Dld4a
TO LO Professor
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
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It’s been twenty years since they started doing the implant surgeries, and ten years since the government started giving them to all government workers. Just imagine it, full access to the Web, anytime, anywhere, with no more effort than a thought. They say you can rewind any moment of your life and play it back with picture perfect quality. I don’t trust the implants or the people who have them though. If I wanted I could get a government job to get an implant, anybody can because the government runs nearly everything now, but I especially don’t trust the government implants, or the government for that matter. I believe the implants drain the Chipheads (people with the implant) of all creativity. They still try to be creative, and some of them actually are O.K. at faking it, but it always lacks true originality. I believe that is why twenty-three of the last thirty available World Championship deck ideas, over the last ten years, have originated right here, even though none of their creators have actually won with them. It is just too difficult to compete with the Chipheads ability to calculate odds and to card count.
“Where is here?” you say. This is Ft. Dearborn, the last great bastion of Normals (those without the implants) in the world of competitive Pokémon Trading Card Game players. We call ourselves Team Dearborn. I’m Jimmy, but people call me J.C. Then there’s my older brother, we call him Seven. The rest of us are: Bill Ducas, Danny Geffen, Jessie De Pinch, Candy Younger, Bob Pottif, and probably the best player alive today Richie Bodard. We are all direct descendants of the founding members of Team Dearborn.
Ft. Dearborn was originally built by one of those founding members, Mr. Ducas, after he had won the lottery back in 2006. He wanted a place to hold large tournaments and he wanted to establish the worlds largest Pokémon league, which he did. On Friday, and Saturday nights there’s nearly one thousand people here to play. This is largely due to the fact that Mr. Ducas would hold free tournaments that had prizes ranging from one-hundred dollars for thirty-second place, one-thousand dollars for first place. I guess that was a lot of money back then. It wasn’t long before he had to expand into the large convention center and hotel complex that it still is to this day.
It was always Mr. Ducas’ dream to hold the World Championship here, but was not to be for Mr. Ducas. You see The Pokémon Company wasn’t too happy with the fact that Mr. Ducas was running the tournaments. He followed all the guidelines and rules to the letter, but The Pokémon Company felt that with the amount of money involved it was too much like a Pro-Tour. To be sure the tournaments did create some professional players, but at least Mr. Ducas always made sure to schedule his tournaments around the official tournament season’s tourneys. It was the quest to win the World Championship that he loved so much.
Mr. Ducas’ never saw his dream of winning the World Championship or even holding it at Ft. Dearborn. That’s because The Pokémon Company stripped him of, his TO status and, his Professorship, closed his League, and banned him from all sanctioned events. Mr. Ducas was determined to continue the tournaments though, even if it meant them being unsanctioned, because he knew that they were good for the game he loved so much. The Pokémon Company even sued Mr. Ducas to get him to stop holding the tournaments. They would have won too, but after about a year in the courts Mr. Ducas set up a meeting with the Pokémon Company to try to get things settled. He told them that he knew they would eventually win, but he was willing to spend every last dime he had fighting it and that stopping the tournaments would not be a very popular thing with the players. Much to his surprise, they gave in and let him still hold the tournaments, but they still could not be sanctioned. They never removed Mr. Ducas’ ban either, but “At least he would still get to be some part of this game.” he always said. The Pokémon Company never gave him an official reason why they gave in, but Mr. Ducas always figured that it was partly due to the fact that he was single handedly responsible for the largest explosion of popularity of Pokémon that it has ever seen. So the tournaments have been held on a regular basis right to this day.
You may have noticed that I said Mr. Ducas never saw his dream of having the World Championship held at Ft. Dearborn, and it never was. That is of course until this year! The World Championship had been scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but on June 1st there was an earthquake centered just twenty miles away from the complex where the World Championship was to be held. There wasn’t a lot of damage and not too many people were hurt, but the safety inspectors shut down the complex for repairs that would take over a year to complete. I immediately called Bill and told him “This is our chance. We’ve got to call The Pokémon Company and remind them that we have the perfect place.” We could after all have the place ready in plenty of time. It has always been the tradition here at Ft. Dearborn to not book a convention during the World Championship weekend. Mostly because we all go to the World Championship and we don’t like to host large conventions while we’re not here, but there’s always that little glimmer of hope that we’d get the chance, and this year was it. We made the calls and they actually agreed to have it here. Not that they had much choice with less than three months notice.
