Part 1 of the Valkyrie Six
The Six
Alendria, Gnome Bardess
-- 3'6, 76 lbs
-- Silver Hair, Blue Eyes
-- Gnomish Leather Armor
-- Short Bow : attack ability
-- Mandolin
-- Hodierna's Lilt : A healing song
-- Drums of the Snake : A song that increases survival and sneaky skills
Fierce fighter, singer and musician. Is interested in magic even though she only knows musical enchants.
Aliaga, Human Priestess
-- 5'4, 105 lbs
-- Black Hair, Green Eyes
-- Dreamweave Robes
-- Auchenai Staff : spells only
-- Mind Control : Controls target being for 10 - 20 seconds. Can be resisted by strong enemies.
-- Shadow Word: Pain : DOT spell that inflicts damage as pain
-- Heal : Single target healing spell
Conflicted about her increasing use of Shadow magic. Sensitive and compassionate, but determined to fight back against the dark after the destruction of Lordaeron and all that was lost afterword.
Sophella, Stone / Stone Tanker
-- 6'1", 170 lbs
-- Brown Hair, Brown Eyes
-- Stone Armor that complete covers her making her look like a golem
-- Stone Fist : attacks with armored stone fist
-- Taunt : makes nearby enemies focus their attacks on her instead of their intended targets.
-- Hurl Boulder : flings a boulder at targeted enemy
Regrets having to fight fully covered up in stone armor, and wishes she could show off her awesome costume. Protective and friendly.
Melara, Jedi Shadow
-- 5'3", 130 lbs
-- Black Hair, Yellow-Orange Eyes
-- Jedi Knight's White Robes
-- Green Lightsaber : attack ability
-- Vanish : concealment ability, hides Melara until she attacks or walks to closely in front of someone.
-- Force Push : knock back enemy or object, Distance push depends on resistance strength.
Valeraine, Fire Mage
-- 5'11", 165 lbs
-- Flame Red Hair, Blue Eyes
-- Chainmail Armor
-- Longsword : attack ability
-- Ruby Pendant : blocks the first attack against Valeraine in combat
-- Fire Shard : Fire projectile attack against enemy
-- Backdraft : Fire/Air hybrid spell causes major knockback against enemy.
Isseria, Gun Mage
-- 5'6", 150 lbs
-- Brown hair, Blue Eyes
-- Unarmored
-- P226 X-Five : attack ability
-- P226 X-Five : attack ability
-- Elemental Ammo : change the pistols to use another type of elemental ammo. Normal / Fire / Ice / Air.
-----------------------
The camp had been hastily constructed, but Melara had no idea how she got there, or where the camp site was. A half dozen tents were scattered here and there, and a dwarf was standing at a distance from the tents.
Melara was also disturbed because the force felt ... different. She wasn't able to meditate on the force and calm herself after arriving here. She couldn't lift things with the force either. She was able to give a pebble a good shove with the force, but nothing else. The pebble flew a long long way. She didn't think she had put that much oomph into it. It was like the force was super-concentrated into just force pushing things.
She walked over to the dwarf.
"Good day miss, I am Bodahn Fedic, and this is Sandal. I'm not sure why Sandal and I are here. I sure don't recognize those mountains, miss, but in any case, I'm here to buy and sell, and Sandal is an excellent crafter. However, I see that you don't have any coin on you right now, and I doubt you'd like to part with your precious things. Soon, I'm sure we'll have a thriving trade I am sure."
"I should have some Republic credits, I suppose you wouldn't accept them?" Melara asked.
"No miss, I've never heard of Republic credits," Bodahn said.
Sandal repeated, "Credits!"
"Why come all the way out here to trade with one Jedi knight?" Melara asked.
"I don't know why Sandal and I arrived here, but I know somehow that five more ladies will be showing up soon. They won't have any coin either. You'll have to earn your coin in battle if you want any."
"Is this Camp going to be attacked, or why do you say we'll be battling?" Melara asked quizzically. I mean, combat was common enough, but she didn't see any reason to fight as of yet.
