A Trillion Lost Games 2 by sirianth | 0 comments on Hacker News. You sit across from an old crone, her face a map of time itself. The board between you is simple, the pieces familiar. You play the game with passion, developing brilliant strategies, but she is the master. With a gentle, knowing smile, she corners you. Your child takes your seat. The board is the same, but a new piece stands on the back rank—one that can see several moves ahead. Your child plays, building on your gambits, and the game is longer, more complex. Again, the crone wins, but as she takes the final piece, a single wrinkle on her face vanishes. Your grandchild sits, and now the board has a piece that can link others together, morphing their shapes and capabilities. The game is a dazzling web of strategy. The very shape of the board itself seems somehow fundamentally to have changed. The crone, looking younger still, takes hours for a single move. Generation after generation takes their seat, each inheriting a...