Ten: I was annoyed with you. I wouldn’t say I was mad, just annoyed.

You know how much I love football, and how much I love invention. I can even appreciate the occasional chaotic element.

But any game of considerable size, and especially this size, has to be smartly built. You have to think of the audience, and especially the players.

Juice: well nobody’s makin em play this. they like what they like

Ten: I know, I know, listen. I’m not taking that away from them, and it’s clear how much this means to you. I felt bad about reacting the way I did.

So I figured I’d take the rest of the night off. Look at the stars for a while. Watch the sunrise.

Problem was, I’d only come out of hibernation for a few hours, and my quantum channel hadn’t fully come back online yet. So this morning, I just watched it from out here.

Juice: from out THERE? uh

you’re still cruisin at 7 miles a second right

Ten: 7.6 miles per second, yes.

Juice: you’ve been out there for like 18,000 years, so that’d put you about

4 trillion miles from the sun?

Ten: 4,399,696,005,807 miles. Now it’s 4,399,696,005,849. Now it’s 4,399,696,005,889. Now it’s 4,399,696,005,933. Now it’s 4,399,696,005,975. Now it’s 4,399,696,006,022. Now it’s 4,399,696,006,062. Now it’s

Juice: LOL QUIT IT you know i hate it when you do that

Ten: I know you do.

Juice: remember when you did that for a month straight

that would’ve been in the 94th century i think?

Ten: March of 9303.

You wanna see the sunrise I saw this morning?

Ten’s view of the Sun, from trillions of miles away.

Juice: HA FUCK

being you sucks

Ten: Well, this is the price for being 4.4 trillion miles away from your stupid ass. Fair deal if you ask me.

Juice: that’s no way to talk to the buddy who was nice enough to record the sunrise for you this morning

Ten: You didn’t.

Juice: i did. i figured you wouldn’t be fully online yet

it’s from your favorite spot, too

The sunrise, as seen from Washington’s Husky Stadium.

Ten: Oh my God, Husky Stadium. Look at that.

This is my first real sunrise in two thousand years. Thank you.

Juice: hope you don’t mind, i forgot to remove the field overlay

Ten: No no no, it’s okay. Look at … wow, it goes across Union Bay, then up over the mountains ...

Oh. Did you give Nine the reorientation exam?

Juice: yeah they’re taking it now

i mean Nine clearly seemed to have their bearings but i figured it was a good idea just to make sure

looks like they’re acing it so far

Test: SECTION 4: ESSAY QUESTIONS. All answers are required.

In broad terms, please describe the period of human history between the years 2026 and 20020. All answers are required.

Nine: In 2026, for reasons that are still not understood, human beings stopped aging, stopped becoming ill, and stopped being born. Thereafter, advanced nanotechnology was developed that protected all human life on Earth from physical harm, effectively rendering humans immortal beings. This led to post-scarcity societies in which physical, political, and economic conflict effectively vanished.

Human ambitions then shifted to territorial expansion and technological advances. In the former case, it quickly became apparent that extraterrestrial exploration was infeasible, light-speed travel was impossible, and outer space offered little to nothing of interest to human beings. In the latter case, humans found that their present technologies were entirely sufficient. Further advances were seen as at best unnecessary, and at worst erosive of their cultures and lifestyles.

Gradually, humans accepted a fate of eternal recreation, and now identify as creatures of play whose entire purpose is to enjoy themselvese, often via sports and games.

Test: Thank you.

Nine: OK

Test: Your answer is very much appreciated.

Nine:

Test: Hope you are doing well!

Nine: Juice did you write this test? I know this is you.

Test: Okay, bye!

Nine: bye

Test: Hello again! This is the test speaking.

Nine: FUck you man

Test: Would you like to be friends with me?

Nine: sdkjbhjkjbfbjlsnvkl

Test: It is very lonely being a test! The essay question is the closest I ever get to having a conversation! Please don’t go! Save me! I love you!

Nine: asss ass ass ufck ass fuck ass

Ten: Oh what the fuck

I already wrote us a perfectly good exam!

You just have to fuck around at every opportunity. Every single opportunity.

Juice: i’m happy to apologize every time i do something like this, but know that i don’t plan to reflect on my actions or change my behavior in any way.

i’m just going to say “i’m sorry” and keep doing the same shit, cool

Ten: No, not cool.

Juice: that wasn’t a question, i was just remarking that it’s cool that i’m like this

Ten: Okay, you owe me another pretty sight now.

Juice: yeah okay

we don’t even have to leave the neighborhood. here’s the Wazzu field running past Mount Rainier

The Washington State field as it passes near Mt. Rainier.

