RE: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Five: Round Six!]
08-23-2013, 09:13 PM
Kracht was moved, if not to pity, then to hesitation.
Xadrez had been his first evil mastermind, and really wasn’t much of one, compared to the entities the he’d had to deal with since. When the chessmaster had been capable of dealing any real damage, it was usually when faced with the defeat of his plans—placed in check, he’d always tried to flip the board. Now Kracht was seeing a different side of the tactician—a sorrow bordering on genuine humility.
Kracht tried to disarm the tension by focusing on the immediate problem presented them by their extratemporal benefactor. Holding up the h-USB drive: “There isn’t anywhere in the Place where we can plug this in.”
Xadrez continued to ignore Kracht, but at least began ignoring him out loud, which was a response, of sorts.
A novice mistake
This board that serves as my base my foundation might have served as a reminder but it was one I elected to ignore
A three dimensional game played along axes x y and t but one which is viewed by ignorant novices as being a two-dimensional game
In which the current configuration of pieces is to be taken as a discrete entity in which a given action can attain an absolute value
Where any player worth their salt understands that by moving along one’s queens and castles along t one may find checkmates and thence move backwards
And a true master understands the board as a superstructure in which past configurations are just as important as future configurations
My thinking has been determinedly linear
Worse, reactionary
Discrete actions within an artificially circumscribed horizon
”And if you’re done beating yourself up about it, your next move would be to help me figure out how to access this, right?”
Xadrez looked up from his nigh-empty board at Kracht and the drive in his hand. The Middle-Gem caught the moonlight and sparkled.
A glimpse of the superstructure
Yes
My current position on a six-or-seven-dimensional board gives me few opportunities beyond the acquisition of knowledge and perspective
A deliberate gambit on the part of our grandmalefactors to shunt us far out of the way of anywh
Hmm
Any spatiotemporal vantage from which we might gain any causal influence on the prologue of the risky narrative confluences of ‘final round’
”The way I see it,” interrupted Kracht, “We could easily hook this up to a computer in the Silver City, but that would give the Amalgam instant access to the same information I’m supposed to gain access to, which--”
Which would be an acceptable loss
Consider in light of the circumstances I’m sure you’re beginning to understand the fundamental limitations of a ‘four-dimensional entity’
Its conquest of an abortive multiverse a Pyrrhic victory at best
I acknowledge that showing the Ovoid the bars of its cage is not an ideal move and bears a slight risk of seeding consequences that could play out in the relevant timeline
(to wit the one without you in it)
However with endgame rapidly approaching it seems wiser to table all objectives other than the gathering of information in the hopes of intuiting a checkmate scenario in the next round
”Why should I care about a timeline without me in it?” demanded Kracht.
Xadrez appeared momentarily shocked.
I
I should probably be having more fun with this moment
Dispensing words of nemesisly wisdom to the one and only Teenage Kracht
Suffice to say that you die thinking of nothing else
The chessmaster allowed himself a small moment of glee at the rock’s wince.
Oh don’t worry
You live longer than most
”Look,” said Kracht, holding up the drive. “This thing was given to me, not you. I decide what to do with it. And I’m not going to put my multiverse at risk over whatever you’re planning at the other end of whatever wormhole you crawled out of. What we really need--”
You’re misremembering
Our messenger specifically stated that it was information you needed but he gave it to me
My suspicion is that he is in fact my own agent or soon will be
And that the data packet is my own instructions to each of us as to how to execute those aspects of my master plan that must go into action before I think of it
”That’s wishful thinking, isn’t it? He could just as easily be working against you.”
Xadrez wilted. Perhaps
But realizing one’s own wishes within a causal structure as complex as ours is largely a matter of determination
I play not only to win, but to have already won
Kracht sat down on a log. “Listen,” he said. “I think I get what you’re saying. But determination doesn’t mean anything if you’re acting like a reckless idiot. If we give this—whatever it is—if we give it over to the Amalgam, they’ll figure out what to do with it and find a way to use that information in every… timeline or possibility or whatever. That’s what it does. It expands. Continuously and always beyond its initial goals. The Hand of Silver started off trying to create a Type I civilization and is on the verge of achieving a Type VIII. If it figures out that you came out of somewhere beyond its influence, it’ll take that too and wind up as, I don’t know, a Type XI. What we need is to dig up a very powerful and versatile computer separate from the Silver City… or a Bio Wyrm.”
