Gemini vs Gemini

Change of pace this week – no AI generated Essay! Just a fun thought exercise into the origin of a classic game…

Chess: the origin story

The General trudged up the stairs, lost in thought. His bags had been neatly unpacked by his staff, but his mind was a jumble that no staff could help him with. What he needed was to carve.

He looked around until he found his carving kit, and started unfolding it on the small desk in the corner. He felt a sigh of satisfaction escape him as his eyes ran over the neatly laid out knives, gouges and chisels. He picked up the first smooth wooden cylinder, and as his hands got to work, his mind wandered back to the morning. 

“Welcome General! We thank you for making this long and arduous trip to join us, we have been eagerly anticipating your arrival for many months!”

The portly king seemed to be bouncing off his plush red velvet throne, his face a thin veil of jovial eagerness covering a deep-rooted nervousness. A quick glance to the right at the queen gave him the complete opposite impression – an iron-clad mask of severity likely masking a calm self-assuredness. 

“I am grateful for your welcome, and the comfortable ride you provided for the last three days of my journey. As I understand it, you have an imminent war upon you. So let us not waste any further time, I would see your army’s capabilities today so we can choose the best course of action.”

He looked expectantly at the king, who smiled back blankly. A sudden movement to the right – the queen snapped her fingers and three men behind him jumped into action. The first retrieved a chair and placed it next to the queen and indicated the general take a seat, a second hurried over to the long horn and blew a long note, and the third whipped out a long scroll from behind his back and started reading out loudly. 

“First, our infantry!”

The general thought back to the small cadre of soldiers that shuffled to an uncoordinated stop in front of the royal hut. The unit was a mixed bag of farmers, blacksmiths and street urchins. They would hold some enemies at bay, but were unlikely to be a part of his attack plans, given utility solely by the sheer volume of them at his disposal. His fingers carved 8 of his wooden blocks down to half their original size, with a small, unassuming knob at the top.

“Next, we present our cavalry!”

The general watched with awe as the horses thundered towards them at breakneck speed, raising plumes of dust and making the infantry scatter in terror. Awe turned to amusement when the cavalry men commanded their horses to stop, and the wilful steeds all rather violently hopped sideways, nearly unseating half of their riders who quickly got back into their seats with reddened faces.

Fearsome, but unpredictable. His hands fell into the familiar pattern of carving the regal noses of the horse. A pity, but perhaps also a blessing, that there were only two of these units. 

“Next come our pride and joy, our moving castles!”

As the lumbering tower of brick and mortar moved menacingly toward the royal hut, the general squinted at it – what mechanism could drive a behemoth such as this? When it finally ground to a halt in front of him, he saw a trickle of castle-pushers emerge from behind the tower, mopping their foreheads, passing around water and leaning against the huge wheels that carried the tower. 

The general picked up his V-tool to do justice to the crenellations of the tower on the wood. Too bad the wheels only faced forward and sideways, so this would not be the most nimble unit on his hands, but the momentum the castle pushers could pick up once they got going was not to be underestimated.

“Next our bishops!”

The general stilled his arm, fighting the instinct to scratch his head. What was going on? The saintly men with long robes and high hats walked over sedately, and stood in front of the royal hut respectfully. 

“I see you are confused, perhaps a demonstration is in order”, he heard the queen say, accompanied by a snap of her fingers. 

The general found himself looking back at the queen in a new light. He prided himself on his ability to keep his thoughts hidden, so this was highly unusual. When he turned back to the battleground, the synod of bishops had walked over to the infantry unit, and started to mingle and murmur with the villagers. One by one, all the villagers dropped their weapons and fell to their knees, a mix of prayer and despair.

Interesting. Sneaky, and yet an elegantly effective tactic on a battlefield. This unit was going to be a part of his long-game strategy. The general tried his best to replicate the curved markings of the bishops’ hats onto the wood in his hands. 

Once he was satisfied, he set up the two bishop units next to the rest of his little wooden army of 14. He at last turned his gaze to the last two unmarked cylinders, and allowed himself a small chuckle thinking back to the twin surprises had gotten earlier that day. 

“Next, our esteemed King’s Guard!”

The king next to him jumped out of his chair and eagerly ran out of the royal hut to join his entourage. The general was somewhat surprised at the sprightly pace the king bounced off in, wondering if he had hidden reserves of energy beneath all that cherubic blubber. His army certainly seemed menacing – tall broad-shouldered, armed to their teeth. However the longer he looked at them, the more he sensed a feeling of embarrassment and frustration from the guards – a highly unusual mix of feelings in this most elite unit of the army. 

The reason for this sentiment became immediately clear once the King’s Guard started marching. Within a hundred yards, the king had to stop to take a breather, and the unit seemed to let out a collective sigh of frustration. The general had to bite the inside of his cheek to hide his amusement. 

So, a powerful unit, but with a very limited range. The general carved out his tallest piece yet, topped it with the cross he saw on the king’s diamond studded crown.

The general was about to get up after this demonstration of the King’s Guard, when he suddenly heard the herald shout once more

“Finally, our esteemed queen’s guard!”

A Queen’s Guard? This was unheard of where the general came from! 

The general could not stop his jaw from dropping to the floor as the queen rose from her throne beside him, shed her robe to reveal a pair of loose fitting pants and twin kaikens hanging from her hips. She was joined by a unit of lithe similarly dressed women, hair tied in a tight top-knot and faces covered by keffiyeh in varying shades of cream. A sharp command from the queen and the women jumped into a synchronized choreography clearly designed to make its beholder – in this case the general – contemplate the full range of capabilities the unit possessed. Speed, agility, ferociousness and coordination – this unit surpassed every other unit the general had seen that day. Nay, any army he had seen in his whole life!

Once their demonstration was done, the general remembered to pick up his jaw and thank the queen for her demonstration, and asked to be shown to his quarters so he could draw up his plans. In such a daze was he, he did not even track his surroundings until he had entered his tent, whereupon he desperately craved clarity in his woodwork.

The general reverently carved the top-knot and the keffiyeh onto his last wooden cylinder, and set the queen as the centerpiece of the formation. This was the motley collection of capabilities at his command. 

He looked up, and out of the towering lookout that was his base for this battle, which gave him perfect visibility into the battlefield. He spied the enemy camp and lookout, similarly sized as their own, and from what he had heard, similarly equipped. It would really boil down to the moves that he and his counterpart in the enemy lookout chose to make.

Such few units, so many possible moves. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting battle indeed.