"There's looters and bandits all around. And I heard a lot of the organized armies have been losing soldiers left and right. Everyone wants to become part of the problem. These looters are making a ton of money, and capturing the lowborn and highborn alike. If this continues the five kingdoms will fall."
"How can you know all this if you don't know why or where you are?" she asked.
"It's just part of who I am. Sandal and I are no longer in the world we called home. Now we are in a new world of looting and banditry, and kings that pillage small villages for a few coin. I've been calling it Lootsylvania."
"It looks like another of your group has arrived," Bodahn said.
-----------------------
Sophella woke up, inside a tent. She was still in her whole stone armor set. She tried to dispel the armor, nothing. After three attempts she realized it wasn't working.
She had to bend way down to go through the tent opening.
There were a few people gathering in the distance. A man and a boy, and a woman in robes. She stomped towards them, digging trenches of dirt every time she put the weight on one stone foot or the other.
"Hello miss," the man said. "Bodahn Fedic at your service. This is Sandal."
"How did you know she was a she?" the woman asked.
"You all are. This is the campsite of the Valkyrie Six. I know you don't know each other yet, but you will. Sophella, this is Melara, Jedi Shadow. Melara, this is Sophella, Stone Tanker."
Sophella said, "What is a Jedi?" as Melara was saying, "What is a Tanker?"
"You first," Melara said.
"A tanker is someone who protects people and is very durable and has defensive techniques to endure a lot of attacks. A tanker also can taunt her enemies and force them to attack her instead of her friends. I am a stone tanker who also attacks with my stone fists and I can hurl boulders. A Stone / Stone Tanker," Sophella said. "Unfortunately, I can't seem to dispel my armor right now, so I have to stay in this gargoyle suit."
Sophella invisibly gritted her teeth.
"A Jedi is someone who is attuned to the force. As a Jedi Shadow, I am in touch with the force quite a bit, but I also am well versed in the double bladed lightsaber."
Sophella instinctively stepped back as the sword made of green light extended in both directions from her hand.
"I am also having problems. The force is not quite right here. I can only use one of my force techniques at the moment."
"Someone is wrong with this place then," Sophella said.
"I can deflect many types of attacks with my lightsaber, and also use it to attack, and I can Vanish, but not while I'm in front of so many people."
"Can you deflect a boulder?" Sophella asked curiously.
"No, only your common blasters," the 'Jedi' said.
"The third of your six is headed this way," Bodahn said.
"Where is she?" Sophella looked around.
"She is a gnome. But don't underestimate her."
The Jedi saw her first, and turned towards her, and finally Sophella, who was 8 feet tall in her stone armor, saw the 3 foot tall gnome.
"Good Morning, madam. I am Bodahn, and these are two of your fellow Valkyrie Six members."
"I don't know what you're talking about. One moment I was resting underneath the counter, and then I woke up in that darned tent. And I've lost a weapon, three instruments, and a ton of priceless artifacts."
"Ouch, that's more than I lost. I am Sophella, Stone Tanker. That's Melara, Jedi Shadow. And we should wait for all six before we do introductions again."
Bodahn announced each of the rest of six as they approached.
"Aliaga, Human Priestess looked the most familiar to her, being human like she was. Melara was surely some slightly different variant of human. Her skin was slightly more blue than was normal for humans. Valeraine, Fire Mage was human, and so was Isseria, Gun Mage."
Sophella had her work cut out for her, it looked like Melara was a sort of scrapper, but the rest were all somewhere on the blaster / controller / defender spectrum, if she was using her own world's terminology.
They were exchanging minor pleasantries, but not really getting into the details of where they came from yet. Then a man rode in on horseback, with two heavy saddlebags weighing the slow moving horse down.
"Wow, well I'm impressed. It appears most of you are well equipped already, except you miss," the man said, pointing to Isseria, the gun mage. "You might want to buy some armor soon."
"What do I need armor for?" Isseria asked.