Inquisitively:
A bio wyrm
”Sure. We never figured this out in the initial battle, but Bio Wyrms aren’t parasites so much as they’re… librarians. They can digest and process any sort of information, genetic, linguistic, in some cases conceptual. Their homeworld was the third round of this battle—the Amalgam’s battle. Cedric killed them all, though. I’m sorry, are you laughing?”
Not quite, but the tactician was rippling slightly around his upper abdomen.
A bio wyrm
Of course
This is what happens when you stop planning ahead
Would you believe that I had two of them lying around and wound up losing them both
No matter but thank you for reminding me
Xadrez held the Middle-Gem up to the light.
I’m now a librarian of sorts as well
* * * * *
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
Amalgam fragments do not eat meat. Nor, in fact, do they eat any organic matter. To take a non-human into one’s body is to become partly inhuman, which is unacceptable. To take a human into one’s body is cannibalism, which is slightly less efficient than simply harnessing the endless power of the Amalgam to do away with the metabolic process altogether.
Why, then, the slaughterhouse?
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
Much like the fire hydrants filled with sand and the storefront window displays within which are only a sign saying “PLEASE REDIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE ONCOMING PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC, CITIZEN,” the slaughterhouse seemed to have no functionality other than an atavistic twinge on the part of the Silver City itself. However, the same complaint might well have been lodged against the Amalgam’s continued employment of the human genome, although, of course, its employment of the human genome is its entire agenda. The four-dimensional grandentity’s endless fractal self-replication suggested, after all, that there was something worth replicating, some human X-factor worthy of preservation and propagation.
And so, in the past-future where meat was heretical, the venerable institution of the slaughterhouse remained intact.
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
“Moo!”
Arkal covered his steed’s eyes, several moments too late. He, too, had spent his share of time watching the conveyer belts, the clamps, the blades, the troughs that collected the blood and sent it off elsewhere. The bizarre, meaningless efficiency of the Silver City. The craftsmanship of it.
Is this where it all ends, then?
For all that Arkal had seen in five rounds of battle, nothing before this had repelled him quite so much as this. All the horrors that he had witnessed, yet none had shown him so clearly the terrifying applications of his own work. This was the future, he could see it clearly—the design and construction of weapons not for heroes or even for men, but for purposes, for brute quantitative industry. The apotheosis and Luciferian fall of the blacksmith. The forging of hell.
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
Arkal had himself killed his share of cattle in his day, but this disturbed him nearly as much as if it had been humans strung up by the ankles. Where were these cows even coming from? Where were they even going?
“Moo!”
Arkal’s cow shook her head violently until the smith removed his hand. “Oughtn’t we be getting on then?” he grunted.
“Moo!”
The cow tapped her hoof on the metal floor, which rung hollowly.
“Ah.” Arkal dismounted. The latch on the trapdoor was not particularly well hidden, but then again, he supposed that not a lot of people came to this place.
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic
The light emanating from below was the faint cool blue of the full moon.
Shliiiiiiiiick
* * * * *
Six down.
The surface of the moon stained with beige blood and strewn with wires and broken glass. Jen, the once and maybe-just-maybe future queen, the hem of her battledress sashaying around her ankles in languorous gravity, was getting pretty good at disarming these things. A three step process of hitting, cutting and ripping, potentially not without the risk of thermonarrative obliteration.
She was settling into a rhythm. Dancing across the room (6700 miles in circumference) in order to lock arms with her intended partner. Each successive craterportation could be the one that brought her to the decisive battle she finally felt herself to be ready for.
A few more Amalganauts dead at the end of the beige blade. It had taken her a few massacres to quite get the hang of Arkal’s masterpiece—the Amalgam-sword was every sword, and exhibited the properties of each based on the 4-D angle at which she swung. Hit, cut, rip. Seven bombs disarmed. All the while dogged by the black bird Memory. A running monologue of her past mistakes, defeats, outright follies. Dredging up the most vulnerable parts of her. She supposed it was meant to be therapeutic.
