[Yu Seoha Report (Revised Edition)]
Access Level: Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) Access Required
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Affiliation: MIT, Team Apex
Classification: Priority Tier 1 (under discussion for elevation)
Risk Level: Highest-Priority Protected Asset, Key Surveillance Target
Author: Senior Researcher David
The author will first state that he is a graduate of MIT’s Department of Mathematics. This is not to boast, but to say that I am an expert when it comes to quantifying things. However, I experienced great difficulty in evaluating the subject’s intelligence. None of the assessment systems we possess could be applied to him.
There is no official record of the subject’s IQ measurement.
There is a record of a cognitive ability test administered during his admission process to a gifted high school, but the result at the time is noted as having exceeded the upper limit of measurement. Since then, no institution has administered a standardized intelligence test on the subject. Even his parents appear to have shown little interest in the matter.
Therefore, the only way we can estimate his intellectual capacity is through indirect evaluation.
The Four Color Theorem (age 13), Smale’s Problems (age 15), Minimum Energy Theory (age 16), the Riemann Hypothesis (age 18).
Considering the level of the difficult problems the subject has solved, it would be appropriate to grant him the “Tier Zero” classification, which has been given to only three individuals since the establishment of the NSA in 1952: von Neumann, Oppenheimer, and Einstein. Of course, this is by current standards, and in the future, a special classification just for him may be required.
The subject possesses an unbelievable amount of assets for his age. However, even now, he still lives on a weekly allowance from his parents.
What is notable is the fact that he has not checked his own bank accounts for several years. It seems to go beyond a lack of interest; he appears to have forgotten that he is wealthy at all.
It is the author’s judgment that recruitment plans using material incentives will not be effective.
[Important!]
An anomaly was confirmed during the exhaustive investigation of records.
The subject has a tendency to be unable to tolerate certain forms of incorrect answers. Even in situations where there was no practical benefit to himself and it was plainly bothersome, he went to the trouble of correcting such problems.
[Collected Cases]
-Multiple records confirmed of rebuttal comments written on anonymous mathematics forums. On rare occasions, he also displayed emotional responses.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. What do degrees have to do with proof?”
“Does making the equation more complicated make the error disappear?”
“You can’t just call it even because the professor let it slide! He was wrong too.”
-He has a routine of regularly walking the corridors of the mathematics department at dawn and correcting errors in equations written on blackboards.
Perhaps he is greatly stimulated when he discovers elements that run counter to his mathematical aesthetics.
In the case of the Four Color Theorem as well, it is possible that he spent seven years on it because he could not tolerate the brute-force method using computers, which is regarded in the mathematical community as the ugliest proof in history.
If so, the strategy for recruiting him must also change.
If the PQC being developed by NIST touches a certain mathematical code inherent within him, there may be room for him to participate in the development voluntarily.
[Important!!]
It has been confirmed that he developed a simulation engine of tremendous military value in the past.
Skyline, which has defense-industry affiliates, attempted to acquire it but failed. Yu Seoha must be fully aware of the value and danger his engine possesses. It is currently being used as a game engine at the game startup Spectra Works.
[Important!!!]
Intelligence indicates that the subject is considering active-duty enlistment.
Considering the example of Skyline, he likely will not voluntarily develop weapons, but the story changes if it is the military, an organization built on obedience to orders. This means his overwhelming intellect could be placed under the military control of another country. It could become an extremely dangerous variable for national security in the future.
“Is this true?”
Director Murphy pressed his fingers to the space between his brows. With China’s rise, Korea’s importance was growing by the day. Even as things stood, it was becoming increasingly difficult to control them as an ally. And if the variable called Seoha were added to that?
“Yes, Director. He mentioned it himself during a meeting with a Korean minister. Their government did not seem inclined to let that happen, but still. If he wants to be ordinary infantry, isn’t that better than a researcher?”
Bang!
He roughly threw the report onto his desk.
“Don’t be naive. The Korean government isn’t stupid. There’s no way they would send Seoha to the front line as a rifleman. They’ll surely create some strange branch for him and stick him inside a bunker where he can’t even be monitored. And if he hides in there and starts following orders?”
Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project, and von Neumann designed the implosion mechanism and the hydrogen bomb.
Moreover, this is an era in which far more can be done with mathematics than back then.
Gulp.
David’s face turned deathly pale.
The topics currently being researched most actively by militaries were drone swarm control algorithms and missile trajectory calculations to neutralize defensive networks. Both were fields in which Seoha could easily demonstrate his abilities.
“We have to stop this.”
“Arrange a video conference with their Minister of National Defense. Urgently! And send a warning in advance.”
* * *
Click.
[Application for Military Service Judgment Examination: Processing]
A week had passed since he applied, but the status still had not changed from processing.
“That’s strange. They clearly said they would set a date right away…”
He hammered the refresh button, but nothing changed.
“Did the server go down? I hope they fix it quickly.”
He would soon be nineteen. It was an age at which he had to think seriously about the military.
He had received recommendations to naturalize through various channels, but Seoha had no intention of changing his nationality. More than anything else, it was because of his parents.
Even after coming to America, the two of them lovingly tended a small vegetable garden every day.