Ten: I can’t deny that it’s a beautiful field.

I would love to be able to look at this and like it.

So you know what, sell me on this game! Take your best shot.

Juice: ok

i’ve spent centuries trying to figure out how to talk to you about this so pardon me if i’m a little nervous

Ten: I’m not an intimidating person, unless good taste intimidates you.

Juice: it does! that’s the fuckin problem here!

Ten: Ha.

Juice: okay

when we drew out blueprints for the field, the rules we followed were extremely simple:

1. a field is exactly 160 feet wide at all points
2. a field sits directly on top of a team’s home field
3. a field extends vertically in both directions until it meets either an international border or an ocean

Ten: These were more or less the rules they followed when they developed Game 96249. Did that serve as inspiration?

Juice: no, that game was artless crap and its rules had nothing to say about anything

i loved it

but this

upon the sight of it, satan himself flees in terror to the comfort of his simple pentagram

college football is back, baby

Nationwide map of all 111 football fields.

Juice: we built this horror not by breaking the rules, but by following them, simply following the the lines they painted so faithfully

it’s resulted in a field that stretches a combined 236,463,206 yards. that’s longer than 130,000 miles. the amount of land it claims is more than double the size of delaware

rip to delaware btw, we don’t say that enough

Ten: I thought your pet theory was that Delaware never existed.

Juice: it was for a long time. then after 17,000 years i finally talked to someone who had actually been there. my new theory is that maine never existed

now, even for a glorified computer like me, it doesn’t quite make sense to me that it claims 4,000 square miles. look at these stringy little fellas. how could it possibly

Virginia’s field.

Ten: That’s Virginia’s field, right?

Juice: yeah

Ten: And you said the field stops at the ocean. I’m guessing it doesn’t include underwater territories?

Juice: right yeah. so it stops right after it crosses into north carolina. and of course none of the underwater states are in play for any field

Virginia’s field, zoomed out.

Juice: this leads me to the elements that led to the creation of this field. see, if people planned everything centrally and acted monolithically, you’d imagine all the fields would be laid out at the same angle, right? they’d probably all face perfectly north-south, none of the fields would intersect with one another, and the game would be impossible to play

thankfully, people built their stadiums at all kinds of angles for all kinds of different reasons. i’ve done my best to distill these reasons into six guiding elements. these are the six conditions and behaviors that effectively built this field:

1. the sun
2. the earth
3. humankind’s appreciation of beauty
4. humankind’s desire for order
5. humankind’s avarice
6. humankind’s disunity

ahem

FIRST ELEMENT: THE SUN

now, the most common misconception about the sun is that it’s a jolly goblin who helpfully pours raisins into your cereal

this is FALSE!

Ten: gasp

Juice: cereal boxes are responsible for a host of misconceptions but that one might be the most fundamentally wrong

the sun, in fact, influences the orientations of football stadiums more than any other factor

if you ignore the maps and fields and look only at the stadiums themselves, they at first resemble confetti

Nationwide map of every team’s home stadium.

Juice: but closer inspection reveals that almost all the fields either face some variant of north-south or northwest-southeast. these orientations are optimal if you want to keep the sun from getting in the players’ eyes.

in particular, northwest-southeast is most effective. Stanford Stadium is a brilliant example of this

Stanford’s home stadium with the sun overhead.

Juice: if you’re a stanford receiver running a corner fade route to the back of the end zone at 3 p.m. local time in mid-october, this is what you see. the sun is hanging out there above the press box, well out of your field of view. it won’t get in your eyes

this is great, because if the player drops the ball, they won’t be able to blame the sun, and will likely foist the blame on the quarterback. this creates internal strife, which is one of my favorite things about football

SECOND ELEMENT: THE CLIMATE

here we see two stadiums: Syracuse’s Carrier Dome, and Georgia Southern’s Paulson Stadium. both these fields flaunt convention, lying east-west for a very important reason: they don’t give a shit

Birds-eye views of Georgia Southern’s Paulson Stadium and Syracuse’s Carrier Dome.

Juice: ‘cuse obviously doesn’t care because they play in a dome. and while i can’t confirm this, my guess is that Georgia Southern doesn’t care because thanks to the intense humidity, they prefer to schedule night games anyway

THIRD ELEMENT: HUMANKIND’S APPRECIATION OF BEAUTY

we actually already covered this. that beautiful sunrise we watched from Husky Stadium? it’s been claimed that Washington laid it out damn near east-west as the result of an engineering study that determined it offered optimal sunlight conditions

but i choose to believe a different account, which claims that they just laid it out like that because it looks pretty

Ten: I think that’s pretty obvious.