Jen was tired.
She lay down in the nearest crater and, with a shloop, found herself back in the kitchen. A cup of tea simmered askance on the counter. Welcome back dear
“Hey. Six bombs left.” Jen grabbed the tea and gulped it aggressively, burning her tongue. It was revoltingly sweet. Muninn fluttered. “Could you get me back out there?”
Now now there’s no need to hurry stay and chat with your celestial mother for a while
Sugar, caffeine, and maternal affection lit off fireworks in Jen’s head. She was having difficulty concentrating. “Mom, I’ll take a break when the battle’s over. Until then—“
Come now you’re almost halfway there and there’s no need to put all that responsibility on your thin little shoulders
The smells of Thanksgiving drifting in from everywhere. Red wine, light cigarettes and menopause. Jen coughed. Muninn flew up to the chandelier, squawking excitedly. “Mom, I need to do this. I’m doing this for you.. So Cedric doesn’t—“
Don’t give me that claptrap Jen don’t act like I don’t know you you’re just planning on running off again so soon
Please stay with me dear relax take a bath we can go shopping for back-to-school suppl—
“Okay, you got me.” Jen stood up, weakly. “If I have to run away, I’ll run away. Okay?”
Well I won’t stop you but it’s a dangerous world out there Jen you never know what could happen
“I can take care of myself, Mom,” snapped Jen. The smells turned from fall to winter. Hot chocolate and fire on the wood stove. Peppermint, weed and Fabreze from upstairs. Jen took a deep breath. “Craterport engage.”
Shloop
”Such hostility. You never could bear anyone looking after you,” chided Muninn.
Jen emerged in an unfamiliar crater. On the dark side of Mother Moon, now. “I don’t need protecting.”
”Beg to differ, girl,” growled Cedric from the lip of the crater, leaning up against a moonbomb.
The rank biological stench of the Amalgam fragments and the smell of burning. At once Jen felt very far from home.
Xadrez had been his first evil mastermind, and really wasn’t much of one, compared to the entities the he’d had to deal with since. When the chessmaster had been capable of dealing any real damage, it was usually when faced with the defeat of his plans—placed in check, he’d always tried to flip the board. Now Kracht was seeing a different side of the tactician—a sorrow bordering on genuine humility.
Kracht tried to disarm the tension by focusing on the immediate problem presented them by their extratemporal benefactor. Holding up the h-USB drive: “There isn’t anywhere in the Place where we can plug this in.”
Xadrez continued to ignore Kracht, but at least began ignoring him out loud, which was a response, of sorts.
A novice mistake
This board that serves as my base my foundation might have served as a reminder but it was one I elected to ignore
A three dimensional game played along axes x y and t but one which is viewed by ignorant novices as being a two-dimensional game
In which the current configuration of pieces is to be taken as a discrete entity in which a given action can attain an absolute value
Where any player worth their salt understands that by moving along one’s queens and castles along t one may find checkmates and thence move backwards
And a true master understands the board as a superstructure in which past configurations are just as important as future configurations
My thinking has been determinedly linear
Worse, reactionary
Discrete actions within an artificially circumscribed horizon
”And if you’re done beating yourself up about it, your next move would be to help me figure out how to access this, right?”
Xadrez looked up from his nigh-empty board at Kracht and the drive in his hand. The Middle-Gem caught the moonlight and sparkled.
A glimpse of the superstructure
Yes
My current position on a six-or-seven-dimensional board gives me few opportunities beyond the acquisition of knowledge and perspective
A deliberate gambit on the part of our grandmalefactors to shunt us far out of the way of anywh
Hmm
Any spatiotemporal vantage from which we might gain any causal influence on the prologue of the risky narrative confluences of ‘final round’
”The way I see it,” interrupted Kracht, “We could easily hook this up to a computer in the Silver City, but that would give the Amalgam instant access to the same information I’m supposed to gain access to, which--”
Which would be an acceptable loss
Consider in light of the circumstances I’m sure you’re beginning to understand the fundamental limitations of a ‘four-dimensional entity’
Its conquest of an abortive multiverse a Pyrrhic victory at best
I acknowledge that showing the Ovoid the bars of its cage is not an ideal move and bears a slight risk of seeding consequences that could play out in the relevant timeline
(to wit the one without you in it)
However with endgame rapidly approaching it seems wiser to table all objectives other than the gathering of information in the hopes of intuiting a checkmate scenario in the next round
”Why should I care about a timeline without me in it?” demanded Kracht.
