Seeing what happens

Every time I throw this ball, a hundred different things can happen in a game. He might swing and miss, he might hit it. The point is, you never know. You try to anticipate, set a strategy for all the possibilities as best you can, but in the end it comes down to throwing one pitch after another and seeing what happens. With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape….In fact, the game wouldn’t be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.

— Commander Benjamin Sisko in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Emissary,” written by Rick Berman and Michael Piller