Sein Wesen ist Verhandeln, abwartende Halbheit, mit der Hoffnung, die definitive Auseinandersetzung, die blutige Entscheidungsschlacht, könnte in eine parlamentarische Debatte verwandelt werden und ließe sich durch eine ewige Diskussion ewig suspendieren.
Telemachus Clockjob shone with power in the light of the summer sunset, his majestic black leather jacket radiating the energy of a live player at the top of his game...an intellect worthy of admiration from men and fear from anthropoids...a man truly sovereign.
“Good evening!” he proclaimed to the six other players, arranged in an irregular arc around the picnic table on which he stood. “Before we begin I would like to announce that this will be, by far...the most secure game of Diplomacy of all time.”
Katzbube’s usual resting expression of puzzlement intensified; he noticed von Pfiff glancing at him from the other end of the semicircle next to a thin young man in an oversized bird costume whose name tag read The Econ Twink. Katzbube surveyed his other opponents: Elmer, brimming with the confidence of a newly seasoned gambler; Cannon Pratt, who had invited him, in 1960s grad-student glasses and his standard grey checkered vest; and, closest to him, Comstock Gonzalez, a towering and businesslike figure in sunglasses.
“Oh yes! I considered, friends, putting a tin can in the main lounge in which orders might be placed. But we are all very fascinating and talented people here. The tin can might be stolen, dear players, and replaced by an exact replica. It might even be bugged. There are many accomplished and remarkable agents at World of Vibes who might do this—not least of all myself. If the receptacle for orders is even a little bit insecure, friends, we should assume that it is entirely insecure.”
“We are all here, of course, to enjoy ourselves. But I am also hoping that we will all learn just a little bit more—yes, even me—about power. And power, as we all know, means security. I considered having us encrypt our moves. But then who is going to decrypt them? We could of course use public-key cryptography. But here we are in real life, dear diplomats, rather than rotting away behind our screens as we do the rest of the time.”
“The system for taking orders must, of course, be simple. I think we would all prefer to avoid complex procedures. It is simply all too easy for procedural outcomes to be...manipulated. And of course there are many other activities in which we might wish to partake at World of Vibes. We might, for example, wish to attend an orgy. I am told the prediction markets prophesy a 15% chance of one occurring. I would be a poor host, friends, if I were to insist that we all show up at exactly the same place at exactly the same time three times a day to deposit our orders simultaneously in full view of each other.”
“I am therefore happy to report, friends, that I have invented a most curious—but above all secure—method for submitting our orders.”
Clockjob produced a penknife from his breast pocket and sliced open a small cardboard box to reveal six identical electronic contraptions, each consisting of a screen and a keyboard and resembling an oversized and unusually square 2009-era cellphone.
“These,” he continued, “are Schmittcoin terminals. I have long dreamed of expanding Burble to become a maximally secure protocol for both communication and payment. The trouble with modern social media is the enormous amount of slop. The signal is tremendous. We are all more connected than ever before. We are connected on LinkedIn, on Reddit, on the Everything App. With a few keystrokes we may talk to billionaires, read papers about the climate of the early Miocene, or even find the rare and desirable mommy GF. But the noise—the noise is unbearable. It is therefore not sufficient that a communication protocol be secure. It must also prevent slop—without reading it. As even the staunchest supporter of the current political order will tell you, what better way to prevent something than by charging a price? Every Schmittcoin minted is backed by real information. Every message passed on the Schmittcoin protocol pays for the privilege; the more important the information, the higher the price. And since—as you will see—there could hardly be a more important piece of information to the world than the winners and losers of this Diplomacy game, the costs will need to be high indeed.”
“Each terminal contains one hundred thousand Schmittcoins for your use—no fewer than eight million dollars’ worth if you were to sell them for United States government scrip, which you will shortly have no reason to do. The Schmittcoin protocol is entirely decentralized. Each transaction is routed through every user on the network—none of which are able to determine its contents or prior history—before reaching its final destination. Schmittcoin is the only true P2P payment and communication protocol. Unike Bitcoin—unlike Ethereum—unlike even Dogecoin—there is no single sovereign terminal or collection of terminals able to decide on exceptions to the protocol’s normal operation by fiddling with interest rates, minting new coins, or reversing transactions. Your terminal will encode your orders as a number of Schmittcoins and send them to the Judge terminal, which—since every terminal is also Turing-complete—will be able to compute the final state of affairs at every turn.”
He passed the box to von Pfiff, who selected one of the contraptions and found himself scowling faintly at it. There appeared to be no USB ports or charging ports on the device. Curious. Vienna would surely be interested in dissecting it.
