Agent Orange - Inconsequential

Episode 3 - DORK

FROM THE JOURNALS OF AGENT ORANGE:

There’s something to be said about randomness, especially when the set of choices is so large that a systematic examination is impractical. There is everything, and then there is the ever-changing set of human knowledge. Human knowledge started out small and then grew logarithmically as man found better, more reliable, ways to record information. Methods of disseminating data, communication techniques, became faster and more accessible, more wide reaching. Soon there was a renaissance of new understanding that cascaded like a pebble starting an avalanche.

So we find ourselves with almost limitless choices and methods of selection that range from catching tigers by their toes to incredibly complex algorithms accessing terabytes of information.  The irony is that a $30 MP3 player set on shuffle might select a more meaningful song than an overclocked Cray programmed by the leading minds of a generation.

CHAPTER 3

Years before Agent Orange joined the DOAD he was a member of DORK, the Department of Random Knowledge. At the time it wasn’t called that, and at the time it wasn’t actually a government agency, it was just Orange and a couple of friends and an idea.

Alan: “Make a saving throw.”

Orange: “Shit.”

Alan: “What did you get?”

Orange: “Eleven.”

Brandon: “But if he dies then…”

Whispers all around: “TPK – total party kill.”

Alan: “As the venom of the demon’s scorpion tail flows through your system you begin to feel weaker. Your vision starts to blur, but not before you look around to find the rest of your comrades already fallen to the creature’s minions. The demon smiles as your legs give way beneath you and your sword clatters to the floor. His minions drool in anticipation of devouring your elven flesh.”

Mike: “Goddamn it! I was freaking 8th level.”

Alan: “Maybe if you would have been 9th…”

Mike: “Screw you Alan, maybe if you knew how to calculate a challenge rating we wouldn’t all be dead.”

Alan: “Maybe if you… “

And so on.

After the game there had been a vote to decide what system to run next and to see who would run it, but no one was in a mood to start over that late in the night.

“We could do random knowledge?” Brandon suggested.

There was a chorus of interested replies registering levels of enthusiasm from “why not” to “hell yeah”.

“You start since you suggested it,” said Mike.

“Okay,” said Brandon, obviously excited about his entry. “Do you guys know what a googol is?”

“A really big number.” Mike was bigger and more brutish than any of the other guys but he was still smarter than most kids his age.

“It’s a one with one hundred zeroes,” said Alan, as if it was something usually talked about over breakfast.

Brandon seemed a bit crestfallen but didn’t stop. “Okay so how about, a googolplex?”

This seemed to catch everyone’s attention. The bird-boned boy smiled. Victory. “It’s a googol to the power of a googol.”

“Whoa,” said Orange, “how many zeros is that?”

Brandon panicked, then squinted slightly trying to calculate it, then gave up.