"Ahem. I am the Merchant of Reyvadin, and I have a task that I can't find anyone else to do. There's a group of bandits east of your camp that are attacking all the caravans headed to the Kerghit Khanate and on to the Sarranid Kingdom. These bandits are not the normal sort, as they seem to have some skills unknown to Calradia. Some of them are using these objects that attack anyone that gets close, and others skulk about, while still others in this group have some kind of infernal being that belongs to them. There's only maybe a half dozen members of this bandit group, but they are successfully taking all of the caravan's goods for themselves.
King Yargolek has personally asked me to dispatch someone to take care of them. I was told of your appearance here, but I didn't believe you would be useful until you see them. You are likely to face more local dangers on your way to fight these outsiders."
"What's the reward for all of this?" Isseria said.
"Clearing out a menace that doesn't belong to this world is enough," Aliaga said, with surprising fierceness. "I recognize some of the descriptions you gave of those bandits. That could be a warlock at least. They summon demonic beings to do their bidding."
"Wow, they must be super powerful," Isseria said.
"Not necessarily, but definitely unfamiliar for the locals."
"King Yargolek has authorized you to receive a host of Vaegir recruits now, and additional recruits if you succeed. In addition, you will be paid a 1000 ducats if you succeed," the Merchant said.
"How many recruits?" Valeraine said. "I've lead a group of soldiers before. I can help organize the group."
"10 recruits."
"I've gone into battle with a Trandoshan friend all the time," Melara said. "He would say that these foes are 'Much Points'."
"I do my best when working together with 7 other heroes. I have to lead a little bit just to make sure no one takes the enemy's attention off of me."
"I think we've all lead teams into battle in some capacity, but I definitely think Valeraine should be in charge of the recruits. If we can specialize them in different ways, then we can assign some of them to the rest of us. Later on of course," Aliaga said.
"Anyone disagree with moving forward with this plan?" Melara asked.
"OK, I'll bring the recruits in," the Merchant said. "When you've got this done, head to the Tavern in Reyvadin and I'll ask for you."
"Um, where is Reyvadin?" Isseria asked.
"West of here. Follow the peasants, they often head into town in the morning."
-----------------------
They had formed a line with the ten recruits, and the other five "Valkyries" were standing back as Valeraine examined the soldiers.
"So you have scythes, hand axes and cudgels for weapons, and all you can use at range is stones."
This was not Sapphiron's finest fighting force. Valeraine doubted it was even Calradia's finest.
"Yes Commander. We've been provisioned with better weapons, but the law says we have to learn to fight better before we can use the better stuff."
"You need some sparring practice, and then a little bit of testing your mettle in a real battle. I don't want you all to die when we face these foes that seem to be from Aliaga's world."
"What should we do?" one of the recruits said.
They were all garbed in worn cloth armor, with a little padding here and there, but much of it had been worn away.
"Two of you will spar with me. Two of you will spar with Melara, and the remaining six, form up in pairs, and spar against each other. One moment while I get Melara."
She walked over to the group of Valkyries. "Melara, can I use you as a sparring partner for the recruits?"
"Of course, but my lightsaber is likely to cut through their weapons," Melara said.
"Let's see what happens with my weapon," Valeraine said, pulling out her sword.
"I don't want to damage your sword either. The etchings on that blade look truly intricate," Melara said.
"En-garde!" Valeraine said, as she charged forwards.
The four other valkyries stepped aside and continued their conversation. "So then, I was swallowed whole by this plant! It was trying to numb my nerves and poison me but I resisted the effects just long enough to shoot my way out," Isseria was saying.
Melara surprised Valeraine by drawing out her color-light saber, and gently deflecting Valeraine's blow.
Melara charged back, pushing one side of the double-sided blade towards Valeraine. Valeraine blocked the light saber with her own sword, shunting it to the side.
"Hmm, so I guess its not damaging your sword even when I attack. Alright, I'll help spar."
The ten recruits were grouped into pairs now, when she walked back to them with Melara.
"Who gets to fight you and your fellow commander?" one of the recruits asked.
"We'll rotate pairs. You two fight Valkyrie Melara. You two will fight me, and the rest pair against each other," Valeraine said, pointing at each group.