Seoha read longing in their eyes. The backyard and field of their house in Okcheon; in summer, his father would hold a hoe while his mother crouched beside him, pulling weeds. Seoha and Seoeun used to run excitedly between them.
“They’ll go back someday.”
Probably after he and Seoeun finished their studies.
For that day, he had to maintain his nationality. He also intended to complete his military obligation as quickly as possible.
The conditions for special military service exemptions were strict. Even if he received an exemption, he would have to spend several years tied to a research institute or company. Seoha disliked being bound by anything.
And in truth, there was also a part of him that was looking forward a little to life in a military barracks. After all, didn’t people say that if you couldn’t avoid it, you should enjoy it?
Since proving the Riemann Hypothesis, he had been receiving far too much attention.
His life had drifted far from ordinary before he knew it, with cameras and reporters following him wherever he went. Because it bothered him, he was in a situation where he had to refrain even from simple outings.
What came to mind then was his life in the gifted high school dormitory.
He would wake up and eat at fixed times. He did not have to think much about getting through the day. With the energy left over, he could think about mathematics.
“Newton had something similar happen too.”
In 1665, when the plague was raging in London, the University of Cambridge closed.
He had to go down to his hometown of Woolsthorpe and spend eighteen months there.
The achievements he made during that period were astonishing.
He conceived the ideas of calculus and universal gravitation. It was also then that he began spectral analysis.
People call this period his “Annus Mirabilis,” his year of wonders. At the time, Newton was only twenty-three years old.
He would soon graduate from his undergraduate program.
He had heard that he would receive his master’s degree at the same time as graduation. He had also been given a hint that he might be appointed as an assistant professor and begin teaching. When Seoha heard the news, he was flustered.
“Suddenly, I’m a professor?”
A professor younger than the students.
Even in Seoha’s eyes, usually indifferent to anything outside of mathematics, this was not an easy challenge.
But what if he received military training as an active-duty soldier and was discharged? Would that not offset the penalty of being young, at least a little?
All signals pointed Seoha toward enlistment.
Since he had to go anyway, he had thought he would return healthier in both body and mind…
Ding—
[Application for Military Service Judgment Examination: Deferred]
Deferred before he even received the examination?
“No, why?”
Seoha tilted his head and looked up the phone number for the Military Manpower Administration.
* * *
At the same time, at the Ministry of National Defense.
“The matter you applied for is currently under review…”
Click—
The major who hung up the phone let out a sigh.
“We’ve put it on hold.”
The call Seoha had made was routed through extension after extension until it reached the office of the Minister of National Defense.
“What about the Americans?”
“The request for a video conference has already come in three times. It’s becoming difficult to keep making excuses…”
“I have no idea what kind of bolt from the blue this is.”
One day, the NSA had contacted them through an unofficial channel.
The message was that it would not be amusing if they enlisted Yu Seoha as active duty. He had heard that a plan was underway at the government level to exempt him, so what on earth was this supposed to mean?
Separate from that, there was something about their attitude that made the minister bristle.
“Isn’t this interference in our internal affairs?”
The head of an allied nation’s agency was stepping in to stop one of his own citizens from fulfilling the sacred duty of national defense.
Unable to contain his anger, he let out a rough breath.
“Why are those Americans throwing such a fit over this?”
The major answered while looking through the documents.
“Perhaps they’re worried Korea might make a nuclear bomb?”
“Is that even possible?”
“The analyst says that if Yu Seoha sets his mind to it, he could create something even beyond that.”
The minister’s face turned stern as he reprimanded him.
“Why are you analyzing that! Don’t!”
If it were discovered that he had given such an order, no one would be able to take responsibility.
When he first heard that Seoha had applied for the draft physical, he had thought it was a bad joke.
But not long after, a letter arrived at the Ministry of National Defense. A luxurious envelope bearing the MIT emblem. The contents, however, were not so refined.
To summarize, it was a threat that they would file a lawsuit on the scale of trillions of won if even a single hair on his head were harmed.
It was a very specific intimidation, complete with written opinions from a global insurance company and the International Court of Justice.
And that was not even all.
The International Mathematical Union, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, and even the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. All of them expressed similar concerns in unison.
“Your country is going to send Seoha to the military? Are you people in your right minds?”
At this point, even his head began to throb.
The Ministry of National Defense had never forced him to enlist. They had even planned to actively dissuade him. And yet he himself insisted on going active duty!
“What am I supposed to do when he says he wants to come!”
The minister screamed.
If Yu Seoha were to suffer an unfortunate accident, how far up the chain would people have to resign?
He could guarantee that, aside from Seoha himself, no one wanted his enlistment.
“Still, if there’s something to gain, we should gain it. There may be something we can cooperate on.”
At the time, he did not know either.
That there could be a point where the interests of the two countries aligned so perfectly.
* * *
A few days later, Seoha, who had woken up early in the morning as usual, checked the website out of habit.
Click.
[Yu Seoha is not subject to active-duty enlistment.]
-Related statute: Military Service Act, Article ■■, Separate Fulfillment System for National Core Research Personnel.
“Huh?”
Seoha was devastated.