Trope-a-Day: The Chessmaster

The Chessmaster: The various weakly godlike superintelligences as they attempt to outmaneuver one another in the search for that Optimal Future; even more so when they’re playing against lesser intelligences.

Also, everyone with a socially-focused valxíjir or estxíjir who lives long enough, to one degree or another.  After all, they’re all engineered geniuses with lifespans long enough that time horizons of decades can be shrugged off, centuries are entirely reasonable, and millennia are not out of the question, and a certain tendency to delight in their own cleverness.  How else could they be?

Of course, the sheer numbers involved tend to generate one long, ongoing, Gambit Pileup, but that just adds to the fun!