Xadrez appeared momentarily shocked.
I
I should probably be having more fun with this moment
Dispensing words of nemesisly wisdom to the one and only Teenage Kracht
Suffice to say that you die thinking of nothing else
The chessmaster allowed himself a small moment of glee at the rock’s wince.
Oh don’t worry
You live longer than most
”Look,” said Kracht, holding up the drive. “This thing was given to me, not you. I decide what to do with it. And I’m not going to put my multiverse at risk over whatever you’re planning at the other end of whatever wormhole you crawled out of. What we really need--”
You’re misremembering
Our messenger specifically stated that it was information you needed but he gave it to me
My suspicion is that he is in fact my own agent or soon will be
And that the data packet is my own instructions to each of us as to how to execute those aspects of my master plan that must go into action before I think of it
”That’s wishful thinking, isn’t it? He could just as easily be working against you.”
Xadrez wilted. Perhaps
But realizing one’s own wishes within a causal structure as complex as ours is largely a matter of determination
I play not only to win, but to have already won
Kracht sat down on a log. “Listen,” he said. “I think I get what you’re saying. But determination doesn’t mean anything if you’re acting like a reckless idiot. If we give this—whatever it is—if we give it over to the Amalgam, they’ll figure out what to do with it and find a way to use that information in every… timeline or possibility or whatever. That’s what it does. It expands. Continuously and always beyond its initial goals. The Hand of Silver started off trying to create a Type I civilization and is on the verge of achieving a Type VIII. If it figures out that you came out of somewhere beyond its influence, it’ll take that too and wind up as, I don’t know, a Type XI. What we need is to dig up a very powerful and versatile computer separate from the Silver City… or a Bio Wyrm.”
Inquisitively:
A bio wyrm
”Sure. We never figured this out in the initial battle, but Bio Wyrms aren’t parasites so much as they’re… librarians. They can digest and process any sort of information, genetic, linguistic, in some cases conceptual. Their homeworld was the third round of this battle—the Amalgam’s battle. Cedric killed them all, though. I’m sorry, are you laughing?”
Not quite, but the tactician was rippling slightly around his upper abdomen.
A bio wyrm
Of course
This is what happens when you stop planning ahead
Would you believe that I had two of them lying around and wound up losing them both
No matter but thank you for reminding me
Xadrez held the Middle-Gem up to the light.
I’m now a librarian of sorts as well
* * * * *
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
Amalgam fragments do not eat meat. Nor, in fact, do they eat any organic matter. To take a non-human into one’s body is to become partly inhuman, which is unacceptable. To take a human into one’s body is cannibalism, which is slightly less efficient than simply harnessing the endless power of the Amalgam to do away with the metabolic process altogether.
Why, then, the slaughterhouse?
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
Much like the fire hydrants filled with sand and the storefront window displays within which are only a sign saying “PLEASE REDIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE ONCOMING PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC, CITIZEN,” the slaughterhouse seemed to have no functionality other than an atavistic twinge on the part of the Silver City itself. However, the same complaint might well have been lodged against the Amalgam’s continued employment of the human genome, although, of course, its employment of the human genome is its entire agenda. The four-dimensional grandentity’s endless fractal self-replication suggested, after all, that there was something worth replicating, some human X-factor worthy of preservation and propagation.
And so, in the past-future where meat was heretical, the venerable institution of the slaughterhouse remained intact.
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
“Moo!”
Arkal covered his steed’s eyes, several moments too late. He, too, had spent his share of time watching the conveyer belts, the clamps, the blades, the troughs that collected the blood and sent it off elsewhere. The bizarre, meaningless efficiency of the Silver City. The craftsmanship of it.