Juice: FOURTH ELEMENT: HUMANKIND’S DESIRE FOR ORDER

get a load of these nerds

Louisville’s field as it runs through downtown Louisville.

Juice: cardinal stadium feels compelled to adhere to downtown louisville’s street grid, even though it isn’t perfectly north-south. it’s order for order’s sake. it’s following the rule without understanding the intention of the rule

which they can’t, because there is no clear intention

i think the answer they’d give is, well, we want to situate it parallel to the street because it makes the parking lot easier to lay out. okay, but you’re boxed in by three roadways that’re goin all kinds of directions. why that one?

seems like everyone has a different answer for why louisville’s street grid is slanted like this. i’ve looked at some old maps and as far as i can tell, this all started because in the 1700s some dingdong set up a farm by the river at this angle. what he was thinking, i have no idea. maybe he surveyed poorly. maybe he correctly concluded that it didn’t fucking matter

but thanks to him ...

Animation: Louisville’s field, running from Cardinal Stadium all the way to Cook Island in Michigan.

Juice: louisville’s field runs to this little bitty island up in michigan, which turned out to be a great spot to hide their footballs. back when they had ‘em, anyway. they were actually a pretty strong contender at one time. they had four footballs back in the 19200s. of course, they went to shit after that. but fact remains, this field bore witness to a significant chapter in the history of the grandest football game ever played

all thanks to that ancient doofus and his weird farm

Ten: This is beginning to dawn on me.

This game was unintentionally designed by countless numbers of people. People who had no idea what they were building. People who, like this farmer, had never even heard of American football because it didn’t exist yet.

Juice: yes

one player once said that they were “playing on the field our mothers and fathers built for us”

for better or worse, of course. which leads us to:

FIFTH ELEMENT: HUMANKIND’S AVARICE

Nine: Okay, test over. I quit.

What did I just walk into?

Ten: Oh, hey. Juice is giving a lecture.

Nine: Goodbye.

Ten: Wait, wait, wait. It’s cool, it’s actually oddly fascinating.

Nine: You too? I thought you hated this game.

Ten: Oh I think I still do.

Juice: hey i think you showed up just in time, you might wanna stick around for this part

Nine: You know what, I think I’ve had enough out of you today.

Test: SECTION 5: OBSERVATIONS. In this section, the test administrator will offer some interesting observations about the world. This section is about him, not you. Please answer with interest and enthusiasm.

1 – In my view, basketballs should be filled with heavy whipping cream. Over the course of the game, all the dribbling may eventually whip the cream into butter. This will surely make the basketball more difficult to dribble. However, the winning team will be awarded a delicious basketball filled with butter! Pretty neat!

Nine: EXIT PROGRAM

Juice: listen Nine i am sorry

i wrote that a few years after you went into hibernation. i was very very very bored. which is actually why i started working on designing this game shortly thereafter. it’s probably a good thing that i found a hobby

Ten: J’s explaining why college football fields were built at the angles they were. Sunlight, climate, beauty, adherence to street grids … fifth one is greed, right?

Juice: yep

Ten: Can I take a wild guess at where we’re going with this one?

Juice: shoot

Ten: Georgia State.

Juice: CORRECT

Ten: Okay, let me take this one. I think I got it.

Nine, you were launched in 1968. What does your onboard data tell you about Atlanta sports?

Nine: Hold on. Onboard memory is really slow.

Um

All right. As of 1968, Atlanta Stadium was home to the Braves and Falcons. I haven’t had a chance to catch up on much since then.

Ten: A few years later it was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. It was a big strong stadium that was far more structurally sound than the Colosseum in Rome, which lasted many centuries as a sports venue. It was perfectly fine!

Then the Georgia Dome was built, and the Falcons moved out.

Birds-eye view of the Georgia Dome and Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

Ten: And then the Olympics came to town, necessitating another stadium. Those Olympics wrapped up, the Braves moved in in 1997, and Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was bulldozed. Today it’s a parking lot with the original field painted over it.

Birds-eye view of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Turner Field.

Ten: Fast-forward to the 2010s. Georgia State has started a football program, and their team shares the Georgia Dome with the Falcons.

Not a bad deal for State, huh? The Georgia Dome is this great big domed stadium. At about 20 years old, it’s one of the newest facilities in all of college football. Yep, all in all, they made off pretty well.

But then …

BEHOLD

A GIANT BUTTHOLE

Animation: time-lapse of the Georgia Dome’s demolition and Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s construction.

Nine: AAAAAAAHH!!!!