The only question now was, “How were we going to make this year, Team Dearborn’s year to win?” For the last several years we couldn’t figure out how our deck ideas were getting out. Before then we just didn’t try to keep them secret too much, because we didn’t really realize how much of an advantage the implants gave to the Chipheads. Once we did though we stopped using them at League and never talked to anyone about the decks except to ourselves. Still, our ideas were getting out. It was two years ago that we realized that Danny had been in the Military and had an implant while he was in. He had it removed as soon as he was discharged and we trusted him completely, but we tried an experiment anyway and sure enough, whenever one of us would come up with an idea that person told only Danny about it, and it would leak out soon after. We knew that the Military had left part of the implant in and somehow, someone was accessing Danny’s thoughts. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, to tell Danny that for all these years since he had originally had the implant surgery that someone probably has been accessing his thoughts. As you might imagine he did not take it well. He disappeared and we did not hear from him for six months. Finally he sent us a letter (by messenger no less). It said that he was O.K. and living in Alaska and that we were to destroy the letter immediately and never talk about him again. Oops.
Last year Team Dearborn did very well compared to the previous nine, but still none of us made it past the first round of the top cut. It was because by the time that we got to the top cut enough people had seen enough of our decks that they had compiled a complete list in their heads and had passed it on to every other Chiphead in the tournament by using their internet connections through their implants. With them knowing our lists they can card count and it is nearly impossible to surprise them with any moves.
How on earth were we going to beat them? They have just such a huge advantage over us. Of course it was Richie who finally came up with the answer, but would it work. His idea came from an American History course he was taking in college. It seems that around the turn of the century they developed a technology that would block radio frequency signals (RF) from entering a room by applying a special paint to the walls. It was developed to use in movie theaters and restaurants so that their customers wouldn’t be disturbed by annoying “cell phone” calls. “Cell phones” were a portable way of communicating. They died out as the implants started to gain popularity. Since cell phones have not been in use for quite some time it was very difficult for us to replicate this technology. Once again it was Richie who figured it out. We made a huge batch of the paint and painted every wall in Ft. Dearborn with it.
Finally the day that so many of us have dreamed about for so long has arrived. You should see the Chipheads as they first walk into the building. For the first couple of seconds everything seems to be alright, but then you can see them stagger just a little bit. The strongest of them will get a little light headed. Most of them get a little nauseous. The more frail women and children actually pass out. When they would go back outside the rush of the information overload causes splitting headaches, so that’ll keep them inside under the cloak of the walls for the duration of the tournament.
For the briefest of moments we thought, “Oh my. What have we done?” Then it occurred to us that these are the people that have been cheating us at the game we love for so many years. They seemed to recover from the initial shock of not being connected after just a couple of minutes, so we weren’t too concerned for their welfare. I know that may seem a little cold, but once you’ve known a Chiphead you’ll understand. They’ve lost all passion for passion. They are nothing more than glorified computers. The emotions they sometimes seem to display, I believe are just remnants of their human past. I know technically they’re Human. They all were born without the implants, but almost all of them began their interface before they turned five years old. They have no memory of thinking like Human Beings.
Now we were on a level playing field and it’s all we need. This is Team Dearborn’s day!
“Where is here?” you say. This is Ft. Dearborn, the last great bastion of Normals (those without the implants) in the world of competitive Pokémon Trading Card Game players. We call ourselves Team Dearborn. I’m Jimmy, but people call me J.C. Then there’s my older brother, we call him Seven. The rest of us are: Bill Ducas, Danny Geffen, Jessie De Pinch, Candy Younger, Bob Pottif, and probably the best player alive today Richie Bodard. We are all direct descendants of the founding members of Team Dearborn.
Ft. Dearborn was originally built by one of those founding members, Mr. Ducas, after he had won the lottery back in 2006. He wanted a place to hold large tournaments and he wanted to establish the worlds largest Pokémon league, which he did. On Friday, and Saturday nights there’s nearly one thousand people here to play. This is largely due to the fact that Mr. Ducas would hold free tournaments that had prizes ranging from one-hundred dollars for thirty-second place, one-thousand dollars for first place. I guess that was a lot of money back then. It wasn’t long before he had to expand into the large convention center and hotel complex that it still is to this day.
It was always Mr. Ducas’ dream to hold the World Championship here, but was not to be for Mr. Ducas. You see The Pokémon Company wasn’t too happy with the fact that Mr. Ducas was running the tournaments. He followed all the guidelines and rules to the letter, but The Pokémon Company felt that with the amount of money involved it was too much like a Pro-Tour. To be sure the tournaments did create some professional players, but at least Mr. Ducas always made sure to schedule his tournaments around the official tournament season’s tourneys. It was the quest to win the World Championship that he loved so much.
