CU: Smart Play

Cheating is just winning by other means.

—Arjun Atumbo, Secretary General of the U.N.

"How can we beat this thing when it's got us massively out-gunned with smarts?" Arjun asked himself.

"That may not necessarily be the case," replied Jaine. "At least not by a wide margin."

"What do you mean? According to your own calculations, it exceeds our computation by at least a thousandfold. That thing is a colossus, and we're just a mouse."

"What counts is the amount of computational power it can bring to bear," Jaine explained. "Even though it starts with a much larger pool, the artifact may only be able to dedicate a small portion to gameplay."

"But it can tap into all that surplus capacity whenever it wants, right? So the moment we start to close the gap, it just throws more brain-juice at it."

"That may not logically follow. While computers can dynamically reallocate resources, brains cannot. If the artifact is arranged on a brain model, it could be similarly constrained. It has other disadvantages. Its physical size increases latency, and the lower surface to volume ratio limits its ability to radiate away heat."

"In other words, we may not have to be the actual smarter player to win. If we can somehow degrade its ability to think, we may stand a fighting chance. If only we could image its brain... Wait, maybe we can. Pull up a thermal scan. Any hot spots?"

"Over the last few games, there has been a rise of up to four Kelvin in segments eleven through fifteen."

"Time-lapse from the start of the match. Scale color to relative variance." The image began as a dark blue patchwork. As play progressed, pools of lighter blue appeared shading toward yellow and orange. Occasionally, there was a pulse of deep red. "Pause playback," Arjun said. "Show me the game position at that moment."

The grid board was a chaotic jumble that even the combined brainpower of the CU had found difficult to interpret. When that happened, Arjun cut the process short and "rolled the bones," a pair of dice made from the vertebra of a homo habilis discovered near his hometown of Iriba. Introducing an element of chance into his decision-making had kept his enemies from guessing his next move. In this case, it hadn't worked. The artifact had gone on to win the game handily. Then again, it probably would have won anyway.

After examining a few other board positions, Arjun came to a conclusion. "That same area lights up whenever there is a complex position to solve. If we can get it to sustain that level of activity, maybe it will overheat. We need to play in the most convoluted way possible."

"It would put us at an equal disadvantage," Jaine pointed out. "Much of our success so far has been in managing to equalize our opponent's moves."

"All the more reason to try it. Our strategy has become too predictable. Besides, we're already losing."

Xemesh: Domination

The best way to root out the enemy within is to start a war with the enemy without.

—Arjun

It took Adam-Xemesh less than half a year to extend his dominion over the forest, but consolidation would take far longer. As his borders expanded, central coordination started to break down; commands took longer to deliver, and messenger Xants got lost in transit or passed each other along the way. To counteract this, he copied and deployed tactical thought routines to serve as field generals, each with the capability for independent action and learning. In this way, he was able to wage a dozen wars at once and easily win them all. Soon, the field generals were deploying their own colonels, who in turn deployed their own lieutenants.

Conquering the swamp would take a couple years. Adam-Xemesh had to engineer and raise an army of navy Xants that could wage combat both above and below the water. He dammed up the choke points so the swamp-Xemesh could not float away and constructed floating platforms for boarding and transport. As with the rock-Xemesh, the battle was over before the defenders had even begun to fathom the nature of the threat. In one sense, the swamp-Xemesh did not suffer a complete defeat. Their adaptations, along with those of the rock-Xemesh, were exhaustively analyzed, copied, and improved upon by their conquerors. Bulits were engineered that worked under water.

With the swamp-Xemesh defeated, the last external threat to Adam-Xemesh was abolished. The next threat would come from within.