen in a long time."

After I extricated myself from the awkwardness, I decided to go along with it all, being at the top of one of these Masters' groups sounded fun even if I didn't know the game.

First thing the next morning, I went into the Compound, and I didn't wake up for three weeks. I had no clue about Go, all I knew was that I was going to go to Exeter to play some fun new game I'd never heard of before. I was a sword fighter that wanted to branch out.

The AI must have been joking about planning the Go Master's Challenge while in transit, knowing nothing, not even the name of the game, I could only plot out an abstract plan for the challenge. Ranks and Sink or Swim week were about all I could come up with.

When we transited into Google's network, we were accompanied by a Google ship for ten days. The ship AI scanned our cargo and all of us onboard before accepted our destination request, and leaving us.

I spent most of the trip writing down my thoughts on fighting Coyote. Thoughts about excellence and computers and why computers rip apart human excellence when they replace it with mechanical and transistorial advantage.

Finally we got to Exeter and I got off, along with two others. The rest of the passengers stayed on board. The Sephiroth AI said it would remain on colony for two days before it left.

I went to register for the tournament. Found out for the first time, again, that it was called Go. Submitted to Uno's unfair advantages scan (handheld computer devices and computer Go players were scanned upon entering Google's territorial space).

I woke up at 4 to a big boom. Rubbing my eyes, I leaned out of the hotel doorway. Others were peering around too. I turned on the TV low.

There was a go channel.

Jin W. #1 seed, Kevin J. #2 seed, local favorite Sandra K #3 seed.

The tv showed the three faces. I saw Sandra again, for the first time since Shinamo.

I watched league results all the way from the Kids league, Kids elite league up to the small Pro league on Exeter. Sandra K hadn't been travelling to other worlds like the rest of the pros. She preferred to stay on Exeter, and she taught a lot of Elite kids and Elite amateur level adults.

Finally, it was time to go down to the Go center at 3:30 and go to my assigned table.

The center gave me a set of white and black go stones, since this was my first game ever and I didn't have a set. The old man at the equipment desk said, "Good luck. I'm excited to see a new adult try the game. Don't get frustrated." If I'd consciously known how good I was at Go I would have grinned, but consciously, I felt stupid and clueless.

Uno probably took no notice of me at first.

I sat down, and no one was watching my game against some kid. My hands knew where to place the stones. I had no idea how to play.

I obliterated that kid. Made him cry, A few faces looked at the end of the game board. My white stones were everywhere controlling territory.

I had to wait 45 minutes for the next round. I could play pretty fast since I wasn't really thinking about the game, I was just reacting to mistakes like I knew how.

I think the brain program interacted with me actually touching the stones and playing, as i got better with each round, even though my opponents were better too. My 2nd round opponent in Beginners was better than my 1st round in Intermediates."

"The only real surprise was when I got paired with Sandra K in the first round of the Pro's divsion. I would have thought I would match with the best pro.

My subconscious training was not only designed to win, it was designed to detect Sandra's style and lose subtly. Since I didn't really know what I was doing, I couldn't avoid it. I lost."

o o o


"And that's my story," Michael said to me.

"So Go Master's Challenge would include a week of constantly playing and challenging. Hmm, there's no physical exhaustion aspect, but I suppose we could force them to constantly play until mental exhaustion sets in, and test their mental stamina."

"We can't test their Go skill because Toyota network doesn't have any Go players. So we will need to teach them how to play, and then get them to play each other. Testing mental and physical resolve sounds right to me.

"Make them talk about Go concepts while they go on a 3 mile run," Michael said.

"You need to put me through the physical training first thing then. So that when we get our first group, I'm in shape, and I can push these recruits hard."

I regretted immediately that I ever asked Michael for that.