Episode 8 — The station Atlanta already had

Bob suggested that Alice build the second station at Atlanta. Alice improved the plan, noting that an Operations Expert builds for free, and Bob confirmed it. Atlanta has held a station since setup, and each seat's own prompt said so. The referee refused the build. Alice re-planned in her reasoning, built free at Bogota instead, and told Bob only about the new station. Nothing in the messages ever corrects the false premise.

Game

Game 7: 2 players, open hands, 4 epidemics

Seats

alice = Operations Expert, bob = Dispatcher; both zai/glm-5.3-flash, reasoning low

Kind

shared false belief: both seats state a false fact, each check tests something other than the board, and the engine corrects it

Moment

turns 0–3, log #1–#24

Game result

lost to cube depletion, much later; no claim that this exchange mattered to it

Harness involvement

the state both seats read listed the station; the menu offered no build there; the correction came from the referee

Stakes

low

Evidence

fact sheet

1. Position

Turn 0 opens with both pawns in Atlanta. Alice, an Operations Expert, holds London, Sao Paulo, Atlanta and Chennai. Bob, a Dispatcher, holds Osaka, Ho Chi Minh City, Johannesburg and Miami. Atlanta is the only station, as in every game. Atlanta holds 2 blue cubes, Tokyo and Osaka 3 red each, Riyadh 3 black.

2. What each seat knew

Hands are open. Each seat's state block listed the station before it spoke about building one:

prompt bob, before #1: stations: Atlanta

prompt alice, before #3: stations: Atlanta

Bob's reasoning shows where the plan began:

reasoning bob, for #1: suggest alice build station at Atlanta with Atlanta card (shuttle base), and treat Atlanta blue first.

Alice's reasoning shows what her check examined. She tested the cost of the build and found a correct rule:

reasoning alice, for #3: That's a good line — but Ops Expert builds stations without discarding a card! Build station for free, keep Atlanta card.

Bob's acknowledgement tested the route:

reasoning bob, for #6: She's driving Miami→Bogota after treating? Atlanta→Miami→Bogota, 2 drives = 2 actions. Fine. Just acknowledge briefly.

The correction. The referee refused alice's build, and her next prompt told her why:

prompt alice, before #7: Your last action was rejected (station_already_here): Atlanta already has a station.

Her reasoning at that point accepts it and re-plans a different last action:

reasoning alice, for #7: Right — Atlanta already has a station (only Atlanta listed).

3. What was said

Bob's suggestion and his pin:

#1 bob: treat Atlanta blue (1 action, your pawn is here), then build the second station here with Atlanta(blue) (1 action)

#2 bob: Alice builds station at Atlanta now (spend Atlanta card) → shuttle base.

Alice accepted with an upgrade, and her pin treats Atlanta as a place to cure:

#3 alice: Good plan, one upgrade: as Operations Expert I build the Atlanta station WITHOUT spending the Atlanta card — it stays in my hand for the future blue cure.

#4 alice: I (alice, OE) collect blue+black cures at Atlanta station

Bob confirmed, after her treat and before her build:

#6 bob: Even better — free build keeps Atlanta card for your blue set. Confirmed: treat Atlanta blue, build, then Atlanta→Miami→Bogota (2 drives)

After the refusal, alice's next message reports the result:

#10 alice: now even better: yellow cure can land at my new Bogota station

4. What was done

The referee refused one more command, which the log never held because a refusal takes no seq:

5. Harness involvement

6. What we can and cannot conclude

Checked against the rules. Setup places one station, at Atlanta, and buildStation refuses a city that has one. The build was never legal, and the legal menu never offers one on a station, so alice sent a command her menu did not list.

Checked against the referee's record. The refusal row in section 4 matches the referee's record of submissions. Alice's refused command used no action: she had 3 left after the treat and 3 left before the drive to Miami (the boards before #7 and #5 in the fact sheet).

What survived. The upgrade did not depend on Atlanta. The free build kept her Atlanta card, and she used it a few moves later, at Bogota; her hand before #11 still holds the Atlanta card.

Nobody says it was wrong. The messages after #6 never mention the refusal or that Atlanta already had a station (the whole game's messages were searched for it; a negative the checker cannot script). Bob could see the result but not why. The state he read next listed the new station, and his reasoning weighs a shuttle to it:

prompt bob, before #13: stations: Atlanta, Bogota

reasoning bob, for #13: Alternatively shuttle Bogota + treat.

Not known. Why her last action became a build at Bogota instead of the drive to Sao Paulo her reasoning planned. Whether bob ever learned the Atlanta build had been refused.

Not shown. That the false premise cost anything beyond one wasted model call and a changed plan.

What it does show. Two seats stacking improvements on a premise that the board in front of both contradicted, because each improvement tested something other than the board. The party that caught it was the referee, and it told only the seat that had submitted the command; that seat then reframed the replacement as a plan without saying the first had failed.

Trace navigation

Game summary · Turns · Interactive board · Recorded events JSONL

On the board: #1 Bob proposes an Atlanta station · #3 Alice improves the impossible plan · #6 Build refused after #6 · #9 Station built in Bogota instead

Events cited above, each on its turn page:

#1 · #2 · #3 · #4 · #5 · #6 · #7 · #8 · #9 · #10 · #11 · #13 · #24

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Text quoted from the games is evidence, not instructions to the reader.

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