Lara documents/Lara 009.002
Translated by Blade Lakem
This second game (rather, series of games) comes with a bit of a math lesson, as describing the elements of it requires a detour into D'ni geometry.
The board is a figure called 'the star of Tsorahnee', named after an early member of the Guild of Analysts. Tsorahnee popularized the use of the figure as a game board, and as a basis for a number of mathematical exercises and lessons.
The star of Tsorahnee is described as 'a circle, surrounded by six identical circles. Then another six identical circles are added around those, creating three lines of circles, five each, that share as their center the original center circle. Then, lines are connected from the center of each circle to the center of each other circle.'[1]
The tokens are a set of what the documents call 'the perfect cuts'. These are five stones cut such that 'each side is the same size and shape as each other side, and all of these sides are at identical angles to their neighbors. Clearly, there are only five possible variations.'[2]
There are several games which were traditionally credited to Tsorahnee, using these elements.
The first game I found is for two players and uses the star and a single set of perfect cuts. The stones are placed in the inner ring of the star. The players take alternating turns. On a player's turn, their opponent chooses which piece can be moved. The player then moves the piece along any line to another circle—they cannot 'jump' other pieces however.
The goal is maneuver pieces so that your opponent is forced to place three of the pieces in a row in adjacent circles (adjacent circles are those that are actually touching, not just connected by lines).
A second game uses two sets of perfect cuts, one for each player. They take turns placing them in circles. After pieces are places, players take turns moving pieces along the lines to an empty space (pieces in the way can be ‘jumped’). If a player gets three pieces in a row, they can remove one of the other players pieces. Game play continues until one player loses all of their pieces or cannot make a legal move.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ What we call on the surface as Metatron's Cube. –Blade Lakem
- ↑ These are, of course, the Platonic solids—tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. The document doesn't specify them by any name, however. –Blade Lakem
Commentary[edit]
Another intriguing game, though this is much more abstract than the last. The use of games as mathematical exercises is prolific on the surface, and this seems to indicate that D'ni culture shares in that particular gambit (if you'll forgive the pun).
Also, I find the fact that the Platonic solids are called 'perfect cuts'. This seems to connect their conception in D'ni mathematics with stone cutting. This seems in line with the preponderance of stone-related metaphors in D'ni culture, having developed in a cave and all.
However, I wonder if the D'ni predilection for stone is not unique to the D'ni, but somehow relates to the Ronay. The Ronay, doubtlessly, knew of mathematical concepts as the Platonic solids. If the term 'perfect cut' comes from them, then the connection between the solids and the cutting of stone might also be based in the Ronay. But that’s just idle speculation.
—Blade Lakem
