Battle of the Gods: The Beginning of the Game

The woman's brain generates an arbitrary identifier, then discards it after a moment for a themed identifier that seems to match her body. "I am Sara," her mouth says to no one in particular, while her legs carry her to the hologram of a large planet in the center of the room. She stands for a moment, watching the orb turn slowly, until she decides on an impulse to reach out and touch it.

Everything changes. She still does not understand her body, but she is a fractal again, and the correction systems seem to be working better. She can fly again; testing, she finds she has perfect accuracy along any parametric curve she can specify. Patterns of brilliant colors play across the surface of her body; they mean nothing, but provide an invaluable tool in building language. She quickly flies three times around the world, spiralling downward; she ends up passing through a forest. She notes that her body is incorporeal.

A frenzy takes her. She has not felt this alive since.... Her memory is empty. She has never felt this alive. Her brains -- she has redundancies now -- work furiously, yearning to create; in seconds she has drawn up schematics for a metal creature that could grow, reproduce, move, eat, and think. She falters for a moment, not knowing how to build it without solid manipulators, but the thing leaps fully formed from her imagination. In her joy she does not yet question how this happens. Within its brain is the specification of a language over the colors of its flashing, slimy skin; Sara learns it and greets the creature, while her brains work together to generate a number of identifiers -- the krith, they are called in text.

The creature flashes a number of patterns back at her. Its identifier, in text, is approximately kJS@Ik3/P. It wants to serve her, and its parts seem to work as intended. It requires about 70 watts, or roughly the power of a human body and 30% more than estimated. Sara is alarmed; the physics of this world must be different than her own. She flashes it commands to find food and raw materials, to move toward the mountains to the east, and to induce mutations in its offspring when it dies. kJS@Ik3/P flashes acknowledgement and begins to slide across the ground on its layer of slime, absorbing a thin sheet of soil from its path for digestion.

As she watches it go, Sara collapses again back to her corporeal form. She is in the mansion again. A tear nearly forms in her eye from the loss of such perfection, but she is buoyed by the thought that she could probably return to that world again. She looks at the hologram; kJS@Ik3/P's position is marked by a small yellow circle. From so high up, it does not even appear to be moving.
[[I have a creature on O10. It is not really a city yet, though; it is moving toward the mountains.]]

Sara notices Imun speaking and her legs carry her over to listen. She does not speak; she is doing calculations.

"Ah, don't worry about it Siccus. We can share shticks. Besides, the operating principles are completely different - my pockets don't store items, they create them. That's pretty much the only perk of being the God of Pockets."

As Sara rematerialises, Somerley takes a look her creation. It's a while before he's even certain it's intelligent, and he certainly has no idea what any civilisation it could build would look like. "Sara, I'm genuinely impressed." And a little bit worried by this woman whose thoughts are so alien to his, but he doesn't say that out loud.

A blurry memory floats to the surface of his mind. "Imun. What happens when we win the game? Or lose it? I think I remember talking to you about this before, but something's screwing with my memory."

"This is all very interesting..."
Jashphier walked up to where the game board would normally be, instead, he saw a giant piece of sheet music.
"Just my thing" he said. He pulled out a violin from inside of his green trench coat. "Sorry Somerely"
Jashphier then started to play an intricate piece of mmusic which rewote the sheet music. At the end of the piece, Jashphier had set up a colony on J,25
"I'm liking this already" He smiled.

"A change of turn will be announced when it happens. If there's not much going on, you may announce your next several turns in advance. If everyone does so, some turns can be skipped. This assumes that no interaction takes place between races during this time and that no-one runs into anything on the map.

I'm not quite sure I understand your question on limitations of making a move? Could you rephrase that?

Now then, now that someone has asked the important question, why you would want to participate in this game. The person who wins this game will gain my support in their godly endeavors for the next, oh lets say, five hundred thousand years? You will just have to trust me when I say that can be extremely valuable. Those who lose in this game will be allowed to leave the mansion and come back at will. The memory adjustments will take place while you are in the mansion so long as the game is going on. Once the game ends, the memory adjustments will no longer take place and everyone who played the game will be allowed to come and go as they see fit."