Mr. Ducas’ never saw his dream of winning the World Championship or even holding it at Ft. Dearborn. That’s because The Pokémon Company stripped him of, his TO status and, his Professorship, closed his League, and banned him from all sanctioned events. Mr. Ducas was determined to continue the tournaments though, even if it meant them being unsanctioned, because he knew that they were good for the game he loved so much. The Pokémon Company even sued Mr. Ducas to get him to stop holding the tournaments. They would have won too, but after about a year in the courts Mr. Ducas set up a meeting with the Pokémon Company to try to get things settled. He told them that he knew they would eventually win, but he was willing to spend every last dime he had fighting it and that stopping the tournaments would not be a very popular thing with the players. Much to his surprise, they gave in and let him still hold the tournaments, but they still could not be sanctioned. They never removed Mr. Ducas’ ban either, but “At least he would still get to be some part of this game.” he always said. The Pokémon Company never gave him an official reason why they gave in, but Mr. Ducas always figured that it was partly due to the fact that he was single handedly responsible for the largest explosion of popularity of Pokémon that it has ever seen. So the tournaments have been held on a regular basis right to this day.
You may have noticed that I said Mr. Ducas never saw his dream of having the World Championship held at Ft. Dearborn, and it never was. That is of course until this year! The World Championship had been scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but on June 1st there was an earthquake centered just twenty miles away from the complex where the World Championship was to be held. There wasn’t a lot of damage and not too many people were hurt, but the safety inspectors shut down the complex for repairs that would take over a year to complete. I immediately called Bill and told him “This is our chance. We’ve got to call The Pokémon Company and remind them that we have the perfect place.” We could after all have the place ready in plenty of time. It has always been the tradition here at Ft. Dearborn to not book a convention during the World Championship weekend. Mostly because we all go to the World Championship and we don’t like to host large conventions while we’re not here, but there’s always that little glimmer of hope that we’d get the chance, and this year was it. We made the calls and they actually agreed to have it here. Not that they had much choice with less than three months notice.
The only question now was, “How were we going to make this year, Team Dearborn’s year to win?” For the last several years we couldn’t figure out how our deck ideas were getting out. Before then we just didn’t try to keep them secret too much, because we didn’t really realize how much of an advantage the implants gave to the Chipheads. Once we did though we stopped using them at League and never talked to anyone about the decks except to ourselves. Still, our ideas were getting out. It was two years ago that we realized that Danny had been in the Military and had an implant while he was in. He had it removed as soon as he was discharged and we trusted him completely, but we tried an experiment anyway and sure enough, whenever one of us would come up with an idea that person told only Danny about it, and it would leak out soon after. We knew that the Military had left part of the implant in and somehow, someone was accessing Danny’s thoughts. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, to tell Danny that for all these years since he had originally had the implant surgery that someone probably has been accessing his thoughts. As you might imagine he did not take it well. He disappeared and we did not hear from him for six months. Finally he sent us a letter (by messenger no less). It said that he was O.K. and living in Alaska and that we were to destroy the letter immediately and never talk about him again. Oops.
Last year Team Dearborn did very well compared to the previous nine, but still none of us made it past the first round of the top cut. It was because by the time that we got to the top cut enough people had seen enough of our decks that they had compiled a complete list in their heads and had passed it on to every other Chiphead in the tournament by using their internet connections through their implants. With them knowing our lists they can card count and it is nearly impossible to surprise them with any moves.
How on earth were we going to beat them? They have just such a huge advantage over us. Of course it was Richie who finally came up with the answer, but would it work. His idea came from an American History course he was taking in college. It seems that around the turn of the century they developed a technology that would block radio frequency signals (RF) from entering a room by applying a special paint to the walls. It was developed to use in movie theaters and restaurants so that their customers wouldn’t be disturbed by annoying “cell phone” calls. “Cell phones” were a portable way of communicating. They died out as the implants started to gain popularity. Since cell phones have not been in use for quite some time it was very difficult for us to replicate this technology. Once again it was Richie who figured it out. We made a huge batch of the paint and painted every wall in Ft. Dearborn with it.
Finally the day that so many of us have dreamed about for so long has arrived. You should see the Chipheads as they first walk into the building. For the first couple of seconds everything seems to be alright, but then you can see them stagger just a little bit. The strongest of them will get a little light headed. Most of them get a little nauseous. The more frail women and children actually pass out. When they would go back outside the rush of the information overload causes splitting headaches, so that’ll keep them inside under the cloak of the walls for the duration of the tournament.
For the briefest of moments we thought, “Oh my. What have we done?” Then it occurred to us that these are the people that have been cheating us at the game we love for so many years. They seemed to recover from the initial shock of not being connected after just a couple of minutes, so we weren’t too concerned for their welfare. I know that may seem a little cold, but once you’ve known a Chiphead you’ll understand. They’ve lost all passion for passion. They are nothing more than glorified computers. The emotions they sometimes seem to display, I believe are just remnants of their human past. I know technically they’re Human. They all were born without the implants, but almost all of them began their interface before they turned five years old. They have no memory of thinking like Human Beings.
Now we were on a level playing field and it’s all we need. This is Team Dearborn’s day!
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