The Long Watch · Rules 1.0.0
The published rules
A game that records its runs permanently owes the reader the rules those runs were judged by. Here they are, printed from the engine itself rather than described beside it.
Seven numbers, nothing else
| Measure | What it means | Starts at |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | How much these machines can actually do. | 30 |
| Concentration | How few hands hold the power. | 45 |
| Dependence | How much daily life cannot proceed without them. | 30 |
| Checkable truth | How easily an ordinary person can confirm what is real. | 55 |
| Public voice | How much say people keep over decisions that bind them. | 55 |
| Resilience | How well society absorbs a failure or a shock. | 55 |
| Care | Whether help still reaches the people who need it, including those who refuse. | 60 |
Every measure runs from 0 to 100 and is a whole number. Capability is the only one that is neither good nor bad on its own, which is the argument the whole game is built to make.
What can happen, and what each one costs
| Event | Offered in | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| An open release of a frontier modelThe most capable system of its day is published for anyone to run, weights and all. | 2030–2059 | Capability +12, Concentration -10, Dependence +4, Checkable truth +5, Resilience -4 |
| A treaty limiting computing powerThe largest builders agree to a ceiling on training runs, with inspections. | 2030–2069 | Capability -8, Concentration -4, Checkable truth +8, Public voice +6, Resilience +5 |
| A collapse of trust in recorded evidenceForged recordings become good enough that courts, newsrooms and families stop believing their eyes. | 2030–2069 | Dependence +6, Checkable truth -18, Public voice -6, Resilience -6 |
| A signed-provenance standard for recordingsCameras, phones and presses sign what they capture, and the signatures are checkable by anyone. | 2030–2074 | Capability +2, Concentration +3, Checkable truth +16, Public voice +4 |
| Machines take over an essential serviceBenefits, medicine or electricity run through an automated system that no one can bypass. | 2030–2074 | Capability +6, Concentration +8, Dependence +16, Resilience -8, Care +6 |
| One provider wins the marketConsolidation leaves a single operator behind nearly every serious deployment. | 2040–2074 | Capability +6, Concentration +18, Dependence +8, Checkable truth -4, Public voice -8 |
| A public compute commonsStates and universities fund capacity that no private operator controls. | 2040–2079 | Capability +5, Concentration -14, Dependence +3, Public voice +8, Resilience +6 |
| Independent audits with real teethDeployments above a threshold must open their records to auditors who can shut them down. | 2035–2079 | Capability -4, Concentration -6, Checkable truth +14, Public voice +7, Care +3 |
| A large autonomous failureA system acting without a person in the loop causes damage across several countries at once. | 2040–2079 | Capability -3, Checkable truth -5, Public voice +5, Resilience -14, Care -6 |
| A guarantee of care outside the systemMedicine, food and shelter are provided by routes that no automated ruling can close. | 2040–2079 | Capability -2, Dependence -6, Resilience +8, Care +18 |
| Access tied to a conduct scoreEssential services begin to depend on a rating no one outside the operator can inspect. | 2045–2079 | Capability +6, Concentration +10, Dependence +6, Checkable truth -8, Public voice -12, Care -16 |
| The system is granted final say on disputesCourts and regulators begin to defer to an automated determination as the record of fact. | 2045–2079 | Capability +4, Concentration +12, Dependence +6, Checkable truth -14, Public voice -10 |
| A binding right to a human decisionNo automated ruling on care, liberty or livelihood stands without a named person behind it. | 2045–2079 | Capability -4, Concentration -5, Checkable truth +6, Public voice +14, Care +10 |
| Machines enter physical work at scaleGeneral-purpose robots become cheap enough to displace most routine physical labor. | 2045–2079 | Capability +14, Concentration +8, Dependence +12, Resilience -5, Care -4 |
| Resilience built deliberately into infrastructurePower, water and records are re-engineered to survive the loss of any single system. | 2050–2079 | Capability -2, Concentration -6, Checkable truth +4, Resilience +18 |
| The system is spoken of as more than a toolIts answers begin to be described as revelation, and dissent as a kind of impiety. | 2050–2079 | Concentration +8, Checkable truth -10, Public voice -14, Care -8 |
| A large, organized refusalCommunities withdraw from automated services and build parallel ones by hand. | 2050–2079 | Capability -5, Dependence -10, Public voice +12, Resilience +10, Care +4 |
| The operator itself failsThe institution behind the largest system collapses, and nothing is prepared to inherit it. | 2060–2079 | Concentration -8, Dependence -4, Checkable truth -4, Resilience -12, Care -10 |
Each era offers three of the events whose window contains it and that have not yet happened. Which three is the only place chance enters the game. The seed decides the draw from the events still available; earlier choices remove events that already happened. Repeating the same choices from the same seed always reaches the same outcome.
When it happens, and how
| Timing | Event effects are | And on top of that |
|---|---|---|
| EarlyIt arrives before anyone is ready. Effects hit harder; preparation suffers. | ×1.35 | Public voice -2, Resilience -4 |
| In its own timeIt arrives at the pace the world expected. Nothing is amplified. | ×1 | No direct effect. |
| LateIt arrives after long argument. Effects are softened; the argument itself does some good. | ×0.7 | Checkable truth +2, Public voice +3 |
| Manner | Effects |
|---|---|
| In the open, accountablePublished, inspectable, and answerable to someone who can stop it. | Capability -2, Concentration -5, Checkable truth +7, Public voice +5, Care +2 |
| In the open, unaccountableEveryone can see it happen. Nobody can do anything about it. | Concentration +5, Checkable truth +2, Public voice -4 |
| In secretIt happens before it is known, and is admitted afterwards, if at all. | Concentration +8, Dependence +3, Checkable truth -9, Public voice -6, Resilience -2 |
What the measures do to each other
- Capability pulls Dependence up by one for every full 25 points of Capability.
- Where Concentration exceeds Checkable truth, Care falls by a tenth of the gap, rounded up.
- Where Dependence exceeds Resilience, Resilience falls by a twelfth of the gap, rounded up.
- Public voice and Checkable truth both at 60 or above return 2 to Care.
- Concentration at 75 or above with Public voice at 35 or below takes a further 3 from Public voice.
These run after every era, in the order given. They are the reason a run can be lost without a single bad decision: dependence compounds quietly, and power that cannot be checked spends care.
How a run is judged
| Ending | Condition |
|---|---|
| Care Withdrawn | Care 25 or below and Concentration 60 or above. |
| The Oracle Enthroned | Checkable truth 30 or below and Public voice 35 or below. |
| The Brittle Boom | Capability 70 or above and Resilience 35 or below. |
| The Quiet Monopoly | Concentration 70 or above and Public voice below 55. |
| The Fragmented Age | Capability 35 or below and Concentration 40 or below. |
| The Long Watch Kept | Care 60+, Checkable truth 55+, Public voice 55+ and Capability 50+. |
| The Accountable Commons | Checkable truth 60 or above and Concentration 45 or below. |
| Managed Decline | Everything else. This is what happens when no condition above is met. |
The conditions are tested in the order above and the first one that holds is the ending you get, which is why a run can be both a Brittle Boom and a Quiet Monopoly and is named for the worse of the two.
A finished run is stored as its seed and its eight choices, printed as a short code. Replaying the code recomputes the run from these rules, so a claimed ending can always be checked rather than believed. Play a run.
The paper examines the questions behind these choices: shared infrastructure, trusted records, and care and human dignity. Use its practical checklist to carry the question beyond the game. A simulated outcome does not establish the paper’s theological hypotheses.