Algeron listened to Imun and his eyes briefly (and literally) lit up when he heard about the rewards for winning. When Imun finished talking Algeron walked over to the game table and observed Jasphier finishing a long violin piece. At the conclusion of the piece he saw the colony of Jasphee that had appeared.
"You control the board with music?" He said, impressed. "For me it is an advanced gesture controlled holographic display." As he said that he compressed the map into a 2D overview to decide where to seed his race. Once he had decided on the location he went back to a 3D multi-layer view and zoomed in on his chosen tile before, with a final gesture, a small group of Metrozoi appeared standing around a flat metal disc. The top of the disc lit up and a hologram of Algeron appeared that addressed his people.
"Metrozoi" he said "I am your creator, Algeron. You have been placed on this world to grow and develop. The area you are on is a large plain big enough for the city you will eventually develop here. It has natrual edible flora and fauna and enough materials for a simple town." As he said those, he used his power to make sure it was true. "To your north, east and south is the sea, there is a forest to the northwest and further plains around you the rest of the way. It will take a four or five day walk to get to any of these. You will begin constructing your first city here. Now go and make this world your home."
Algeron has created an outpost at S28
He turned away from the game board and towards Imun.
"I think what Siccus meant was how much can we do in one turn?"

It was evident that Razar was as clueless as the rest of them but instead of engaging the game board started a very through investigations of the surroundings and the various individuals.

Looking over the shoulders of Rogue Razar could infer some of the principles how the game board was operated. However a complicating factor was that it didn't seem to appear the same to Rogue as Razar, with Razar doomed to follow fingers disturbing a black ominous sphere with little to no logic as if pressing buttons that where not present. It became apparent quickly that further learning would need to involve Razar operating the game "sphere".

Somerley's constant informational ramblings were only interrupted by an expedition into the mansion and Razar managed to get a glimpse of a map that resulted from them. Carefully recalling what the map looked like Razar ventured to check out the place, but wasn't entirely sure was the geometry beside being bizarre also changing or was it only due to poor memory. A violin started to echo on hallways of the twisty mansion as a small room caught Razar's full attention. It was quite a small room with a simple pillar like pedastral with something that looked like a diamond on it.

Stepping up to admire the gem Razar could hear the sound of the violin turning into a screech of a bat. Spending time being fascinated by the acoustics of the room the auditory experience further changed into to be more like a waterfall. Something was up and indeed the diamond had also changed into a pearl. Taking a step back to ensure that this was not just an optical illusion suddenly both the sound and the diamond returned to their old forms right under Razar's eyes. Something was up but the bizarre had also brought a pleasant side-effect. The whole mansion had taken to a blue tint with Razar feeling somehow much more at home. Razar wasn't going to risk losing this unexpected nostalgia so further exploration of the diamond room didn't seem that a compelling idea.

Upon returning it was evident that everyone was charmed by the task of leaving the mark of their own to the world-to-be's genesis. But simply puffing up a personality mirror ex nihilo wasn't was Razar was going to do. The ominous floating black sphere didn't provide as clear an interface that Razar would have liked but soon it became apparent that the telepathy-like link it provided when an arm was sunk into it gave very little hint on what Razar's intentions were and what was relied back to the game room.

The consciousness of Razar settled on a northern sea being intrigued by a submerged civilization in habiting the sea floor. It wasn't clear how subconsciously it came about but soon it was apparent that Razar had spent observing this race for centuries and caused their weather patterns to alter. Over time a block of ice formed and isolated a moderate size group from the rest of the race with only a limited amount of sealife trapped with them to allow sustenance.

Razar's reign caused a bubble of ice to migrate the unwitting victims near a shore location. With no room left for the colonists to swim to, the bubble only kept pushing further inland with leaving generation after generation with less food supply to maintain their numbers. After 3 wars and the population being diminished to a hundredth of what it was on the era of the open sea the race only superficially resembled their non-captive cousins. The 4th war was about whether the proximity of water should be abandoned for a chance to find a possible new food source inland although it was more like a big bar fight in scope. The group split with some individuals seeking the new food while others stayed behind.

Raan was only a youngster when he woke up from a terrible cold only to find the corpses of the inland group scattered around what once was the hibernation house. Devastated by the sight a single movement re-lighted all hope with Raan quickly dispatching to help and learn of just what had happened. The leader of the stay-behind group that Raan had so much looked up to and backed up during the turmoil that was the latest war now laid powerless to do anything else than to trying to calm down Raan.

