Title is a quote from Savielly Tartakower. Just a little story I thought up last night and thought was worth a post.
Page image is from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_-_Playing_chess_at_the_Jardins_du_Luxembourg_-_2966.jpg

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F.A.Q.

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In the beginning, they created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form. After that, well, all hell broke loose.
It started innocently enough. A man and woman in love. A temptation. Fruit. Knowledge.
And then they got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. But that's not the end of the story. They forged ahead, created a life for themselves. A good life. They had children. The first one, they called Cain. Then they had a many, many more. One of those was called Abel. He was the favorite. Cain didn't like that.
And so the first piece was removed from the board.
It was a small crime, in the grand scheme of things. But happening so early, it shaped all to come. The children spread out into the world. Mankind lived a harsh and brutal life. And then someone realized you could plant your own crops. Land became valuable. People became hardened to the plight of the poor. Kings ruled over man and emperors ruled over kings.
The first empires rose. The Greeks. The Egyptians. The Hittites, the Assyrians. They traded. They warred from time to time but nothing ever to upset the balance of power. Until one day, a force of unimaginable power swept in from the sea. And everyone felt their wrath.
The bronze age ended like it began, in blood and madness. And then the moves were reactionary. An empire rises here, then it falls. A kingdom finds its way, then it disappears.
Over and over, in a forever cycle of… wait. Who is this? Alexander The Great? What a pompous name. And he built the largest empire the world had ever seen. But he died, like all men do. And it fell apart.
Soon two great empires rose, one in the west and one in the east. The Romans unified most of a continent. China could never quite find a way to unify itself for any significant length of time, but both were powerful, and both lasted quite a while.
Religions rose as well. Belief had always been a powerful tool. And the players making the moves, knew how to use it to get what they wanted. But this was different. It was more… permanent. It permeated all. And it was a mistake.
But still these great empires fell. There was nothing that could be done about that. But what rose in their places were poised to grow immeasurably. And then Genghis Khan came along to change everything again. A single piece capable of unimaginable amounts of destruction. Of creation. The piece took almost all of Asia, and then Asia took him. He died and the empire fell and that was that.
And an era of unprecedented darkness rose like a specter around the entire world. Out of that darkness came a disease that left a third of humanity coughing and bleeding and crying and dying.
Still the game continued.
It took a while, but soon the light returned to the world, and in a few more centuries, someone learned that you could use steam to do work. A lot of work. All of the work. But as always, a discovery like that doesn't make things better for anyone who doesn't control it, it just makes those people more powerful.
Steam led to electricity. Thus began the modern age. And the end of the game approached.
Mankind had no way to know that the players were making their final moves of course. They just went on about their lives. The great war came and went and they promised never again. Then the next war came and went and they promised never again. Then more wars came. Always more wars.
And finally, weaved into the fabric of it all, a group meant to protect humanity from itself and from the unknown came about. The more we knew, the more we explored, the more questions we answered… the more the players would subvert that knowledge.
Finally the gambits upon gambits upon gambits came to a head. And the end of the game showed itself. Neither player could win. They could continue the stalemate for as long as they wanted, but there wasn't much of a point.
So SCP-343 rose from his seat and extended his hand. SCP-2343 nodded and stood, shaking the hand.
"Good game." 343 said.
SCP-2343 looked down at the board. "Why do we keep doing this?"
343 shrugged. "Competition is good for the soul."
SCP-2343 smirked. "We're playing against ourselves. There's never going to be a winner."
"I know hypocrisy is sort of our thing, but you know you married one of us, right?"
"Fair enough. I'm going to get back to the cell, before they notice I'm gone."
And then god went their separate ways.