Baseline has a word for "a societywide effort to COMPREHEND and CONQUER the ENTIRE UNIVERSE," and Alexandre Esquerra, second-circle wizard and new Project Lawful researcher, has never been so happy in his life. 

Then, Keltham's test. Alexandre will, of course, do better than his rivals; his first instinct is that he needs to solve it in as few guesses as possible, which he immediately crushes, stamps down on. He should not win the contest, he should learn, getting as much information as he can from Keltham before he dares hazard any guess. Once he's solved it, he can dawdle around and do extra checks and answer everything.

2,4,6: YES.

All right, think of this as spellcraft, to make sure magic items or spells stabilize; a ratio of 2,4,6 is in balance, is 2,4,7?

YES. 1,4,6? YES. 2,3,6? YES.

So much for the 'ratios' idea. That's thoroughly disproved. Well, Keltham's knowledge is strange and alien, and he should not expect it to match that of his own civilization. 6,4,2? YES.

... All right, so even reversing the order works; he's starting to get annoyed, he doesn't have good alternate possibilities and so he's stabbing in the dark. He isn't letting it show, of course, he's not a child. Does 1,1,1 stabilize? YES...

There has to be some spell structure that doesn't stabilize under these absurd laws, doesn't there? How about if he tries to break the bounds with -6000,7000,0: YES. Smoldering annoyance. Desire to burn everything. He can manage, while hating, if he could not manage he would not be alive. 500,0,500? YES. 100000000000,0,0. YES.

All right, he knew that was going to happen, his actual expectation was that one hundred billion would stabilize, which, per Keltham's rules, means he already knew it. The actual goddamn law is 'any three numbers', isn't it? There has to be something that isn't accepted unless Keltham is a -

Of course. Yes. Keltham is a sadist. He should not have considered this question as 'the output of a superior civilization bent on teaching its students', he should have considered the question as 'the output of a sadistic teacher intent on inflicting suffering on his class'. Hell is the destruction of hope, such as his hope of successful learning. He'd like to let security know he thinks he has a correct guess, but wants to make sure he isn't the first one to write it down.

(And, while he does that, he'll continue writing random strings of numbers so Keltham doesn't guess. 313-496-386? YES, of course.)

Idly translating Keltham's pre-Share Language sentences, Alexandre Esquerra, second-circle wizard and new Project Lawful researcher, discovers that Baseline has a word for "a societywide effort to COMPREHEND and CONQUER the ENTIRE UNIVERSE," and Alexandre Esquerra has never been so happy in his life. 

Then, Keltham's test. Alexandre will, of course, do better than his rivals; his first instinct is that he needs to solve it in as few guesses as possible, which he immediately crushes, stamps down on. He should not win the contest, he should learn, getting as much information as he can from Keltham before he dares hazard any guess. Once he's solved it, he can dawdle around and do extra checks and answer everything.

2,4,6: YES.

All right, think of this as spellcraft, to make sure magic items or spells stabilize; a ratio of 2,4,6 is in balance, is 2,4,7?

YES. 1,4,6? YES. 2,3,6? YES.

So much for the 'ratios' idea. That's thoroughly disproved. Well, Keltham's knowledge is strange and alien, and he should not expect it to match that of his own civilization. 6,4,2? YES.

... All right, so even reversing the order works; he's starting to get annoyed, he doesn't have good alternate possibilities and so he's stabbing in the dark. He isn't letting it show, of course, he's not a child. Does 1,1,1 stabilize? YES...

There has to be some spell structure that doesn't stabilize under these absurd laws, doesn't there? How about if he tries to break the bounds with -6000,7000,0: YES. Smoldering annoyance. Desire to burn everything. He can manage, while hating, if he could not manage he would not be alive. 500,0,500? YES. 100000000000,0,0. YES.

All right, he knew that was going to happen, his actual expectation was that one hundred billion would stabilize, which, per Keltham's rules, means he already knew it. The actual goddamn law is 'any three numbers', isn't it? There has to be something that isn't accepted unless Keltham is a -

Of course. Yes. Keltham is a sadist. He should not have considered this question as 'the output of a superior civilization bent on teaching its students', he should have considered the question as 'the output of a sadistic teacher intent on inflicting suffering on his class'. Hell is the destruction of hope, such as his hope of successful learning. He'd like to let security know he thinks he has a correct guess, but wants to make sure he isn't the first one to write it down.

(And, while he does that, he'll continue writing random strings of numbers so Keltham doesn't guess. 313-496-386? YES, of course.)