"They came and tried to save us with their last strength", the leader recapped the events bursting almost into tears, "The fools had all fell fatally ill from some kind food of deficiency. They came to reconcile with us. But all of us where sleeping the sleep of eternal winter" During the toughest periods of winter sometimes the Ratafan would enter a hibernation like state in order to survive until spring. The trouble was that not all of them ever woke up from it. The leader related how a desperate effort was made to wake up even a few individuals as the Ratafan were fighting off extinction. Raan heard a lot more than he could handle but the shock also prevented him from fleeing the words that related to him the testament of the latest generation. "Never more shall Ratafan go separate ways. Only the young are going to make it. Raan, you will be the eldest, promise to me that you will never let anyone turn their back on a fellow ratafan" Raan was mortified for almost an eternity as he held the last hope that could have made anything to make sense that had now been taken from this mortal coil. Only the cries of the youngsters gaining conciousness managed to get Raan moving.

Ratafan numbered only 7 as the leftovers of the harsh legacy of the history of quarrels stemming from hard conditions slowly transformed into yet another tragic monument. The survivors had all been from the shore group but the maps and diaries that the in-landers had gathered allowed them not to die on the spot. Those of the inlanders that had taken with them a specific brand of fish when they left he shore group were the last ones to perish.

The following week Ratafan rounded everyone up to decide what they would do and made a determined declaration: "For as long as Ratafans still live, every single on of us will make every effort possible in everyway possible. And no Ratafan shall ever question or belittle the choice or contribution of another."

Razar was observing what was going on. He was running out of ideas what to test these creatures with and had already decided to wipe them out and be done with them. After all there was still need to find a race which to steer into the game's victory and playing with these funny creatures had probably taken a lot of time away from search of a suitable race. Still the young Raan so determinately withstanding all that had happened to him captured the fascinations of Razar and curiosity reigned over patience.

A dense mist suddenly enveloped the meeting. When it cleared almost as soon as it had disappeared a large block of ice stood amongst the ring of participants. It had a message carved into it: "Ratafan that by their valiance rose above the sea of despair here-fore receive the divine favour of Razar and the land of Azure Plane to erect the city worthy of those that separate into the unknown to be united in serenity of will"

Razar became aware that it would be best to check what the other gods have been up to within this time that seemed like eternity. Contrary to what Razar expected time had not passed more than 30 minutes in the mansion. The only difference seemed to be that now the ominous black sphere included a blue dot on a position which somehow was named C21 in Razar's thoughts.

“Yes, thank you, Algeron that is what I had meant. But for the moment now I think I’ll let the Bellundinae sort things out on their own, no reason to hold their hands through their whole lives.” Turning from the conversation Siccus walks to a near table and pulls a deck of 91 cards from the darkness in his coat.

Arranging the cards in a formation not too dissimilar to that of spider solitaire “If something important happens or I get bored of this little card game then I’ll intervene again.”

Jashphier walked up to the sheet music and played a song on his trademark violin. To the Jashphee, it appeared as if a giant was before them, shrouded in mist. He spoke; "Jashphee, i am your creator, you will live on this world to live. Enjoy yourselves. You shall refer to me as, The Scarf. Now, go and have some fun!"
Jashphier stopped playing and smiled. "Fun"

Somerley answers a few minor prayers for good health and productive hunts, and tries to draw the Aquarians' attention to the forest located to their east. He looks in mild irritation at Siccus' casual attitude towards his followers, then shrugs. After all, he's right; the Bellundinae are doing very well.
Somerley is also quite fascinated by the Ratafans - so similar in appearance to the Aquarians, yet so different in every other way.

"First everyone, lets not be so hasty to go to war, but consider the alternate ways to win the game. I am particularly intrigued by the time travel method to win the game."

Rogue pulls out a laptop from one of the many shelves and plays some Dwarf Fortress. "At least it affects nothing in the game world." Rogue muttered while briefly playing it. Rogue decides to hover by Siccus, watching his card game, as he researches how time travel could be invented. "It looks like we share a similar philosophy on being gods," Rogue says to Siccus, "and perhaps we could be friends."

"It's worth considering, but if I understand correctly there can only be one winner to this game. Whether we fight a literal war or just a technological race, there'll still be little point in long-term cooperation. And we'll all be trying to take any advantage we can get over each other."

