AMNAT President in the Eschaton debacle

pivotal · 8 Nov YDAU — Interdependence Day, afternoon

• When: Sunday 8 November YDAU (Interdependence Day), afternoon, ~1515h to the 1600h Sunstrand siren, on the East Courts
• What: In the annual Eschaton nuclear-strategy game Chu plays AMNAT's President — the game's coldest rationalist, who "can parse a Decision Tree with the best of them" (Pemulis's verdict), exploiting Gopnik's emotional strikes and Penn's arational lobbing to rack up INDDIR points, then parleying with SOVWAR's leadership at a summit "in what looks to be roughly Sierra Leone" to lock in AMNAT's lead. (An aside notes he'd promoted the titanic jockstrap out of the sedated Schacht's gear bag on the bus Friday night, as a MIRV launcher.) When Ingersoll fires a warhead at Kittenplan and the players-as-targets crisis detonates the game, Chu argues the rules position — players can't be valid target-areas with no INDDIR/SUFDDIR values ever entered for them — and repeatedly restrains the enraged Kittenplan, whose eventual barrage comes over his pleas for reasoned discussion. In the brawl he tackles Possalthwaite from behind, is punched in the stomach by Gopnik, and ends up on hands and knees vomiting into the "Indian Ocean" — where the sprinting game-master Lord, chasing the airborne computer, trips over his arched form and goes headfirst through the monitor.