When the Game begins to play the Players

The Silent Transmission of Quaternity

Quaternity does not transmit understanding

through words, but through presence.

Anyone who spends enough time around Quaternity will eventually notice something unusual. When sitting at the board—or playing online—with an experienced player, one’s own level of play may subtly change. Patterns become clearer, timing sharpens, and decisions arise with an ease that was not previously there. Something has shifted, not through instruction, imitation, or advice, but simply through shared presence in play. This is not accidental. It is intrinsic to Quaternity.

From its earliest days, some players have observed that understanding in Quaternity is not transmitted in the way it is in ordinary games. Insight does not pass primarily through rules or explanations, but through participation. Quaternity was designed as a living system: when one player enters a state of connection —balanced between attention, restraint, and decisive action— that state affects the whole board. Other players begin to respond differently, often without consciously knowing why.

The board forms a field. When a player becomes genuinely aligned with the game —when ego relaxes and attention becomes unified— that alignment alters the field itself. Others, without intending to, begin to tune into the same structure of perception. The game becomes clearer to everyone. The opposite is also true: a player who executes random or reactive moves —driven by retaliation rather than reflection— introduces a kind of chaos that disrupts the natural flow of the game.  

This is why playing matters more than talking. (“Just play and stop the bla-bla-bla.”)

Over time, some experienced players have noticed consistent patterns. Transmission occurs more readily when certain conditions are present.          First, there is self-forgetfulness: the temporary suspension of personal ambition, fear, or the need to dominate. (“When you lose yourself in a game you become the game.”)         

Second, there is mastery; not brilliance or aggression, but depth of understanding and restraint.

Third, there is attention: a shared awareness of the board as a single living field, rather than four separate battles.    

And finally, there is proportion between players, where no one forces the game out of balance.

When these conditions align, Quaternity begins to play the players.

The game operates through resonance. Each player brings a particular quality of attention to the board, and decisions echo across the whole field, often returning from unexpected directions. Calculation gives way to a felt sense of necessity. Players begin to feel the game.Certain players act less as competitors and more as conductors. Their moves do not apply pressure; they clarify the field. In their presence, others may briefly access a level of play that is not yet stable in themselves. No words are exchanged. The board itself communicates.

Quaternity also reveals that proximity is not purely physical. Players who have shared long practice often report that, even when playing remotely or reviewing games apart, similar patterns of understanding arise. Once a genuine connection with the game has been established, distance becomes secondary.

Transmission in Quaternity occurs through several channels. The most direct is shared play: sitting at the same board and participating in the same unfolding necessity. There is also transmission through form—specific positions, endgames, or puzzles that carry a particular clarity when approached correctly. Some boards, sets, or places of repeated play seem to retain this quality, making it easier for newcomers to enter the game’s dynamics.

Perhaps most importantly, transmission occurs through continuity. Those who learned from earlier players —those who entered the game when its understanding was still forming— carry something forward. Not opinions, but orientation, and a style shaped by time and experience. When a new player connects to any part of this chain, they access more than an individual’s experience; they touch the accumulated work embedded in the game itself.

Intention plays a role, but not in the usual sense of personal will. When attention is free of ambition or self-assertion, it becomes more precise. Of course, the explicit aim of the game is to realise the three checkmates, whenever possible. Yet when a player is aligned in this way, intention no longer pushes or interferes. Such a player guides others by playing correctly. The board does the rest.

From long observation, several principles emerge:

• Quaternity transmits understanding through resonance, not explanation.

• Reception depends on openness, not intelligence.

• Flexibility and timely boldness often reveal possibilities beyond calculation.

• Ultimately, the game itself decides when insight is given.

• In Quaternity, “victory”—commonly understood as winning— is a relative concept that at times seems to contradict what we already know or can expect, as happens in traditional chess or other logic-based games. It can often be better described as a matter of merit, or equilibrium, grounded in quantum-like principles, where the winner gains something for the whole group, not merely for themselves.

  
  

The greatest obstacle to transmission in Quaternity is the belief that one already knows all about it. This closes perception. Excessive focus on winning at all costs, fixation on binary outcomes, or constant lamenting of other players’ “mistakes” introduces noise into the field. Conversely, silence, regular practice, shared focus, acceptance, and a willingness to be corrected by the board all facilitate understanding.

Seen in this way, Quaternity is not merely a game, but a medium. It reveals how perception itself spreads, how awareness awakens awareness. What some traditions described symbolically, Quaternity demonstrates concretely, move by move.

In the end, Quaternity shows something fundamental: intelligence is not confined to the individual. It moves through systems, relationships, and shared fields of attention. The board makes visible what is otherwise hidden: that understanding can be transmitted without words, and that play, when approached correctly, becomes a vehicle for awakening perception.

Every authentic game participates in this process. Something passes. Something is recognised. And the board—impartial and exact—continues its quiet work, handing on understanding from player to player, from one generation to the next.

♔♕