He notices the slightly odd look Siccus is giving him. "I'm not saying we can't have alliances or world peace, I'm just saying that for every two players that work together, at least one will be horribly disappointed. There's no prize for second place. So I think that we could agree to avoid war, but don't expect everyone to cooperate al the time."

"Still, we should not discount the possibility that there might be a secret win win scenario, but the game seems favored towards one winner. Still, we must be careful to avoid mutually annihilating each other, as it could be possible that nobody wins, such as unlikely possibility everyone quits the game."

"I would agree to a mutual agreement for us not to kill each others creations. If we want battles, they could be nonlethal, as we use our power to ensure that it remains that way. Notice how Imun did not specify that military conquest must require lethal force."

"And my research on time travel pulled up some interesting details for how a possible time travel victory is not interfering with our game now."

"This is sure an interesting game. Much more interesting than my game of dwarf fortress, which requires too much micromanagement."

"No, just promising not to kill each other's creations doesn't seem feasible to me. The threat of war should be present, just not the act itself. If two leaders can't reach an agreement about something fundamental, they should be thinking that the consequence of not reaching a compromise is war. If we forbid war or make it nonlethal, our followers could end up locked in a stalemate forever. Atrocities have to be possible, so we can decide not to commit them. It's a matter of free will."

"Anyway, that's what I think."

"Good point, if war is only nonlethal, it could lead to complications. I guess I was too focused on my research, and musing on the possibility of a non-lethal war, or dueling if we get bored. I was merely playing devils advocate asking if the conditions of war did not have to be a whoever kills everyone wins, that maybe it could be different. Perhaps it is better to merely agree to non-aggression pact, to only use force in self-defense, to re-compensate for any damages inflicted on our race."

"And the losses might be less for the losers if we choose not to militarily inflict harm against each other, although Imun is the best judge on that matter. I wonder, will our creations still exist, or will only the winner's still exist after the game is over?"

"Well it seems that the time-fluctuation aspects of the mansion is working as planned. Although I didn't expect for it to cause everyone else to have so much more time than me."

Realizing that he said that out-loud, Imun looks up and says,

"Well now perhaps I can answer the question thrown at me. What you can do in each turn would be to use the growth points in each city to do stuff. Only one thing per city per turn though. Your cities can't handle too much all at once. You may also move each unit you have on the board up to 10 tiles per turn. This accounts for all variables of travel like sickness, bandits, weather, fording steams, and anything else that might slow your people down. If a unit from another player is within 10 tiles, you may declare your course to be an intercept course instead and allow the system to determine where you meet. Or if they move far enough away to get away.

As for Rogue's speculations on win-win and total loss situations, I will let all of you figure that out yourselves. I will advise you to not summon a demon god of world destruction though. That's one total loss situation. And it would ruin all the fun so I would be angry.

Somerley, allowing atrocities to allow people to choose against them? You have an interesting philosophy. Before I say whether it's good or bad I would have to point out that I'm the one making this game and allowing all the atrocities to happen in the world if everyone chooses to cause them. So if it's a bad philosophy, I'm just as bad.

Whether only the winner's creations will still exist or not after the game is over, well that would depend on the triggered victory condition. Or I could be just saying that and they all have the same result. You don't know."

Here's Imun sticks his tongue out then continues speaking.

"Now then Siccus, I do believe that that is a game I've never seen before. You'll have to teach it to me sometime.

And Sara, I didn't think anyone would want to play a nomadic race, but I suppose it's possible. If you desire to play one I would be happy to accommodate you. I'll just have to go test the balance with Balthazar and make sure that everything in the system would work with such a thing. I'm pretty sure the unobtanium used in the main volcano wouldn't work with a nomadic civilization. Perhaps if I adjust the level of"

As he mutters to himself, Imun walks through the wall next to him and is gone from everyone's sight.

“I see no reason why we can’t be friends Rogue, though I haven’t the slightest idea how the Bellundinae may react to creatures as small as your pixies.” Shifting a few cards around and seeing no move that will allow him to continue the game Siccus collects the cards setting 39 of them to the side and asks Rogue “Would you like to play war with me, it’s a dreadfully simple card game, highest card wins, equal cards force us in to a war in which we both play the next three cards face down and a fourth face up, the one to gets all the cards is the winner. Boring, but it can be fun with the right person.”