Valeraine was not that great at sword fighting, having focused her efforts on magic and leadership. She was facing a hand axe recruit and another with a scythe. She deflected the first recruit's attack, stepping sideways and back, and then swept at the second.
She got nicked a few times before knocked down the recruits after a few minutes.
"We'd like to help the injured," said Aliaga and Alendria.
"Come over here hurting recruits, and we'll heal you up."
They established a triage spot away from the fighting, and Alendria pulled out her mandolin from her bag. She started playing a hauntingly beautiful song after a moment. Melara's victims were first to head over there, and then her own.
"Pair up as needed with whoever isn't recovering."
Aliaga was busy healing them up, one at a time, as Alendria's song soothed and healed even Valeraine's small cuts.
No one came to her yet, so Valeraine watched Melara cut through the recruits in pairs. She was holding a lot back to stay safe, and still wrecking them.
"Alright take turns fighting Melara. I want all of you to gang up on her," Valeraine said, grinning.
Melara turned invisible, before any of them could get close to her.
She downed two recruits as she turned visible. Alendria stood up and moved towards Valeraine, bringing the healing effect of her song to the downed recruits that started to pile up. The wounded stayed down as Melara incapacitated them all.
"Ok, that's enough, thank you Melara."
"You're welcome. Thank you for the practice recruits."
The Lilting song Alendria was singing caused the recruits to slowly sit up, and then Aliaga went around and fixed them up completely.
"Did that Merchant give us any money for food. Now that there are eighteen of us, we might need some food and supplies."
Bodahn left his corner perch and walked over to them.
"This Merchant got me resupplied with goods for trade. As a gesture of goodwill, and in payment for your protection, let me cook a nice dinner for you all before you head out in the morning."
They all gathered wood from the surrounding taiga. Four of the recruits had axes and they chopped up some fallen trees into stumps suitable for sitting on and enough firewood.
The wood was piled high, and the six Valkyries, ten recruits and two traders sat down at the fire.
Bodahn was roasting a pig on a big spit, and grilling potatoes over the fire.
Sophella, who had an extra huge log to sit her stone armored self on, started the discussion. "So I know all of our worlds have ways of classifying heroes. In my world, we have blasters, scrappers, tankers, controllers and defenders, masterminds, dominators, brutes, corruptors and stalkers.
I would call Aliaga and Alendria defenders, as defenders have a lot of ways to help their fellow healers and still can pack a punch with ranged attacks.
Isseria, I have heard rumors of pistol scrappers, but I could see you as a blaster also. It depends on how close up you get when fighting.
Melara, stalker seems to fit the most, although I hear you have some ranged attacks, so it might be harder to say for sure. You seem to fight a lot while visible still, so scrapper maybe. I'd say you are the hardest to figure out.
Valeraine, you sorta fit Mastermind, but also don't really fit at all, with both a sword and ranged attacks.
What classifications do you guys use in your worlds?"
Bodahn started carving up the pig and eating commenced. The potatoes, the pig, it was all wonderful.
It was only after they ate their fill that the discussion continued.
Aliaga spoke up, "Sophella, I would guess the closest thing my world has to you would be a shaman with some kind of special ability to turn into a rock elemental. Alendria, I can't say I've ever seen someone use music as a form of magic. We don't have bards in Azeroth.
Melara, The only melee fighters with ranged magical attacks I can think up are Paladins and Death Knights, I'm not sure which you are more like. Neither of them have stealth. Maybe you are a rogue with something different than the normal rogue throwing knives. You don't really fight like a rogue though.
Isseria, You're a ranger with pistols and no familiar. Valeraine, you're kinda off the grid."
Alendria did hers as a song:
"Aliaga's an empath, in a violent sort of way, and Sophella I have no idea what to say,
Melara's a sneaky warrior mage and Valeraine's a warrior mage too,
and Isseria's a ranger with weapons I've never seen before."
"Its probably a good idea that we get some sleep soon. However, from a battlefield commander's perspective, this is what I think," Valeraine said.
"Melara and Sophella will be our front liners. The recruits will be close supports, helping out where they can, and retreating behind Sophella's taunt technique when they get found out.