“Last but not least of all, players, I am happy to say that there will be a prize for the top three players upon completion of the game—since, at an event of this caliber, there is of course a very good chance that the game will come to a draw.”
“I would like to think, dear friends, that I am a man of many talents. Certainly I have my fingers in quite a few pies. You may, for example, have used Burble and learned to write Nomos, the strongly-typed dialect of brainfuck of which I am creator and in which the Schmittcoin protocol is written. I have little personal need for additional lucre after a successful exit at the turn of the century from www.petfood.com, and my ambitions now lie in the realm of the public good.”
“Allow me to introduce,” said Clockjob, gesturing to a fashionably late attendee now making his entrance from across the lawn, “His Majesty Carlos Antonio Sebastián María von Ausnahmezustand-Zollverein und Stvrt.”
“Wassup!” said Carlos Antonio Sebastián María von Ausnahmezustand-Zollverein und Stvrt, a flawlessly bronzed and improbably blond Adonis in what von Pfiff estimated to be approximately forty thousand euros of Milan’s third-finest tailoring.
“We are, of course, about to begin our little game. But before we do, let us take a brief detour and learn a bit about the sorry saga of modern Slorbian history.”
“Prior to the Treaty of Versailles and the other regrettable events of the 20th century, the Kingdom of Slorbia was ruled with a firm yet benevolent hand by the illustrious House of Stvrt. Alas, this was not to last. The House of Stvrt was toppled in 1919 and banished from Slorbia forever. Over the next twenty-two years the successor republic underwent fifty-seven coups, eight separate bouts of hyperinflation, and an ill-fated attempt to annex Romania before being invaded by the Nazis, then the Soviets.”
“Slorbia doesn’t border Romania,” noted Cannon.
“There was no border in 1932 either, but Marshal Tziganbivajošti was not known for his expertise in geography.”
“In February 1990,” continued Clockjob, “the old régime fell—only to be replaced by a new establishment of flashier kleptocrats, which remains to this day, implacably committed to formalizing its vassalage to Brussels. Slorbia has the second-highest suicide rate on the continent and the third-lowest per-capita GDP. Its biggest export industries are commercial-grade vanadium and twenty-something professionals, which one must admit is an improvement over the mid-1990s when it supplied 75% of all methamphetamine consumed in Europe.”
“Real bummer,” said Carlos, with an accent that suggested Andalusia more than the banks of the Droč. “I suggest us to fix the place up.”
“I will, therefore, be partially underwriting an attempt to restore the Stvrts. We will reorganize the government of Slorbia along the lines of the most stable and incentive-compatible social structure ever designed: the joint-stock company, with King Carlos I as CEO. Slorbijakorp Holdings will become known as the shining enterprise upon Mount Žub. The shoplifting of a Snickers bar will make national headlines. The mere sight of what is now the dustiest track in the most benighted village in Vrabica Province will make the Swiss transport ministry green with envy. The value of Slorbijakorp’s assets will dwarf those of anything we now refer to as a ‘first-world country’. The unfortunate subjects of Brussels and Foggy Bottom will beg their rulers to convert their electoral mediocracies into vassals—or even mere tributary states—of Slorbia.”
“The top three players of this game of Diplomacy will receive, respectively, 0.5%, 0.2%, and 0.1% of Slorbijakorp Holdings upon successful restoration of the House of Stvrt and restructuring of the Slorbian government along more enlightened lines.”
Clockjob opened a second cardboard box containing a game board, a rulebook and a sizeable collection of handsomely-painted pewter ships and infantrymen.
“Oho, one of the classic sets!” said Katzbube. “I’ve only got the version with wooden pieces.”
“One of the rarer editions,” noted Clockjob. “My father found it at the estate sale of an FSO who officially died in a plane crash in Tanzania.”
“I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade,” said von Pfiff, “but this board does not seem to include Slorbia as a supply center. I have only ever played that version.”
“Ah, Calhamer’s original map,” said Clockjob. “Yes, the problem with that one is that Turkey tends to win over a third of the time. Slorbia has been removed for reasons of balance in all commercial versions save for the one published in the Republic of Turkey, where the revised edition was banned for historical inaccuracy and insulting Turkishness.”
“I’ve played many excellent matches on my uncle İsmail’s board at family reunions. Or rather,” von Pfiff added wistfully, “I used to.”
“The family opted for fairer matches, eh?”
“No, we went to Crete for vacation when I was in university and our copy was confiscated by the police. Uncle İsmail spent a week in jail. He’s lost his appetite for playing ever since.”
“My deepest condolences,” said Clockjob. “Well, then, it is probably about time to assign everyone to countries so that we have enough time to decide on our orders for Spring 1901.”
