Tennis

townsbg · #21 (**permalink**) 29-03-2009, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jephree

Care to illustrate that on your tablet?

Do you really want him too?????

jephree · #22 (**permalink**) 29-03-2009, 09:06 AM

Yes.

He's an artist. (ignore the she):

townsbg · #23 (**permalink**) 29-03-2009, 03:51 PM

Attachment 1973

constantoo · #24 (**permalink**) 22-08-2009, 06:39 AM

no one equals the stamina of federer

jephree · #25 (**permalink**) 24-08-2009, 02:54 AM

Quote:

The game of Eschaton is played every year on Interdependence Day by 12-15 year old students from ETA. The section about Eschaton is covered on pages 321-342. The game is played with tennis balls that are no longer deemed in playable. The tennis balls represent powerful nuclear warheads. The students are organized into militaristic groups such as AMNAT (American Nations?), REDCHI (Red China?), SOUTHAF(South Africa?), and many more. Eschaton is played on a few tennis courts and the players are positioned on the courts in what is estimated to be their location on the globe. The tennis courts are supposed to be a map of the globe. The winner of the game is the team that has the best ratio of points of INDDIR (Infliction of Death, Destruction, and Incapacitation of Response) to SUFDDIR (on the receiving end of INDDIR).

The game involves one person who is designated the game master. The game master has a computer on a cart and runs around crunching numbers for the players. He uses all sorts of different formulae and calculation to determine points and resolve disputes between combatants. The fact that this game is extremely complicated and complex is greatly intensified by Eschaton's necessity for a game master.

Interesting ideas include SACPOP (Series of Punishing Against Civilian Populations), which described as being a last resort method of play that usually "end[s] up costing both Combatants so many points they're eliminated from further cntention." (pg 324) The game also continued for a while without disbanding, which is impressive considering the complexity of the game and the fact that the players were so young.

One of the issues that came up during the game is that during game play, it began to snow in real life. This introduced the question of whether snowing on the representative game map (the tennis courts) meant that the game play was actually affected, i.e. should blast radius of warheads is decreased due to the falling snow?

Infinite Jest - Eschaton