Alendria, I want you close behind the front row, so your song can keep the recruits healing up and alive, and helping them out.
"Aliaga, if I understand this, you can heal from a pretty good range?"
"60 yards or so," Aliaga said, "yep."
"OK then, Aliaga, take a back row position. I'll take a middle position next to Alendria, and Isseria, your pistols have a fairly short range?"
"Yep, its up close and personal for me."
"Ok, then Isseria, start in the middle row, and then move to the side and get flanking positions on whatever we are targeting."
"Yep that makes sense."
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Friday, September 8, 2017
The constant, pt 1: The Altar of Measurement
The Constant
Part 1: The Altar of Measurement
Their real names were incomprehensible. They have been replaced with human names, names we can understand and relate to. In this way, the story of the "The Constant", and his world, can be told.
Jonathan Everett Constant was born to Gladiolas Everett Quartic. These people reproduced asexually, so each child had only one parent. There had been Everett Quadratics, Everett Cubics, Everett Quartics and Quintics, and even Everett Mutants (until they were all killed for being mutants).
Gladiolas had even heard of an Everett Linear, but never heard or imagined an Everett Constant. The children of constants went to work immediately after birth. They were just as able to work at a day old as they were at 100 years old. In fact, their best day of work was their first, as they hadn't endured any storms or any beatings or violence. Everything wore down a constant over time.
Their maximum capability remained the same, but what they actually could do was worn down one incident at a time, until the elderly Constant was supported by his newborn grandchildren.
Linears and even Quadratics put their children to work right away, too, as long as their rough measurement said the child could make a good impact.
Cubics were the rulers, the wealthiest caste of society, often employing Constants in guard duty and agricultural work, while employing Linears in simple crafts and Quadratics were commonly the professionals and teachers in society.
While the Cubics thought of those below them in degree as simplistic and stuck in their ways, they those of those above them in degree as crazy and unmoored in reality.
The Quartics were ostracised and often working in ideological and technological frontiers way beyond what was popular with the schools which were run by Quadratics.
The Quintics had recently been condemned as too dangerous to be allowed to live to an old age. A new crusade was arising to hunt down the Quintics.
The Mutants didn't fit into the polynomial order of society, and had always been hunted down and killed.
The Cubics and degrees above did not put their children to work right away, even though some of them could have done ir. They waited for the children to grow and get smarter and stronger, like we do.
So it was that Jonathan did not work, even though Gladiolas had sized him up as one of the strongest babies born that year. She said his, "Constant factor" was large. She spat on the floor after using that term. Basically, Jonathan was stronger than the others now, but they didn't know if the other Quartics would pass him up later.
It was a month of boredom for Jonathan, where he wanted to go out and pull guard duty or carry a basket of fruit to the market, but he had to sit and learn about history instead. History, and how the danger of mutants had lead to the Measurement Act.
As a one month old, Jonathan could read, write, do decently hard mathematics and lift a 60 point weight over his head. His Measurement gave him such abilities.
Gladiolas said, "I think you'll be very close to a 20 indeed. Old Master Tom could lift a 65 pounder at birth, and he's the only one who could. He was measured at 19.98."
"Can they figure out my caste today too? I really want to know!" Jonathan said. He was only a foot shorter than his mother now.
"Think about it, Jon. All they will know now, is your constant factor. You can rule out something each year after that. It takes 7 years to find out subtle mutants. The loud mutants go beyond the bounds of any caste earlier than that."
"How do you rule out Subtle Mutants?" Jonathan asked. "And what do you mean by that?"
"Loud Mutants measure bigger than the Katrin Bounds each Caste member is limited by. A Constant will never measure stronger than 20. A Linear can grow by at most a half point per year. Et cetera. Even a Quintic can't measure any greater than 120 by age 40, but they can measure as much as 1260 by age 80, and so on."
