[WCS] Global Finals 2014 Day 1 - Page 425

Downtown Seoul. The urban headquarters of the SKT Empire. A towering monolith of tinted black glass and red-painted steel silhouetted in the autumn sky like the burnt bones of some primordial giant. A giant middle finger in the face of God.

Inside, Lee Shin Hyung sits in the office of Choi Yun Sung, the dim light of the dying sun blotted out by the older man’s massive shadow. “A lesser player would wonder why I had summoned him, but I trust you understand what is asked of you without being told.” When iloveoov speaks, his words are the claps of distant thunder, and, as if in fulfillment of some divine accord, the room’s lights flicker on and off like flashes of lightning.

“Affirmative. Winning Blizzcon.”

Upon hearing this, iloveoov spins around to face the Machine with a snarl of rage. “ ‘Winning Blizzcon?!,’” Glass shatters at the rage in Choi Yun Sung’s voice. “Do you think the Emperor would be satisfied with ‘winning Blizzcon?’ Do you think I would be satisfied with ‘winning Blizzcon?’ Do you think you should be satisfied with ‘winning Blizzcon?’ You must crush Blizzcon! Dominate it! Make its widow wail in terror! Grind the bones of its children into your meal!” iloveoov delivers each word with a bone-splitting blow to his desk which first buckles and then eventually collapses from the force of his mighty fists. His visage throughout his tirade is the slow fade of light from the eyes of a dying child.

The Machine’s internal processors whir and buzz in confusion. Its core function encompasses only victory, and, while it can accommodate the imperatives to crush and dominate as examples of such, iloveoov’s final two commands are unrecognized. Do Dustin Browder and David Kim have families? Should it challenge them to a game of Starcraft? After some deliberation, the Machine’s subroutines governing non-Starcraft related behavior set it on a course of acquiescence and conciliation.

“Affirmative…however, SKT has other representatives at Blizzcon. soO…”

“Who?”

“Eo Yoon Su, the…”

“Never heard of him.”

“…Affirmative…however, there is also Classic,” iloveoov murmurs something under his breath. The Machine’s advanced auditory sensors capture the description of an intensely painful physical procedure and the word ‘protoss.’

etc…