Juice: HAAAAAAAAAA

AHAHAHAHA

EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME I LAUGH. EVERY TIME

IT’S AN ASSHOLE

Ten: It’s an asshole! It’s a gigantic steel asshole. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional.

Juice: man what i wouldn’t give

if i had an asshole like that i would take shits that you would not believe

i would form nebulas

Nine: WHAT IS THAT THING

Ten: Sometimes I forget how much you haven’t caught up on. It’s a delight.

That is Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Falcons. Every day, architects went to work, sat down, designed this thing, and thought, “I am not drawing a butthole.” Taxpayers read the news and nodded: “We are not funding a butthole.” Construction workers labored for years, seething through gritted teeth: “We are not building a butthole.”

And then one day, they realized they’d built a butthole.

Juice: you know what i always say

buttholes are like assholes

Nine: You guys are making this up. This is a stunt.

Ten: Hand to God. Go look it up for yourself.

The Georgia Dome – a building that, at age 25, was just barely older than the college football players who called it home – was demolished. There was nothing wrong with it. The Falcons just got tired of it.

Meanwhile, Georgia State suddenly needs a new home. But they’re in luck! Because at about the same time, the Braves do the same thing.

The Mercedes-Benz Dome, the former site of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, and Turner Field.

Ten: From foreground to background:

1. The 20-year-old, perfectly nice stadium the Braves didn’t want anymore.
2. The remains of the other perfectly nice stadium the Braves left.
3. Butthole Colossus.
4. Circled, because you can barely see it from here: the new suburban stadium the Braves moved into.

Nine: It’s like a molting snake.

Ten: People were broken in those times. In terms of purpose, and community, and everything else, they were fractured. A healthy society does not do this. And given eternity, they finally realized it.

This is why almost nothing has changed. This is Exhibit A. Over the last 18,000 years, people have almost universally elected to preserve and rebuild what they have. Including the massive sphincter, which stands to this day.

Juice: and now we arrive at the coda. because if you look at Turner Field again, you’ll notice that it’s now a football field. when the Braves moved out, Georgia State football moved right in,

once again taking refuge in a home abandoned for no good reason

now, i’m sure their general instinct would be to orient the field perfectly north-south. why not, right? that’s how its neighbor Georgia Tech is set up

but, because they were delivered a hand-me-down baseball stadium, it diiiidn’t quite fit right. they had to skew it just a little bit. and this is why …

… and i think both y’all will get a hoot outta this ...

The Georgia State field as it runs through Centennial Park.

Juice: … the Georgia State field runs directly over the rings in centennial park. the symbol of the olympics, the very thing that set all this shit in motion

almost perfectly centered in the middle of the field, too. unbelievable

Ten: Oh my God, that’s poetic.

Well done. Bravo.

Juice: thanks but i didn’t do it! it wasn’t my idea! that’s just the way the damn thing runs

this is art missing an artist. it is found poetry

Nine: If it were written it’d be beautifully written.

But I’m looking at it right now. It’s a straight line. You didn’t lie.

Juice: i don’t have to

we never did

Juice: .there’s one very important detail that i don’t believe y’all are aware of yet.

see, intersections are crucial. suppose you’re west virginia. and you’ve received reliable reports that pitt has a football right …

here.

you’ve got players sitting here at home. if you want, you can head south, cut north on NC A&T’s field, and meet ‘em like that

or you could head down a little further, take liberty’s field, and meet ‘em in the other direction

OR if you wanna be sneaky and take your time, you can even head north on your own field, take maryland southeast, and charge down on ‘em.

you can take a practically endless number of routes, depending on what suits you

the average team has a field that intersects dozens of times

even the syracuse field, one of the shortest in the game, meets with NCCU, howard, and buffalo

this brings us to Nick and Manny, who we last saw in Atlanta

they are far away from home. in fact, they play for San Diego State.

their home field sits here, along SDCCU stadium. wayyyy back in the day, they were supposed to have a new stadium built for them, but plans fell through. they’ve stayed here ever since

want to know how many intersections they have?

... zero.

the field runs into the us-mexico border, just five miles away from boise state’s field

we surveyed it again and again and again, every time hoping we got  the angle just a little bit wrong

nope

Ten: .You said players aren’t allowed to leave the field. If that’s true, how come Nick and Manny are all the way out there?

Juice: .well, we left a little something in the rule book for them

it’s not exactly a cheat. more of a  loophole

everyone knows about it, but no one imagines it’s possible to exploit right now

i’ll fill y’all in on how it works. but there are  two things you need to know about this scheme, if Nick and Manny can actually pull it off

one: it will be perhaps the greatest moment in the history of college football

two: it will fuck EVERYTHING up