Is this where it all ends, then?
For all that Arkal had seen in five rounds of battle, nothing before this had repelled him quite so much as this. All the horrors that he had witnessed, yet none had shown him so clearly the terrifying applications of his own work. This was the future, he could see it clearly—the design and construction of weapons not for heroes or even for men, but for purposes, for brute quantitative industry. The apotheosis and Luciferian fall of the blacksmith. The forging of hell.
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic mooooo- shliiiiick mrrrrrrrrrrurrrrr tic-tic-tic
Arkal had himself killed his share of cattle in his day, but this disturbed him nearly as much as if it had been humans strung up by the ankles. Where were these cows even coming from? Where were they even going?
“Moo!”
Arkal’s cow shook her head violently until the smith removed his hand. “Oughtn’t we be getting on then?” he grunted.
“Moo!”
The cow tapped her hoof on the metal floor, which rung hollowly.
“Ah.” Arkal dismounted. The latch on the trapdoor was not particularly well hidden, but then again, he supposed that not a lot of people came to this place.
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic
The light emanating from below was the faint cool blue of the full moon.
Shliiiiiiiiick
* * * * *
Six down.
The surface of the moon stained with beige blood and strewn with wires and broken glass. Jen, the once and maybe-just-maybe future queen, the hem of her battledress sashaying around her ankles in languorous gravity, was getting pretty good at disarming these things. A three step process of hitting, cutting and ripping, potentially not without the risk of thermonarrative obliteration.
She was settling into a rhythm. Dancing across the room (6700 miles in circumference) in order to lock arms with her intended partner. Each successive craterportation could be the one that brought her to the decisive battle she finally felt herself to be ready for.
A few more Amalganauts dead at the end of the beige blade. It had taken her a few massacres to quite get the hang of Arkal’s masterpiece—the Amalgam-sword was every sword, and exhibited the properties of each based on the 4-D angle at which she swung. Hit, cut, rip. Seven bombs disarmed. All the while dogged by the black bird Memory. A running monologue of her past mistakes, defeats, outright follies. Dredging up the most vulnerable parts of her. She supposed it was meant to be therapeutic.
Jen was tired.
She lay down in the nearest crater and, with a shloop, found herself back in the kitchen. A cup of tea simmered askance on the counter. Welcome back dear
“Hey. Six bombs left.” Jen grabbed the tea and gulped it aggressively, burning her tongue. It was revoltingly sweet. Muninn fluttered. “Could you get me back out there?”
Now now there’s no need to hurry stay and chat with your celestial mother for a while
Sugar, caffeine, and maternal affection lit off fireworks in Jen’s head. She was having difficulty concentrating. “Mom, I’ll take a break when the battle’s over. Until then—“
Come now you’re almost halfway there and there’s no need to put all that responsibility on your thin little shoulders
The smells of Thanksgiving drifting in from everywhere. Red wine, light cigarettes and menopause. Jen coughed. Muninn flew up to the chandelier, squawking excitedly. “Mom, I need to do this. I’m doing this for you.. So Cedric doesn’t—“
Don’t give me that claptrap Jen don’t act like I don’t know you you’re just planning on running off again so soon
Please stay with me dear relax take a bath we can go shopping for back-to-school suppl—
“Okay, you got me.” Jen stood up, weakly. “If I have to run away, I’ll run away. Okay?”
Well I won’t stop you but it’s a dangerous world out there Jen you never know what could happen
“I can take care of myself, Mom,” snapped Jen. The smells turned from fall to winter. Hot chocolate and fire on the wood stove. Peppermint, weed and Fabreze from upstairs. Jen took a deep breath. “Craterport engage.”
Shloop
”Such hostility. You never could bear anyone looking after you,” chided Muninn.
Jen emerged in an unfamiliar crater. On the dark side of Mother Moon, now. “I don’t need protecting.”
”Beg to differ, girl,” growled Cedric from the lip of the crater, leaning up against a moonbomb.
The rank biological stench of the Amalgam fragments and the smell of burning. At once Jen felt very far from home.