"Subtle Mutants are following some other unknown, and heretical caste. They were born into a mutant caste, where the Loud Mutants were just born into a mutant size. Some of them grow in ways that go in between what a Constant should be and what a Linear should be. Some decelerate, or dejerk. All of our components are 0 or positive. For example, I have a 0 quintic component. If I had a negative quintic component I would be a Subtle mutant. Subtle mutants are hard for the Altar Chiefs to spot, so they have the Bureau of Intelligence to track them down.
You can prove someone is a Subtle Mutant by showing that they stay in the bounds but can't be any of the casts, and it takes seven years to prove someone is not a Quintic."
"How many bureau people are on this pilgrimage road with us?" Jonathan asked his mother.
"Probably lots. Let's get in line."
The line of people headed to the Altar of Measurement as required by the Measurement Act was very long. There were parents with their one month olds, parents with 1 year olds, 2 year olds, and so on, and then some 10 and 20 year olds going in for their checks. Even Constants had to come back in at 5. Usually they were cleared and verified as Constant by 2 but came back at 5, 10 and 20 anyway.
There were no known Quintics here. They had stayed away, fearing a purge. The authorities gave a questioning glance at Jonathan's mother before confirming she was a Quartic.
"Jonathan Everett, of unknown Caste, son of Gladiolas Everett Quartic. Everett Quartic, you are to stay here while your son is Measured at the altar.
Two guards stood a foot on each side of Jonathan. He feared that he would bump into them and cause a catastrophe. Or they would touch him.
"Come on," said the Quadratic. Jonathan followed her, trying to reclaim his free space from the guards.
The altar was actually a machine placed on a raised pedestal inside the building with the colored glass and elaborate artwork.
Two Quartics stood in front of them Altar of Measurement.
"Climb on up those stairs, and we will analyze what the machine tells us.
The machine was pressure sensitive, and so when Jonathan climbed up onto the podium and stepped on the machine, it sunk, reacting to his presence. The machine unfolded and surrounded him, and then electric current flowed through his body, forcing his muscles to react violently. He was pushing the machine back with everything he had because the electricity was coming and going so as to force his muscles to full exertion.
The machine fell away.
"Congratulations. 19.5," said the first Quartic.
"This measurement is the easy one. We only have one data point, so we don't have to, and even can't tell what sort of person you are yet," the second one said.
"See you in 11 months," they both said and waved.
His mother was happy with the number, but it was expected, largely. Months passed. Months of boredom, and then acceptance for Jonathan. Then the pilgrimage began again.
Even Quintics didn't change a whole lot from 1 month old to 1 year old. It was hard to detect a small change in measurement, or the lack of one.
Gladiolas had a small note of concern, maybe slightly suspicious that Jonathan hadn't improved in his mind or body over the 11 months. She knew that her son could have a small Linear factor, but still grow up to be a great Quartic visionary. There was a limit to just how small a Linear factor could be however, which was important for distinguishing between Linear caste and Constant caste.
For the second time, Jonathan was asked to climb up to the machine. The voltages shocked his body again, and he involuntarily fought the machine again.
The same Quartic, this time had a grim expression.
"We have a reassignment," the Quartic announced to the guards.
Jonathan's mother was still outside. Jonathan was shocked.
"19.5," the technician said.
"As there is no Linear factor smaller than 1 part in 80, the Measurement should have differed by at least 0.01 if you were not a Constant. Please return for review at 2 years of age," the first Quartic technician said.
The other continued, "You are hereby given the name Jonathan Everett Constant. You may have no more contact with Gladiolas Everett Quartic and are considered to belong to a different Everett family, as far as the government shall be concerned. You will be taken to the Constant Career Center prior to starting work in the acceptable field of your choice. Guards, take him away."
The social mobility charts showed a 0% chance of the child of a Quartic becoming a constant. Jonathan suspected he would be forced to come back to the Altar time and time again, to prove that he really was unchanging.
His mother must be shocked, he surmised, as he followed the guards to the railway, and on to the Career Center in the middle of the vast industrial region.
Jonathan looked out the window, and realized he knew he was constant very early on. He was steady and comfortable with that fact. Or so he thought.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
The Matho-Dungeon Settlement Sphere, Part 6
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.
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.
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.
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