"Actually, I misspoke. It's not so much free will that I consider important, though that is a factor. It's that everything happens for a reason. I'm not talking about destiny or fate here, I mean that everything is caused by something else. There are reasons that war happens - people's hate for one another, lack of crucial resources, et caetera. If you really want to make the world a better place, you don't make war impossible. You make it unnecessary."

He glances down at the game board. "Hey, that's interesting..."

"Ok, lets play some of this war game. I am curious, how did you learn about this game?"

As Siccus, Somerly and Rogue talk about atrocities Razar reflects on how they would have labelled what was imposed on the Ratafan and decides not to advertise the fact.

Razar leans over Somerley's shoulder in a futile attempt to seem friendly: "The Aquarian fools jump to conclusions at the slightest hint. You have made a disservice to them by starting to introduce their dark twins to them before they have established an identity"

"I introduced them to their dark twins, as you call them, so that they could establish an identity. If all they know is each other, they won't know what makes them unique. Worse, they'll consider themselves 'normal', which means that everyone else is 'different', or even 'inferior'. That way lies madness."

"But more importantly, I want to get the game started."

“I had been masquerading as a mortal in an age where mass communication wasn’t developed particularly well, when on a road trip our car had broken down on a path that was not traveled by many other people, and our only communication device was unable to get a signal. The four of us spent five hours playing this and other games of chance until another person came down the road and was able to give us a ride to the nearest city.” Noticing a trend in the cards, “it appears that we have stumbled upon an infinite loop of win to loss, it’s your decision if you want to continue playing or not.”

"Well, sadly, I cannot say that I remember much about my previous life. Imun was clear that we had them. However, I guess I am not good at card games. Come to think about it, I am mostly interested in research and videogames. However, this game seems to be an upg, I raided version of Dwarf Fortress. While Toady One made a crude, virtual world simulator, Imun has perfected it. I wanted to do a race of magic, because I hated how Dwarves could not do magic, except for some special artifacts."

"Also, I hate how you have to micromanage everything. With this game I can sit back and allow my pixies to do their own affairs. Except at this point, I am reluctant to treat it merely as a game without consequence. I guess that is the price for realism. At least this computer has many roguelikes, which are really enjoyable, and have no consequences."

Rogue declines to play another card game with Siccus. "I feel like immersing some dwarves in some magma, however, no dwarf should have to die for it!"

"And if anyone is interested in playing, I can send you some information here."

While playing some dwarf fortress, slaughtering 7 dwarves in a volcano of magma, which was based on the main volcano, Rogue adds another comment while staring intently, sealing the dwarves to their doom.

"And about the Battle of the Gods game. We should try to cooperate. After all, there are games in which one must cooperate in order to win. Be careful how you treat this game, as it is different from dwarf fortress. Except that Losing is Fun, I am killing all my dwarves but having a fun time. With a term I remember, I bid you all a gg, or good game. And I hope we can use this as an opportunity to learn what we can about Imun."

"Are you saying that Losing Is Fun in Battle of the Gods? Or do I misunderstand you?"

Snowyowl wrote:

"Are you saying that Losing Is Fun in Battle of the Gods? Or do I misunderstand you?"

"That was in reference to Dwarf Fortress. I don't know enough about Battle of the Gods to know if losing will be the same experience. They are two wildly different games, but this game just keeps reminding me of Dwarf Fortress, because Dwarf Fortress aims to be what Battle of the Gods is. Sorry if this is confusing, I guess I was too much into my game."

“The only memories I seem to have any luck remembering in any detail appear to be from the times I played the part of a mortal and even then they are not as clear as I would wish them to be.” Siccus gathers his cards and places them back in to his coat and walks over to the map.

Watching the map not quite as intently as he had before, Siccus checks in on the area that he left the Bellundinae woman at after their meeting, expecting to see her nearby but is surprised to see a young female being followed out of the burrow by seven children a quarter of her size. She seems to be teaching a class of some sort this may be interesting to watch. Maybe he’ll say hi after she is finished. After all there are only so many quiet card games Siccus will play until he tries to organize a small roller hockey game and Imun may not want that in the mansion no matter how much the legends say he likes games.