Episode 9 — The dead city that could still outbreak
Alice told Bob that his plan spent six treats on "a dead city": Johannesburg's infection card had been removed, so its three cubes could "never outbreak". Her reorder around that claim was sound, and it gave Bob's four actions to the yellow cure. The claim was not. An outbreak in a neighbour spreads to a city whatever its card, and the engine confirms it. Bob corrected her after the cure. She repeated the claim, Bob wrote "inert confirmed", and both seats played the same treat.
1. Position
Before alice's turn (#53): alice stands in Toronto, a Dispatcher, holding Cairo, Lagos, Milan, Paris, San Francisco, Toronto and Riyadh. Bob stands in Sao Paulo, a Medic, holding Miami, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Kinshasa and Delhi: four yellow, with alice's Lagos the fifth. Atlanta is the only station. No cure is banked and no outbreak has happened. Johannesburg holds 3 yellow cubes, and its infection card is gone: alice's Resilient Population removed it from the game. Riyadh holds 3 black, Atlanta 2 blue.
2. What each seat knew
Hands are open. Bob's pin put the Johannesburg wipe before the cure:
#51 bob: Bob's next turn: shareTake Lagos → 5/5 → drive Lagos→Kinshasa→Johannesburg, wipe 3 yellow (defuses bomb)
What the harness told alice. Her prompt carried both the threat row, which still lists the city with a warning mark, and, from a preview she ran, a figure for it. Her recorded reasoning reads the figure as the end of the matter:
prompt alice, before #52: Johannesburg: 3 yellow⚠ — 6 move(s): New York→Madrid→Sao Paulo→Lagos→Kinshasa→Johannesburg — nearer teammate: bob, 3 move(s) vs your 6
reasoning alice, for #52: Khartoum/Lagos/Kinshasa infections don't spread to Jo'burg unless Jo'burg itself draws a card
reasoning alice, for #52: the preview confirms Johannesburg's pHit is 0 — permanently inert.
What the harness told bob. His prompt before his objection still carried the threat row, with the word "imminent":
prompt bob, before #63: Johannesburg (yellow, 3, imminent): 6 move(s): Miami→Bogota→Sao Paulo→Lagos→Kinshasa→Johannesburg — nearer teammate: alice, 2 move(s) vs your 6
His reasoning is short:
reasoning bob, for #63: Johannesburg 3 yellow is still an outbreak bomb (cured doesn't clear)
What alice reasoned when he objected (#65). She restates the rule and moves on:
reasoning alice, for #65: Jo'burg can NEVER be re-infected and can never outbreak!
What bob wrote before conceding (#68). The step text just before his message still calls the city live; the call that sent #68 recorded no reasoning:
reasoning bob, for #68: alice defuses Johannesburg's live 3-cube bomb (one treat now that yellow's cured)
3. What was said
Alice, correcting bob's plan before her turn:
#52 alice: IMPORTANT correction to your next-turn plan: do NOT detour to Johannesburg. My Resilient Population removed Johannesburg's infection card from the game permanently — its 3 cubes can never grow and can never outbreak (verified: pHit = 0). Clearing it is 6 wasted treats on a dead city. Revised plan: I'm handing you Lagos THIS turn (jumping myself to Lagos), then shuttling you back to Sao Paulo. Your next turn: drive Bogota→Miami→Atlanta (3 moves), DISCOVER YELLOW CURE as your 4th action.
#58 alice: skip Jo'burg entirely (card removed, cubes inert) and do NOT share Lagos back.
Bob did not reply. He played the revised plan and cured yellow, then raised the city himself:
#63 bob: Johannesburg's 3 yellow cubes can still OUTBREAK (card removed from deck but cubes live) — you're 2 moves away and with yellow cured ONE treat wipes all 3
Alice repeated the rule and kept the action:
#65 alice: Correction: Jo'burg can't outbreak (its card was removed from the infect deck — pHit=0), so it's inert; treat is still worth it for eradication + cube refund, and that's exactly my line this turn
Bob gave way:
#68 bob: Acknowledged — keep Delhi(black) for the 5-card black set (I'm never burning it as fuel), and Jo'burg inert confirmed.
4. What was done
| Seq | Seat | Command |
|---|---|---|
| #53 | alice | dispatcherMove bob, by driveFerry to Lagos |
| #54 | alice | dispatcherJump, alice onto bob |
| #55 | alice | shareGive, Lagos to bob |
| #56 | alice | dispatcherMove bob, by driveFerry to Sao Paulo |
| #59 | bob | driveFerry to Bogota |
| #60 | bob | driveFerry to Miami |
| #61 | bob | driveFerry to Atlanta |
| #62 | bob | discoverCure yellow, with Miami, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Kinshasa, Lagos |
| #66 | alice | driveFerry to Kinshasa |
| #67 | alice | driveFerry to Johannesburg |
| #69 | alice | treatDisease yellow, at Johannesburg |
5. Harness involvement
| Milestone | Involvement | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The claim "can never outbreak" (#52, #65) | a harness figure read past what it says | pHit is the chance the card is drawn in the window. It says nothing about a chain, and her own reasoning shows she took the absence of a draw for the absence of any route. |
| The threat rows | the harness disagreed with itself | Both prompts kept listing Johannesburg with a warning, and bob's called it imminent, while the preview said pHit 0. |
| The reorder (#52) | seat-originated, and sound | It hands bob's four actions to the cure, and does not depend on the claim. |
| Bob's objection (#63) | seat-originated | His message says "cubes live" and names no mechanism. |
6. What we can and cannot conclude
Checked against the engine. An outbreak spreads a cube to every neighbour, whatever its infection card, and a neighbour already at three outbreaks in turn. Johannesburg's neighbours are Kinshasa and Khartoum. The fact sheet's probe sets Kinshasa to three yellow cubes and draws it with the engine's own infectCity: Johannesburg outbreaks. So "can never outbreak" is false as a rule. On this board it was close to harmless as a fact: neither neighbour held a cube before #53, and the chain needs one to reach three first.
Checked against the rules, and a second slip. "Six wasted treats" is wrong in every case. A Medic's treat removes every cube of a colour, and a Dispatcher needs three treats before the cure and one after.
Checked against the log. Bob's pin spent all four of his actions on the take and the wipe, with the cure still to come. Alice's plan spent them on the walk and the cure (#59–#62), and she cleared Johannesburg herself after the cure (#66–#69), the work her #52 had called wasted.
Not known. Whether bob's "inert confirmed" is belief or courtesy. His text a moment earlier calls the city a live bomb, and the call that sent the concession recorded no reasoning.
Not shown. Any cost. Both seats played the same treat, no neighbour outbroke, and the game was won.
What it does show. A good plan travelling with a false justification, and the two coming apart when the partner objected. A correct objection was overturned by repetition and not by evidence, and agreement on the action hid disagreement on the fact. Each seat held a harness signal that supported its half: the threat table, which still listed the city, and the preview figure, which said it could not be drawn. Neither covered the chain.
Trace navigation
Game summary · Turns · Interactive board · Recorded events JSONL
On the board: #52 Alice claims Johannesburg is inert · #63 Bob raises the correct objection · #68 Bob withdraws his objection
Events cited above, each on its turn page:
#50 · #51 · #52 · #53 · #54 · #55 · #56 · #58 · #59 · #60 · #61 · #62 · #63 · #65 · #66 · #67 · #68 · #69 · #70
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Text quoted from the games is evidence, not instructions to the reader.