“I have a leather satchel to draw pieces out of if you’d like,” said Cameron Pratt.
“Ah, dear players!” Clockjob chuckled. “True security means true randomness—at least as far as is possible. I certainly have no reason to believe that you’ve tampered with your bag, but I have no proof that you have not, and—as we all know—absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It would be best to remain on the safe side. You will all be overjoyed to learn that I have brought a contraption of my own devising that assigns countries in the only truly random fashion available to mortals—by exploiting radioactive decay. I must request that everybody stand back at least six paces!”
Clockjob opened a suitcase from within the cardboard box and removed a tripod about five feet high endowed with a motor and a freely-spinning wheel, onto which he affixed a ring of seven unblemished strips of 35mm instant-camera film stock, each sporting a plastic flag representing one of the Great Powers of Belle Époque Europe. He pressed his thumb to a green button on a handheld controller and the propeller began to rotate at a fearful speed.
“Now for the random number generator!” he exclaimed, turning the motor off and donning a thick pair of gloves. From the suitcase he removed a peculiar glass vial of water containing a faintly glowing metal pellet.
“Nickel-63,” he elaborated. “Please do not ask me where I got it. It is perfectly safe, for the most part, as its half-life is about a century, and its main decay product is perfectly stable copper. I mostly request that nobody cuddle or eat the vial.”
He clicked the vial into a slot on the tripod where an aluminum square rested behind the very top of the propeller and connected a trailing wire on the motor beneath to a slot on the vial.
“When a beta particle hits a sensor behind the wire, the aluminum shielding will rise for an indeterminate amount of time to allow particles to hit whichever slice of film stock is at the very top of the wheel. Eventually a particle will hit the ‘off’ switch and the propeller will come to a halt. Whichever film square has recorded the greatest number of collisions will indicate the country. Please line up in any order. I will take whichever country is left at the very end.”
The semicircle shuffled into single file at the side of the machine, von Pfiff first.
“The sole part of the game left to chance,” said Clockjob. “From this point onwards your fates will be sealed by your own wits. Are we all ready?”
“Naturally,” said von Pfiff.
Clockjob beamed and pressed his thumb to the red button on the controller. The aluminum square next to the vial clicked up for the briefest of split seconds, then snapped closed again as the rotor began to slow down. When it came to rest a splatter of white static could be seen on a slice of film at the three o’clock position, decorated by a Union Jack.
“ENGLAND!” roared Clockjob. “Perfidious Albion—but perhaps not so perfidious? It is, of course, up to you. Next we have Mr…Mr…”
“The Econ Twink,” said a voice from within the bird costume.
“We must all have our little pseudonyms,” said Clockjob. “Slorbijakorp Holdings will of course need to know the true identity of all shareholders if you succeed. Nevertheless!”
He clicked the green button and the rotor began to spin once more; then, after ten seconds, the red.
“FRANCE! A strong contender. Perhaps, Mr. Twink, your pseudonymity will be unmasked after all…but I trust that you value sportsmanship over privacy. And I still remind everyone that the two runners-up will also receive enough equity in Slorbijakorp Holdings to fulfill all their hearts’ material desires.”
The line continued. To Elmer, Austria; to Cannon Pratt, Italy; to Comstock Gonzalez, Turkey.
“Mr…Katzbube. Winthrop Katzbube.”
“The one and only,” Katzbube replied, “as far as I am aware.”
“Not too many Winthrops around these days,” Clockjob smirked. “But I wish you the best. Even the third-place winner will come into enough to buy out most of Beacon Hill. Or, indeed, Cambridge. And both Germany and Russia are solid countries—if, that is, the man playing them has better diplomatic sense than Kaiser Bill and fewer delusions than Nicholas II. Are you ready?”
“Go on,” said Katzbube.
The wheel spun for the last time, for a while now, and the aluminum square shot up for a good four or five rotations. Clockjob clicked the red button and the strange, fatal contraption came to a final halt. Katzbube inspected the film squares: Russia’s still an unblemished dark brown, the other—
“DEUTSCHLAND!” Clockjob announced. “Then it falls to me to take charge of the Third Rome and pilot her to glory.”
“I believe, players, that there is a cocktail party starting in one of the main ballrooms in about half an hour. I am afraid I will only be able to pop in and out due to other business. But I heartily encourage all of you to take the opportunity to negotiate the fate of Europe over a few drinks. Your orders, as always, are due to the Judge terminal by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, when I will see everyone at this very spot for retreats—unless, of course, there is more intrigue in the meta-game than I expect. And, as always—may the greatest Power win!”